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sas and Oklahoma before reaching Texas.
• Bond, 73, said he was unhappy at the prospect of being arrested. "My mother told me I'd never get a job" if he got arrested, he said.
• As Bond and others were being arrested, the American Petroleum Institute, the largest lobbying group for the oil industry, again urged Obama to approve the project. The group said it will pay for ads supporting the pipeline and will mobilize grassroots events across the country urging Obama's approval.
• API President Jack Gerard called Keystone XL "the most thoroughly vetted major infrastructure project in the nation's history" and noted that TransCanada has agreed to 57 special conditions sought by the U.S. government to ensure environmental safety.
• With the unemployment rate hovering near 8 percent, "getting people into these new jobs is critical," Gerard said.
• In the past week, nine people have been arrested in attempts to disrupt the pipeline's construction through Oklahoma. One of the eight people arrested Monday near Schoolton, Okla., had attached himself to a crane and was freed by a firefighter using bolt cutters.
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Excerpts from recent South Dakota editorials
The Associated Press
• Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, Feb. 9, 2013
• Clear the confusion on Spanish immersion school
• Sioux Falls School District officials' contrasting moves regarding the future of the Spanish immersion program have confused taxpayers.
• Just three months ago, the school board, under the direction of Superintendent Pam Homan, decided it would build a new 600-student school for the Spanish immersion program in northwest Sioux Falls. It would have shared some common space with an attached traditional elementary school. Enrollment had been growing, and the alternative school was the darling of the district.
• Once the new school was announced, parents of the specialty school students -- who have been wanting the immersion program in one building -- didn't like the idea of driving their children to the edge of the city each day. Interest decreased.
• This past week, Homan said that only 93 students have signed up for 2013-14 instead of the expected 125 incoming kindergarteners. Despite her enthusiasm for the program in which English-speaking students learn a traditional curriculum from a (Continued on page 23)
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