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Groton Daily Independent
Monday, July 31, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 031 ~ 10 of 42
News from the
Rulings on juvenile life sentences affect 3 in South Dakota
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A national debate over juvenile life without parole is real for three inmates in South Dakota.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 banned mandatory life without parole for juvenile killers and last year made its ruling retroactive. State lawmakers in 2016 went further, prohibiting any life term for minors.
Three so-called juvenile lifers have been resentenced in South Dakota.
Paul Jensen killed a cab driver in 1996 and received concurrent terms of 200 years. He’s eligible for parole in 2021, at 39.
Daniel Charles killed his stepfather in 1999. He was sentenced to 92 years and is eligible for parole in 2045, at 60.
Jessi Owens pleaded guilty in a 1998 hammer beating death and was sentenced to 40 years. She’s eli- gible for parole in 2018, at 37.
Fast-spreading trees a headache in Nebraska, Iowa, Dakotas By GRANT SCHULTE, Associated Press
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Trees that suck up sunlight and groundwater at the expense of other prairie plants are creating new headaches throughout the Plains, including Nebraska, west- ern Iowa and the Dakotas.
The eastern red cedar tree spreads so quickly that it catches many landowners off-guard, consuming huge areas of productive ranchland and threatening many of the area’s original prairies. At one point in Ne- braska, the trees expanded at a pace of nearly 40,000 acres a year — an area roughly half the size of Omaha — until conservationists joined forces with local ranchers to conduct more brush-clearing burns.
Conservationists call it a “green glacier” that started in Texas and Oklahomaandsweptnorthacrossthe PlainsintoKansas,Nebraska,western Iowa and the Dakotas.
In this Friday, July 28, 2017 photo, an eastern red ce- dar tree grows near a corn eld in Cortland, Neb. The fast-growing trees species that sucks up sunlight and groundwaterattheexpenseofotherplantlifeiscreating newheadachesforfarmersandranchersthroughoutthe Midwest, including Nebraska and Iowa. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
“It gets worse every day,” said John
Ortmann, a rangeland ecologist in
Ord, Nebraska, who has worked with conservation groups to thin the eastern red cedar population. “Some people say, ‘Wait until it’s a problem.’ That’s like saying, ‘I’m not going to change my oil until the engine blows up.’”
The trees traditionally survived on steep, north-facing slopes in canyons where prairie res couldn’t reach. But then settlers started using them as windbreaks and doused wild res, and birds further spread