America’s ranchers are facing their smallest cattle herd in 70 years. Years of punishing drought, rising costs and an aging ranching workforce have thinned herds across the country. Ranchers and agricultural economists alike say rebuilding will take years and beef prices aren’t likely to ease anytime soon. “The biggest thing has been drought,” said Eric Belasco, head of the agricultural economics department at Montana State University. BEEF PRICES...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas voiced disagreement Monday with his colleagues’ decision to reject a widow’s request that the high court consider whether the federal government owes her for her husband’s death. Thomas said that if the justices had taken up the case, it would have been an opportunity to rein in a decades-old precedent that says servicemembers’ families cannot file wrongful death lawsuits against the government if...

One Senate Republican proved that it’s still possible to bridge the chasm between the aisles after brokering an end to the longest government shutdown in history. The 43-day impasse in Congress may have ended in the House, but it was in the Senate that Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., worked to build an old-fashioned bipartisan coalition to jump-start the stalled chamber. It took several weeks, numerous conversations and reconstructing...