North Dakota
Sen. John Hoeven announces $100 million UAS investment in Grand Forks
GRAND FORKS — Over $100 million in federal funding will be going toward Grand Forks’ UAS and aerospace tech network, including $4 million to bring an Albuquerque-based innovation hub to the region to help develop local programming for startup companies.
The HIVE will partner with Q Station, which primarily works with space and aerospace technology companies in New Mexico, and the funding will be used to help Q Station expand its operations into the area and help support new and emerging UAS companies.
“Q Station will help us accelerate our growth in attracting these entrepreneur companies that want to make things happen,” U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, a Republican, said at an event at the HIVE on Monday, Feb. 16.
Q Station is also a partnership intermediary of the Air Force Research Lab.
Thomas Swoyer, president of GrandSky, the sister company to the HIVE’s management company GFHive Management, said he’s excited to begin working with Q Station.
“It’s such a gift to be able to work with a partner that has such good capability and experience in exactly the areas that we need to deliver some of that capability at the HIVE,” he said.
Q Station will be helping to develop programming and support the HIVE’s accelerator programs, Swoyer said, which will allow GFHive Development to focus on bringing in more members to the hub and building more partnerships with other companies.
He added Q Station has recently started expanding into the UAS market, and this partnership would also allow the HIVE to help Q Station as it expands into that industry.
Randy Trask, CEO of Q Station, was also present at Hoeven’s presentation about the investment on Monday and expressed his excitement for the upcoming partnership.
“The momentum and the energy is contagious, and we’re really excited to get behind this mission that you created,” he said.
Some of the programming Trask said Q Station plans to implement includes events that can connect early-stage companies with investors and resources, business consulting, UAS challenges for not only local companies but also companies nationally and internationally and STEM education and outreach in public schools and at UND.
He also hopes Q Station will be able to help bridge the UAS sector and the space sector, highlighting the overlap those two industries are already seeing in technological challenges and solutions.
Along with announcing the HIVE’s partnership with Q Station, Hoeven also announced several other aspects of the Grand Forks Tech Ecosystem that will be benefiting from federal funding. That ecosystem includes the University of North Dakota, the UAS Northern Plains Test Site, GrandSky, Project ULTRA and several missions through the Grand Forks Air Force Base.
Half of the total $100 million will go toward supporting the Space Development Agency’s low-Earth orbit satellite mission in Grand Forks. That funding will connect satellites at the Air Force base to ground receivers to increase the flow of information from space.
UAS and counter-UAS research and development in North Dakota will receive $33 million, with local companies and entities like Ideal Aerosmith, UND, Space Dynamics Laboratory and more eligible to receive that funding.
Technology Applications Group, a Grand Forks company manufacturing corrosion-resistant magnesium coatings for parts used in things like drones, will receive $10 million out of a total $20 million meant to support the development of similar protective coatings for equipment and vehicles for the Department of War. That grant is in addition to $6 million that Hoeven secured for TAG last year to help build a new production line for the company.
“We’re going to put an addition on this building that we’re in now … so that we are truly sustaining for the military, so they know that there’s going to be a place where they get the absolute best coating,” said Bill Elmquist, president of TAG.
Other funding that would benefit the local UAS market includes $18.5 million for research and development of hypersonic technology and $37.5 million for other defense research and operations in the Red River Valley.
Some of the funding will also benefit UND’s programs for aerospace research and studies. Mark Askelson, associate vice president of research-national security at UND, said that funding includes $3 million will go to the university’s Vets2Wings Program, which helps veterans receive flight training and transition to the airline workforce; $1 million for helicopter training; and $2 million for food safety resilience for the military.
“It’s an amazing thing, as part of my career, to have an opportunity to be a part of what’s growing here,” he said.
North Dakota
North Dakota composer launches statewide virtual choir project
GRAND FORKS — A North Dakota composer’s dream is turning into a statewide invitation.
Williston-based musician Emily Black-Driscoll was chosen as the North Dakota Music Teachers Association’s commissioned composer for 2026. She’s preparing an original composition that will premiere in August.
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North Dakota
Challengers declare victory after ND Supreme Court rules against Legislature’s attempt to alter term limits
BISMARCK — A constitutional ballot measure to amend the state’s term limits law as proposed by the Legislature will not appear on November’s ballot, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday, siding with petitioners who argued the Legislature exceeded its authority and violated the state constitution in proposing the changes.
“The people’s voice was heard,” Grand Forks County Commissioner Terry Bjerke said in reaction to the news.
Bjerke was a member of the sponsoring committee behind the successful 2022 effort to pass a term limits initiative, which amended the state constitution by capping legislative term limits to eight years in the House and eight years in the Senate. The amendment, which became article XV of the state constitution, also included a clause barring the Legislature from making constitutional changes to term limits.
During the 2025 session, however, lawmakers narrowly approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008, in which the legislature proposed Constitutional Measure 1, a ballot measure to amend the term limits language to allow legislators to decide in which chamber they want to serve their 16 years, and to repeal the clause limiting the legislative assembly’s authority to propose an amendment to alter or repeal term limits.
Bjerke and former Minot legislator Oley Larsen brought the lawsuit challenging the validity of the Legislature’s action in January, and the state Supreme Court
heard oral arguments in the case
this spring.
“Those term limits may only be altered by a measure proposed by the people rather than the Legislative Assembly. And yet a few years later, the Legislative Assembly is doing what they are prohibited from doing,” attorney Zachary Wallen argued on Bjerke and Larsen’s behalf.
Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune
The Legislature’s attorneys argued the clause prohibiting legislative proposals to alter the constitutional term limits language “infringes on our republican form of government” by “limiting the people’s ability to vote on amendments proposed by their elected officials.”
Justice Jon Jensen seemed skeptical of that argument during the April 2 hearing, questioning whether a second vote was appropriate.
“The public did speak on this. The public spoke on it when it passed the original constitutional amendment and they said, ‘Legislature, you don’t even get to propose a change.’ They have already spoken on it,” Jensen said. “You want a second shot, or a second bite at the apple, not a first one, a second.”
In Thursday’s ruling, all five justices sided with Bjerke and Larsen.
“We … conclude the Legislative Assembly’s adoption of S.C.R. 4008 violated N.D. Const. art. XV … and declare S.C.R. 4008 and Constitutional Measure 1 void … We enjoin the Secretary of State from placing Constitutional Measure 1 on the November 2026 general election ballot,” the ruling said.
Bjerke thanked the legal team that worked on behalf of their lawsuit, and said he was grateful the court reached the conclusion it did.
“I’m thrilled that what the people voted on and approved has been validated,” Bjerke said.
He added that the Legislature had “multiple opportunities” to address term limits prior to 2022’s initiated measure and chose not to, and gave a nod to the country’s coming milestone and the process by which voters expressed their support for term limits.
“We’ve lasted 250 years,” Bjerke said. “I have two words for those elected leaders who think they aren’t: everyone’s replaceable.”
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.
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