North Dakota
Miners Find Mammoth Remains Buried in North Dakota
The first person who saw it was working overnight. The worker, a shovel operator, saw something white as he placed a large amount of dirt into the back of a truck.
The driver of the truck put the dirt in the road. Another worker operating a bulldozer was ready to flatten it. But the worker stopped for a closer look when he, too, saw a piece of white.
Only then did the mining workers realize they had found something special: a 2-meter-long mammoth tusk that had been buried for thousands of years.
A mammoth is a kind of animal that lived in ancient times and had very long tusks. The animal went extinct, or disappeared, about 10,000 years ago in what is now the American state of North Dakota.
The miners unearthed the tusk at the Freedom Mine near Beulah, North Dakota. The mine produces up to 14.5 metric tons of coal each year.
“We were very fortunate, lucky to find what we found,” said David Straley. He is an executive of North American Coal, which owns the mine.
After finding the tusk, the workers stopped digging in the area and called in experts. The experts estimated the tusk to be anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 years old.
Jeff Person is a paleontologist with the North Dakota Geologic Survey. A paleontologist is an expert on ancient remains. Person was one of the experts that examined the tusk. He said it was “miraculous” that the tusk had not been more damaged, considering the large equipment that miners use at the site.
Another dig at the discovery site found more bones. Experts found more than 20 bones. It is likely the most complete mammoth found in North Dakota, where it is more common to find one mammoth bone, tooth or piece of a tusk.
Person said it is not a lot of bones compared to how many make up the animal’s skeleton. But he said, “…it’s a lot more than we’ve ever found of one animal together.”
Mammoths once were found across parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Paul Ullmann, a University of North Dakota paleontologist, said mammoth remains have been found throughout the United States and Canada.
The discovery at the mine is somewhat rare in North Dakota and in the area. Many remains of the animals alive during the last Ice Age were destroyed by movements of ice sheets, Ullmann said.
Other areas have produced more mammoth remains, such as in Texas and South Dakota. People have even found frozen mammoth bodies in Canada and Russia, Ullmann added.
The tusk weighs more than 22.6 kilograms and can break easily. Experts covered the tusk in plastic in order to control how fast the tusk loses water. If it loses water too quickly, the bone could break apart, Person said.
The experts covered the other bones in plastic and stored them. The bones will remain in plastic for at least several months until the scientists can get the water out safely. The paleontologists will identify what kind of mammoth the tusk came from later, Person said.
The mining company plans to donate the bones to the state for educational purposes.
“Our goal is to give it to the kids,” Straley said.
I’m Gregory Stachel.
Jack Dura reported this story for Voice of America. Gregory Stachel adapted it for VOA Learning English.
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Words in This Story
shovel – n. a tool with a long handle that is used for lifting and throwing dirt, sand, or snow
bulldozer – n. a powerful and heavy vehicle that has a large curved piece of metal at its front and that is used for moving dirt and rocks and pushing over trees and other structures
tusk – n. a very long, large tooth that sticks out of the mouth of an animal (such as an elephant, walrus, or boar)
fortunate – adj. having good luck
miraculous – adj. very wonderful or amazing like a miracle
kid – n. a young person
North Dakota
Letter: Be wary of plans for large-scale dairies in North Dakota
To the editor,
There is a history of confined animal feeding operations ruining the environment in many states. The new
Riverview Dairy
operations set to enter the eastern part of North Dakota near Hillsboro and Wahpeton should be looked at through the eyes of how we want our livestock industry to expand.
Twenty-five thousand confined dairy cows is huge. Yes, they have state of the art waste disposal systems — or do they? What about flooding? Not unheard of in the Red River Valley. Additionally, the water required for these animals may seem fine but what about in a drought? Do you want to compete for drinking water with cows? Aquifers are being depleted for ag use already.
Twenty-five thousand animals hooked up to machines. Not grazed. Not good.
Workers will be temporary and not connected to the communities. Their money will be sent out of state/country. The money from Riverview will be sent out of the state. Riverview has multiple dairies in other states. Most inputs will be bought wholesale and not locally.
Ag Commissioner Doug Goehring said this LLP can do business without the change to our corporate farming law in the last legislative session. However, they sure are being subsidized by support for infrastructure stemming from other legislation piggy backed on that change in our anti-corporate farming law. A law that was meant to support local farmers to expand by accessing capital from other sources. This dairy will finish the small dairy opportunities in North Dakota using money meant to support them.
Karen Anderson
Warwick, North Dakota
North Dakota
Yankton County, SD deputies arrest South Dakota fugitive after 4-week search
YANKTON COUNTY, SD (KTIV) – There’s a new development in a manhunt that started last month in South Dakota.
Authorities in Yankton County say they’ve found an Iowa man wanted for violating his parole and arrested him after a nearly four-hour standoff Monday night.
The Yankton County Sheriff’s Office says its deputies learned 48-year-old Jason Sitzman was inside a home in Lesterville, South Dakota, and went to that home trying to make contact with him.
Sitzman was wanted on warrants for violating his parole in Iowa, as well as, for failure to appear in court in Yankton County and for aggravated eluding of law enforcement.
But, Sitzman, and another woman who was inside, refused to leave the house. That was at around 7:00pm. Around 10:45pm authorities used chemical agents inside the home to get Sitzman and the woman outside. The woman is identified as 23-year-old Kendra Kirrman.
Both were taken into custody and charged with obstructing law enforcement.
Law enforcement have been looking for Sitzman for more than a month. Back on June 19th… he reportedly fled South Dakota authorities on a motorcycle… riding into Nebraska before ditching the bike at the Chalkrock Wildlife Management Area in Cedar County. Authorities searched the area using drones and a helicopter but weren’t able to find Sitzman.
Copyright 2024 KTIV. All rights reserved.
North Dakota
North Dakota judge will decide whether to throw out a challenge to the state's abortion ban
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Attorneys argued Tuesday over whether a North Dakota judge should toss a lawsuit challenging the state’s abortion ban, with the state saying the plaintiffs’ case rests on hypotheticals, and the plaintiffs saying key issues remain to be resolved at a scheduled trial.
State District Judge Bruce Romanick said he will rule as quickly as he can, but he also asked the plaintiffs’ attorney what difference he would have at the court trial in August.
The Red River Women’s Clinic, which moved from Fargo to neighboring Moorhead, Minnesota, filed the lawsuit challenging the state’s now-repealed trigger ban soon after the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The clinic was North Dakota’s sole abortion provider. In 2023, North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature revised the state’s abortion laws amid the lawsuit. Soon afterward, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, joined by doctors in obstetrics, gynecology and maternal-fetal medicine.
North Dakota outlaws abortion as a felony crime, with exceptions to prevent the mother’s death or a “serious health risk” to her, and in cases of rape or incest up to six weeks of pregnancy.
The plaintiffs allege the law violates the state constitution because it is unconstitutionally vague for doctors as to the exceptions, and that its health exception is too narrow.
The state wants the complaint dismissed. Special Assistant Attorney General Dan Gaustad said the plaintiffs want the law declared unconstitutional based upon hypotheticals, that the clinic now in Minnesota lacks legal standing and that a trial won’t help the judge.
“You’re not going to get any more information than what you’ve got now. It’s a legal question,” Gaustad told the judge.
The plaintiffs want the trial to proceed.
Meetra Mehdizadeh, a staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the trial would resolve factual disputes regarding how the law would apply in various pregnancy complications, “the extent to which the ban chills the provision of standard-of-care medical treatment,” and a necessity for exceptions for mental health and pregnancies with a fatal fetal diagnosis.
When asked by the judge about the trial, she said hearing testimony live from experts, as compared to reading their depositions, would give him the opportunity to probe their credibility and ask his own questions to clarify issues.
In an interview, she said laws such as North Dakota’s are causing confusion and hindering doctors when patients arrive in emergency medical situations.
“Nationally, we are seeing physicians feeling like they have to delay, either to run more tests or to consult with legal teams or to wait for patients to get sicker, and so they know if the patient qualifies under the ban,” Mehdizadeh said.
In January, the judge denied the plaintiffs’ request to temporarily block part of the law so doctors could provide abortions in health-saving scenarios without the potential of prosecution.
A recent state report said abortions in North Dakota last year dropped to a nonreportable level, meaning there were fewer than six abortions performed in 2023. The state reported 840 abortions in 2021, the year before the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
The court’s decision enabled states to pass abortion bans by ending the nationwide right to abortion.
Most Republican-controlled states now have bans or restrictions in place. North Dakota is one of 14 enforcing a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Meanwhile, most Democratic-controlled states have adopted measures to protect abortion access.
The issue is a major one in this year’s elections: Abortion-related ballot measures will be before voters in at least six states. Since 2022, voters in all seven states where similar questions appeared have sided with abortion rights advocates.
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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this story.
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