Though an individual storm cannot be blamed on

“Noem’s travel doesn’t pass the smell test,” said Viki Harrison, program director for Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that seeks to limit big money in politics. “There should be a huge firewall between campaigning and official business.”Noem’s predecessors traveled less frequently in a low-tax state that values frugality, both on the farm and from elected officials. Daugaard, whose official statue features him pinching a penny, said he reimbursed staff for purchases like ice cream.

Former Gov. Mike Rounds, now South Dakota’s junior U.S. senator, said he tried to keep partisan activity at “arm’s length” from state resources and was careful about what he put on the government’s dime.Such thriftiness was required, he said, because his state is “so tight on everything to begin with, just in terms of having enough money to pay the bills.”___ Goodman reported from Miami and Mustian from New York. Associated Press writers Stephen Groves in Washington and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese diplomats threatened to cancel a summit and called top officials in two African countries to pressure lawmakers to quit ancritical of China, officials from the group told The Associated Press.

It’s an example of how far China will go to influence politicians overseas, and how that pressure can succeed behind closed doors.

In the past year, lawmakers from Malawi and Gambia withdrew from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, a group of hundreds of lawmakers from 38 countrieslike mastodons, saber-toothed cats and dire wolves that once roamed North and South America.

But new research from several sites is starting to suggest that people came to the Americas earlier —— than once thought. These findings hint at a remarkably different life for these early Americans, one in which they may have spent millennia sharing prehistoric savannas and wetlands with enormous beasts.

This combination of illustrations provided by researchers in 2024 shows large animals which once roamed prehistoric North and South America. Top row from left, a glyptodon, a lestodon, and a horse. Bottom row from left, a mastodon, a saber-toothed cat and a toxodon. (Mauro Muyano via AP)This combination of illustrations provided by researchers in 2024 shows large animals which once roamed prehistoric North and South America. Top row from left, a glyptodon, a lestodon, and a horse. Bottom row from left, a mastodon, a saber-toothed cat and a toxodon. (Mauro Muyano via AP)