(Getty Images) The company that aims to place a massive jet fuel plant in Lake Preston told investors Thursday that updated guidance from the federal government on biofuel carbon credits could be a boon to its prospects of success. Englewood, Colorado-based Gevo wants to build a plant to turn ethanol into sustainable aviation fuel in South Dakota, with a project cost of $1 billion or more. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act included billions of dollars to encourage the production of such fuel, which currently represents a miniscule slice of the overall aviation fuel market.  G ..read more

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem wrote in her book "No Going Back" that she shot and killed a dog and a goat. (Goat image: USDA photo by Scott Bauer. Noem image: David Bordewyk/South Dakota NewsMedia Association) Since Gov. Kristi Noem’s disclosure of her farmyard killing spree, everybody’s been focused on Cricket. That’s understandable. Cricket was a 14-month-old dog. It’s easy to imagine her head jutting out of a pickup window, hair and tongue blowing in the wind. Like many dogs, Cricket probably had a personality and other human-like qualities that we so often attribute to canine companions ..read more

Houses under construction. (Getty Images) South Dakota Housing will launch its Grants for Grads program Friday, aiming to help college and technical-college graduates purchase their first home in South Dakota. The program is available “for a limited time.” The program existed under former Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s administration in an effort to attract workers to the state, but ended in 2019, South Dakota Housing Director of Homeownership Programs Brent Adney told board members on Thursday. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we had quite a few commitments right away,” Adney said. Rapid rise in South D ..read more

University of Wisconsin-Madison protesters sit around tents on May 1, 2024, as police work to dismantle their encampment on Library Mall. (Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner) WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden responded Thursday to weeks of protest on college campuses calling for a ceasefire in Gaza with a brief statement that the right to protest should be protected, but “not the right to cause chaos.” “We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” Biden said from the White House’s Roosevelt Room. “In fact, peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how America ..read more

Water vapor drifts over a road during a carbon dioxide leak from a CO2 pipeline near Sulphur in southwest Louisiana on April 3, 2024. (Photo courtesy of the Ward 6 Fire Protection District) LOUISIANA — It wasn’t the wail of a siren or the buzz of an emergency phone alert that warned Tanya Richard a pipeline near her home was spewing poison gas. The first hint that something was wrong came from her cats, a motley collection of free-roaming felines that fled her property as the dense cloud of carbon dioxide (CO2) rolled over a rural stretch of southwest Louisiana on April 3. “Normally, I’ve got ..read more

Gov. Kristi Noem presents her fiscal year 2025 budget address to the South Dakota Legislature on Dec. 5, 2023, at the Capitol in Pierre. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) Who’s to blame for the outrage about South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s fatal shootings of a dog and goat? “Fake news,” according to her. Noem, a Republican, appeared Wednesday night on Fox News with anchor Sean Hannity for her first interview since the story broke last week. In his introduction, Hannity said Noem “is being attacked by both Republicans and Democrats, dog lovers and goat lovers.” Noem replied, “Well, Sea ..read more

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge sprawls to the shoreline of the Beaufort Sea, seen here in 2006. The U.S. House passed a bill Wednesday to allow oil and gas leases in the refuge. (Photo by Steve Hillebrand/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) The U.S. House passed a bill Wednesday to counter an Interior Department order banning mining in a section of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, taking aim at the Biden administration’s conservation agenda that Republicans say weighs environmental concerns too heavily at the expense of economic opportunity. But the Republican majority also suffered ..read more

California Highway Patrol officers patrol at a pro-Palestinian encampment, the morning after it was attacked by counter-protestors at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, on May 1, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans Wednesday passed a bill, with heavy support from Democrats, that would define antisemitism for the Department of Education, amid nationwide college campus protests in which students are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The 320-91 vote would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s defi ..read more

Rick Weiland with Dakotans for Health shares that the group will be turning in signatures to put abortion rights on the ballot during a press conference in Sioux Falls on May 1, 2024. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight) SIOUX FALLS — The group leading the effort to put abortion rights on South Dakota’s November ballot said it was turning in far more petition signatures than required Wednesday, while an opposition group said it will challenge the legitimacy of the petitions. The ballot-question committee proposing the measure, Dakotans for Health, held a press conference attended by about ..read more

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks during a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on May 1, 2024, about removing U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson from the leadership office. Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who supports the effort, stands to her left. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom) WASHINGTON — Two U.S. House Republicans, aggrieved by Speaker Mike Johnson’s bipartisanship amid divided government, said Wednesday they plan to force a vote next week on removing him from the leadership office — despite the extremely long odds of success. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor ..read more