Tag: Pierre
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The Runoff Plurality of Silence: The Gubernatorial Questionnaire They Ignored
On June 15, 2026, The Rapid City Sentinel submitted a formal press questionnaire to both campaigns competing in South Dakota’s first-ever gubernatorial runoff election. The questions were sent to Governor Larry Rhoden’s spokesperson Ian Fury and to Toby Doeden’s campaign at their public press address with a follow up email sent June 20,2026. The deadline…
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The Droehdon-A-Saurus – An Editorial Cartoon
The Runoff Plurality of Silence: The Gubernatorial Questionnaire They Ignored
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Rapid City Council Races Decided; Ward 4 Results Complicated by Withdrawn Candidate
Unofficial results from the South Dakota Secretary of State, June 2, 2026 Rapid City voters settled all five ward alderman races Tuesday in a primary that saw turnout vary widely across the city, with Ward 2 recording the lowest total of any ward at 1,427 votes — less than half the 3,313 cast in Ward…
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AI Deepfakes and How They Are Infecting South Dakota’s Election Cycle
South Dakota law prohibits the distribution of AI-generated political video within ninety days of an election unless it carries a specific disclosure stating the content was digitally created or manipulated. With Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary two days away, at least one political action committee appears to have distributed exactly that kind of content — without…
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How A Spearfish Political Power Struggle Helped Shape Rapid City Ordinance 6717
RAPID CITY, S.D. — When Rapid City’s Legal and Finance Committee advanced Ordinance 6717 Wednesday, the item was described simply as bringing the city’s municipal code into alignment with state law. What that alignment represents is a legal framework — rooted in an 1890 statute — that concentrates authority over appointed city officers firmly in…
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South Dakota Got Ahead of This. Here’s What it Means for Data Centers in Rapid City
Editor’s note: This is a developing story. The Rapid City Sentinel will update this report as the Sequitor Edge land transaction closes, city building permits are filed, and additional records become available. Corrections or new information can be sent to the Sentinel directly. Rapid City is about to get its first data center. The facility…
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South Dakota’s Parole Crisis Didn’t Start Monday
A Sioux Falls officer nearly died. The governor announced emergency reforms. But the system was broken long before this week — and the people who broke it aren’t the ones cleaning it up. On Monday afternoon in Sioux Falls, a police officer followed a woman into what turned out to be an ambush. A man…
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The Tracks to Innovation Run Deeper Than Imagined in Rapid City
If you stand on the sidewalk outside Red Wing Shoes on West Main and look south across the street, you’ll see the historic spine of Rapid City: a maze of old industrial brick, an active freight line, and a whole lot of untouchable dirt. It’s a neighborhood where 19th-century railroad laws still dictate 21st-century reality.…
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The Task Force Trap: Manufacturing A Crisis for Election Season
Just 36 hours before early municipal voting opens in Rapid City, local law enforcement has announced a heavily-armed, seven-agency task force to address a sudden parole crisis. Even for those of us who believe people on parole should be held accountable, the timing, the scale, and the stagecraft demand a closer look.The stated catalyst is…
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A South Dakota Digital Loophole Closed: How SB 41 Arms Law Enforcement to Take Down Creators & Distributors of AI Deepfakes
Why This Concerns You When hyper-realistic, explicit deepfakes of celebrities like Taylor Swift flooded the internet, it brought federal outrage to the deepfake crisis. But pop stars aren’t the reason South Dakota is finally rewriting its criminal code. While the cameras were focused on Hollywood, the actual casualties were piling up in local high schools…