Articles by Travis Kriens

On June 26, 2024, the Lead Police Department began investigating the death of a 37-year-old male resident. Police and EMS responded to his residence and pronounced him dead at the scene. The next day, on [Read More…]

Rapid City Area Schools Superintendent Nicole Swigart has been placed on a 30-day leave, the district announced Monday. This decision follows Swigart’s comments in a letter to the Office of Civil Rights in May regarding [Read More…]

The South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR) has confirmed the presence of the emerald ash borer (EAB) in Brookings. This invasive beetle, which feeds on North American ash species, has prompted the [Read More…]

Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight State regulators will take six months to study NorthWestern Energy’s proposed 9% natural gas rate increase, which the company says would cost a typical residential customer an additional $8.38 per month, or $100.56 [Read More…]

South Dakota Searchlight – A Native American man convicted of killing two FBI agents 49 years ago in South Dakota has lost what could be his final chance at parole, after widespread activism in support [Read More…]

Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline Nevada voters may decide in November whether they should join three dozen other states in requiring voters to present valid identification before casting a ballot. And Maine may not be far behind, as [Read More…]

Lia Chien/States Newsroom WASHINGTON – Senior Biden administration officials announced a proposed rule Tuesday to prevent heat-related illness in the workplace, as climate change brings hotter temperatures around the nation. In a call to reporters [Read More…]

John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight As of today, several varieties of intoxicating hemp products are illegal to sell or produce in the state of South Dakota. That doesn’t necessarily put them out of reach for South [Read More…]

John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight Alan Welsh wasn’t just a cop. He was a Very Important Cop. The kind of cop who gets a legislative commemoration for an outstanding career upon retirement. Now he grows marijuana for a [Read More…]

Mariia Novoselia/South Dakota News Watch HARRISBURG, S.D. – This bedroom community just south of Sioux Falls transformed over the past couple of decades into the fastest-growing South Dakota city of more than 5,000 people, according [Read More…]

A federal judge denied Hemp Quarters 605’s request to block South Dakota’s new law banning certain hemp-derived products, allowing the law to take effect on Monday. House Bill 1125, signed by Kristi Noem, prohibits the [Read More…]

Marcus Heerdt/South Dakota Searchlight HOT SPRINGS — Wind Cave in South Dakota’s Black Hills is now the sixth longest cave in the world as explorers have discovered new passageways, bringing the total length to 167 [Read More…]

On Monday morning, Sioux Falls police responded to a bank robbery that occurred at 9:15 a.m. on the 1400 block of E 10th Street. A suspect entered the bank, demanded money from a teller, and [Read More…]

Blair Miller/Daily Montanan HEBGEN LAKE, Montana — The birth of a sacred white buffalo calf earlier this month in Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley fulfills a tribal prophecy, according to Native American spiritual leaders. The prophecy means people [Read More…]

John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight A new law barring the production or sale of high-inducing, hemp-derived cannabis products will take effect Monday after a judge declined to block it. Hemp Quarters 605, a Pierre-based shop that [Read More…]

Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight Much of South Dakota’s drinking water has more naturally occurring lithium in it than the federal government preliminarily advises as a healthy level, according to numbers in a recent study released by the [Read More…]