Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson won a four-way Republican primary for an open U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin. Thompson will face Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin in the general election this fall. Democratic incumbent Sen. Herb Kohl is not running for his fifth-term.

The new survey of Oil Patch residents bears out the old saying that money can’t buy happiness. Sixty percent of longtime northwest North Dakota residents say they have benefited economically from the oil boom, but the majority say their quality of life has not improved, according to the report by the University of North Dakota.

The Associated Press reports honeybees produced 6.4 million pounds in Minnesota last year. Wisconsin also had an off year, down 12 percent. North Dakota is the nation's leader producing nearly 33 million pounds of honey in 2011.

The number of oil drilling rigs at work in North Dakota is leveling off, and a state regulator says that's a good thing because the pause "will allow infrastructure and various other things to catch up."

An oil boom has brought great prosperity – but also great amounts of waste – to North Dakota, investigative reporting by ProPublica reveals. Data obtained by ProPublica show oil companies are spilling and dumping drilling waste onto North Dakota's land and into its waterways with increasing regularity. Many dumpings along roads and in pits go unreported, state regulators acknowledge.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will get a high-profile speaking spot at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., later this month, putting a spotlight on one of the party's rising stars.

Voters in North Dakoka -- flush with oil boom money and enjoying the lowest unemployment in the nation -- had the chance Tuesday to become the first state to cast off property taxes. But in the end, voters decided to keep the $800 million a year the taxes raise.

Jack Reich, 43, of Zap, N.D., who recently served as the North Dakota Stockmen's Association president, was among the three killed in a crash near Dodge Center on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. His son, 10-year-old Vander, was also killed. They were returning from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester where a tumor was removed from the boy's brain after he was diagnosed with cancer Oct. 22. Their vehicle collided head-on with a pickup truck on Highway 14, and the pickup driver also died.