The past year’s population growth rate in the United States was the slowest in a century due to declining births, increasing deaths and the slowdown of international migration, according to figures released Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The U.S. grew from 2018 to 2019 by almost a half percent, or about 1.5 million people, Read More…
JACKSON, Wyo. — Third quarter Wyoming economic summary report was released this week indicating growth is slowing worldwide and in the Cowboy State as well. Wyoming continues to rebound from the severe downturn in 2015-16 but the pace slowed somewhat in after the first quarter of 2019. Total employment grew by 1.2 percent (3,570 jobs) Read More…
North Dakota will again enlist the help of Hollywood actor Josh Duhamel to help promote tourism in his home state. North Dakota’s tourism department confirmed Tuesday to The Associated Press that the star of several “Transformers” movies will be paid $175,000 to be the face of the state’s tourism campaign for the next two years. The state Read More…
MISSOULA, Mont. — Between taxes, marijuana and a presidential election, 2020 will be a busy year for voters. There are 10 issues proposed already, but not all of them have enough signatures yet. That means it’s still up in the air whether the following initiatives will make it to the ballot. The Marijuana Regulation Act One Read More…
State health officials are worried as the number of Montanans diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease continues to rise. Montana’s gonorrhea numbers — expected to total 1,500 cases in 2019 — haven’t been this high in 40 years, according to the Department of Public Health and Human Services. Dana Fejes, the state STD/HIV Read More…
LOS ANGELES — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was campaigning for Bernie Sanders at a jampacked beach-side rally last week when she took a moment to look beyond 2020. “I know, and we all know, that this isn’t just about Bernie Sanders,” she said. “This is about a movement that has been decades in the making.” Since endorsing Read More…
After declaring he would refuse to comply with a subpoena in President Trump’s impeachment trial, Joe Biden backtracked and said he would testify if hauled before Senate lawmakers. The former vice president on Saturday sought to clarify the comments he made on Friday when he told the Des Moine Register’s editorial board that the grounds to call Read More…
Pasadena (United States) (AFP) – The Mars 2020 rover, which sets off for the Red Planet next year, will not only search for traces of ancient life, but pave the way for future human missions, NASA scientists said Friday as they unveiled the vehicle. The rover has been constructed in a large, sterile room at Read More…
Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates was also a money-spinner in 2019, raking in $22.7billion, reports Fortune. It said that 172 billionaires in the US on the latest Bloomberg ranking “added $500billion” in personal wealth. The report comes two months after Facebook Inc reported a spike in users in lucrative markets, and its third straight rise in Read More…
The 2010s brought dramatic changes to North Dakota’s energy landscape as “the Bakken” became a household name, wind turbines grew bigger and the coal industry doubled down on research efforts. The development of the Bakken shale play came just as the recession of 2008 left many Americans unemployed or in debt. The promise of high-wage Read More…
College Gazette, an online higher education magazine, has recognized Montana State University on its list of the top 10 public universities on the rise across the nation. To compile the list, College Gazette chose schools that have made measurable strides over the past 20 years in a variety of areas, including their programs, student Read More…
Ask Glacier Park International Airport Director Rob Ratkowski what the big storyline of 2019 was and he has a simple answer: passenger growth. “It was huge,” Ratkowski said of the 15 percent increase in passengers moving through the airport in 2019. “And next year will be even bigger.” Ratkowski said he expected boarding numbers at Read More…
HELENA — The Montana Lottery drew the winning ticket number for the 2019 Montana Millionaire game on Friday morning. The grand-prize winning ticket is number 042230. It was sold at a Town Pump in Kalispell. All 180,000 tickets of the $20 tickets were sold out by 1:12 p.m. on December 2nd – five days earlier than Read More…
BOZEMAN — Montana’s ban on flavored vaping products has been in effect for about a week and already some people have found a way to get around it. “Having customers having access to a safe product, you know, that’s the goal,” said Freedom Vapes co-owner Ron Marshall. After one day of a 120-day temporary ban Read More…
Kevin Washington, a minority owner of CryptoWatt, the cryptocurrency mining plant in Butte, says he’s “the biggest victim, by a mile” of the plant’s majority owner, Matthew Goettsche, who has been indicted in connection with an alleged $722 million Ponzi scheme. In a telephone interview Saturday, Washington said he is trying “at all costs” Read More…
Montanans earning the minimum wage will see the rate increase to $8.65 per hour beginning January 1, 2020. The 2019 minimum wage in Montana is $8.50 per hour. Currently, 29 states and D.C. have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. A press release from the Governor’s office says that an Read More…
The Lake County Commissioners are doubling down on their opposition to a proposed bill that would ratify the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes water compact. Montana’s two U.S. senators, Jon Tester and Steve Daines, are co-sponsoring a bill, the Montana Water Rights Protection Act, that would ratify the water compact at the federal level. It would Read More…
The Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, who with a net worth of about $54 billion is the wealthiest member of the 2020 field, used prisoners to make phone calls to California for his 2020 campaign, The Intercept reported on Tuesday. Bloomberg’s campaign contracted a New Jersey-based call-center company called ProCom via a third-party vendor. ProCom has call centers in Read More…
HELENA — A federal judge has ruled that Native American tribes, including the Fort Belknap Indian Community, can continue with a lawsuit over President Donald Trump’s approval of the Keystone XL pipeline project. U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris issued the ruling last Friday. The Fort Belknap and Rosebud Sioux tribes have claimed Trump exceeded Read More…
Montana has experienced 461 oil and gas spills since 2015, according to a new factsheet by Environment Montana Research & Policy Center These accidents have released a total of 6 million gallons of wastewater and 298,000 gallons of oil onto Montana land and waterways. “The research is clear: when you drill, you spill,” said Skye Borden, Read More…
We’ve learned it’s a Georgia-based timberlands company that will be purchasing Weyerhaeuser’s Montana holdings, in a deal announced last week. Weyerhaeuser made headlines three years ago when it decided to close its Columbia Falls mill not long after buying Plum Creek Timber in an $8 billion deal. It cited a “continued shortage” of logs to Read More…
It was 11 minutes past 2 a.m. when the order to stand up was given inside the C-141 Starlifter cruising over Panamanian airspace. The “cherry” paratrooper next to then-Maj. Paul D. Schambach was struggling to comply — likely due to the mortar base-plate and three rounds he was hauling. “He was a stout young man, Read More…
Dennis Muilenburg, the CEO of Boeing, resigned Monday morning after a string of malfunctions in Boeing’s 737 Max airliner led to the worst year on record for the plane-maker. Boeing has struggled to rectify issues related to its 737 Max, which President Trump grounded in March after two crashes took the lives of more than 300 people. Read More…
A former FBI analyst was sentenced to seven days in jail Friday after admitting he illegally accessed an email address belonging to a right-wing Washington lobbyist as part of his efforts to expose an alleged smear campaign against Special Counsel Robert Mueller. SPECIAL COUNSEL NOTIFIES FBI OF ALLEGED SCHEME TO PAY WOMEN FOR FALSE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST MUELLER The former Read More…
FARGO — North Dakota’s average annual economic growth rate of almost 5.8% led the nation during a decade that witnessed the beginning and end of the boom in the Oil Patch. The growth of North Dakota’s economy and population from 2010 through 2019, in fact, was so significant that the decade can be thought of Read More…
CASPER, Wyo. — Cities and towns in Wyoming currently have the option of joining the state’s health insurance pool to provide coverage to their employees. Casper, for example, is set to join the state’s pool in January. But a bill that will come before the Wyoming Legislature in spring 2020 would prevent municipalities from joining Read More…
In a letter to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the CEOs of Wyoming’s two largest hospitals and the head of Children’s Hospital Colorado urged the government to reject an effort by the state Department of Health that seeks to lower the cost of air ambulance trips, lodging a complaint that a state Read More…
The Montana Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association is offering 2020 calendars featuring “glamour shots” of sheriffs from across the Treasure State to raise funds for charity. The Association said on Facebook calendars are $10 each and available by contacting local sheriff’s offices. Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin started the “Sheriff Glamour Shot Challenge” in September, Read More…
WASHINGTON — Kendra Espinoza sends her daughters to Stillwater Christian School, in Kalispell, Mont. The girls are thriving, but the tuition bills are steep. Ms. Espinoza, a single mother, has worked three jobs, raffled off quilts and held yard sales to help make the payments. She had also hoped to get some money from a Read More…
To celebrate his graduation, Nicholas Balcken will likely raise a glass — of Blackfoot River Brewing Company beer. On Friday, Balcken became the first participant in the Montana Registered Apprenticeship Program to receive a Professional Brewer Certificate. With this credential, the Blackfoot River Brewing Co. employee said, “I hope to be able to develop better beers and improve my Read More…
Using Berkeley Pit water to help power Los Angeles with renewable energy? A global leader in power systems is talking with state and local officials about doing just that. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power System America Inc. has met with Montana Resources, Atlantic Richfield, NorthWestern Energy and Butte-Silver Bow officials in recent months. Last week, the company Read More…
The Little Shell Tribe has been fighting for federal recognition for more than a century and as of Friday, their fight is over. On Friday, the National Defense Authorization act for 2020 was signed by the president, making the federal recognition of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians officially become law. The bill was Read More…
The CEO of Wawa is apologizing after the convenience store chain became a center of a massive data breach. According to an open letter from Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens, the company discovered malware on Wawa’s payment processing servers between December 10 and 12 of 2019. Gheysens said in the letter that the same malware affected Read More…
Some students at a Missoula elementary school have received an early Christmas present. Lowell Elementary School Principal Barbara Frank recently received an anonymous donation of $5,300, made in honor of Eileen Lake, to pay off all outstanding cafeteria balances at the school. While the school district did shift away from the providing free breakfast and Read More…
MISSOULA — Head coach Bobby Hauck and the Montana football team signed 17 new Class of 2020 recruits to the team during Wednesday’s early signing period on National Signing Day. Seven of Montana’s newest signees hail from the Treasure State while three come from California, two from Oregon and Utah and one each from Idaho, Read More…
A former Helena elementary school teacher has been given a three-year deferred sentence for felony drug possession, stemming from an August traffic stop where authorities found cocaine, LSD, methamphetamine and psilocybin mushrooms in his vehicle. Eric Lehman, who is married to Democratic state superintendent of public instruction candidate Melissa Romano, pleaded guilty to the charge Read More…
HELENA — A third-generation rancher from Helena, Montana won the Montana Farm Bureau Young Farmer and Rancher Discussion Meet back in November. The prize was a brand new Polaris Ranger and an all-expense paid trip to compete in the national competition in Austin, Texas coming up in January. Rocky Forseth says, “We can take a Read More…
STRONG (SUN JOURNAL) — A former Montana woman was arrested Saturday at a Strong residence in connection to the death of her 5-month-old daughter on Sept. 25 in Montana. She allegedly had methamphetamine in her system and was slumped over her child in a vehicle when police found her in Butte, Montana, according to a Read More…
BILLINGS — Seven Montana TV stations owned by Cowles Media, including KFBB in Great Falls, have been unable to produce normal newscasts since last Monday after a cyber-attack infected computer operating software. “Systems and software are integrated among all the TV stations. The attack to the vital software has caused delays in video feedback and Read More…
More than three years after California voters broadly legalized marijuana, a state panel is considering if its potent, high-inducing chemical—THC—should be declared a risk to pregnant women and require warnings. Studies have indicated that a rising number of mothers-to-be have turned to marijuana products for relief from morning sickness and headaches, though it’s effectiveness has Read More…