South Dakota
SD Highway Patrol releases new details on hit and run, asks for public’s help
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – The South Dakota Highway Patrol is continuing to look for the suspect in a deadly hit-and-run near Humboldt, SD.
In a Facebook post, the SD Highway Patrol has released new details regarding the semi suspected of committing the hit and run.
According to police, the semi is a red Freightliner Cascadia semi, missing its passenger-side headlight.
The semi was traveling eastbound from the Humboldt area on I-90 in the early morning hours of Jan. 3, 2026.
Police are seeking information, video, or pictures from 2:13 a.m. – 3:00 a.m. along I-90 and I-29 from the public.
If you have any tips or footage, contact the South Dakota Highway Patrol District 2 Office at (605) 367-5700.
Copyright 2026 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
PIERRE — Controversial data centers built in South Dakota won’t get a sales tax break—at least not yet.
The House State Affairs committee met Feb. 4 to weigh House Bill 1005, a bill which would have given owners and operators of qualifying data centers exemptions on the state’s sales and use tax for investments made in computer software and “enterprise information technology equipment”—a wide array of computer hardware, servers, power infrastructure, maintenance and security systems.
The exemption would apply to data centers that are issued a building permit between July 1 and June 30, 2036.
Data centers are physical facilities that house servers and networking equipment, which are typically used to store, manage, process and distribute large amounts of data.
Some of the common types of modern data centers include:
- AI data centers, which are specifically designed to support artificial intelligence applications;
- Colocation data centers, where third-parties manage the servers and components;
- Cloud data centers, where major providers, like AMS, Microsoft and Google, host cloud-based data and applications; and
- Enterprise data centers, which are often used for private uses by corporations.
Particularly large data centers are sometimes known as “hyperscalers.” These facilities can cost hundreds of millions to billions of dollars and require hundreds of acres of land to build, with construction at-times occurring in multi-year phases.
The legislation would have required businesses to submit documentation to the secretary of the state Department of Revenue, who would determine if the data center’s eligibility for the tax exemption.
A data center would have been able to receive the break if it could prove the facility’s electrical demands were under a written agreement or rate schedule that avoids shifting electrical costs to other consumers; and notice was given to local water providers that the site’s water consumption was “compatible for the location,” per the bill’s language. Data center owners would have also had to file an annual affidavit that discloses whether the business continues to meet the eligibility criteria.
However, those documents would have been considered confidential under the proposed legislation.
The bill was rejected by the committee, with nine members voting for and three against the legislation. Sioux Falls Republican Bethany Soye was excused from the vote.
Supporters of the legislation told committee members the sales tax break was essential to give data center investors and developers enough incentive to build in the Mount Rushmore state.
State Rep. Kent Roe, R-Hayti, who drafted the legislation, urged the committee to green-light the tax break on the premise that the state would reap a bounty of benefits—from “immense” property tax revenue and the creation of new high-quality jobs, to diversifying the state’s economic makeup.
Roe said other states have already legislated or otherwise implemented sales tax exclusions, and South Dakota needs a similar policy to remain competitive.
“We tax this technology higher than most,” Roe said. “That’s the truth. President Trump has stressed America’s need to lead. Our senators and congressmen highlight AI’s role in health care and national security. This is a national concern.”
Data center lobby uses well-worn revenue pitch
Steve DelBianco, president of NetChoice, a D.C. e-commerce trade group, threw out big numbers to buoy the benefits argument. Over the next 10 years, he projected $333 milllion of new property tax revenue to South Dakota from data centers alone.
For Jay Grabow, chair of the Deuel County Commission, the existential crisis his area faces is real. In 1920, per historical U.S. Census publications, Deuel County once called 8,759 people local inhabitants. Fast-forward to 2024, the county’s population has more-than-halved to 4,335, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Some of that Grabow attributes to the farming industry becoming more efficient over time—driving people per acre down—and the loss of at least one 200-employee business.
That means increased taxes over a smaller taxable population, Grabow said. And it also means Dallas-based Applied Digital, which is proposing a 430 megawatt AI data center east of Toronto, South Dakota, is, in the commissioner’s eyes, a means to lowering property taxes.
“We’re merely trying to keep what we had, merely trying to figure out a better way to do property taxes than to burden it on the people,” Grabow said. “If we can spread that across a $400 million billing, we have $1.1 billion of assets today. That’s a nearly-40% increase on our assets that we can spread those taxes across. That’s a 10 to 15% property tax [cut] across the board for those people.”
The economic windfall arguments resembled the debate over carbon pipelines over the last several years, when pipeline companies and some analysts projected an Iowa company’s transmission line could generate billions in the state and lower local taxes, as seen in previous Argus Leader reporting.
DelBianco said businesses and governments have increased their use of the cloud in recent years. The tech industry is tasked with building 50 data centers a year to keep up with U.S. demand, he added.
But the supply can’t be met if South Dakota doesn’t give developers and businesses a big-enough carrot to offset the significant capital investments they would make, DelBianco said.
Nick Phillips, executive vice-president for external affairs of Digital Applied, said South Dakota has been “unintentionally tax[ing] itself out of this market” under the current tax policy.
“The siting decision is binary,” Phillips said. “A project is built here or it is built somewhere else … Other states are capturing the investment, the jobs, and the long-term tax base.”
“The truth is that it’s just fiscally irresponsible to spend a billion dollars on a data center and have the equipment [that] goes in there, be subject to sales tax, when a billion dollar manufacturing, agricultural, another facility doesn’t pay sales tax on its equipment,” DelBianco added . “There are 40 states that exempt the equipment, so we have to pick the states that welcome through that policy.”
Data center opposition says tech threatens South Dakota’s largest industry
But opponents viewed the Big Tech push as an infringement upon South Dakota’s already No. 1 industry: agriculture.
Michelle Oftedahl, a Toronto, South Dakota, farm owner who lives a few miles away from Applied Digital’s proposed data center, spoke to the “unintended consequences” of boosting data centers. Farmland often out-prices what young farmers can afford to break into the ag industry, Oftedahl said, but it’s not too much for corporations with billions of dollars to spare.
Incentivizing data centers, the fifth-generation farmer added, would give rise to companies “buy[ing] land up cheap, knowing that they can cash in on possible future expansion projects, such as power plants, substations, and transmission lines, things that are needed to support the high amount of energy production required.”
“Encouraging large-scale economic development like data centers risks discouraging many young people from choosing agriculture for their future,” Oftedahl said. “This isn’t simply a vote about a sales tax exemption. It’s a statement about our values. Is South Dakota still first and foremost an ag state, or is large industrial economic [sic] now more important?”
Sara Steever, a retired Lennox resident who formerly led Sioux Falls agri-marketing agency Paulsen, questioned whether companies “worth billions and trillions of dollars” needed the tax breaks.
“Turns out that the fact that we can provide access to the megawatts of energy that is needed is tremendously valu[able],” Steever said as a remote testifier. “These companies don’t need tax breaks. They need connectivity, which we already have.”
Dakota Rural Action Lobbyist Melissa McCauley said the bill would lead to a “huge miss on revenue” for the state, given what she perceived as the broad nature of the proposed exemption.
“We are concerned that nearly everything needed to outfit the data center down to its door locks, security cameras, and even the cost of laying the fiber to the center would be exempt,” McCauley said. She asked openly whether a fiscal note should be added to the bill.
Tax break eligibility would not be public record under Roe bill
The stipulation that a data center’s eligibility documents would not be public record rankled opponents—some lawmakers, too.
Austin Adee, a Deuel County resident, said that section of the bill would create an “NDA-shielded secret court.” House Speaker Jon Hansen, who is running for South Dakota governor in 2026, raked the measure over this.
“This particular measure lacks transparency,” said House Speaker Jon Hansen. “The information goes to the secretary of the Department of Revenue, who can unilaterally decide without real qualification whether or not there’s going to be a tax break or not, whether or not rates are going to pass on, whether rate increases are going to pass on to consumers, and the people aren’t entitled to see any of the documentation that supports that decision. I think that’s wrong.”
The bill split the few Democrats on the committee, with Rosebud State Rep. Eric Emery supporting the legislation and House Minority Leader Erin Healy, of Sioux Falls, against it.
Emery asked Roe if the initiative behind the data center push included any guarantees that they would bring the promised jobs and wage-growth, to which Roe responded, “there’s no guarantees.”
Roe expounded upon this later, though, by pointing to the property tax revenue Applied Digital would likely bring to Deuel County—”north of $5 million” per annum, the Hayti lawmaker said, which is close to half of the county’s total budget.
At one point, Emery made a motion to send HB 1005 to the floor without a recommendation from the committee. Assistant Majority Leader of the House Marty Overweg spurned the idea, calling it “bad committee policy.” The motion died on a 5–7 vote.
Healy noted the day’s hearing lacked testimony from Sioux Falls stakeholders, despite a surge of public input in the city.
“I do believe that there is potential economic impact for data centers, but I also believe that economic development should never move faster than public input and transparency and also accountability,” Healy said.
House members will likely have to take up the debate once more during the 101st Legislative Session, as State Sen. Casey Crabtree, a Madison Republican who works for an area energy provider, filed a similar bill in the hours after the committee’s Feb. 4 decision.
The new legislation, a self-titled “Data Center Bill of Rights for Citizens”—akin to Crabtree’s 2024 “Landowner Bill of Rights,” which offered concessions to carbon pipeline opponents in order to ease pipeline development in South Dakota—also intends to exempt data centers from paying a sales and use tax for purchases made in developing a site, while also clarifying regulatory authority and preventing electric rate shifts onto consumers.
Crabtree’s bill does not provide an end-date on the sales and use tax exemption.
Watch Tea Area boys basketball in postgame interview
Watch as Tea Area’s Blake Lundin and Mitch Grant chat with Argus Leader sports reporter Paul Cifonelli after the Titans’ road win over O’Gorman.
Things didn’t look great coming out of halftime for the Tea Area boys basketball team, and O’Gorman made a point to shut off the Titans’ star juniors, Gavin Shawd and Grifin Wiebenga.
Sophomores Mitch Grant and Blake Lundin stepped up to the plate, helping author a 15-8 third that put Tea Area in front for good in a 65-61 win over O’Gorman on the Knights’ home floor.
“At the defensive end, we really just locked in and collapsed the paint and they didn’t really know what to do,” Lundin said.
Not only did the defense shut down the Knights, but Grant scored eight big points with a pair of threes and Lundin had a bucket and commanded lots of attention in the paint.
“I just think we started working as a team really well,” Grant said. “Griff and Gavin started to get in rhythm. I hit a couple big shots. We just play so well together when we get in stride, and when we get in stride it’s hard to stop.”
Tea Area closed out the game without forfeiting the lead, building it to as big as 52-41 early in the fourth. The Titans then had to grind their way to the finish, just like they did the entire first half.
“We talk a lot about taking punches,” Tea Area head coach Drew Weber said. “We don’t play very deep. When you play five or six guys most of the game, it’s hard to play good basketball for 32 minutes. We knew that O’Gorman can play really well and they did in that first quarter. We couldn’t guard worth a hoot in the first quarter, and we took a punch there.”
This young Titans team has learned how to take a punch, though, and dished one back when things mattered most on their 14-0 run between the end of the third and beginning of the fourth.
“That’s kind of been our MO in a lot of these games,” Weber said. “You take some punches here and there, then you throw one back with a 10-0 run, a 12-2 run, something like that.”
Tea Area is now 10-3 and in the midst of its best start since opening 12-3 in the 2022-23 season. It’s been led by two juniors — Shawd and Wiebenga — and the two sophomores, and those guys have used defeat as fuel for improvement.
The last two losses were an 82-55 defeat to Sioux Falls Roosevelt on Jan. 16, and a 62-60 loss to unbeaten Sioux Falls Lincoln on Jan. 31.
“The Roosevelt game hurt, and I feel like the score doesn’t do it justice,” Grant said. “That put a big dagger in us. That Lincoln game, it just hurt us more which helped us this game with energy and stuff.”
“That Lincoln game, that hurt,” Lundin said. “We probably played the best we’ve ever played and coming into this game, I think we knew they’re a top, competitive team. I think we all played together.”
Those losses have helped the Titans up their focus in practice, and the results of that focus have shown in their road win over Mitchell, close loss to Lincoln and road win over O’Gorman.
“Before the Lincoln game, we knew we really had to try at practice,” Grant said. “Practice just got better. Even our scout team started to step up and give us better looks. There’s days where the scout team is playing 10 times better than us. They’re key to our success.”
This Tea Area team thrives on its tough mentality and youthfulness. The Titans have showed that time and time again this season, and are anticipating more chances to prove their mettle with games left against Sioux Falls Jefferson, Sioux City East, Harrisburg, Brandon Valley, Sioux Falls Washington and Marshall.
“I’ve got a tough group of kids, that’s for sure,” Weber said. “Mental toughness in that game really showed.”
South Dakota
Is rent cheap in South Dakota? Report shows state is one of the most affordable for renters
Homebuyers are canceling contracts at record rates
Discover why homebuyers are canceling contracts at a record rate, impacting a housing market filled with uncertainty.
The median rent in South Dakota is second-lowest among the 50 states, according to a new Construction Coverage report.
South Dakota’s median rent is $1,185 a month, less expensive than in all but one state, West Virginia, according to the report, which is based on federal housing data. Still, the median rent in South Dakota has increased in recent years – in 2024, it was $1,069 a month and the cheapest of any state.
The report also compares median rents in more than 380 cities, including Sioux Falls, which ranked among the least expensive at $1,257 a month.
The year-over-year rent increases nationwide have slowed after hitting a peak of nearly 9% in early 2023, dropping to less than 4% in late 2025, according to the report.
“While this slowdown marks a return to a more stable environment, renters continue to face steep housing costs due to the compounding effect of previous rent hikes,” the report says.
Here are cities and states where the median rent is most and least expensive.
What states have the highest median rent?
- California, $2,895
- Hawaii, $2,869
- Massachusetts, $2,595
- New York, $2,592
- New Jersey, $2,373
- Washington, $2,237
- Florida, $2,220
- Maryland, $2,195
- New Hampshire, $2,143
- Connecticut, $2,127
What states have the lowest median rent?
- West Virginia, $1,126
- South Dakota, $1,185
- North Dakota, $1,201
- Mississippi, $1,202
- Iowa, $1,212
- Arkansas, $1,231
- Wyoming, $1,236
- Kentucky, $1,239
- Kansas, $1,247
- Missouri, $1,275
How does the median rent in Sioux Falls compare with other cities?
The median rent in the Sioux Falls metro area is $1,257 a month, which ranks 310th out of 387 metro areas included in the report.
That’s an increase from 2024, when the Sioux Falls metro area’s median rent was $1,094 a month, the report says.
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