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ridden states where there is less green foliage to eat.
• "We're hoping this winter we'll have a cold winter and we won't find them next year," she said.
• State officials aren't taking any chances, especially as the pests already have established populations in parts of neighboring Minnesota and South Dakota.
• In South Dakota, where the beetles for now are a problem only in urban and suburban Sioux Falls, "the population is new and growing," South Dakota State University entomologist Paul Johnson said.
• "I would expect them to become at least minor pests in local fields within a few

years given their rate of population growth," he said.
• Goehring said officials will be monitoring next spring to see if any beetles survive the North Dakota winter.
• "We need to stay on top of it," he said.
•

• CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- A North Carolina Air National Guard unit is set to return to firefighting duty six weeks after four of its airmen died in a crash in South Dakota.
• The military announced Friday that the Charlotte-based 145th Airlift Wing will relieve California's 146th Airlift Wing National Guard firefighting unit on Aug. 14 so its specially equipped C-130 plane can undergo routine maintenance. It will be based in Boise, Idaho.
• Each plane is fitted with a bus-sized device called a Modular Airborne Firefighting System that can carry up to 3,000 gallons of slurry.
• The unit's operations commander, Col. Roger Williams Jr., said its members will carry the memories of those who died in July 1 crash in the Black Hills with them as they continue their mission.
• The crash is still under investigation.
•

• GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) -- Grand Forks Herald columnist Marilyn Hagerty has been selected to receive the 2012 Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media.
• The 85-year-old Hagerty became an Internet sensation earlier this year when her review of the city's new Olive Garden restaurant went viral. She officially retired in

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