Gene Hetland

Donald Moeller was sentenced to death for the kidnapping, rape and murder of nine-year-old Becky O'Connell of Sioux Falls.

Read More|Comment

Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky still says he's innocent of child sexual abuse, but a jury says otherwise.

And now he will spend at least 30 years in prison, and he would have to be nearly 100 before he can possibly get out

Read More|Comment

This would be funny if it didn't have to be so serious, and maybe you've heard about it.

Seems a 32-year-old guy in Florida entered a roach-eating contest. That's right, a roach-eating contest.

And he won, but he didn't live long to savor the victory, so to speak

Read More|Comment

I saw a story about some cities that are trying to solve their homelessness problems by essentially making it a crime to be homeless.

Oh not in so many words.

They're just writing tickets for people who do what many homeless people tend to do, like smoke in  park, for example

Read More|Comment

The retail stores have had their Halloween merchandise on the shelves and in the aisles for weeks, and in many outlets you can't walk past a display without a motion sensor setting off an ersatz goblin or witch to screeching or worse

Read More|Comment

I saw a story this week about the official governor's residence in Idaho.

Seems the house is a money pit and the state wants to give it back to the family who donated it.

But the family doesn't want it back

Read More|Comment

Have you raked leaves yet?

I have to admit, I haven't, even though most of the leaves have dropped from our two ash trees.

Truth be known,  our trees aren't the best-looking in town, or even on our block

Read More|Comment

A guy who's facing prosecution in Pennsylvania is known as the "Bucket List Bandit," apparently because he told a teller in a bank he was robbing that he was terminally and had only a few months to live

Read More|Comment

I guess this had to happen, although it's not going on around here.

In some parts of the country, ranchers who have been dealing with drought reportedly are cutting their neighbors' fences so their cattle can graze on someone else's land

Read More|Comment

The ban on texting while driving that took effect September 28 in Sioux Falls could spread, but at least one South Dakota city will leave it to the Legislature.

Sioux Falls police say officers wrote no tickets for texting behind the wheel during the first weekend the ban was in effect

Read More|Comment