North Dakota
More Republicans back spending on child care, saying it’s an economic issue
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – Like a lot of mothers, North Dakota state Rep. Emily O’Brien struggled to find infant care when her daughter Lennon was born in 2019. So O’Brien, a Republican who represents the Grand Forks region, brought Lennon along to meetings with local leaders and constituents.
O’Brien had her second daughter, Jolene, in 2022, not long before legislators were due to meet. Wanting more time to bond before returning to work, O’Brien brought the newborn with her to Bismarck, where she snoozed through Gov. Doug Burgum’s State of the State address on her mother’s desk.
Not long after, O’Brien persuaded her colleagues to back a plan to invest $66 million in child care, an unprecedented sum for a state that had, like others with Republican leadership, long resisted such spending. But O’Brien argued it could help the state’s workforce shortage by helping more parents go to work and attracting new families to the state.
“It was definitely not, you know, an easy sell, because this is probably somewhere where you don’t want the government to get involved,” O’Brien said. “But it’s a workforce solution. We have people that are willing and able to work, but finding child care was an obstacle.”
Republicans historically have been lukewarm about using taxpayer money for child care, even as they have embraced prekindergarten. But the pandemic, which left many child care providers in crisis, underscored how precarious the industry is and how many working parents rely on it.
In 2021, Congress passed $24 billion of pandemic aid for child care businesses, an unprecedented federal investment. Now, as that aid dries up, Republican state lawmakers across the country are embracing plans to support child care — and even making it central to their policy agendas.
To be sure, the largest investments in child care have come not from Republicans but from Democratic lawmakers. In New Mexico, the state is covering child care for most children under 5 using a trust funded by oil and natural gas production. In Vermont, Democratic state lawmakers overrode a Republican governor’s veto to pass a payroll tax hike to fund child care subsidies.
Red states are following suit with more modest — but nonetheless historic — investments in child care.
In Missouri, Republican Gov. Mike Parson has proposed spending nearly $130 million to help low-income families access child care once the pandemic relief money dries up and to create tax credits to support child care providers. The House passed the tax credit legislation Thursday with bipartisan support, sending it to the Senate.
Republican state Rep. Brenda Shields, who sponsored the tax credit bill, said she tells conservative colleagues that child care accessibility is vital to grow the state’s economy.
“Child care is a critical infrastructure, just like roads and bridges and ports and trains,” Shields said. “Businesses have been saying, ‘What are you doing about child care?’ So I’m trying to be part of the solution.”
Missouri’s number of child-care facilities is down 14%, and the 167,000 slots for children is about 6,000 fewer than before the coronavirus pandemic in December 2019, according to data from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Elsewhere, Louisiana last year approved an unprecedented $52 million for child care subsidies for low-income families. Alabama provided $17 million worth of incentives for child care providers to get licensed. And Texas voters approved a property tax cut for some day care centers.
More Republicans have pledged to tackle the child care crisis this year. In Missouri, Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Republican, said he hoped the Statehouse would focus less on culture war issues — like criminalizing drag shows and censoring library books — and more on expanding access to child care and school choice. Nebraska and Indiana have both pitched programs to make child care free for child care workers. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who ran on a conservative education agenda, pitched boosting the state’s child care and education spending by $180 million.
Child care advocates say the investments are not enough and called on Congress to authorize a new round of money to keep the child care industry afloat. Already, day care centers report they are raising tuition and losing workers because they are no longer receiving federal subsidies. Some have folded.
GOP resistance to child care spending dates to the 1970s, when President Richard Nixon vetoed a bill to establish a national child care system, invoking fears of communism and saying it had “family-weakening implications.” Many of those arguments persist. Some conservative lawmakers have panned child care funding as ” socialist,” arguing that people who can’t afford day care should not have children. Two years ago, an Idaho state lawmaker apologized after he opposed federal early childhood money because it encouraged women to ” come out of the home and let others raise their children.”
The new and expanded funding reflects a growing sentiment that the nation’s broken child care system will not be fixed without public support. Families have long faced issues finding affordable, reliable child care. But during the pandemic, many child care workers left the industry for better-paying jobs, and some child care centers closed for good, exacerbating the problem.
Child care is a labor-heavy enterprise — in some states, one person may only care for four infants at once. Even before the pandemic, child care providers often had razor-thin margins. When families kept their children home during the pandemic, many day cares were barely hanging on.
Many parts of the country do not have enough child care providers to offer slots for all children. Even when slots are available, the cost is out of reach for many families. It’s a problem that disproportionately affects women, who are typically the primary caregivers for children.
But a lack of child care access is also keeping people from the workforce, contributing to a labor shortage in many states. Many industries have started lobbying for states to invest more in child care. One of the strongest proponents is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, which surveyed a dozen states and estimated they lost billions of dollars in economic activity because of child care gaps.
Resistance persists in many parts of the country. While North Dakota passed ground-breaking measures to support child care, Republican Gov. Kristi Noem in South Dakota said she opposed proposals to spend state dollars helping families pay for child care.
“The one thing … that I’m not wiling to do is to directly subsidize child care for families,” Noem recently told KWAT News in Watertown, South Dakota. “I just don’t think it’s the government’s job to pay or to raise people’s children for them.”
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
North Dakota
Fargo woman convicted in North Dakota fraud case now faces charges in Minnesota: A deeper dive
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – A North Dakota woman who was sentenced to 180 days in jail in Cass County for defrauding healthcare providers and Medicaid programs is now facing additional fraud charges in Minnesota.
Christine Marie Pryor, 55, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to theft by deception involving more than $50,000. She was sentenced to first serve 180 days with a 3-year sentence suspended. She received credit for 44 days already served.
Pryor was ordered to pay $82,584.78 in restitution to Southeast Human Services in Fargo, where she worked between 2018 and 2019.
How the scheme unfolded
According to court documents, Pryor worked at multiple healthcare facilities in North Dakota and Minnesota between 2018 and 2023, using the identities and credentials of three licensed professionals without their knowledge. She submitted fraudulent Capella University diplomas and transcripts to gain employment.
Investigators say Pryor admitted she searched state licensing websites for therapists who shared her first name, then used those therapists’ last names and license numbers when applying for jobs.
At Southeast Human Services, where she worked as a Licensed Addiction Counselor, Pryor earned $55,584.82 while providing therapy services to approximately 150 patients. She also opened her own counseling center, NIAM Brain Injury Center, in Fargo between 2020 and 2021, and worked at The Lotus Center in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 2021 to 2023.
Court documents say the three licensed professionals whose identities were used told investigators they had no knowledge of Pryor’s actions and did not give her permission to use their information.
Two additional charges against Pryor in North Dakota, unauthorized use of personal identifying information, were dismissed on motion of the state.
Additional charges in Minnesota
Pryor is also facing charges in Minnesota. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday charges against Pryor in Clay County District Court for six theft offenses and six identity theft offenses related to defrauding Minnesota’s Medicaid program of more than $150,000.
According to the Minnesota complaint, Pryor claimed to provide psychotherapy and alcohol and drug counseling services to Medicaid recipients despite having no license or credentials to do so. Prosecutors allege she used the credentials and identities of three licensed professionals while claiming to provide Medicaid-funded services to 169 clients.
The Minnesota charges were filed as part of National Health Care Fraud Takedown Day, a joint effort involving the Department of Justice and more than 40 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
Copyright 2026 KVLY. All rights reserved.
North Dakota
NCAA Set to Change Unpopular Football Rule Just in Time for North Dakota State’s FBS Jump
North Dakota State playing in the FCS playoffs and College Football Playoff in back-to-back years? It’s likelier than you think.
That’s because on Wednesday, according to a report from Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports, the NCAA Division I cabinet voted to repeal a rule that effectively barred teams transitioning from FCS to FBS from playing in postseason games in their first FBS seasons. The Bison are making that move along with Sacramento State in 2026.
The reported change has been a long time coming; the rule has hampered teams from immediate bowl eligibility for decades. Its good intentions of dissuading teams from rashly making the FCS-to-FBS leap have been rendered obsolete in recent years by the fact that programs generally arrive in FBS more prepared than ever before.
Consider the number of new FBS teams that have had to work within the provision in the past decade alone
That list includes: Liberty (home for the holidays at 6–6 in 2018), James Madison (8–3 in 2022 under coach Curt Cignetti, and barely able to play in a bowl at 11–1 in ’23 due to a lack of bowl-eligible teams), Jacksonville State (8–4 in ’23 before backing in like the Dukes), Missouri State (7–5 in 2025, also backed in) and Delaware (6–6 in ’25, ditto).
James Madison in particular became a cause célèbre in ’23 because it started the season 10-0, climbing as high as No. 18 in the AP Poll in mid-November. Then-Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares bandied about suing the NCAA before the Dukes lost 26–23 to Appalachian State, an event that caused the program to back off and accept a bid to play Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl. James Madison lost that game 31–21, by which time Cignetti had left for Indiana.
There was a time when the FCS-to-FBS jump was an imposing one, and the NCAA did not want to incentivize making it lightly—not even a proud Florida A&M program could make a mid-2000s attempt at a jump stick. However, the Flames, Dukes and other teams have shown it’s not so great a climb for programs with the right resources and management.
Now the Bison and the Hornets stand to benefit.
How far can North Dakota State and Sacramento State go in the near term?
The Bison opened 12–0 last year before a shock loss to Illinois State in the FCS playoffs’ second round, so that question may answer itself. North Dakota State does not play a single Power 4 team—a potential strength-of-schedule albatross if it has designs on really surging. A potential roadblock: the fact that the Bison have to visit the Mountain West’s two favorites, UNLV (Oct. 10) and New Mexico (Oct. 24).
It’s a different story for the Hornets, a 7–5 squad a year ago whose move to the FBS is widely seen as a gamble on their growth potential. Sacramento State also does not play a major-conference team, but has a breakneck travel schedule ahead of it—the Hornets will visit Ypsilanti, Mich.; Bowling Green, Ohio; Muncie, Ind.; Mount Pleasant, Mich. and Honolulu. Combine that with a first-year coach—Oakland native and ex-MC Hammer choreographer Alonzo Carter—and it could be a long FBS debut in California’s capital.
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North Dakota
Finding a hero: Efforts to identify North Dakota soldier Irvin C. Ellingson’s remains took years
DAHLEN, N.D. — Four years ago, Lon Enerson started writing a book about his uncle, Staff Sgt. Irvin C. Ellingson, and the work to identify his remains.
As Enerson stood in front of the Dahlen Lutheran Church on Saturday, June 20, a casket inside waited for the
funeral and burial
of Ellingson, a soldier who waited 81 years to come home.
“I never thought I would get the final chapter,” Enerson said.
Enerson, along with scores of Ellingson relatives, waited to hear about the identification of Sgt. Ellingson from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu, Hawaii, where efforts took place to identify soldiers who died in a Tokyo prison fire during World War II. Ellingson was the third to be identified, with 10 successfully identified so far.
There were a number of Gold Star families — those whose relatives died in the line of duty — present at the Ellingson funeral. Enerson had attended a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery of the second person to be identified.
“We’re cheering for each other,” he said.
Ellingson was 25 and serving as a radar observer on a B-29 in the Pacific Theater when, on April 14, 1945, his plane was shot down during a bombing mission over mainland Japan. He was captured alongside 61 other Air Corps members, interrogated and held at a Tokyo prison. A few weeks later, on May 26, an Allied bombing run over Japan sparked a fire at the prison, killing Ellingson and the others.
The Ellingson family’s wait to bring home his remains began that year, and 81 years later, it finally happened. Enerson said the passion his grandparents felt when Ellingson died filtered down to him and his generation. It created, he said, a “common bond that we needed to get him home.”
In 2018, Enerson received a letter from Michael Krehl, instigator of the search to identify and recover the remains of the prison fire soldiers. Krehl was told by the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) about a process involving DNA that could identify the remains. To get the remains — interred at the American Cemetery in Manila — to Hawaii to start the identification process, 60% of the 62 families of the soldiers had to submit DNA, since the remains were commingled.
Enerson’s mother had died the year before, but two uncles, Bud and Dennis Ellingson, were still alive. They both gave their DNA, along with Enerson.
“I called them, and they were overwhelmed to tears,” Enerson said. “I said ‘I’m going to give the DPAA your address and they’re going to send you DNA sample kits.’ So we got three Ellingson DNA there. Sibling DNA is like gold.”
Barbara Geisler, a family genealogist who found Enerson so he could be sent the letter, prayed over Ellingson’s casket at Saturday’s funeral.
She said the group had to find the families for both missing and identified soldiers.
“We went for the missing first. We thought it was most important,” she said.
Eric Hylden / Grand Forks Herald
Though the Ellingson family submitted their DNA, by November of 2021 the percentage of given DNA was stuck at 59.68%, Enerson said. The family went to Washington, D.C., to speak with 17 senators, including North Dakota Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer, who signed a bipartisan letter to then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to get the remains.
As the letter went through, one more person submitted DNA to get over the 60% threshold, Enerson said. In spring 2022, the caskets were brought to the lab in Hawaii to begin the identification process.
Kristen Grow and Melissa Menschel were two forensic anthropologists involved in the process. Grow led the Tokyo Prison Fire project in 2024 and Menschel joined last year. They said the process involves an inventory of the remains, taking samples, finding what remains go together and looking at chemical signatures of the bones. There are also forensic odontologists who analyze teeth.
Both Grow and Menschel were present for the funeral and burial.
From 2022 to 2025 seven groups of Ellingsons visited the lab to “potentially be in that same place as Irvin would be,” Enerson said.
“There was no guarantee all along, but we always told them that the Ellingson family does have one guarantee — and that is that we’re not going to stop looking for him,” he said.
Last summer, the family got the call that Ellingson had been identified. The family was told his remains would be escorted home and a full military honors funeral would be provided all at government expense. In September, the family formed a committee made up of family members to map out the details. Enerson said the family decided upon three days of celebration.
Terry Ellingson, Enerson’s cousin, said it “takes a village to get this done.”
“Everybody decided to take care of a certain area,” he said Saturday. “It all got done, but it took a lot of contacts. Even this morning, we were short of buses for people to go to the cemetery. (And then came) a call that Midway Public Schools would provide a couple more buses for us.”
Through it all, Enerson held tight to one sentence within a deceased personnel file he received. It contained all the information the government went through to locate Ellingson.
“The sentence goes like this: ‘Sgt. McGrath saw Staff Sgt. Irvin Ellingson being interrogated at the Kempeitai military headquarters in Tokyo, leaving with 2nd Lt. Andrew Litz, to the Tokyo Military Prison,’” Enerson said. “That was a sentence that I hung onto, and we all hung onto.”
Enerson noted that 2nd Lt. Litz’s nephew and niece were at the Saturday funeral, too.
Enerson has been collecting information through the eight-plus years it took to get Ellingson home. Four years ago, people told him, “Lon, if something happens to you, no one’s going to know (this information),” he said.
“So, I started writing a book,” he said.
His sister, Jane Wood, is editing.
“He’s almost to 400 pages,” she said.
Eric Hylden / Grand Forks Herald
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