Stu Whitney

The clash over South Dakota’s abortion ban and an attempt to make abortion a voter-approved constitutional right in 2024 have a new battleground: the Minnehaha County Administration Building.

Gov. Kristi Noem was vocal in her support of eliminating the grocery tax during the 2023 legislative session, but now she's against it. That's because she's worried that wording in a ballot initiative could also inadvertently eliminate the tobacco tax.

An open primary constitutional amendment aims to circumvent party primaries with nonpartisan races, but it faces a huge hurdle to passage in a state long dominated by one political party.

“One of the things I brought to the South Dakota Symphony was a conviction that an orchestra should serve its unique community uniquely." Conductor Delta David Gier is transforming what a symphony can be — and getting national attention for it.

Sioux Falls could see its first “street outreach” teams working with the city’s homeless population as early as May, with a local organization following an intervention model being used in Rapid City and larger metro areas nationally.

The premise used to outlaw the use of drop boxes – that they are vulnerable to fraud and used to rig electoral outcomes – is false, according to a South Dakota News Watch survey of every county auditor in the state. 

After California's Silicon Valley Bank was forced to close, South Dakota's banks have been working to assure depositors that their balances are safe with them. A News Watch review of the largest state-chartered banks shows all of them are above the federal requirement for risk-based capital ratio, a measurement of whether an institution has enough liquid capital on hand to sustain operating losses. 

As larger programs reap benefits of billion-dollar TV deals, mid-major athletic programs struggle to spark revenue and enrollment despite competitive success. “It’s just a hard slog and you have to work at it,” said SDSU booster Dana Dykhouse.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem cites state open records law as the basis for her decision not to allow the press or public to know who stays at the historic state-owned Norbeck summer cabin in Custer State Park. The governor's stance against openness on use of the cabin -- and rejection of a formal information request by South Dakota News Watch -- has reignited a long-standing debate over whether information about use of the taxpayer-supported cabin should be made public.

A Minnesota doctor who helps procure mail-order medication abortions for South Dakota women said she plans to continue that practice even if the U.S. Supreme Court outlaws or limits the use of mifepristone.