Latest ND news from AP for Sat Mar 5

STATE FAIR ENTERTAINMENT

Kid Rock to headline North Dakota State Fair in July

MINOT, N.D. (AP) — Kid Rock will headline the North Dakota State Fair this summer, and several top country acts and an award-winning rapper also are scheduled to perform. Officials on Friday announced the grandstand entertainment lineup for the nine-day fair that gets underway July 22 at the State Fairgrounds in Minot. Kid Rock and 1980s rock band Night Ranger will open the fair. Koe Wetzel and rapper Nelly also will perform. Country acts scheduled to perform are Cody Johnson, Elvie Shane, Will Banister, Old Dominion and Sam Hunt Other grandstand entertainment includes a demolition derby and the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Indian Horse Relay.

CORRECTIONS CENTER-FIRE

Man accused of setting corrections center fire charged

WAHPETON, N.D. (AP) — A Fairmount man accused of setting a fire at the Richland County corrections center has been charged with arson. Prosecutors say the 24-year-old man carried a backpack into the Law Enforcement Center in Wahpeton Tuesday, removed a “cylindrical container” and lit it on fire in the lobby. The fire damaged the lobby and sent smoke throughout the building, causing officials to move the jail’s 15 inmates to other county lockups. Authorities say the defendant holed up in his home Thursday when police arrived and was finally arrested after about five hours. The standoff caused Fairmount Public Schools to temporarily lock down as a precaution.

CROP INSURANCE FRAUD-CHARGES

McLean County farmer pleads not guilty to insurance fraud

WASHBURN, N.D. (AP) — A central North Dakota farmer has pleaded not guilty to crop insurance fraud. Fifty-eight-year-old Kent Pfaff, of the Washburn area, has been released on a personal recognizance bond. U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland on Thursday scheduled a trial to begin April 19. An indictment accuses Pfaff of providing false crop insurance claim information to insurance companies and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency between December 2019 and June 2020 in order to increase his payments. The indictment doesn’t list a dollar amount involved in the alleged scheme. The charge against Pfaff is a felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison, a $1 million fine, and five years on supervised release.

RUSSIAN-UKRAINE WAR-INVESTMENT

North Dakota aims to drop all investments in Russia

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota board has signaled it would cut all investments in Russia in the wake of that country’s invasion of Ukraine. North Dakota’s 12-member State Investment Board discussed its future investment strategy in a closed session Thursday. North Dakota is among many states where actions were being taken to pull state investments from Russian companies. North Dakota officials on Monday said the state had just under $16 million in investments “with Russian entity exposure.” The exposure had dropped by more than a third to $10 million Thursday due to money managers pulling investments, and the decreased value of other investments.

FAIRMOUNT STANDOFF

Police arrest North Dakota man suspected in jail explosion

FAIRMOUNT, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota man suspected of setting off an explosive device in a jail earlier this week was arrested after setting fire to his garage and barricading himself in a house. The five-hour standoff ended without incident Thursday after a SWAT team was summoned from the Fargo-Moorhead area to help negotiate with the suspect. Police recovered weapons and possibly some more explosive devices in the residence. Authorities had earlier obtained a search warrant for the suspect’s home as part of the investigation into an explosion and fire Tuesday in the lobby of the Richland County Law Enforcement Center in Wahpeton, north of Fairmount. Fairmount is located next to the Minnesota border and about 10 miles from South Dakota.

DONATED MARIJUANA

Minot charity finds marijuana among donated goods

MINOT, N.D. (AP) — Workers sorting through donations for the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch in Minot made an unexpected discovery recently. And, the source of the donation may be even more surprising. An individual handling a garbage bag of donations found marijuana inside, cannabis that was traced to the Berthold Police Department. Berthold Police Chief Al Schmidt said his department takes donations of clothes, blankets and other items to the Minot ranch. A recently closed case involved marijuana, and the evidence was set out to be destroyed. Schmidt says it was inadvertently placed in a truck of donated items that was headed for the ranch.