(Continued from page 14)

• High water the past few years across North Dakota has created ideal habitat, allowing most other species to thrive despite the hot weather.
• A significant die-off of carp has been reported at Roy and Clear lakes in northeast South Dakota, said John Lott, fisheries chief for South Dakota Department of Game, Fish & Parks. But Lott said biologists suspect disease, not heat.
• "It's most likely a species-specific kill," Lott said. "We assume it's associated with a virus carp are known to have."
• The problem isn't confined just to the Midwest. In Delaware, environmental officials blamed the deaths of thousands of fish on low oxygen levels caused by the hot weather. The Fourth of July fish kill at Silver Lake in the city of Rehoboth Beach involved an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 gizzard shad and more than 1,000 white perch,

as well as bluegills and largemouth bass.
• In Knoxville, Tenn., local officials suspect the heat was to blame for the deaths of an estimated 10,000 or more small bluegills in one lake early this month, though Frank Fiss, assistant chief of fisheries for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, said Thursday he wasn't aware of any fish kills.
•

• WAGNER, S.D. (AP) -- Prosecutors said Thursday that a Wagner couple has been arrested in connection to a 2-year-old girl's death last month, and they are the first people to face charges under a new state law targeting parents or guardians who fail to quickly report a child's death.
• Taylor Cournoyer, 21, and Laurie Cournoyer, 28, are charged with abuse or cruelty to a minor and failure to notify law enforcement of death of child, according to the South Dakota Attorney General's Office. Both are scheduled to appear in Charles Mix County count on Tuesday.
• Authorities have deemed the girl's death a homicide. They have taken an 11-year-old male cousin of the girl into custody but haven't charged him.
• Court documents released Thursday indicate that the girl died more than a day and a half before anyone called police, the Argus Leader reported. Another child in the rural Wagner home asked two neighbor girls, ages 4 and 6, to come over and look at the body in a closet around 9:30 p.m. on July 3, more than 14 hours before Laurie Cournoyer called 911 to report an unresponsive child, according to the documents.
• Charles Mix County States Attorney Pam Hein told The Associated Press earlier

(Continued on page 16)