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• Bishop, meanwhile, vowed to fight on, one of many Texas landowners battling TransCanada's plan to build a pipeline to transport Canadian tar sands oil to Gulf Coast refineries.
• "TransCanada executives may be smirking over Judge Sinz's ruling today, but they've got another thing coming if they think I'll just roll over for its dirty pipeline," Bishop said in a statement. "I didn't pick this fight, but I refuse to sit idly by while a multinational corporation tramples my rights and that of other landowners all along Keystone XL's path in the name of deepening its profits."
• The company's project has encountered numerous obstacles nationwide, including President Barack Obama's rejection of the presidential permit they require for the pipeline to cross the U.S.-Canadian border. Obama suggested that while TransCanada reroutes Keystone to avoid an environmentally sensitive area of Nebraska, it begin constructing a shorter portion from Cushing, Okla., to Texas. That work has begun.
• Bishop said he recently settled his legal battle with TransCanada over the condemnation of his land because he could no longer afford the legal fees. However, after settling that, he filed a new lawsuit against TransCanada arguing the company lied to Texans when it said crude would be transported through the pipeline.
• Bishop, who is representing himself, argues that tar sands -- or diluted bitumen -- are not crude oil because the product begins as a near solid and must be diluted before being transported through a pipeline. TransCanada insists tar sands are a form of crude oil, and Howard said Bishop knew the pipeline would be used to transport that product when he agreed to let the company use his land.
• "We are very pleased with Judge Sinz's dismissal on this temporary restraining order," Howard said in a statement. "TransCanada has been open, honest and transparent with Mr. Bishop at all times."
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• VERMILLION, S.D. (AP) -- The athletic director at the University of South Dakota has resigned to take a position at a college in Ohio.
• The school announced Thursday that David Sayler resigned to accept a position at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
• Sayler, who is from Ohio, says it has been a goal of his for a while to return, but it became even more of a priority when his wife's mother passed away recently.
• USD President James Abbott says that while the school hates to see Sayler leave, he understand the situation.

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