DOUG BURGUM

The Republican Party’s 2024 presidential field is all but set after a trio of new announcements this week.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum touted his small-town roots and business experience as he announced his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

When Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina launched his campaign for the White House, the notoriously prickly former President Donald Trump welcomed his new competitor with open arms.

Republican-controlled states across the U.S. are adding restrictions on how schools should handle transgender students.

Under a proposed rule change, foreign citizens and companies would need U.S. government approval to buy property within 100 miles of eight military bases.

With measures to protect abortion access becoming law in two states, a ban in a third state and court action elsewhere, the status of abortion law in the U.S. remains unsettled.

Teachers in North Dakota can still refer to transgender students by the personal pronouns they use, after lawmakers failed to override the governor’s veto of a controversial bill to place restrictions on educators.

North Dakota public schools and state agencies would be prohibited from using any pronouns for students and employees that don't reflect their sex at birth, under a bill approved by the legislature.

The U.S. Air Force is telling North Dakota leaders it believes a Chinese company’s plan to build a wet corn milling plant near the Grand Forks Air Force Base poses a national security threat.

North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum’s expensive effort to influence the GOP primary and reshape the Legislature with more people who support his spending and policy goals was a mixed bag.

Fifteen Republican governors have sent a letter to the U.S. Commerce Secretary, urging that the U.S. Census bureau release redistricting data as soon as possible.

It's not that people in Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa and elsewhere don't realize their states are leading the nation in new cases per capita. “They don’t think it’s real," she said. Like most people, Jay Stibbe, 52, of Fargo, North Dakota, said he and his family are respectful of COVID-19 protocols and wear masks where required. However, Stibbe said he doesn’t see enough “concrete information” about the virus to stop him from going about his normal life, even though North Dakota leads the nation in the number of virus cases per capita. ___Associated Press writers David Pitt in Des Moines, Iowa, and Dave Kolpack in Fargo, North Dakota, contributed to this story.

(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)NEW DELHI — Authorities in India are reporting 36,470 newly confirmed coronavirus infections — that’s the lowest one-day tally in more than three months in a continuing downward trend. The case number reported Tuesday is the lowest since India had 35,065 newly confirmed infections on July 17. ___MADRID — Spain has reported 52,188 new coronavirus cases and 279 new confirmed deaths since Friday. ___ROME — Italy registered slightly more than 17,000 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Monday. Italy’s total of known coronavirus infections during the pandemic now stands at 542,789.

(AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Authorities in Sri Lanka have closed the country’s main fish market and widened the curfew in many parts of the island nation following a surge of coronavirus infections related to a new cluster centered on a garment factory. — Boston schools will switch to all-remote learning in response to rising coronavirus cases in the city. Kelly said Wednesday that two-thirds of the state’s confirmed cases now are outside the Wichita and Kansas City region. On Wednesday, the state reported its first patient to the field hospital on the state fairgrounds in West Allis outside of Milwaukee. ___ROME — The Italian region of Lazio, which includes Rome, is imposing an overnight curfew to combat surging coronavirus infections.

– Rural Jerauld County in South Dakota didn't see a single case of the coronavirus for more than two months stretching from June to August. As the brunt of the virus has blown into the Upper Midwest and northern Plains, the severity of outbreaks in rural communities has come into focus. In recent weeks, he's watched as one in roughly every 37 people in his county has tested positive for the virus. As cases surge, hospitals in rural communities are having trouble finding beds. “It's very, very challenging when your resources are poor — living in a small, rural county,” she said.

When it comes to the virus, Burgum has used his weekly press briefings to give emotional, sometimes teary pleas supporting face coverings, while emphasizing a “light touch” by government. A mask mandate “is not a magic bullet to make this virus go away,” he said. North Dakota is one of 16 states without a mask mandate. North Dakota hasn't elected a Democratic governor since 1988. More than five dozen North Dakota pediatricians recently signed a letter urging Burgum to mandate masks.

But that's not the message coming from a number of Republican governors in the region, who are working to find silver linings in the ominous health data as outbreaks surge in their states. North Dakota's governor has called his state's test positivity rate an achievement, even though its rate of new cases tops the nation. Kim Reynolds, however, has defended the state's decision to reopen bars and send students back into classrooms without masks required. Some governors are even pushing back against Trump's own advisers for giving blunter assessments of their states' situations. Hutchinson has continued resisting calls to roll back some of the state's reopening, saying he's relying more on personal responsibility.

The directive comes amid concerns about an uptick in coronavirus cases in certain Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods with large Orthodox Jewish populations. New York City’s current overall infection rate remains low, but official figures indicate the affected neighborhoods accounted for 20% of the city’s coronavirus cases in recent weeks. ___BOSTON — An outbreak of coronavirus infections at a major Boston hospital has grown to 19 confirmed cases. ___DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa has reported a jump of 1,086 new coronavirus cases, the second consecutive day of new cases exceeding 1,000. There are currently nearly 985,000 worldwide coronavirus deaths.

The argument over masks raged this week in Brookings, South Dakota, as the city council considered requiring face coverings in businesses. I worry about that.”Over 1,000 students at the states' four largest universities (the University of North Dakota, North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University and University of South Dakota) left campus to quarantine after being exposed to the virus, according to data released by the schools. North Dakota Gov. North Dakota's average rate of test positivity has been nearly 22% over the last seven days, according to the the COVID Tracking Project; South Dakota's has been 17%. "They are worried about being overwhelmed.”___Kolpack reported from Fargo, North Dakota.