GREAT FALLS — The four-member staff of a Montana county’s health department has resigned, citing a lack of support by the county in fighting the coronavirus. A letter from Health Department Director Nicki Sullivan to the Pondera County Commission highlighted the need for a fairer wage, more transparency and additional contact tracers and staffers. “I want Read More…
MISSOULA, Mont. — This state is now red. Not the light red it used to be; not a red-and-blue checkerboard coaxing the eyes to see purple. Just a deep red. Every statewide race in Montana went Republican this week, with record voter turnout: president, Senate, House, governor, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor. And both Read More…
First Interstate BancSystem (FIBK) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.76 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.68 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.79 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 11.76%. A quarter ago, it was expected Read More…
Elizabeth Warren wants to be Joe Biden’s Treasury secretary and will make her case for it if he wins next week, according to three Democratic officials who have spoken with her inner circle. “She wants it,” two of them said matter-of-factly. Warren’s moves could set up the marquee fight between the party’s left and its Read More…
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Bernie Sanders is the latest figure endorsing Portland mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone. Sanders’ endorsement late Thursday endorsement came the same day Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty announced her backing of incumbent Ted Wheeler’s challenger. The former presidential hopeful and current U.S. senator from Vermont also endorsed Chloe Eudaly in her Portland City Read More…
Whether dark money is a problem in North Dakota depends on who you ask. “Absolutely there’s problems with transparency in elections here,” Ellen Chaffee, a proponent of the Ethics Commission, said. “I don’t think dark money is a real problem in North Dakota,” Bismarck Republican Sen. Dick Dever said. Dark money refers to political spending Read More…
Stephanie Kodish is used to opposition to her work. In her job with the National Parks Conservation Association, she pushes utilities to comply with environmental laws. That can mean installing expensive new anti-pollution technology on coal plants, or even closing them down. Last year, though, she encountered a completely new kind of opposition that left Read More…
HELENA- Results are in for the Montana Youth Vote 2020. The election was held Thursday in many schools throughout Montana and results were finalized at 4:00 pm. Around 4,500 students from Montana schools participated in the election. Two demographics were polled, grades K-6 voted for the President and other age-appropriate questions and grades 7-12 voted Read More…
New York (CNN Business)Ted Cruz yelled. His Democratic colleague Brian Schatz called the hearing in which he was speaking “a sham.” Committee chair Roger Wicker couldn’t pronounce the last name of Google’s CEO. Just another day on Capitol Hill for Big Tech. In a contentious hearing on Wednesday, the CEOs of Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG) and Twitter (TWTR) were questioned by Senators Read More…
HOUSTON, Texas — Just in time for the holiday, Amazon is doing a mega-seasonal hiring event, which includes new jobs available in Houston. According to a release, the company is adding 100,000 new seasonal jobs across the U.S. and Canada, to complement its regular full- and part-time positions. Some 2,800 of those positions are in Read More…
After an evening of peaceful protests in the wake of the police killing of Walter Wallace Jr., tensions flared between officers and demonstrators Tuesday evening, and scattered looting broke out in several areas of the city, prompting police to request that residents of West and North Philadelphia, Kensington, and other areas remain indoors. Police and demonstrators Read More…
HELENA — A new grassroots organization has been created to help individuals and businesses challenge COVID mandates in Montana for what they call government overreach. The Freedom Protection Project was created by the organizers of the “Let Freedom Ring” concert that was held at the beginning of October in the Helena Valley. “A lot of Read More…
Two environmental groups have filed separate lawsuits to stop the Soldier-Butler timber project in the Ninemile Valley after U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided there was no long-term harm to grizzly bears. On Monday, the Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Citizen Task Force sued the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Missoula federal court Read More…
Passenger counts at Missoula International Airport continue to rebound from the deepest days of the pandemic, though they remain far below what they were at the same point last year. Still, the climbing numbers have airport officials feeling more optimistic than they were over the summer, when they were bracing for possible cuts to service. Read More…
With less than one week to go until election day, Montana’s Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) is bringing two of the US Senate’s heavy hitters to the Treasure State. Both Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) and Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R) will be in Montana. Rubio hit Great Falls on Tuesday, while Ted Cruz will be in Read More…
“The Big Sky Buy-off.” That’s how they coined the effort by Democrats to get former Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) out of the Senate and into the post as US Ambassador to China. They had to buy-off Baucus, so the Democrats could have a head start on the 2014 US Senate race. Now, there are fresh allegations Read More…
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is getting grilled in Pennsylvania ever since he said during last week’s debate that he plans to “transition” away from the oil industry. In three separate local news interviews in the key battleground state on Saturday, Biden responded to questions about his comment, as well as his mixed messages regarding fracking. “Look I’m from Read More…
Last Thursday night former Vice President Joe Biden created a huge problem for himself. He made an astounding mistake for a career politician — he accidentally told the truth. Most will recall this critical moment in the presidential debate: President Trump: Would you close down the oil industry? Biden: I would transition from the oil industry, yes. Read More…
Businesses in South Dakota now have an extra week to get aid from the state government program established to help make up for losses incurred due to COVID-19. While tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, small businesses and nonprofits took advantage of federal aid this spring when President Donald Trump signed the CARES Act into law, Read More…
Gov. Mark Gordon is allocating remaining CARES Act funds to help Wyoming businesses and nonprofits with ongoing coronavirus-related losses and expenses. The Wyoming Business Council is finalizing two new funds for the COVID-19 Business Relief Program: the Agriculture Fund and the Endurance Fund. Applications for both funds will be accepted from Nov. 2 through Nov. Read More…
North Dakota voters are deciding whether to reelect their only congressman, a freshman incumbent, or pick someone new for the next two years. U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., is seeking a second term. He’s challenged by Democratic-NPL nominee Zach Raknerud, a retail manager in Minot, and Libertarian Steven Peterson, a Fargo business owner. In Read More…
A state financial report released Monday showed a General Fund shortfall of $451.1 million and a school funding shortfall of $300 million, according to a news release from Gov. Mark Gordon. The Consensus Estimating Revenue Group’s forecast is slightly better than projected in May, but the state’s revenue collections have experienced a significant decline. “I Read More…
As the unpredictable nature of the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect every industry differently, sawlog prices in Montana are reaching record levels, said F.H. Stoltze Land and Resource Manager Paul McKenzie. “The product demand has increased dramatically in general forest products,” he said. According to the University of Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research Read More…
Responding to a request from the Montana Department of Corrections, Governor Steve Bullock and Major General Matthew Quinn have activated the Montana Army National Guard to provide operational assistance at Montana State Prison, where staff and inmates have been impacted by COVID-19. The facility saw its first positive cases among staff and inmates earlier in Read More…
WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste Political Action Committee (CCAGW PAC) announced its endorsement for Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) for re-election to the Senate and Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for governor. CCAGW PAC based its endorsements on the candidates’ lifetime score in CCAGW’s 2019 Congressional Ratings. Sen. Daines has a lifetime rating of Read More…
It’s less than two weeks before election day and Montana on Thursday again set a new record for COVID-19 cases reported in a single day with more than 900. Whoever is elected as Montana’s next governor will inherit oversight of the state’s response to the pandemic. Yellowstone Public Radio’s Nicky Ouellet and Rachel Cramer discuss Read More…
North Dakota’s Game and Fish Department is offering license refunds to more than 9,000 deer hunters due to an outbreak of disease in western North Dakota. State wildlife officials in August began documenting deer deaths due to epizootic hemorrhagic disease — commonly called EHD. “Loss of deer to this disease appears to have extended into Read More…
CASPER, Wyo. — The City of Evanston have applied for a $3 million grant and a $1,109,607 loan from the state to build a 60,000 acre square foot manufacturing facility at their Union Center Business Park. The facility would accommodate the relocation of Avalon International Aluminum, according to the Wyoming Business Council. The WBC Board of Read More…
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Wyoming State Parks and Historic Sites are proposing a fee increase effective January 1, 2021. The public is invited to attend information meetings as well as submit comments by November 14. Wyoming State Parks Deputy Director Dave Glenn explained the proposal saying, “All revenue collected through visitor fees goes right back to Read More…
A court document containing detailed information about Ghislaine Maxwell and her relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unsealed on Thursday morning in New York just moments before a court-imposed deadline. This document, an April 2016 deposition, is among about a dozen long-awaited Maxwell files that have been unsealed, with the first filing involving Epstein accuser Virginia Read More…
Graphics chip giant Nvidia mopped up the floor with its competition in a benchmark set of tests released Wednesday afternoon, demonstrating better performance on a host of artificial intelligence tasks. The benchmark, called MLPerf, announced by the MLPerf organization, an industry consortium that administers the tests, showed Nvidia getting better speed on a variety of Read More…
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to subpoena Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify about allegations of anti-conservative bias, ratcheting up GOP pressure on the social media companies’ content policies before the November elections. How the vote went down: The Judiciary Committee voted 12-0 to authorize the subpoenas, with all Read More…
You have to do something extraordinary to unite Elizabeth Warren and Bill Barr. But that’s what Google has done. President Trump’s attorney general and personal fixer has filed an antitrust suit against the trillion-dollar internet titan. And the Massachusetts senator, who despises everything about the Trump administration and has called on Barr to resign, is cheering Read More…
Sen. Bernie Sanders is hoping to be a part of Joe Biden’s potential administration and has expressed a particular interest in becoming Labor secretary, two people familiar with the conversations tell POLITICO. “I can confirm he’s trying to figure out how to land that role or something like it,” said one person close to the Read More…
MISSOULA — Over the past 20 years, Montana’s registered apprenticeship program has sent more than 3,300 workers into good-paying jobs, with another 2,400 on the way, according to a new report. On Wednesday, Gov. Steve Bullock summarized the findings of a Department of Labor and Industry report on Montana’s Registered Apprenticeship program and praised the role that Read More…
In a press conference today, Governor Steve Bullock joined Yellowstone County Public Health Officer John Felton to announce increased enforcement of health officer orders, along with a website for residents to file complaints. “Just one business not complying with the public health measures, puts an increased risk on everyone else who is doing their due diligence to Read More…
HELENA, Mont. – The Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) Director Sheila Hogan announced Monday that Montana has submitted its draft COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for review. “This is a critical step, and I’m pleased with where we’re at this point in the process,” Read More…
MISSOULA, Mont. — A new exclusive NBC Montana/Strategies 360 poll shows very close Montana races less than two weeks before Election Day. Strategies 360 conducted a mixed-mode survey of 500 likely November 2020 voters in Montana. Interviews were conducted Oct. 15-20. A combination of landlines, cellphones, and voter file-based online interviews via text message were used Read More…
North Dakota’s oil output soared 14% in August as more wells shut down earlier in the spring because of the coronavirus crisis came back online. “It is nice to note that we are back on the road again to healthy production,” Lynn Helms, director of North Dakota’s Mineral Resources Department, told reporters Friday. Still, Helms Read More…
Some things are easy to predict in Wyoming politics. The liberal enclaves of Jackson and Laramie will continue to favor Democrats, despite Wyoming’s deep red reputation. Natrona County, home to a robust and influential conservative establishment, will continue to elect Republicans under the local, “big tent” tradition. And towns such as Gillette, as conservative Read More…