Dakota

WASHINGTON - In the first and only vote Thursday on the immigration bill, senators turned back a Republican measure that would have delayed a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally until after the border with Mexico is fully secure. Republicans still plan to offer several other measures to enhance border security, but this one, from Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, was one of the most hard-line of the proposals. The 57-43 vote to defeat the amendment offered an imprecise test of whether the Senate will find the 60 votes needed to pass the bill.

First it was Texas Gov. Rick Perry who came to California with his cowboy swagger and boasts about lassoing away businesses. Then the South Dakota governor swept through to recruit dairy farmers. Soon after, the Iowa governor made an appearance. Now they're coming in pairs. Joining forces, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell are heading to California on Thursday to try their luck at wooing California businesses. On a two-day tour with stops in Costa Mesa, Palo Alto and San Francisco, the old friends plan to tout the wonders of doing business in their states.

I would like to thank you for printing the article about North Dakota ("North Dakota?" July 7). It is the almost-forgotten state. I was born and raised in the eastern part of the state, mostly in Fargo. It's perhaps just as well if people don't hear about the positive aspects about the state--they might all decide to vacation there. DONNA MORK Tustin It was with delight and appreciation that I read Adam Z. Horvath's "North Dakota?" As a native North Dakotan, I am touched by Mr. Horvath's genuine interest, respect and accurate description of the usually maligned (or not even acknowledged!

LEAD, S.D. - The scientists don hard hats, jumpsuits and steel-toed boots to pile into a metal cage for a rumbling 11-minute descent into an abandoned South Dakota gold mine. They step over old mine-cart rails, through rough-walled tunnels and into a bright white room. There, they cast off their dusty garb and enter a lab hidden nearly a mile beneath the Earth. Inside, Patrick Phelps peers at valves connected to half a million dollars' worth of some of the purest xenon in the world.

Re "Hunters Win Constitutional Cover," Nov. 21: Am I the only one who sees the irony in a group of North Dakota hunters who form a circle to trap red foxes and shoot toward the center? As an opponent of "sport hunting" (and a student of Darwin), I can only hope that this winter perhaps a few of them will aim high. MARK PICKELL Pasadena

I was thrilled to see the article on Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota ["Roosevelt's Home on the Range," July 20]. I am a native of North Dakota, and my heart will always be there. It was great to see the state reflected in a positive light instead of as some place almost off the planet. The colors in the Grand Canyon may be beautiful, but the colors in Theodore Roosevelt Park are beyond description. The article did not mention that the Maah Daah Hey Trail now connects both units of the park [through Little Missouri National Grassland]

Re "South Dakota vs. Roe," editorial, March 8 The first thing that is very apparent from the first sentence of the editorial is that "pro-choice" does not mean pro-choice at all. It means "pro-abortion." I am sure you would not allow people to call themselves pro-choice and then make the choice to save the life of their unborn babies. News outlets keep promoting the lie that if Roe vs. Wade were overturned, abortion would go away. It would not; it would simply go back to the states.

Re "S.D. House Approves Abortion Bill," Feb. 25 One couldn't tell it is the 21st century by watching the attempt by South Dakota's legislators to get abortion outlawed everywhere in this country by pushing the issue on the Supreme Court. It is a total waste of time, effort and tax dollars to even discuss an issue such as abortion because it is a personal issue and not one the government should be involved in. It is a moral issue that should be decided by the individual. Anything less amounts to legislated religion.

A nearly 14-hour standoff on a ranch ended with the arrest of two men who escaped from a rural Alabama prison more than 1,200 miles away, a federal law enforcement official said. Joshua Southwick, 26, and Ashton Mink, 22, were apprehended after two shootouts with North Dakota law enforcement, nearly two weeks after their escape from the Perry County Detention Center in Uniontown, Ala. Also taken into custody were two women who authorities said helped the men escape -- Mink's sister and wife, Angela Diana Mink and Jacquelin Rae Kennamer Mink, both 25. The four had eluded law enforcement in at least seven states until a robbery at a video store in North Dakota around midnight Friday.

WASHINGTON - Democrats' efforts to maintain a majority in the U.S. Senate after next year's midterm election were thrown into further doubt Tuesday when Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota became the fifth senior member of the party to announce his retirement. Johnson, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said he would not seek a fourth term. He suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2006 and, despite extensive rehabilitation, relies on a wheelchair to travel the halls in Congress. "I feel great, but I must be honest: I appreciate my right arm and right leg aren't what they used to be, and my speech is not entirely there," Johnson said at the University of South Dakota.

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple has signed into law the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation, including one that bans abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, which can come as soon as six weeks after conception. A second bill signed by the Republican governor bans abortions solely for the purpose of gender selection and genetic abnormalities. And another requires that any physician who performs abortions must have staff privileges at a nearby hospital. The three new laws -- and a previously approved resolution calling for a November referendum on a constitutional amendment that is designed to protect life at any stage of development -- places the state at the forefront of efforts to limit abortion rights.

Re "N. Dakota's dubious honor," Editorial, March 19 As an obstetrician and gynecologist, I strongly urge North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple to put women and families first and veto the bill banning abortions after a fetus' heartbeat can be detected. I have cared for pregnant women with complex medical conditions. For some of these women, pregnancy termination is the only way to protect their health or save their lives. Roe vs. Wade made it possible to ensure that more women were able to access safe, legal and necessary abortions.

North Dakota lawmakers on Friday approved a state referendum for this fall on a constitutional amendment that, if passed, would effectively block abortion by holding that life begins at conception. In a 57-35 vote, the House followed the Senate's action and approved the referendum that now goes before the voters on the November ballot. Groups backing abortion rights said they will fight the referendum and, if needed, in the courts as well. “It is too intrusive and has too many unintended consequences,” Tammi Kromenaker of the Red River Women's Clinic, the state's sole facility offering abortions, said in a telephone interview with the Los Angeles Times.

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple should not sign any of the legislature's half-dozen bills that seek to subvert a well-established constitutional right to abortion. Late last week, the North Dakota legislature passed a bill that would ban a woman from having an abortion as soon as the heartbeat of the fetus is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. If Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple signs it into law, North Dakota will have the ignominious distinction of being the most restrictive state in the country on abortion.

The North Dakota Senate on Friday passed a bill banning abortions when a fetal heartbeat is detected, which could be as early as six weeks of pregnancy. If signed by the governor, it would be the most restrictive abortion law in the nation. The vote comes about one week after Arkansas legislators overrode a governor's veto to become the first state to ban abortions involving fetuses 12 weeks or older. The North Dakota legislation is among a string of antiabortion bills that the state's lawmakers have been considering this session.

South Dakota's Black Hills region encompasses Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, several majestic state and national parks, magnificent roads, incredible scenery and wonderful wildlife. It was one of our best trips ever. South Dakota Office of Tourism, (800) 732-5682, www.travelsd.com Joe and Sue Berk Upland

Every time she drives into Whiteclay, Neb., over the border from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Natalie Hand sees the images that turn her stomach. Countless people passed out on the side of the road, drunk. Women willing to sell their bodies for a bottle of beer. They'll all Native Americans, members of her Oglala Lakota tribe. While alcohol is banned on the reservation, booze shacks like those in Whiteclay, run by non-Indians, have long done a demon's business along the border, selling alcohol to Native Americans, even minors, ignoring the fact that the tribe has a collective drinking problem, tribal members say. It's not only capitalism at its most perverse, the members say, it violates a treaty elders signed with the federal government to keep alcohol outside a 10-mile buffer area.

On a narrow road two miles from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, State Line Liquor beckons. Inside, "Native Pride" caps line a wall and sodas fill a cooler. But more often than not, people come for Budweiser and malt liquors with names like Tilt Watermelon and Hurricane. Alcohol has been banned on the South Dakota reservation for generations, so people come to State Line or three other beer and wine stores in Whiteclay for a case, a can or whatever a handful of change will buy. Alcohol sales near dry reservations have long been a problem, but in Whiteclay the tension between dry and wet, between Indian and non-Indian, stands out in sharp relief.