A North Dakota school boards organization has returned over $140,000 to the state and ended its role in a teacher exchange program months after an indictment was unsealed against a former state lawmaker, who traveled to Europe on the state funds and later was accused of traveling to Prague with the intent of paying for sex with a minor.

Voters in three small South Dakota counties on Tuesday rejected initiated measures to require hand-counting of ballots in future elections.The votes in Gregory, Haakon and Tripp counties were an unusual step even as other places in the U.S. have considered moving to hand-counting in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s claims of 2020 election fraud.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is on the clock.Two House committees have voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress. House Republicans aren’t pleased with Garland failing to cough up an audiotape of the transcribed interview Special Counsel Robert Hur conducted with President Biden in the classified documents case. Garland released a transcript of the interview.

President Biden has shown signs of poor cognitive performance in private meetings with congressional lawmakers, as his age and mental acuity continue to come into question ahead of November’s presidential election.Biden, 81, is the oldest person to hold the presidency and has faced skepticism from voters and Republican lawmakers about his ability to do his job.

State Auditor Troy Downing has won the Republican primary race for Montana’s 2nd Congressional District, a seat currently held by Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., who is not seeking re-election.Rosendale has held the seat for several terms, launching a long anticipated Senate bid in February before dropping out just one week later. Weeks after jumping out of the Senate race, the Republican announced he would not seek re-election – leaving the GOP seat open.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, on Tuesday fended off a conservative GOP primary challenge, setting up what is expected to be a close race this fall with a Democratic challenger.Miller-Meeks won against David Pautsch, an advertising executive, former Army tuba player and Gold Star father in the race for the GOP’s nomination for the 1st congressional district.Miller-Meeks was first elected to Congress in 2020 by a slim margin of just six votes but expanded that advantage in 2022.

Former senior firearms sales executive Ryan Busse has won the Democrat nomination in the Montana gubernatorial race to unseat Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte in November. While most of Montana’s statewide leadership are currently Republican, the state’s governor’s seat was occupied by a Democrat for nearly a decade before being flipped red in 2020 by Gianforte.