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Editor’s note: This article is the final piece of a three-part special report by South Dakota News Watch. The “Small Towns, Big Challenges” series was supported in part by a grant from the COVID-19 Local News Relief Fund Grant Program sponsored by Facebook. Lemmon has a new ‘fire in

The very framework of democracy in America is being weakened by the rapid, widespread demise of local news organizations, particularly small newspapers that once served as trusted providers of information and pillars of their communities, according to Margaret Sullivan, who spoke virtually to a South Dakota audience on Tuesday, June

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the cancellation of dozens of fairs, festivals and other events in South Dakota in 2020 that typically provide a significant revenue boost and foster community cohesiveness in cities and counties across the state. As of early June, nearly four dozen community events, many of

A group of business leaders and volunteers with almost no journalism training or experience has banded together to launch a local weekly newspaper in Kingsbury County, S.D., where two weekly papers were closed on April 1 due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. Armed only with an untested business

Stacey Twiggs is one of the “uncounted” unemployed people in South Dakota. Twiggs, 35, is a massage therapist from Black Hawk who has seen COVID-19 turn her life upside down. She hasn’t gotten sick, but the pandemic has destroyed her once-thriving business, forced her to live off credit cards

The COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed the U.S. meatpacking industry, but public health experts say the risks posed to workers and the U.S. food supply chain by airborne viral infections were readily apparent and could have been addressed years ago. Ongoing virus outbreaks could have been avoided, and future

The closure of major pork processing plants across the U.S., including the massive Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, has state officials and pork producers in South Dakota planning for the worst — the potential euthanization of thousands of hogs that cannot be sold. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, American