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• The Indian Health Service says the conference will provide leaders from the 566 federally recognized tribes the chance to speak with the president and members of the White House Council on Native American Affairs.
• Each tribe has been invited to send one representative.
• It will be the fifth such gathering.
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Drug Control Fund money to assist Jerauld County
• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- The Jerauld County Sheriff's Office has received about $1,800 for patrol car cameras and recording systems to be used in drug investigations.
• Attorney General Marty Jackley says the money was awarded out of the drug control fund to assist local law enforcement in drug control and apprehension purposes.
• Jackley says the fund allows law enforcement to combat controlled substance abuse by funding local programs with monies seized from drug arrests.
• Jerauld County Sheriff Jason Weber says the money will help the department increases its ability to investigate drug crimes at a local level.
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Report: VA fails to protect historic buildings
CARSON WALKER, Associated Press
• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- A preservation group's study of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' properties found that the agency often ignores federal law regarding historic buildings and wastes taxpayer money by erecting new facilities instead of fixing up the old ones, some of which date to the Civil War.
• One example cited in the report, to be released Thursday, is the plan to close the 105-year-old Battle Mountain Sanitarium at Hot Springs, in far southwestern South Dakota, and build a new facility 60 miles north in Rapid City. Another threatened historic property is the Milwaukee National Soldiers Home in Wisconsin, where buildings are deteriorating after sitting empty and unmaintained for years, the report said.
• "The VA does not appear to do a good job of looking at ways to continue to use these historic assets for their purposes," said Leslie Barras, an Orange, Texas, attorney hired to compile the report for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "If a building is 50 years or older, it is no longer useful and, therefore, they have to abandon that building and build something new."
• Specifically, the VA does not always comply with the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, the report said. Both laws re (Continued on page 21)
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