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Special legislative session scheduled for June 22
• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- Gov. Dennis Daugaard says he will call the South Dakota Legislature into a special session on June 22 to deal with cost overruns in the construction of a new State Veterans Home in Hot Springs.
• The Legislature earlier this year approved a bill authorizing the spending of $41.3 million in state and federal money to build the new home. But Daugaard says when bids from contractors were opened recently, the lowest bid was considerably above projections. He says that will lead to a total project cost of $51.3 million.
• Daugaard says the state can't wait until the next legislative session in January do deal with the issue.
• Current estimates show there should be $14 million to $20 million in year-end funds available.
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Whiteclay activist arrested while filing complaint
GRANT SCHULTE,Associated Press
• LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- An activist who is fighting to end alcohol sales in Whiteclay was arrested Friday before he could file a complaint against a beer store owner in the tiny Nebraska town, which borders South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
• State Patrol troopers arrested Timothy R. McKenzie Jr., of Jefferson, S.D., as members of the social justice group Deep Green Resistance were preparing to deliver a complaint letter to the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission in Lincoln.
• Group members claim that the owner of the Arrowhead Inn, a Whiteclay beer store, gave baseball bats and a stick to men who frequent the town on May 15 and urged them to attack protesters who camp across the state line. The reservation bans alcohol, but critics of Whiteclay blame the town for alcohol-induced violence and health problems among members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
• "I have serious concerns for the safety of the women and children at the camp based on what I have personally witnessed," McKenzie said in the letter.
• McKenzie, 33, is wanted in Sheridan County, which includes Whiteclay, on allegations that he vandalized a beer truck three weeks ago while it was making a delivery. Authorities have charged him with making terroristic threats -- a felony -- and misdemeanor counts of assault, criminal mischief and shoplifting.
• Vandals have struck two beer trucks in the last month. In the first incident, activists on May 3 told a beer truck driver to leave town and then flashed a knife, according to the Sheridan County Attorney's office. They started stomping on beer contain (Continued on page 25)
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