Piglet causes crash; girl, 9, drives parents; switchblades legalized

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — The state House has approved a bill that would bar the government from taking actions such as revoking the tax exempt status of an organization because of religious beliefs about marriage, sex outside of marriage or transgender rights.

The Argus Leader (http://argusne.ws/1Lcplfy ) reports that the House voted 46-10 on Monday to approve the measure. It now heads to the Senate.

Republican Rep. Scott Craig is the main House sponsor of the plan. He says it's about protecting the freedom of speech of people who have conservative views.

Craig says the Founding Fathers "never intended erotic freedom to trump religious freedom."

Opponents argue the bill would allow for discrimination against certain minority groups. Democratic Rep. Peggy Gibson says that the bill would cause potentially costly legal issues for the state.

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Information from: Argus Leader, http://www.argusleader.com

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — The half-cent sales tax increase that would help fund Gov. Dennis Daugaard's teacher pay plan passed its first legislative test Monday, but it now faces a competing push from the House Republican leader to increase salaries without raising taxes.

The House Committee on Appropriations voted unanimously to advance the sales tax plan. It could be debated on the House floor Wednesday.

Education advocates celebrated the passage of the bill, which also received no opposing public testimony.

"I'm grateful to everyone who testified to present that united front that this is right, this is what we need and this is what we're going to do for our students," said Mary McCorkle, president of the South Dakota Education Association, a professional organization with more than 5,000 members.

Pressure has mounted to raise teacher pay, which a state task force studying education funding said is the lowest of the 50 states and District of Columbia. But it takes two-thirds support in each chamber to pass a tax hike through the Legislature.

Predicting that the sales tax increase is unlikely to succeed, House Majority Leader Brian Gosch appointed a group of lawmakers to search for a contingency plan, and the governor received the results of their efforts last week.

Daugaard is "optimistic" about his proposal and dedicated to "funding a solution this year," Chief of Staff Tony Venhuizen said in a statement.

The sales tax increase would raise more than $100 million in the upcoming budget year, most of which would be put toward helping raise the state's target average teacher salary to $48,500 per year. If approved, it would be the first permanent increase to South Dakota's sales tax rate of 4 cents per dollar in nearly half a century.

About $62.4 million from the sales tax hike would go toward teacher salaries and about $40 million would go to property tax relief, according to the governor's office.

Gosch said he would "prefer to not take more taxpayer dollars out of people's pockets."

One alternative proposal would use current state dollars phased in over three years to add accountability into the system, with $30 million put toward teacher pay in the first year and $20 million each in the second and third years, he said. Gosch said if the money didn't go toward teacher pay, less would be forthcoming in the next year.

Another plan would shift revenues schools use to pay for facilities and maintenance to be put toward educator salaries.

Gosch said he is waiting for feedback from Daugaard before publicly releasing all of the details.

Venhuizen said Daugaard wouldn't comment about private conversations with legislative leaders, but added that the governor "feels strongly that a solution must be based on sound budget projections."

Democrats unsuccessfully pushed an amendment to the sales tax bill during the Monday hearing that would have routed the roughly $40 million that Daugaard proposed for property tax relief back toward teacher pay.

"We need to be bolder," Democratic House leader Spencer Hawley said. "We need to take that big step, and do it this year, and do it right."

DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit-area impostor who inspired an award-winning film about being someone else has been ordered to prison for his latest scam.

William Street Jr. of Plymouth was sentenced in federal court Monday to three years in prison after pleading guilty in September to identity theft. The sentence is to be served consecutively to the state time he's now doing.

Police investigating bad checks caught Street a year ago with a doctor's coat bearing the name of William Stratton. Stratton works for a Maryland defense contractor and is a graduate of West Point but he's not a doctor.

The 65-year-old Street has convictions going back decades. He even fooled the Detroit Tigers into a tryout.

He inspired the movie "Chameleon Street," which won a prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Several city and county departments have seen their fuel budgets drop with unleaded gasoline below $2 a gallon at most Lincoln-area gas stations.

The Lincoln Journal Star (http://bit.ly/20RILzo ) reports that several departments saw fuel savings of up to 50 percent during the first six months of this fiscal year. The savings will likely help these departments pay for other climbing costs, such as bridge and road repairs.

"It should benefit us as we try to finish out the year," said Dennis Meyer, Lancaster County budget and fiscal officer.

County departments spent $455,000 on fuel during the first six months of this fiscal year out of $1.4 million budgeted for the whole year.

During the first half of this fiscal year, the county engineering department spent $182,000 of $630,000 budgeted for diesel fuel for the entire year. The department also spent $70,000 on unleaded gasoline out of the $120,000 budgeted for the entire year.

All of the other county departments spend $68,000 on unleaded gas during the first half of this fiscal year. The budget for the entire year was $320,000.

City Superintendent of Facilities and Fleet Services Jim Chiles said his department, which sells fuel to city departments, spent $315,000 during the first half of this fiscal year of $1.8 million it had budgeted for fuel.

"It's nice to see fuel prices down for a change," Chiles said.

He said any savings in fuel costs won't translate to extra funding for his department. Instead, city departments that pay his department for fuel will keep their savings.

Ron Bohaty, county shop supervisor, said county engineering will consider reallocating any unspent fuel funds for bridge and road repairs that remain to be completed after flooding in May.

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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, http://www.journalstar.com

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Lincoln police say a piglet running down Interstate 80 caused a three-car crash.

The Lincoln Journal Star (http://bit.ly/1PxsrN7 ) reports the baby pig was spotted around 4:30 p.m. Friday in an eastbound lane of Interstate 80 in Lincoln. An accident report Monday shows a car stopped to avoid hitting the piglet, causing the car behind it to stop as well. This started a chain reaction of two cars being rear-ended.

The people in the three cars were not hurt and neither was the piglet.

Police do not know where the piglet was from, and the accident report did not say if the animal was caught.

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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, http://www.journalstar.com

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Prosecutors across Ohio are concerned that a ruling under review by Ohio's top court could delay and shorten sentences for suspects caught with cocaine and force costly changes upon law enforcement.

The state Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on whether to uphold an appeals court decision calling into question how prosecutors have handled cocaine cases for years.

It all comes down to weight.

A state appeals court in Toledo ruled last year prosecutors should have determined how much pure cocaine a suspect arrested in a drug sting had with him or her instead of sentencing him based on the weight of the entire amount.

The appeals court ruled that Ohio's drug laws say that what matters is the weight of the cocaine only — not filler material such as baking soda that's often added by drug dealers to stretch out their supply and increase profits.

Prosecutors along with the state Attorney General's office argue that such a narrow interpretation creates a new distinction for cocaine that isn't applied to any other illegal drugs.

"It's not what the legislature intended," said Paul Dobson, the prosecutor in Wood County, where the case originated.

Andrew Mahle, the defense attorney who challenged the original sentence, thinks the state legislature knew what it was doing by singling out cocaine when it rewrote the law first in 1995 and again in 2011.

"They were not concerned with targeting baking soda or sugar or anything else," he said.

Arguing that the law goes against what the legislature meant to say doesn't make sense, Mahle said. "Our legal system doesn't work that way," he said.

Mahle represents Rafael Gonzales, of Fremont, who was charged with cocaine possession during an undercover operation that in 2012 netted more than two dozen arrests in northwestern Ohio.

Gonzales was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison because he had bought more than 100 grams of what was said to be cocaine from an undercover informant.

Prosecutors never tested it to determine how much pure cocaine was purchased, Mahle said.

The difference, he said, could be 11 years in prison versus just one year.

The state Attorney General's office said in a court filing that only two states, New York and Georgia, require purity tests for cocaine in some cases. The rest measure the entire weight.

If the Ohio Supreme Court upholds the lower court's decision, the state would need to create an entirely new system to test cocaine, which would delay prosecution and require tremendous investment, the Attorney General's office said.

"This delay will torpedo current and future cocaine cases, including an August 2015 statewide operation that seized millions of dollars' worth of controlled substances," the Attorney General's office said.

It's not clear whether any drug offenders already convicted could see reduced sentences.

"What you're going to end up with is more difficulty in prosecuting the higher level offenses," Dobson said. "Unless the legislature decides to correct the grammar."

He said there already have been discussions about tweaking the law if the ruling goes against them.

GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) — A former University of North Dakota medical department chairman says he will plead guilty to child pornography charges.

The deal entered in federal court Friday calls for Dr. Robert Beattie to plead guilty to receipt and distribution of child pornography. The charges carry a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum penalty of 40 years.

Beattie, 55, was the chairman of UND's Family and Community Medicine Department. The school placed Beattie on paid administrative leave shortly after he was arrested Aug. 6, after which the North Dakota Board of Medical Examiners suspended Beattie's medical license. UND officials said Beattie resigned from his job, but had no further comment.

Defense attorney Peter Welte, of Grand Forks, said Beattie has cooperated with law enforcement from the beginning.

"This is an unusual case," Welte told The Associated Press. "Rob Beattie is a good man. With the support of his family and his friends, he will continue to work through the justice system until this case is completely adjudicated."

The plea agreement says Beattie should receive credit at sentencing for acceptance of responsibility and timely notice of the guilty plea.

Authorities say Beattie had about 100 videos and more than 700 images of child porn on a thumb drive seized from his office computer, some of which depicted "sadistic or masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence." Beattie allegedly accessed the images between April and August of last year.

The plea deal calls for Beattie to pay an undisclosed amount of restitution and register as a sex offender.

A change of plea hearing is scheduled March 21 in Fargo.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — More than $570 million in government subsidies will be used to bring faster Internet service to rural Wisconsin.

The money from the Federal Communications Commission's Connect America Fund II program will be given to three telecom companies in an effort to expand service to about 230,000 Wisconsin households. CenturyLink Inc. will receive $330 million, Frontier Communications will be given $186 million and AT&T Inc. will get $54 million, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://bit.ly/1Q56bQg ) reported.

The FCC said it plans to spend more than $10 billion to subsidize broadband expansions nationwide over the next five years, using money paid by telecommunications customers as part of the $4.5 billion-a-year Universal Service Fund.

Wisconsin is second only to California in the dollar amount allocated to states from the Connect America Fund II program, while Minnesota is ranked fifth and Michigan is sixth, according to the FCC.

The Fox Valley and Eau Claire areas likely will be the first to benefit from the spending, said Scott VanderSanden, president of AT&T Wisconsin.

The program is an incentive for telecom companies to expand in areas that otherwise wouldn't receive broadband expansions soon because of the cost, he said.

"This money is specifically earmarked to go to those parts of the state," VanderSanden said.

Under the program's terms, the companies taking the money must build at least 40 percent of their expansion commitments by the end of 2017, and all of it by the end of 2020.

One in three rural Americans lack adequate broadband service, a high-speed Internet connection capable of handling data through fiber-optic cable or other means. Many rural areas are limited to a slow-speed connection that isn't suitable for certain purposes, including watching videos or operating a business.

The lack of broadband service is a problem for areas such as northern Wisconsin that are missing business opportunities, according to economic development officials.

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Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — A man accused of robbing a Minot bank left behind a few bucks for his son — and plenty of clues for investigators.

Authorities say the suspect in the Jan. 21 theft donned distinct purple-framed glasses, left pieces of the note demanding money behind in his hotel room and mumbled under his breath about the theft in front of a social worker handling his son's foster care.

Charles Norton, 45, is facing a federal charge of bank robbery. Court documents do not list an attorney for Norton, who has yet to appear in court.

An affidavit shows that Norton, 45, handed a teller a note that read, "IM ROBING YOU MONEY OUT OF TILL NOW!!" The teller pulled money from the currency drawer and gave it to Norton after he said he wasn't kidding. The teller later described the suspect's outfit, including "the subject's glasses as purple-framed glasses that stood out as very different, and she kept looking at them," the affidavit reads.

After Minot police asked the public for assistance, the manager of a Minot hotel contacted authorities to tell them one of his guests wore purple-framed glasses. A search of the room discovered torn pieces of paper in the toilet and on a table that were "consistent with the paper that the bank robbery note was written on," the affidavit says.

Police also heard from a case manager for Norton's son who is currently in foster care in Williston. The child allegedly told the social worker that Norton had described a plan for the robbery that would include a note and not a weapon.

The social worker said Norton arranged a last-minute meeting with his son after the bank robbery, at which time he handed over some money and whispered something about a bank robbery. The child said Norton gave him $20, the affidavit says.

A court date has not been scheduled.

CROOKSTON, Minn. (AP) — A Crookston man is accused of driving drunk in a motorcycle crash that killed his wife in September.

Forty-four-year-old Corey Reitmeier was charged by summons with criminal vehicular homicide. He is scheduled to make his first appearance in Polk County court Thursday.

Reitmeier's wife, 43-year-old Wendy Reitmeier, was seated behind him when their motorcycle collided with a deer on a county road in northwestern Minnesota on Sept. 28.

The Star Tribune (http://strib.mn/1nYxa3R ) reports Corey Reitmeier's blood alcohol content after the crash was measured at 0.18 percent, more than twice Minnesota's legal limit.

Neither Reitmeier nor his wife was wearing a helmet. The complaint says Wendy Reitmeier died from "extensive head trauma."

A phone message left for Reitmeier was not immediately returned Monday. The office of his defense attorney declined comment.

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Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com