*There could be a vacancy early next year in the South Dakota governor position, as President-elect Donald Trump wants Governor Kristi Noem as his secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
CNN first reported on Tuesday about Trump’s interest in Noem at DHS. If she is selected, South Dakota Lt. Governor Larry Rhoden would be elevated to the governor post, and the position would next go to voters in November 2026.
Trump is pledging to follow through on his campaign promises to have a hardline immigration policy and to deport people without legal status. Noem has supported strong enforcement of the southern border with Mexico, by virtue of visiting that area on the Texas side, and sending South Dakota National Guard members there.
At one point earlier this year, Noem had been viewed as high on Trump’s list of possibilities for vice president, before he ultimately selected J.D. Vance.
*Additionally, with about six weeks left in his 28-year tenure as Woodbury County Auditor, as Pat Gill prepares to leave office, he said an unfortunate trend is a dwindling confidence in election security.
About 15 years ago, Democrats held all five county supervisor positions, plus the auditor and county attorney posts. Last week, Gill was defeated in his quest for an eighth term by Republican Michelle Skaff, and there will be no Democrats holding office in Woodbury County in 2025.
Gill laments that the integrity of the election process is increasingly under attack.
“It was unbelievable that I would get some of the (current) phone calls and people accusing you of different things. It really did do a lot of damage to the way that people look at elections,” Gill said Monday.
A few years ago, Gill alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation of voter fraud surrounding the case of Kim Taylor, the wife of Woodbury County Supervisor Jeremy Taylor. The Sioux City woman was convicted on more than 50 counts of voter fraud and served four months in federal prison earlier this year.
*South Sioux City officials will apply for a $750,000 grant to help pay for infrastructure in the Roth Industrial Park area.
The city council in a Monday meeting approved applying for the money through the Municipality Infrastructure Aid Program grant.
City Manager Lance Hedquist said that money could go towards street infrastructure, as the city aims to see heavy industrial firms, potentially those that are agriculturally-focused, in that Roth Industrial Park area on the south side of South Sioux City.
*Additionally, a University of Iowa researcher has received a $10 million dollar federal grant to help develop a new treatment for ovarian cancer.
The grant comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
University of Iowa researcher Jill Kolesar will work on a drug that will help the body to recognize cells surrounding ovarian cancer tumors to make them sensitive to immunotherapy.
Kolesar is the dean of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Iowa. She said ovarian cancer is often diagnosed in the late stages.
“It kind of grows in your abdomen where there’s plenty of space and before it starts causing symptoms, it’s usually pretty big. And the bigger cancers are, the later stage they are, the harder they are to treat,” Kolesar said.
She said the cancer is also often made of cells that hide from the immune system, making it hard to target and is nearly always fatal.
More than 12,000 people nationwide are estimated to die from ovarian cancer this year, according to federal data.
*In other news, Western Iowa Tech Community College and Buena Vista University on Tuesday announced a new 2+2 Social Work articulation agreement between the two institutions.
The partnership will facilitate educational mobility for students, allowing for the seamless transfer of academic credits toward a Social Work associate degree at Western Iowa Tech to a bachelor’s degree in social work at BVU.
WITCC has similar other articulation arrangements with other four-year colleges, towards the goal of smoothing the way for bachelor degrees for many students.
