The Iowa Court of Appeals has reversed a $10 million jury award against businessman and casino developer Gary Kirke and Wild Rose Entertainment LLC. A Polk County jury determined in September 2007 that Kirke had violated terms of a proposed agreement with Karl Pavone and Signature Management Group LLC that was being negotiated three years earlier, when Kirke sought licenses for casinos in Emmetsburg and Clinton. During the trial, Kirke’s lawyers had filed motions for a directed verdict that would have dismissed the lawsuit. A Polk County district judge denied that motion. The Court of Appeals overturned that ruling today, noting that Kirke had conducted good-faith negotiations to conclude the agreement, but that those talks broke down over a disagreement over who could hire and fire key management personnel, with Kirke wanting to retain the right, as owner of the proposed casinos, to make those decisions. The court also refused to reverse a decision by another Polk County judge to dismiss a separate lawsuit Pavone brought against Kirke and Wild Rose.

B73 has revealed its genetic secrets. Researchers at Iowa State University’s Plant Science Institute and their counterparts from other campuses have completed mapping the corn genome, relying on the B73 strain, which was developed at Iowa State in the 1970s and shows up in nearly half of all cornfields. The three-year, $30 million project leaned heavily on a team led by Iowa State professor Patrick Schnable, who worked with researchers on campus and at the Genome Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the University of Arizona in Tucson and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Their findings were the subject of a cover story in the Nov. 20 issue of Science. The research should lead to advances in corn yields and the ability to adapt to different growing conditions, and will be used as the basis for research into other grasses and crops.

Net farm income is expected to drop by $30 billion to $57 billion this year from 2008, but the figure remains the eighth-largest number in the recorded history of farming in America, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said today. The drop is due to declines in crop and livestock prices, the USDA said. Input costs are expected to be lower this year than last, but they remain at the second-highest level ever, $278.1 billion, USDA said.