WARSAW, Poland (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that anti-Semitism is on the rise in her country as political leaders, Holocaust survivors and others mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Mike McKeown opens the back door of his Missouri farm house and is met with a chilly gust. “Stupid wind,” he mutters.

Today, the winds that blow through his corn and soybean farm have become more than just an irritant. The homestead in northern Missouri, which his family has owned for nearly 70 years, sits smack in the path of a proposed high-voltage line that would carry renewable energy from the wind-whipped plains of western Kansas to power-thirsty cities farther east. And McKeown doesn’t like that.

Due partly to the intense opposition from local property owners, Missouri regulators have blocked the 780-mile-long Grain Belt Express power line from being built. In doing so, they have highlighted one of the toughest challenges facing the nation as it tries to shift toward a greater reliance on renewable energy.

Converting the wind and sun into electricity is increasingly affordable, but it can be difficult to get that electricity from distant plains and deserts to the places where it’s needed. The reasons range from technical to regulatory.

The Temple Public Library — usually quiet — was filled with animal sounds, music and laughter in accompaniment to a singing zoologist Monday afternoon.