Predicting how the warm winter will affect populations of pests is not easy, says Ada Szczepaniec, South Dakota State University Assistant Professor and SDSU Extension Entomologist.

“It depends largely on particular pest species and their biology,” Szczepaniec said. “For example, insects that overwinter above ground are more likely to be affected by warmer winter weather than insects that overwinter below ground, where temperatures do not fluctuate as much.”

Szczepaniec adds that insects develop based on temperature, and will become active earlier if temperatures are significantly warmer during winter and spring months.

However, if there is no source of food or large temperature swings occur after insects break dormancy, they will likely incur high rates of mortality and may not become any greater threat to the crops than any other year.

“One thing is certain, however, scouting should start early this year, and we should monitor closely what pests are reported in the southern portions of the state as the migrating pests come in,” Szczepaniec said.

Specific insects Szczepaniec says growers should monitor their fields for include: alfalfa weevils, cutworms, blister beetles, wheat aphids and grasshoppers.

“Cutworms, particularly in the northwestern part of the state, may become active soon, if they have not shown up in fields already,” said Jonathan Nixon, SDSU Extension Entomology Field Specialist with the Rapid City Regional Extension Center.

Nixon reported that grasshopper populations have been unusually high for this time of year in the western parts of South Dakota. Because larvae of blister beetles feed on grasshopper eggs this will mean greater numbers of blister beetles in alfalfa fields,” she said.

“In the coming weeks, scouting for wheat aphids should also intensify, as they are likely to start to infest fields in early to mid-May this year.”

The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department has sold more than twice as many annual resident fishing licenses than it did at this point last year thanks to an unseasonably warm spring.

The department had issued 18,917 annual resident licenses as of March 27, outpacing the 7,867 sold by that date in 2011 by more than 140 percent.

GF&P spokesman Chuck Schlueter said many people have been buying early to take advantage of the good fishing now, but officials hope the strong sales continue through summer.

“We would give almost all the credit to that change in weather and how pleasant the weather’s been,” Schlueter said. “Fishing’s been good, but fishing was good last year, too.”

Employee John Andrus said business has been brisk at Captain Norm’s bait shop and convenience store in Yankton, with nearly 13,000 South Dakota permits and almost 6,000 Nebraska licenses sold in March.

Customers were reeling in plenty of walleye earlier and now are landing catfish, drum and white bass during their outings, Andrus said.

Annual South Dakota resident combination licenses, which include fishing and small game hunting, have outpaced last year’s sales by more than 42 percent so far this year. The department also noticed a bump in nonresident one-day, three-day, annual and family fishing licenses, with sales of each more than doubling.

Schlueter said annual fishing license sales have been fairly steady over the past five years, peaking in 2009 at 59,427 and declining by about 700 each of the past two years.

Officials said they’re excited by the early trend this year.

“We’ve had some cold wet springs several times over the last few years,” Schlueter said. “The flooding event last year took a big bite out of fishing opportunity.”

Schlueter said fishing and hunting license sales even rose in the midst of the economic downturn in 2008, and outdoors activities have proven recession-proof over the past 30 years.

While 23 states currently have no statute of limitations on some form of sexual assault, prosecutors in several states — including South Dakota, where Loetscher now lives — remain bound by laws that restrict the length of time they can charge someone for a sex crime.

In South Dakota, prosecutors can only charge a suspect in a rape case up to seven years after the crime was committed or until the victim is 25, whichever is longer.

Loetscher, now 33, hopes to change that with the help of her friend, South Dakota state Sen. Mark Johnson, who has introduced a bill in the state Senate that would eliminate the state’s statute of limitations for rape cases.

“As a survivor, it’s really frustrating the law says something I have to live with the rest of my life has a deadline,” Loetscher said. “You can look at other crimes — stealing a car — and you will get over that. You can buy another car. You can get insurance. But with crimes of sexual assault, you live with that for the rest of your life, every day. We shouldn’t be allowing these perpetrators to suddenly get a free pass because, oh there, I can mark that day off the calendar and it’s free and clear.”

It wasn’t until last year that Loetscher traveled to the small Nebraska town where she was born and raised to confront the former family friend she alleges abused her trust and sexually assaulted her over a period of nine months.

“It was surreal,” she said of that day last January, which she refers to as her second birthday. “As a child, you’re not in a position to process and work through what’s happened to you. I was 32 years old before I could finally do what I wish I could have done at 15.”

The Nebraska Legislature has since eliminated the statute of limitations for some criminal prosecutions, including certain sex crimes. Loetscher said a lawyer told her that it was too late to pursue criminal charges. The Associated Press does not normally name the victims of sexual assault unless they speak publicly about their story, as Loetscher has done.

Johnson says the change he’s proposing in South Dakota is important because it can take victims longer than the time allowed under the law to come to grips with what happened to them.

“There is no statute of limitations for murder in South Dakota. I would argue there should be no statute of limitation for the crime of rape, as well, because it’s one of the most vile things a person can do to another person,” said Johnson, R-Sioux Falls, adding that he has received positive feedback from other victims and advocacy organizations.

The statute of limitations varies widely from state to state and among criminal and civil courts, said Jeff Dion, deputy director for the National Center for Victims of Crime. Beyond the 23 states that have no statute of limitations on some form of sexual assault, several others allow for the statute of limitations to be extended in cases where DNA evidence is available.

South Dakota has one of the shortest statute of limitations for rape cases at seven years or until the victim is 25. Still, prosecutors in other states have even less time. In Indiana, prosecutors must press charges within five years for some felony sexual assaults, while the statute of limitations can be as short as three years for some felonies in Hawaii, according to a database of state laws compiled by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.

Scott Berkowitz, founder and president of Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, said there’s been a trend over the past decade to lengthen the statute of limitations in sex crimes cases.

“The theory of the statute of limitation overall, they were necessary because witnesses memories fade,” Berkowitz said.

But the advent of DNA technology as well as the child sex abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church has brought renewed attention to the issue of limiting prosecution in rape crimes, Dion said.

“The law has begun to recognize the science of why victims can take a long time to report,” Dion said. “Now states are realizing there is an opportunity for justice.”

The Florida Legislature passed a bill in 2010 eliminating the statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases.

“It took three or four years to get it through, but it ultimately passed the Legislature unanimously,” Dion noted.

But defense lawyers say prosecuting a rape decades later can be problematic because eyewitnesses’ accounts change.

Even in cases where there is forensic evidence, there can be wrongful convictions, said Lisa Wayne, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Many of the inmates exonerated by the Innocence Project were sent to prison based on DNA evidence that was later found to be mishandled or tainted in how it was gathered, she said.

“There is this sense that if there is DNA, there must not be a mistake,” she said.

Wayne, who lives in Colorado, a state that has no statute of limitations, says most of the cold cases prosecuted are for homicides, and few are solely for sex offenses.

Still, Johnson is pushing forward with the change in South Dakota. He, Loetscher, and representatives from advocacy organizations are scheduled to testify in support of the bill at a committee hearing next week.

Loetscher, who owns her own public relations firm, has started focusing more of her time advocating for victims of sexual abuse. Besides spearheading the legislation in South Dakota, she is working to create a camp for child sex abuse victims. She said she is considering filing a civil lawsuit against the man she alleged raped her.

While she wishes the rape had never happened, Loetscher said she is going to make sure something positive comes from her experience.

“It’s saying this is one of the ugliest things that can happen to someone, but I will put a purpose to it,” she said.

Daugaard, a Republican, and the GOP-controlled Legislature last winter made deep cuts in education, health care and other programs to fix a $127 million shortfall for the current budget year. Daugaard on Tuesday proposed what he called modest spending increases in those key programs for the budget year beginning next July.

Daugaard’s spending plan includes 4.5 percent increases in state aid to school districts, state spending on universities and technical institutes, and reimbursements to nursing homes, clinics and other facilities that provide health care to poor people in the Medicaid program. But much of the increased spending would be one-time additions that would not be built into the base of ongoing spending expected in future years.

The governor also proposed a 3 percent across-the-board raise for state employees, whose paychecks have been frozen for three years because of budget problems. State employees also would get a one-time bonus equal to 5 percent of their annual salaries to partly offset their loss in purchasing power due to inflation in the years they got no raise.

The state’s university system would get an ongoing increase of 0.9 percent costing $1.4 million, with another 3.6 percent in one-time payments totaling $5.9 million. South Dakota’s four technical schools also would get a mix of ongoing and one-time money.

South Dakota public university faculty, however, are not guaranteed to see the raise. They are barred by state law from receiving across-the-board pay raises due to the SD Board of Regent’s Salary Competitiveness Plan, which established a different pay system for university faculty.

Chris Jones, who was arrested April 20, 2010 for sexually assaulting three women, including two SDSU students, asked the South Dakota Supreme Court to be resentenced by another judge. (File photo)

MITCHELL, S.D. (AP) — The lawyer for a man convicted of rape and kidnapping in a string of sexual assaults in Brookings last year asked the South Dakota Supreme Court on Tuesday to order that he be resentenced by another judge.

Chris Jones’ lawyer, Rick Ribstein, said another circuit judge should sentence Jones because Circuit Judge David Gienapp exceeded the state’s recommended sentence after the prosecutor failed to publicly note the plea agreement recommending a 70-year prison term during the sentencing hearing.

“He didn’t follow through with the promise. That’s what set this in motion,” Ribstein said.

Jones, 22, pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree rape and one count of first-degree kidnapping as part of the plea agreement. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop lesser charges and cap the prison time to 70 years — making Jones eligible for parole after 35 years.

But Gienapp handed Jones a sentence exceeding the plea agreement last November. Jones filed a motion for a new sentencing hearing with a different judge.

Gienapp denied the motion for a new judge and resentenced Jones a month later to a sentence similar to the original one. Jones received 80 years in prison for the three rape convictions and 75 years — with 55 years suspended — for the kidnapping charge.

Assistant Attorney General Donald Tinklepaugh said the prosecutor was “not trying to make some underhanded attempt to get this longer sentence” and the breach was corrected with the resentencing. He asked the state Supreme Court to affirm the second sentence.

The five justices heard the case at Dakota State University in Mitchell. The court will issue a written decision later.

Justice Glen Severson noted that the written plea agreement was included in the presentencing report.

But Ribstein said Gienapp may not have reviewed that report.

“Prosecutors have a duty to note it at sentencing,” he said. “Judges are busy. They sentence five to 10 people a day sometimes.”

Ribstein also said comments the prosecutor made at the original sentencing calling Jones a “psychopath” and “an animal that should be caged” may have led the court to believe Jones should be given a sentence exceeding the plea agreement.

Tinklepaugh disagreed.

“The prosecutor said on three different occasions that he supported the 70 years and his previous comments were in support of 70 years. The judge also acknowledged the state was in favor of a 70-year plea agreement,” he said.

A different sentencing judge would be unfamiliar with the case and its history, Tinklepaugh said.

Ribstein acknowledged another judge also could give Jones a sentence exceeding the plea agreement.

“Even though it may be the same sentence, he’ll get what he bargained for,” he said.

The top Senate Democrat said Nov. 30 he would move to force a test vote this week on a measure to give tens of thousands of young illegal immigrants a path to legal status.

Sen. Harry Reid, the majority leader in the Senate, said he would schedule action on the so-called Dream Act, which would give more than 100,000 young immigrants brought to the United States before the age of 16 a chance to become legal residents if they attend college or join the U.S. military.

It is unclear whether Reid can muster the 60 votes necessary to move to an up-or-down vote on the measure. It has some degree of bipartisan support but is opposed by most Republicans and some Democrats who regard it as little more than an amnesty grant for illegal immigrants.

A coalition of labor and immigrant advocacy groups announced Nov. 30 they are launching a radio and print advertising campaign to pressure Republican senators to support the measure. Targets include Florida Sen. George LeMieux, Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, Nevada Sen. John Ensign and Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

“This is the chance for Republicans to show they can rise above all the hate-mongering and all the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the campaign season,” said Mitch Ackerman of the Service Employees International Union, which counts many undocumented workers among its members.

Still, the debate over the measure is fraught with politics. Reid vowed earlier this month, in the thick of his tough re-election fight in heavily Hispanic Nevada, to hold a vote on the bill when Congress returned to finish its end-of-the-year business.

He won with the help of Hispanic voters, who also played a major role in sparing other Democrats, including Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Barbara Boxer of California, from being toppled by a Republican wave.

Frank Sharry of America’s Voice, an immigrant advocacy group, said the election showed that lawmakers who “lean into” the immigration issue reap benefits at the polls.

“There was a firewall in the West where Latino voters turned out in big numbers to reward people who championed them,” Sharry said. “We’re going to try to make it painful” for those who oppose efforts to give illegal immigrants a path to legal status,” he said.

The battle for enactment of the Dream Act comes amid frustration by Hispanic activists and their advocates that President Barack Obama has not pressed harder for a broad immigration overhaul to give several million illegal immigrants a path to legalization.

Addressing the plight of a much smaller population of young immigrants is seen by these groups as a down payment on such a measure, after its prospects were destroyed earlier this month when Republicans won the House and larger numbers in the Senate.

#1.1814467:471961019.png:YuccaHearingDcjpg.png:Nevada Sen. Harry Reid was identified by Parade Magazine as a leader with ?integrity and guts.? Reid is the U.S. Senate majority leader.:Website Photo

Brookings Police Chief Jeff Miller says an arrest has been made in a rape case.

Miller did not immediately release details early Wednesday.

A 24-year-old woman was kidnapped, raped and robbed in the city early Tuesday. Authorities said the suspect matched the description of the suspect in two recent sexual assaults on the South Dakota State University campus.

The string of assaults rattled the community, and Miller earlier cautioned women not to go out alone after dark.

Eight South Dakota college students will work, learn and get paid for it this summer, thanks to a pilot program established last year by Gov. Mike Rounds.

The students also will get college credit.

Under the Washington internship program, they’ll be paid about $5,475 each while gaining work experience in areas of personal interest in the nation’s capital.

Students chosen for the program have agreed to return to South Dakota for at least one semester of college credit or one year of employment after their internships.

The internships are arranged by the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars.

The students were nominated by their college or university, which agreed to award academic credit for the internship experience.