(Continued from page 22)

• The calls stated that they were paid for and authorized by Veterans Against Unethical Politicians.
• Gortmaker said in the affidavit that investigators traced the phone number to a prepaid cellphone bought at a Sioux Falls Walmart with Willard's credit card.

• Willard is a precinct committeeman for the Minnehaha County Republican Party who served as a delegate for presidential candidate Ron Paul to the state GOP's convention.
• Gov. Dennis Daugaard and Secretary of State Jason Gant asked Jackley in September to investigate automated phone calls criticizing Republican legislative leaders for supposedly not adhering to the party's principles.
• Daugaard and Gant, both Republicans, said they wanted to know who was behind the calls and whether they violated state campaign disclosure laws. The anonymous campaign also included letters, postcards and emails. At the time, Daugaard called those behind the calls "cowards."

• The misdemeanor charges against Willard carry maximum penalties of a year behind bars and a $2,000 fine.
• A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 14.
•

• ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The worst U.S. drought in decades continues its iron-fisted grip across much of the nation's key farming states, though some relief could come from the first major snowstorm of the season trekking eastward across the Midwest.
• Thursday's weekly U.S. Drought Monitor update shows that roughly 62 percent of the continental U.S. remains in some form of drought, unchanged from the previous week. That number has been above 60 percent largely since July.
• Nearly 22 percent of the lower 48 states are in extreme or exceptional drought, the two worst categories. That's up a half of a percentage point from a week earlier.
• The latest numbers are as of Tuesday, before the arrival of the Midwest's first winter snowstorm.
• All of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma are in drought.