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John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight SIOUX FALLS — South Dakota can’t build the prison it needs at the price it wants without sacrificing quality and longevity. That was the message delivered Tuesday to the Project Prison [Read More…]

Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom President Donald Trump’s administration will pursue a ban on Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland as part of an effort to strengthen farm security, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday. Appearing alongside other [Read More…]

Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight A mining company released an initial assessment this week that outlines the potential for an open-pit gold mine northwest of Lead in South Dakota’s northern Black Hills. According to Dakota Gold’s new report, [Read More…]

Anna Claire Vollers/Stateline The giant tax and spending bill President Donald Trump signed into law over the weekend includes the biggest health care spending cuts in U.S. history. In response, states are scrambling to shield their hospitals [Read More…]

Bart Pfankuch/South Dakota News Watch South Dakota attorneys have voted to impose a first-ever requirement on themselves to undergo regular continuing legal education, taking a big step toward joining 46 other states that have similar [Read More…]

Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight A South Dakota lawmaker removed a social media post that some fellow lawmakers described as “a direct expression of racism and sexism.” Meanwhile, a legislative leader declined to act on the [Read More…]

Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight A nonprofit providing legal aid to low-income South Dakotans launched the state’s first mobile legal aid office this year, aiming to increase accessibility across the state. Swaths of western South Dakota [Read More…]

State prison offender Joseph Schmitz has died of apparent natural causes. Schmitz, age 55, passed away July 5, 2025, in an end-of-life care setting at the Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield. At the time [Read More…]

Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson’s entry into the 2026 race for South Dakota governor launches him into a Republican primary in which a competitor is making allegiance to President Donald Trump a [Read More…]

Bart Pfankuch/South Dakota News Watch NEMO, S.D. – As a teenager 25 years ago, David Goodwin’s future appeared bleak. Goodwin was smart, but for some reason he couldn’t find his footing in the Rapid City [Read More…]

Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight Pheasants Forever has enrolled a new landowner in its Public Access to Habitat (PATH) program that will open nearly 30,000 new acres of private land to public hunting and recreation in [Read More…]

Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight An out-of-state traveler visited Hot Springs while contagious with measles last month and stopped at two public spaces several times during their stay, according to a news release Thursday from the [Read More…]