(The Center Square) – Pennsylvania government has a $5.7 billion problem, and close observers of those running the state don’t anticipate seeing a full solution 46 days from now when the 2026-27 budget deadline arrives. The latest projection from the state Independent Fiscal Office is for a budget deficit of $5.7 billion next fiscal year. Read More…
The Department of War has awarded $27.3 million to Pacific Scientific Energetic Materials Company, bringing its total investment in the solid rocket motor supply chain to $191 million since December 2024, as the Pentagon moves aggressively to close production gaps in a segment it considers strategically vital. The latest award, funded through the Defense Production Read More…
For years, litigators, activists and scientific experts have called on the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the litany of local lawsuits related to the herbicide glyphosate. As the court deliberates on the case Monsanto v. Durnell, they will soon get their wish. The case is nominally about pesticide labels. The question lurking behind Read More…
North Central Judicial District Judge Todd L. Cresap has announced he will retire effective July 17, 2026, ending a judicial career that spans nearly two decades in northwestern North Dakota. Cresap was first appointed to the bench in 2009 by Gov. John Hoeven to serve as District Court Judge for the North Central Judicial District Read More…
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is leading a coalition of ten state attorneys general in calling on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to conduct a rigorous review of any filings submitted by OpenAI ahead of the company’s anticipated initial public offering, citing concerns about undisclosed conflicts of interest involving chief executive Sam Altman. In Read More…
As the fourth largest state in the U.S. with the sixth smallest population, each agency relies on another for niche expertise, whereas bigger agencies can potentially accomplish everything on their own, said Adam Pankratz, deputy chief of Montana State University’s police department. These relationships start to form during basic training, which 14 future officers from Read More…
Montana has vaulted from 22nd to 8th in national fiscal health rankings over the past four years, according to a new report from Truth in Accounting, a nonpartisan think tank that annually evaluates the financial condition of all 50 states. The 2025 Financial State of the States report credited Montana’s rise in part to revenues Read More…
(The Center Square) – Parental rights group the American Parents Coalition is urging Congress to review federal funding of the American Academy of Pediatrics, alleging that the organization prioritizes politics and gender ideology before children’s health while using tax dollars. Executive director of American Parents Coalition Alleigh Marré told The Center Square that “President [Donald] Trump’s Read More…
A new endowment at the Montana State University Alumni Foundation aims to support Montana students for generations to come, thanks to a $1 million investment from the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation. The endowment will permanently fund the D.A. Peressini Legacy Scholarship, named for father and son Donald and Daniel Peressini. Both attended MSU and Read More…
UND’s Vets2Wings program will continue helping veterans and National Guard members pursue aviation careers through 2030 following a new $3 million federal investment secured by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. The additional funding extends a program that launched in late 2022 through a partnership between UND, the Federal Aviation Administration and congressional leaders. The program is Read More…
AZ Lemonade Stand, an Arizona-based premium lemonade brand, is rolling out across Montana retailers this month, bringing five flavors to Town Pump, Super 1 Foods, Rosauers, and Thriftway Food Stores locations statewide as the company pushes deeper into western markets. The launch includes the brand’s Original, Strawberry, Mango, and Prickly Pear varieties alongside a Huckleberry Read More…
Six Montana airports will share more than $25 million in federal grants to fund a range of safety and infrastructure improvements, the office of Rep. Ryan Zinke announced, with the largest single award going to Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport for a taxiway extension project. The grants come from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Improvement Program Read More…
Bozeman has earned recognition as one of the country’s leading entrepreneurship hubs, with Gallatin County landing in the 98th percentile on a national index measuring entrepreneurial activity in rural communities, Gov. Greg Gianforte announced at an event in the city this week. The ranking comes from the Center on Rural Innovation’s Rural Entrepreneurship Index, developed Read More…
July 4, 2026, marks our nation’s 250th birthday. For two and a half centuries, patriotic men and women have fought and sacrificed so this country remains free, sovereign, and governed by “we the people,” not by federal bureaucrats. A 250th anniversary is rare in a nation’s life. It is also a unique opportunity for a Read More…
A new survey of likely GOP primary voters in Montana’s 1st Congressional District shows Aaron Flint holding a narrow lead in a race where one-third of voters remain undecided, with significant room for ballot movement ahead of the June 2 primary election. The poll, conducted May 5-7 by Public Opinion Strategies, surveyed 400 likely Republican Read More…
Wall Street closed out a turbulent week on a sour note Friday, with all three major indexes posting sharp declines that erased much of the gains built up through a historic midweek rally, leaving investors to weigh record stock prices against rising inflation, elevated oil prices, and unresolved geopolitical tensions. For the week, the S&P Read More…
(The Center Square) – Democratic senators are advancing a series of proposals to tax America’s wealthiest households, with supporters projecting trillions in new federal revenue. Critics, however, argue the plans would generate far less than promised while creating economic and legal complications. Democrats have introduced four major proposals this year aimed at millionaires and billionaires. Read More…
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen filed a response with the Montana Supreme Court this week asking it to dismiss a petition brought by Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell, escalating a months-long dispute over whether local officials must share criminal justice records with federal immigration authorities. The clash traces back to October 2025, when Cromwell advised Read More…
North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong has appointed Phil Davis, currently the agency’s workforce service director, to serve as interim executive director of Job Service North Dakota when Executive Director Pat Bertagnolli retires on June 12. Davis has spent nearly two decades with the agency, joining in 2007 as an industry liaison before being promoted the Read More…
As law enforcement agencies across the country mark National Police Week, a nonprofit staffed by veterans of the intelligence community and special operations forces is working to close one of the most persistent gaps in the fight against human trafficking: the shortage of dedicated intelligence support for investigators pursuing cases that move fast and leave Read More…
For generations of Americans, their first bear encounter was with one wearing a wide-brimmed hat and holding a shovel, instructing on the dangers of wildfire and protecting wildlands. UM forestry student conducts a prescribed burn at UM’s Lubrecht Experimental Forest, where hands-on wildfire training reflects the same stewardship ethos embodied by Smokey Bear. Not much Read More…
The Department of War on established a new task force to streamline the return of former service members who were separated for refusing the military’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate, as the Pentagon works through a backlog of more than 800 troops who have expressed interest in rejoining the force. Secretary Pete Hegseth created the Covid-19 Reinstatement Read More…
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned 10 individuals and companies spanning the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern Europe on Friday, targeting what officials described as procurement networks funneling weapons and aerospace-grade materials to Iran’s military — including components found inside recovered Iranian attack drones. The Office of Foreign Assets Control, acting under an executive order targeting Read More…
Last Thursday night on Long Island, 22-year-old Rony Yahir Alvarenga Rivera allegedly hacked his 32-year-old roommate to death with a knife in their shared apartment. Three hours later he walked into the local Wendy’s where he worked, ambushed his 42-year-old coworker as she took out the trash and stabbed her repeatedly in the neck and Read More…
(The Center Square) – More than 200 children were rescued and more than 350 child sex offenders arrested in one month in the latest Department of Justice targeted enforcement operation to find child sex abuse victims and arrest child sex predators. The operations are nationwide and involve staff from all 56 FBI field offices and Read More…
The bipartisan legislation aims to stabilize American defense production lines by coordinating group buys among smaller allied nations that struggle to navigate the current arms sales process. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R., Mont.) and Rep. Ami Bera (D., Calif.) introduced legislation Thursday that would make it easier for groups of allied countries to jointly purchase American-made Read More…
The civil complaint alleges that Victor Manuel Rocha lied his way through the naturalization process while secretly serving Havana for decades. The Justice Department filed a civil complaint Thursday seeking to revoke the U.S. citizenship of Victor Manuel Rocha, a former American ambassador who admitted to spying for Cuba for more than four decades, in Read More…
The Justice Department filed suit against the State of New Mexico, the City of Albuquerque, and their respective governors and attorneys general, charging that recently enacted sanctuary laws violate the Constitution’s supremacy clause and illegally impede federal immigration enforcement operations. The complaint, filed in federal court alongside a motion for a preliminary injunction, takes aim Read More…
(The Center Square) – The North Dakota Supreme Court ruled this week that Greenpeace International cannot keep pursuing most of its lawsuit against Energy Transfer in the Netherlands as the pipeline company’s case moves forward in North Dakota. The dispute stems from litigation surrounding disruptive protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace Read More…
(The Center Square) – The nation’s largest pro-life organization filed an amicus brief Thursday in the U.S. Supreme Court asserting the impossibility of ensuring informed consent without an in-person doctor’s visit as it relates to the abortion pill, since anyone can order the drug online. President of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Marjorie Dannenfelser told The Read More…
The U.S. economy added 177,000 jobs in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, surpassing Wall Street expectations and extending a run of stronger-than-forecast hiring that has characterized the labor market in early 2026. The headline number bested the consensus estimate among economists surveyed by Bloomberg, continuing what the White House described as a Read More…
The lawmakers pressed China’s leadership on fentanyl, agricultural market access, and Boeing aircraft purchases ahead of an anticipated Trump-Xi summit next week. A bipartisan group of five U.S. senators held three high-level meetings in Beijing on Friday with China’s top leadership, including Premier Li Qiang and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in a rare diplomatic overture Read More…
A former state senator has publicly identified herself for the first time as the source of a confidential 2018 sexual harassment complaint against state Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, directly challenging his recent claims that allegations against him are part of a politically motivated smear campaign. Jennifer Gross disclosed Friday in a post on her Substack Read More…
A Montana minerals exploration company marked its arrival on a U.S. national securities exchange Thursday when Silver Bow Mining Corp. leadership rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, roughly a week after the Butte-based company completed its initial public offering. Silver Bow Mining began trading on the NYSE American exchange under the Read More…
Government programs often spiral out of control, harming the very people they were supposed to help. Obamacare was full of such perversities. The most obvious are skyrocketing prices caused by a law that claims to make care “affordable.” While fixing the structure requires action by Congress, the Trump administration has gone into the policy weeds Read More…
The final decision reverses a Biden-era authorization that allowed non-production bison to graze on more than 63,000 acres of federal land, ending a four-year legal and political fight by Montana’s governor, attorney general, and congressional delegation. The Bureau of Land Management issued a final decision canceling the American Prairie Reserve’s bison grazing permits on more Read More…
(The Center Square) – Another international human smuggling ring exploiting lax Canadian border security and visa processes has been thwarted by U.S. officials. Mexican smuggling at the U.S.-Canada border isn’t new but during the Biden and Trudeau administrations, illegal activity increased to record levels that exploited weak Canadian border security and lax visa policies, The Read More…
The governor held a town hall in Sidney and visited a string of small businesses and nonprofits across five counties, using the tour to tout property and income tax reforms ahead of the next legislative session. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte brought his 56 County Tour to the state’s southeast corner this week, holding a town Read More…
A wave of new economic data is pointing to broad-based strength across the American economy, with improvements in housing, manufacturing, consumer confidence, and the labor market. Housing New residential construction surged last month to its highest level in more than a year, reflecting strong momentum in expanding housing supply. Home prices declined on an annual Read More…
The North Dakota Department of Commerce announced that the North Dakota Development Fund Inc. (NDDF) has expanded its eligibility criteria to include non-primary sector businesses. The change is intended to open financing opportunities for more rural businesses and community organizations that previously did not qualify for support. The updated guidelines allow for-profit businesses, specific nonprofits Read More…