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NATIVE AMERICAN LAND

Tribal land buy-back program starting

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Interior Department says it is ready to start a program to help Native American tribes buy parcels of reservation land that have accumulated multiple owners.

The purchases announced Tuesday are part of the settlement of the Cobell lawsuit over government mismanagement of Indian land royalties.

Outgoing Interior deputy secretary David Hayes says purchase offers should begin at the end of the year and speed up in coming years.

The program will start with the Pine Ridge, S.D.; Crow, Mont. and Makah, Wash. reservations and the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of South Dakota tribe and involve 10 to 12 tribes by year's end.

Allotting reservation land to individual tribe members, who passed it to heirs, was once a government method for assimilating American Indians. Some parcels now have thousands of owners.

PULSE CROP PLANT

Hughes County approves zone change for pulse plant

HARROLD, S.D. (AP) - Hughes County Commissions have approved the final plat and zoning changes needed to construct a new pulse processing plant set to be near Harrold.

The Capital Journal reports that the commissioners on Monday approved changing the zoning from agricultural use to an agricultural and industrial development.

South Dakota Pulse Processors has raised $2 million to construct the plant, which will process pulse crops like lentils, field peas and chick peas.

The Pierre Economic Development Corp. plans to buy the five-acre lot for $50,000 and lease the property to South Dakota Pulse Processors.

SEX TRAFFICKING SENTENCE

Iowa man sentenced in SD for sex trafficking

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - An Iowa man convicted of commercial sex trafficking in South Dakota has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

Fifty-9-year-old Ronald Bonestroo, of Hull, Iowa, was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier - the same judge who last year overturned his conviction. Her decision later was reversed by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson says Bonestroo was accused in February 2011 of answering an online advertisement posted by police as part of a sting operation and trying to pay for sex with what he believed would be two 14-year-old girls.

Two other men were arrested in the sting. The Argus Leader newspaper reports that one committed suicide and the other pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

SUSPECT SHOT

Officers shoot man following chase in southwest SD

NEW UNDERWOOD, S.D. (AP) - A suspected drunken driver was shot multiple times after allegedly brandishing a rifle following a half-hour police chase in southwestern South Dakota.

Attorney General Marty Jackley says two Pennington County deputies and a Highway Patrol officer chased 43-year-old Travis Ross on Interstate 90 Monday afternoon. The officers used spike strips to disable the suspect's vehicle when Ross left the interstate in the New Underwood area. They shot him when he allegedly got out of the vehicle with the weapon.

Ross was taken to a Rapid City hospital with undisclosed injuries. No officers were hurt.

Jackley says Ross has an active warrant for violating parole on a felony drunken driving conviction.

Jackley will determine if Deputies Robert Schoeberl and Jamin Hartland and Trooper Clayton Heinrich were justified in shooting Ross.

OBIT-JOHNSON

Former state lawmaker Johnson dies

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - Former South Dakota legislator Stanley A. Johnson has died. He was 88.

Gov. Dennis Daugaard says Johnson died Saturday.

Johnson served in the House of Representatives from 1968 to 1977. Gov. Nils Boe appointed Johnson to fill a vacancy in the district, and he was re-elected to serve three more terms.

Daugaard has ordered flags lowered to half-staff at the Capitol on the day of Johnson's funeral, which is Wednesday.

OBIT-WHITE HAT

Lakota language supporter White Hat dies

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - Lakota language preservationists and tribal members say the Lakota language lost 1 of its greatest supporters with the death of Albert White Hat last week.

White Hat, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, was instrumental in teaching the Lakota language to new generations for nearly four decades. He died June 11, at age 74.

White Hat, a grandson of Chief Hollow Horn Bear, was chair of the Lakota Studies Department at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Indian Reservation.

Wilhelm Meya is the executive director of the Lakota Language Consortium, a nonprofit organization seeking to revitalize the Lakota language.

He says White Hat was a "warrior" for the Lakota language. He says the passing of White Hat is a blow to the language and efforts to revitalize it.