SEARCHLIGHT NEWS

The Interim Committee on Appropriations meets at the South Dakota State Capitol in Pierre on July 20, 2026. (Photo by Meghan O’Brien/South Dakota Searchlight)

By Meghan O’Brien

PIERRE — South Dakota’s top state budget official offered further explanations Monday for the $39 million that state departments left unspent during the recently completed fiscal year, eliciting both praise and concerns from lawmakers.

The fiscal year ended June 30. The Department of Social Services had the biggest budget reversion, returning $32 million.

COMMENTARY

Bitter Lake encroaches on the town of Waubay during spring flooding in 2011. (Photo by Brad Johnson)

By Brad Johnson

Twenty-seven years ago, the federal government reached a startling conclusion about one of South Dakota’s most unusual watersheds.

After years of research, the Northern Great Plains Water Resources Research Center concluded that soil surveys indicated the Waubay Lakes Chain in northeastern South Dakota probably had not spilled naturally into the Big Sioux River with any significant volume or duration since the glacial age.

FROM STATES NEWSROOM

The main entrance of Food and Drug Administration Building 1 on the FDA campus in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Photo by Michael J. Ermarth/FDA)

By Sam Gauntt

WASHINGTON — A top U.S. Food and Drug Administration official said Monday that a false positive report for the parasite cyclospora from a Taylor Farms iceberg lettuce sample does not change the basis for an ongoing agency investigation.

FDA had announced Sunday the false positive on a Taylor Farms lettuce sample, amid an outbreak of cyclosporiasis that has sickened more than 1,600 people.

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