Bill Barrow, Author at The Rapid City Post

FILE - In this March 9, 2007 file photo, a guinea worm is extracted by a health worker from a child's foot at a containment center in Savelugu, Ghana. (AP Photo/Olivier Asselin, File)

World creeps closer to eradicating human Guinea worm cases, with just 10 last year: Carter Center

January 30, 2026

The Carter Center says there were only 10 reported cases of Guinea worm infections confined to three countries in 2025. The new record low comes barely a year after the death of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who said often that he hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm infection in people. When the Carter Center set out to eradicate Guinea worm infections in the mid-1980s, the parasite still afflicted millions of people in developing countries. If successful, Guinea worm would join smallpox as only the second human disease to be eradicated. In 2025, four human cases were reported in Chad, four in Ethiopia and two in South Sudan. Animal infections still number in the hundreds.

FILE - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks at the Federal Reserve, Dec. 10, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Trump’s list of targeted opponents grows longer with action against Minnesota’s governor

January 20, 2026

Jerome Powell isn’t the first high-profile official to find himself targeted by the Justice Department since Donald Trump returned to the White House. The Republican president pledged in his inaugural address his government would apply the law fairly — unlike the way he said federal power had been turned against him. What’s happened since is a string of indictments and inquiries and failed attempts at indictments against a long line of people who’ve crossed Trump. The list includes Federal Reserve governors who won’t cut interest rates fast enough for Trump, former directors at the CIA and the FBI, and prosecutors who’ve investigated and even won cases against him.

President Donald Trump answers questions after signing a bill that returns whole milk to school cafeterias across the country, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump’s Insurrection Act threat stands out against the law’s long history

January 15, 2026

Donald Trump would not be the first president to invoke the Insurrection Act, as he has now threatened to do as a way to send U.S. military forces to Minnesota. But he’d be the first to use the 19th century law to send troops to quell protests that started because of federal officers the president already has sent to the area — one of whom shot and killed a U.S. citizen. The law allows presidents to use the military domestically but only on rare occasions. It has been invoked on more than two dozen occasions but not much since 20th Century’s Civil Rights Movement. And some legal experts say nothing in Minneapolis justify using the act again now.

Trump’s list of targeted opponents grows longer with action against Powell and the Federal Reserve

January 12, 2026

President Donald Trump finishes his remarks in an address to the nation from the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Trump gave an unusually partisan White House address. Should networks have given him the TV time?

December 18, 2025

Donald Trump’s White House asked TV networks to grant him airtime for the first national address of his second presidency. The networks said yes. Trump proceeded to fill 18 minutes with falsehoods and exaggerations while blaming his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for the nation’s problems. It was a grab-bag highlight reel from his stemwinding rally speeches that most Americans never see in full, and it raised questions about whether networks should grant a president airtime just because he asks. People familiar with the process say networks are in a difficult spot. More often than not, networks grant presidents’ requests for time.

FILE - DNC chair candidate Ken Martin speaks at the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting in National Harbor, Md., Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr., File)

Democrats keep 2024 election review under wraps, saying a public rehash won’t help them win in 2026

December 18, 2025

Democrats won’t issue a postelection report on their 2024 shellacking after all. The Democratic National Committee head has decided not to publish a formal assessment of the party’s defeat that returned Donald Trump to power and gave Republicans complete control in Washington. Ken Martin had ordered a thorough review of what went wrong and what could be done differently. Martin now says there’s no value in a public release of findings that he believes could lead to continued infighting and recriminations before the 2026 midterms when control of Congress will be at stake.

FILE - This combination photo shows Brian Jack, left, speaking at a campaign rally, March 9, 2024, in Rome, Ga. and Lauren Underwood speaking with reporters, Aug. 9, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, Nathan Howard)

Another blue wave? Meet the Democrat trying to make it happen and the Republican trying to stop her

December 14, 2025

Brian Jack is a first-term Republican congressman from Georgia, but he’s become a key figure in the Oval Office. Jack is the top recruiter for his party’s House campaign team and he regularly reviews potential candidates with President Donald Trump. On the Democratic side, Lauren Underwood of Illinois is working to recruit Democratic candidates to challenge the Republicans’ House majority. Both lawmakers were shaped by the 2018 midterms, when Democrats flipped many Republican seats during Trump’s first term. In the 2026 midterms, Underwood is aiming to repeat that success, while Jack is focusing on supporting Trump’s agenda.

FILE - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign event at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Oct. 15, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

Trump’s breakup with Greene is not the same as others. But like always, there may be second chances

November 22, 2025

President Donald Trump’s chaotic political universe has at least one consistent law that rises above any other: The president has no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is the latest figure to test that Trumpian rule after announcing her plans to leave Congress in January. Greene originated as a leading face of the “Make America Great Again” movement. That makes her different from many mainstream conservative Republicans who have gone back-and-forth in their relationships with Trump. The president also has implicitly left the door open to making up.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris greets people before she speaks, Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, in Birmingham, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

In AP interview, Harris says Democrats ‘are standing up for working people’ in government shutdown

October 17, 2025

Kamala Harris sounds like a party elder and a future candidate at the same time. In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, the former vice president says she’s staying in touch with Democrats on Capitol Hill and urging them to stand strong during the government shutdown. But she’s also offering plenty of ideas about the future of the Democratic Party — and making clear she is part of it in some capacity. She has not ruled out running again in 2028. But she says that Democrats have a deep bench of leaders and potential presidential candidates. She cautioned against Democrats pining after “the one” party savior and called on them to let many voices be heard.

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth watches in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Sept. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump’s push to change Department of Defense to ‘War Department’ would turn back the clock to WWII

September 5, 2025

President Donald Trump’s push to rename the Department of Defense goes beyond subjective word choices about what to call the military agency. He argues that the historical name – the War Department – better reflects the bottom-line mission. But the idea also would continue Trump’s rejection of the international order established after World War II. Congressional action is still required. The original War Department name traces back to the first Congress after the Constitution was ratified. It carried through the War of 1812, the Civil War and two world wars. After World War II, Congress renamed the Pentagon agency “the Department of Defense,” and U.S. foreign policy and military rhetoric shifted to talking about “peace through strength.”

President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the Oval Office to mark the 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump was once a Republican Party outsider. Now it’s his GOP and the MAGA faithful are in the lead

August 23, 2025

Donald Trump was the Republican Party outsider in 2016. Now the party belongs to him. The shift was on display in Atlanta this week as members of the Republican National Committee made Florida conservative Joe Gruters the latest party chairman. Trump had picked Gruters and called him a “MAGA warrior.” The committee’s roster now includes dozens of other loyalists who embrace Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and “America First” approaches. That’s quite a turn from his presidential campaign in 2016. Republicans say Trump has reshaped their party and become much more directly engaged in making sure party leadership reflects his views and interests.

This combination of photos shows Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear in Frankfort, Ky., Jan. 8, 2025, from left, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper in Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 12, 2024, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore in Annapolis, Md., May 15, 2025, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker in Washington, June 12, 2025, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Washington, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo)

Democratic governors may offer a path forward for a party out of power in Washington

August 4, 2025

Democrats are out of power in Washington but hold 23 governors’ seats, including in five of the seven presidential battlegrounds Donald Trump swept last year. Some Democratic activists see that slate as the party’s best counter to the Republican president and evidence the party is not in as much disarray at it might sometimes seem. U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill is leaving the House minority to run for New Jersey governor. Sherill says the statewide job matters because governors have to get things done to improve people’s lives. Sitting Democratic governors have won minimum wage increases, expanded Medicaid insurance coverage and shored up abortion rights. The question is whether Democrats can scale those victories to federal elections.

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., speaks to supporters about plans to run for the governor of Alabama in 2026, Tuesday May 27, 2025 at Byron's Smokehouse in Auburn, Ala. (AP Photo/ John David Mercer)

Hall of Famers. A Heisman winner. An MMA fighter. Tuberville is not the only sports politician

May 28, 2025

Tommy Tuberville is a U.S. senator running for Alabama governor. His new campaign paraphernalia recognize his old job: coach. The former football coach at Auburn University leaned into that branding after announcing his bid for office Tuesday. It’s a deliberate tactic that demonstrates how figures like Tuberville transition from athletics to politics. Others have done it successfully, from Gerald Ford to Bill Bradley. Though there are no sure bets, as Herschel Walker’s bid for Senate showed. And as women’s professional sports grow in popularity, one expert says more women could use the platform to seek public office.

Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Colmon Elridge addresses a "Rural Listening Tour" gathering in Paintsville, Ky., Friday, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Bill Barrow)

The Democrats’ path back to power might start in places like this Appalachian town

May 24, 2025

Kentucky Democrats are trying to address the party’s steep deficits in overwhelmingly white, conservative pockets of rural America. A recent “Rural Listening Tour” stop by the state party leaders in a small Appalachian town reflected that challenge. It also showed they can have a presence everywhere. A generation ago, Democrat Bill Clinton won Kentucky twice, including pluralities in Johnson County, where Donald Trump won big in 2024. The state party chair, Colmon Elridge, says he’s committed to showing up in small-town Kentucky, and he points to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear as a model for Democrats to follow nationally in connecting with rural voters.

Bill Barrow.