Gov. Greg Gianforte is calling for new protections for children and teenagers on social media, saying parents need more support as concerns grow over screen time, addictive design and the effects of online platforms on young people. Gianforte visited Skyview High School in Billings, where he met with students, parents, educators and lawmakers to discuss Read More…
The Billings Gazette is preparing to leave its longtime downtown headquarters and move several blocks away to Granite Tower, the latest real-estate move by parent company Lee Enterprises as the newspaper chain continues to reshape its business amid years of financial pressure. The Gazette said its staff will work remotely before moving into the new Read More…
The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in August, a stronger-than-expected showing that offered fresh evidence of resilience in the labor market as manufacturing and construction hiring picked up. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%. August payroll growth was well above the average monthly gain over the previous year. The White House pointed to the Read More…
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen and 15 other state attorneys general have opened an investigation into OpenAI over potential violations of consumer-protection and data-privacy laws following a security incident involving one of the company’s experimental artificial-intelligence models. The investigation centers on an incident this summer in which an OpenAI model allegedly accessed outside computer networks Read More…
Federal prosecutors have charged Erekle Gugava, a 33-year-old Georgian national who authorities say is in the U.S. illegally, with conspiracy to launder money in connection with what the Justice Department describes as the largest health care fraud case it has ever prosecuted. Gugava allegedly served as a money launderer for a transnational criminal organization operating Read More…
Montana State was picked to finish second in the Big Sky Conference women’s golf preseason coaches’ poll, giving the Bobcats one of the league’s highest expectations heading into the 2026-27 season. The Bobcats received 88 points and two first-place votes from the conference’s 11 head coaches, who were not allowed to vote for their own Read More…
The Department of War announced an investment of $11.4 million in Defense Production Act Title III funds to Stellant Systems, aimed at increasing the manufacturability and capability of space-based Traveling-Wave Tube Amplifier production at the company’s facility in Torrance, Calif. The funding also supports the administration’s goal of strengthening key space industrial base capabilities, as Read More…
The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service have issued proposed regulations that would end federal tax-exempt status for private schools that engage in racial discrimination, an action officials said delivers on President Trump’s executive orders aimed at ending discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity. “Under President Trump, this Administration is standing up for Read More…
Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat will feature a crowded general election field this November, after minor-party candidates were certified to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot alongside the major-party nominees. Libertarian Shawn Johnson and Constitution Party candidate Jeffrey Haggit both made the cut and will join Republican Chuck Gray and Democrat Lisa Kinney in the Read More…
Musk’s super PAC recently dropped almost a quarter-million dollars boosting the Republican Senate nominee, who has seen a recent surge in outside support yet continues to lag in fundraising. WASHINGTON — Elon Musk’s America PAC waded into Texas’ U.S. Senate race for the first time in recent days, dropping almost $250,000 to boost Attorney General Ken Read More…
(The Center Square) – As inflation concerns dominate the midterm landscape, the candidates in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race are offering competing solutions to bring costs down. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is challenging incumbent Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, in a race the Cook Political Report rates a toss-up. Republicans hold a slim 53-45 majority in the Read More…
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Committee’s 2026 Midterm Convention in Dallas, joining a national lineup of Republican officials and candidates as the party turns its attention toward the November elections. Knudsen, who also serves as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association, is scheduled to address the Read More…
Last week made the economy look a little less fragile. It did not necessarily make it stronger. Employers added 162,000 jobs in August, unemployment held at 4.1%, and June and July were revised higher by a combined 55,000 jobs. After several weak months, the labor market may have found a floor. But a bottom is Read More…
Ask most folks what built the Powder River Basin, and they’ll tell you it was hard work and good coal. Both are true, but the trigger was federal policy. When President Nixon signed the Clean Air Act of 1970 and created the EPA, the new sulfur limits sent power companies hunting for low-sulfur coal —Northeastern Read More…
On August 5, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division withdrew a business review letter it issued to Institutional Shareholder Services back in 1987. Four months earlier, the Labor Department told the same industry it had been acting as an ERISA fiduciary all along, welcome or not. Two federal agencies, working from two different statutes, landed on Read More…
Americans hear endless talk about the southern border – walls, surges, gotaways – but few know about one of the border’s biggest vulnerabilities: the Tohono O’odham Nation’s reservation. Stretching across roughly 2.8 million acres of Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona, this sovereign tribal land shares about 62 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. That stretch is Read More…
When President Trump singled out Brad Gerstner during his State of the Union address in February, the venture capitalist rose to a standing ovation. Trump called him “a very tremendous guy” who was “behind it right from the beginning” — a reference to Trump Accounts, the federal child savings program that launched in July and Read More…
U.S. stocks showed improving short-term breadth in the latest session, with more issues advancing than declining on both the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange, even as longer-term measures continued to point to a market that remains uneven beneath the surface. On the Nasdaq, 1,623 stocks advanced compared with 1,395 decliners, while 116 were unchanged. Read More…
Oracle Corp. is set to report fiscal first-quarter 2027 earnings after the market close on Sept. 8, a release Wall Street expects to trigger one of the stock’s characteristically sharp post-earnings swings as investors weigh the company’s aggressive cloud infrastructure buildout against near-term margin pressure. Analysts expect Oracle to report earnings of $1.40 per share Read More…
GameStop shares rose after the video-game retailer revised the terms of a convertible-note exchange that will eliminate about $1.4 billion of long-term debt while using relatively little of the company’s cash. Under the amended agreement, noteholders will receive roughly 55.5 million shares of GameStop Class A common stock and about $358.4 million in cash. The Read More…