De SMET, S.D. – A rural South Dakota county known mainly as the former home of beloved author Laura Ingalls Wilder is on the precipice of rapid growth as two record-setting agricultural processing plants are proposed for the area. If the planned projects – the state's largest individual dairy...

South Dakota News Watch's investigative reporters took home several state and national awards recently. Here's a summary with links to the winning entries. South Dakota NewsMedia Association, multi-day publications:. First place, best feature story non-profile, Remembering Honor: A year later, boy’s death raises questions. Judge's comment: "Wow, a devastating story,...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The first time Sioux Falls Police Chief Jon Thum saw evidence of labor trafficking, he didn’t recognize it. As a young patrol officer nearly 20 years ago, Thum entered a house that had no real bedrooms, just a bunch of mattresses on the floor with dividers between the rooms.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The U.S. Postal Service has finalized its plan to downgrade the downtown Sioux Falls post office to a local processing center, shifting non-local mail operations to a facility in Omaha, Nebraska. The reorganization, first introduced in January, has sparked concerns about slower mail delivery to...

Monument Health leaders say they have been told that the federal quality and safety ratings for its flagship Rapid City hospital will jump after two years at the lowest rating possible. Ratings out soon: Though no new hospital ratings have been made public by the federal Centers for Medicaid and...

RAPID CITY, S.D. – After two years with the lowest possible health and safety rating from the federal government, Monument Health's score will rise from a 1-star to a 3-star rating when the new results are released publicly in July, the Rapid City hospital said Wednesday. “These achievements demonstrate...

BROOKINGS, S.D. – South Dakota State University's new precision agriculture program has had success at persuading in-state and some other Midwestern farmers to use more technology in their operations, while other states lag in their adoption of it. SDSU was the first university in the country to create a...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – In the Senate chamber of the South Dakota Legislature, a little institutional knowledge goes a long way. Extreme measures emanating from the House of Representatives are often killed in Senate committees or amended on the floor, establishing an “adult in the room” element of political perspective in Pierre.

RAPID CITY, S.D. – Monument Health's flagship hospital received the lowest federal quality rating possible over the past two years, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which helps patients evaluate hospital safety and quality of care. Monument Health leaders said they are working hard to raise...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – South Dakota has more children in the foster system than families to care for them. On average, there were more than 1,000 children in the system in any given month last year but just over 800 foster families licensed statewide. Children enter the system for...

To the uninitiated, taking a sick resident of a nursing home to a hospital or emergency room might not seem like a big deal. But those trips can be brutal for elderly patients and facility staff – often requiring the hooking or unhooking of medical equipment, bundling of patients into warm clothes, helping them in their wheelchair or walker into a van and enduring wait times to see a nurse or doctor who doesn't always have access to their medical records.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Camela Theeler and Eric Schulte each took an important step Thursday in their path to becoming federal district judges and giving South Dakota’s U.S. District Court full representation for the first time since 2021. Theeler and Schulte passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee in...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Travis Entenman stood on the banks of the Big Sioux River in central Sioux Falls on an early April afternoon, watching the future flow. High winds swept through Falls Park, the city’s namesake, as he spoke of downtown development and a master plan for the park that will showcase a stretch of the 419-mile-long tributary that weaves through South Dakota’s largest city.

NEW UNDERWOOD, S.D. – Despite being home to wide-open spaces and abundant sunshine, South Dakota ranks 47th in the nation for production of solar power and has lagged well behind other states for decades. Less than a year ago, the only utility-scale solar farm in South Dakota was a...