Once again the bright lights are shown on the caricature of the federal government regulating everything from cradle to grave – only this time it is from stock pond to ditch.

The removal of a controversial provision didn’t go far enough to bring critics of a livestock cruelty bill on board, but the House of Representatives still narrowly passed the legislation.

A proposal that would allow the creation of new agencies to secure new regional water supplies is stalled in the Arizona House, but Speaker Andy Tobin says he's not convinced opposition from Yuma farmers means the bill won't move this year.

Mexican gray wolves no longer will be subject to the "three strikes and you're out" rule, thanks to a settlement reached between environmental groups and the federal government. The informal rule went by the bureaucratic sounding name of standard operating procedure 13 (SOP 13), which allowed wolves to be removed from the wild for attacking and killing livestock three times within a year.