From the Grand Forks Herald:
The remains of a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex unearthed from northwest South Dakota in 1998 eventually could be headed back to the state.
A federal judge has ruled that a lease between Harding County and the team of fossil hunters that dug up the fossil, nicknamed Tinker, was invalid because it did not follow South Dakota law.
Ken Barker, a Belle Fourche, S.D., attorney representing Harding County, said the effect of the order is that the county owns Tinker and any other dinosaurs found on its site. But the homecoming for Tinker, 65 million years old and believed to be about 90 percent complete, is not certain.
The T. rex is sitting in storage in Pennsylvania under the jurisdiction of a federal bankruptcy court after the man hired to restore the fossils filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.
