Health

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated small businesses on Native American reservations in South Dakota as tribal councils have mandated business closures, banned gatherings and told tourists to stay away to prevent COVID-19 from spreading in their vulnerable communities. Tribal governments took aggressive action against the spread of COVID-19 early on

Editor’s note: This article was produced through a partnership between South Dakota News Watch and the Solutions Journalism Network, a national non-profit group that supports rigorous journalism about responses to problems. South Dakota election officials are taking a wide range of steps — and implementing some creative measures — to ensure

As nursing homes and assisted-living facilities have restricted the movements of residents and eliminated most in-person visits by friends and families amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an unexpected elderly health crisis has emerged in South Dakota and across the country. The mental and physical health of many residents of long-term care

Realtors in South Dakota have seen a steady influx of people seeking more affordable housing and more personal freedoms by moving to South Dakota amid the pandemic, even as the state has seen a sharp rise in the number of active COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Many new home buyers

Editor’s note: This is the first of two parts of a look at the status of Native American education in South Dakota amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Part 2, coming Oct. 7, will examine one school district’s successful efforts to build an online education network. The COVID-19 pandemic has

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved a final report on a massive COVID-19 outbreak at the Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, then retracted that report and redid a second final report with much less stringent worker-safety recommendations. The first report was dated April 21, 2020, and

In March 2020, the sheep-farming industry in South Dakota — the sixth-largest in the country — was humming along nicely. After a few sluggish decades, prices for meat and wool were at or near all-time highs and markets were stable. Fine-dining restaurants and the cruise-line industry continued to fuel strong demand for