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• According to the map, which is put out by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, 75 percent of Iowa is enduring extreme or exceptional drought. That's up roughly 10 percentage points from the previous week.
• Just over 93.25 percent of Kansas was in the same predicament, which was an increase of roughly 5 percentage points.
• As of Monday, 54 percent of the corn crop had been brought in from the fields -- the fastest pace in at least 17 years due to early planting and nearly three times the previous five-year average of 20 percent by this time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported. Some 56 percent of the corn crop in Iowa has been harvested, while Illinois has brought in 71 percent and Missouri 88 percent.
• Half of the U.S. corn crop is classified as being in poor or very poor shape, essentially unchanged from a week earlier, the USDA said. A year ago, 20 percent of corn in the fields was listed that way.
• Forty-one percent of the U.S. soybean crops have been harvested -- double the pace of the average of the previous half decade -- with one-third considered poor or very poor, the USDA said.
• The USDA reported Monday that emergence of winter wheat was lagging, given the extremely dry conditions that could keep that rotational crop from properly germinating. Just five percent of that crop had emerged in South Dakota, down sharply from 32 percent over the previous five years. Similar issues were reported in Nebraska, Colorado, Montana and Oregon.
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• SD West Nile victim was Minnehaha County resident
• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota health officials say the state's third death from the West Nile virus this season happened in Minnehaha County.
• The Health Department says the person was older than 75, and died the last week of September.
• The agency does not release the names of West Nile victims. The previous two deaths were in Hughes and McPherson counties.
• Nearly 200 West Nile cases have been reported in South Dakota this year. The state ranks first in the nation in cases per capita, with about 21 infections for every 100,000 people.
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