Seven long years ago the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, with the support of local residents, took the Forest Service to federal court to halt the Hanna Flats logging, road-building, and burning project on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest in northern Idaho. Through a long and winding legal saga the good news — for grizzly bears, old-growth forests, and the local populace which strongly opposed the deforestation — is that a federal appeals court just ruled for the Alliance.

BATON ROUGE, La. — A new report shows Louisiana reached a milestone in May by hitting a record 2.01 million nonfarm jobs, keeping employment above the 2 million mark for four consecutive months. Leaders for a Better Louisiana released its Quarterly Economic Update on Tuesday, showing the state added 16,700 jobs over the year.