Word: droughts
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...Roberts used to think the droughts of the Great Depression were the benchmark for tough times. Now he and other old-timers in Scottsbluff, Neb., a small farming community near the Wyoming border, are talking about the scant 2.16 in. of rain that has fallen this year--30% less than what fell during the worst of the 1930s drought years and more than 80% below normal. When it comes to water, local farmers are living through their greatest depression...
...drought is devastating farmers in Nebraska, but it's also making an impact as far away as the Capitol Hill. Majority leader Tom Daschle introduced a proposal last week in the Senate that would authorize some $5 billion in drought relief for farmers. President Bush has previously said that to restrain the federal deficit, he wants any aid to come from the $249 billion farm bill that was enacted last May. That's likely to set off a feisty debate in some congressional districts over whether farmers need extra help or have had plenty of help already...
...that the Cornhuskers are proud of three things: their corn, the University of Nebraska football team and a nuclear-armed Trident ballistic missile submarine the U.S. Navy named after their state. The first questions voters asked Hagel, predictably, was what could be done to protect farmers from the devastating drought attacking their corn. But the second question he kept getting at each stop: Why do we want to invade Iraq? Hagel, a Vietnam veteran who's leery of all the loose war talk he's been hearing in Washington, had no good answer. "Nobody up here thinks Saddam Hussein...
...Roberts, of nearby Kansas, was getting the same earful from voters hit by the drought there. "I just finished up a 31-county listening tour where I made 50 stops," Roberts says. "The number one item of concern was: We're burning up and we need disaster assistance. But the second item of concern was: Are we going to invade Iraq?" Kansans are about as patriotic and Republican as Nebraskans. And Roberts was struck by who was grabbing his lapel. There were the soccer moms worried about sending their sons and daughters to fight, but also military retirees who, Roberts...
...Drought Severe food shortages caused by two years of drought may kill as many as 300,000 people in southern Africa in the next six months, according to the U.N. Countries hardest hit include Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Mozambique...