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• The companies, which included a campground, four motels and a Mount Rushmore concessions operator, hired more than 360 temporary workers through a Sturgis agency that is now out of business.
• Most of the workers were from Indonesia and the Philippines, the U.S. Labor Department said Tuesday in a statement announcing the fines. The agency investigated the alleged violations from July 2009 through July 2011.
• The employees were brought to South Dakota on temporary visas that are extended to foreign workers. The Labor Department statement said some of the businesses did not pay the employees' travel expenses and others did not pay for over

time hours worked, both of which were required under the terms of the workers' visas.
• "It is their responsibility to know the rules and follow them," Labor Department spokesman Scott Allen told the Rapid City Journal (http://bit.ly/O89m8J ).
• Russ Jobman, the general manager of Xanterra Parks and Resorts, said he is no longer using the visa program. It is too costly to pay a foreign worker's transportation costs, Jobman said. Xanterra operates concession and dining facilities at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial.
• "They were excellent employees, very good," Jobman said of the foreign workers. "But it wasn't worth the cost and it wasn't fair."
• Karim Merali, owner of the Adoba Eco Hotel in Rapid City, said he has paid the wages and fines the department ordered.
• "We didn't know we were supposed to pay their airline tickets," Merali said.
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• PRINGLE, S.D. (AP) -- Authorities say the Myrtle Fire near Pringle has been 100 percent contained.
• The fire scorched nearly 16 square miles of land in the Black Hills before firefighters were able to completely contain it Tuesday night. About 120 crew members are still working to mop-up and patrol the area, while other crews have been reassigned to other fires.
• The fire started last Thursday. A forest service special agent determined the most probable cause of the fire was when the grader's metal blade fractured a rock on the road surface and ignited grass on the roadside.
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