Now that the United States has officially stopped making pennies, a nationwide scramble is underway among gas stations, fast-food chains, and major retailers to adjust prices and handle cash transactions — a shift that could quietly erode profits for many high-volume businesses. The transition follows President Donald Trump’s decision earlier this year to halt production Read More…
Bitcoin was on track Friday to post its first October loss in seven years, breaking a streak that had given the month a “lucky” reputation among cryptocurrency traders. The world’s largest digital currency is set to fall nearly 5% for the month, trading around $66,800 Friday afternoon, as investors pulled back from risk assets amid Read More…
Montana’s manufacturing sector remains a cornerstone of the state’s economy, according to three reports on the state of manufacturing recently released by the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center at Montana State University and authored by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana. The manufacturing sector generated more than $2 billion in Read More…
Dakota Foundry, a vertically integrated grey and ductile iron foundry, has been named one of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “CO—100 Top 100 Small Businesses in America”, a national recognition that highlights the company’s innovation, craftsmanship, and impact on American manufacturing. The CO—100 designation honors small businesses demonstrating exceptional innovation and influence across the country. Read More…
WASHINGTON — With workers quitting their jobs in record numbers across the United States, employers are getting creative with their offerings to attract and retain talent. Many are providing more money and benefits amid a nationwide labor shortage that has worsened supply chain shortages and hampered businesses, especially those that employ front-line workers. In Arizona, one Read More…
MISSOULA — BNSF Railway is taking over operations and maintenance of Montana Rail Link following the end of a long-term lease with the company. A letter to MRL employees Monday from President Derek Ollmann states the decision was “made after a great deal of thought including securing BNSF’s commitment to continue employment for all MRL Read More…
Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook received almost $100 million in compensation in 2021, a year in which he completed 10 years as the company’s CEO and led the iPhone maker to record profits during a global pandemic. His $98.7 million pay package rose more than 500% compared with the previous year’s $14.8 million, Read More…
Liberty Global, the largest international TV and broadband company, is standing by embattled board member John W. Dick, saying he serves in good standing. Dick has become embroiled in a dispute over allegedly stolen assets that has generated headlines around the world as his daughter has accused him of theft and of looting assets from Read More…
Walmart faces mounting criticism on Chinese social media platforms from users who allege the retail giant has stopped offering products from Xinjiang province in its China-based stores, according to a report Monday. The viral backlash began last week, with users on Weibo and other platforms posting images claiming products made in Xinjiang weren’t available at Read More…
This past fall, Lululemon’s design team noticed something unusual. Wall Street bros were flocking to the Brookfield Place store in the Financial District to buy the On the Move trousers, which look like chinos but are made from the same soft, stretchy, moisture-wicking material used in the brand’s activewear. That’s right: Finance execs were finally ditching their Read More…
Endpoint Utility Corporation is a small local tech company born from some of the biggest businesses in the global market. The IT service provider was founded in the Flathead Valley by four partners who cut their teeth at big-name businesses such as Microsoft and McDonald’s. Their focus is on making information technology solutions accessible to Read More…
GREAT FALLS — The Honey Hippo Play Café, opening soon in Great Falls, is an indoor playground that doubles as a coffee bar. Owner Laura Ewalt has been a stay at home mom for the better half of 10 years. Recently, after her son didn’t quite make the age limit for preschool, she decided that Read More…
BIG SKY, Mont., Dec. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Montage Hotels & Resorts today announced the opening of Montage Big Sky, a modern alpine retreat offering an elevated spirit of comfort and distinctive amenities that epitomize today’s sense of luxury, in an idyllic location for year-round adventures in Southwest Montana. The resort is located less than an hour from Yellowstone National Park and surrounded by Read More…
Kraft is experiencing a shortage of their cream cheese product, and they’re taking the opportunity to craft up some holiday marketing. The deal stems from a shortage of Kraft-owned Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Kraft is offering customers who couldn’t find the special ingredient to get some money back for another baked good. READ FULL STORY
The internet hasn’t turned out the way it was supposed to. In its earliest incarnation, before some Wall Street Journal readers were born and the rest had fewer automatically renewing digital subscriptions, it was supposed to be distributed, user-controlled and, in a word, democratic. READ FULL STORY
HELENA — Lee Enterprises, the owner of several Montana newspapers, has rejected a bid by Alden Global Capital, LLC, a hedge fund, to purchase the company. Lee is the parent company of the Montana newspapers the Helena Independent Record, the Missoulian, the Billings Gazette, the Montana Standard and the Ravalli Republic. Alden was offering $24 Read More…
LAKESIDE, Mont. – With snow over the weekend and more in the forecast, Blacktail Mountain Ski Area is gearing up for its upcoming season. After announcing new ownership in November, some changes are coming to the mountain this ski season. General Manager Jessi Wood said they don’t have an opening day scheduled yet, but she’s Read More…
Shares of Lucid Motors tanked Monday morning after the electric car maker disclosed that its been slapped with a subpoena as part of an investigation into the merger that took Lucid public earlier this year. “On December 3, 2021, [Lucid] received a subpoena from the [Securities and Exchange Commission] requesting the production of certain documents related to an Read More…
Just days after receiving a $750 million cash infusion, a tech startup that Forbes branded in October as a “unicorn,” valued at $7 billion, laid off hundreds of employees in a manner that some online deemed “brutal.” Better.com, a digital mortgage lender with offices in Oakland, laid off 900 employees weeks before Christmas on a mass Zoom call. Only those Read More…
Elon Musk and Jamie Dimon don’t get along. Mr. Musk has spurned Mr. Dimon’s JPMorgan Chase & Co. for years, turning to other banks while expanding Tesla Inc. and his broader empire. Conversations over the years between the two companies have often upset one side or the other, according to people familiar with the matter. Read More…
GREAT FALLS — Montana is a place that many people want to call home, and after the effects of COVID restrictions ran out both of this family’s businesses due to shutdowns, they decided to make Montana their home. Jon and Amanda Bush were the power couple to beat in their town of Vancouver, Washington. Amanda Read More…
Helium is blowing up in the Flathead Valley — the technology start-up firm, that is. Jeff DuPuy, a local tech enthusiast, is spearheading the deployment of a radio system that acts as an alternative to traditional internet services. Dupuy is working with “other nerds across the country” to bring the benefits of the Helium system Read More…
“Let’s go Brandon” to the moon? A cryptocurrency digital coin labeled $LGB, which stands for the phrase “Let’s go Brandon,” went up 150%. The cryptocurrency is “America’s Coin,” according to its website . The digital coin is part of the mission to fight back “against the establishment, their mismanagement, and the financial fleecing of the American people,” the website Read More…
BILLINGS — Billings will soon get a new concert venue in the form of an outdoor pavilion on the east side of Downtown. It’ll be built near 2nd Avenue North and N. 17th Street, and plans so far are receiving positive feedback from people in that area. “I’m sure it would add a lot to Read More…
Tesla CEO Elon Musk faces a tax bill of more than $15 billion in the coming months on stock options, making a sale of his Tesla stock this year likely regardless of the Twitter vote. Musk asked his 62.7 million Twitter followers over the weekend whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla holdings. “Much is made lately of Read More…
Jes Staley stepped down as chief executive of Barclays PLC under pressure from regulators about how he characterized his relationship with the convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. Barclays said Mr. Staley stepped down “in view of the conclusions” made by U.K. regulators in its long-running investigation into what Mr. Staley told the bank about his Read More…
The Kalispell City Council voted to restrict marijuana dispensaries, cultivation and manufacturing to industrial zones after a second reading of the ordinance at the Oct. 18 council meeting, setting the city’s framework for facilities once operations can begin on Jan. 1, 2022. While marijuana operations are permitted in the city, they will be limited to Read More…
HAMILTON — It’s fall in Montana, with windswept mountain ranges and morning temperatures hovering in the 30s, and it’s not the ideal growing season. That is unless you’re inside Local Bounti. “This new type of growing is really exciting,” said Meaghan McGrath, director of product development. Local Bounti is a company specializing in growing facilities that Read More…
GREAT FALLS — Delta is rebuilding its flight schedule across the nation. The airline is raising its capacity to 80% later this year. It’s been operating at 71% of its regular capacity. Here in Montana, it’s a bit of a different story right now. Recently, Delta cut its direct flight from Great Falls to Minneapolis. Read More…
Southwest Airlines has scrapped a plan to put unvaccinated employees who have applied for but haven’t received a religious or medical exemption on unpaid leave starting by a federal deadline in December. Southwest Airlines and American Airlines are among the carriers that are federal contractors and subject to a Biden administration requirement that their employees are vaccinated against Covid-19 by Read More…
The 2021/22 ski season will be Dan Graves’ last as chief executive officer of Whitefish Mountain Resort, a position he has held for 15 years. Graves was promoted to the role of CEO in 2007, and the resort said in an Oct. 6 press release “the list of accomplishments under Graves is long and the Read More…
If the growing scrum of land and development interests bearing down on the intermountain west were to attend a formal gala, the region’s swaths of privately owned forestlands would surely stand out as the belle of the ball. And yet, as America’s working forestlands endure an unprecedented degree of pressure to convert their traditional bases to Read More…
BILLINGS – They’re calling it L.A. traffic jams in the shipping lanes of the Pacific Ocean, but the backlog of cargo ships waiting for a turn to dock and unload is impacting businesses in Billings. On both the West and East coasts, ships are hanging out in the ocean for days, filling up a so-called Read More…
A Delaware judge should order Elon Musk to repay $9.4 billion to Tesla for the benefits he received by pushing the electric-vehicle maker in 2016 to buy an ailing solar company he partly owned, according to Tesla investors in a court filing late Friday. The investors said a “simple and practical” way to undo the benefits they Read More…
MISSOULA, Mont. – Montanans kicking off the first weekend of October with the Missoula Scheels grand opening. Making it the third Scheels store in Montana and 30th store in the country. As the opening ribbon came down, the energy ran high as people came piling through the doors, in Missoula Southgate Mall’s new addition. Some Read More…
YouTube is cracking down on anti-vaccination content on its site, taking down several channels from high-profile anti-vaccination activists. A representative for Google, YouTube’s parent company, confirmed to the Washington Examiner that channels belonging to “well-known vaccine misinformation spreaders,” such as Joseph Mercola, the Children’s Health Defense Fund, which is affiliated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Erin Elizabeth, Read More…
The Whitefish Planning Board recently voted in support of two separate proposals to build new hotels in the city, one on a prominent lot downtown and the other off U.S. 93 south of the core business district. Both projects require conditional-use permits and approval from the Whitefish City Council to move forward, with developers of Read More…
HAMILTON — You may not give much thought to where the vegetables on your plate come from, but one company with Montana roots has, and it’s setting its sights on changing agriculture by bringing innovation to indoor farming. Local Bounti built its first large state-of-the art-greenhouse in Hamilton and has plans for several more in Read More…
At a Sept. 14 Kalispell Chamber of Commerce, Convention and Visitor Bureau luncheon at the Hilton Garden Inn, Gov. Greg Gianforte promoted Montana as a competitive business state while emphasizing its economic resiliency during the pandemic. Gianforte spoke following a visit with GL Solutions, a software company that recently relocated to Kalispell from Bend, Oregon, Read More…
North Dakota witnessed a 5 percent drop in its oil and gas production this past July, the result of a series of outages at five natural gas plants in the state. Natural gas processing plants at Bear Creek, Lonesome Creek, Robinson Lake, Tioga, and Watford City were offline during various times in July, due to Read More…
Twitter disclosed a binding agreement to settle a class-action lawsuit, under which the social network will pay $809.5 million to resolve claims it provided misleading user-engagement info to investors. The original lawsuit, filed in 2016 by a Twitter shareholder, alleged Dorsey and others including former CEO Dick Costolo and board member Evan Williams hid facts about Read More…
In early 2021, Amazon installed AI-powered cameras in the delivery vans at one of its depots in Los Angeles. Derek, a delivery driver at the facility, said the camera in his van started to incorrectly penalize him whenever cars cut him off, an everyday occurrence in Los Angeles traffic. “Maintain safe distance,” the camera installed Read More…
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a rule Wednesday to raise transparency around loans for small businesses. If finalized, the federal agency’s rule would require lenders to collect and report more data about credit applications from small businesses, including demographic and pricing data and reasons for which lenders deny a loan. The rule would help regulators learn how entrepreneurs Read More…
Impossible Foods on Tuesday launched its meatless chicken nuggets in restaurants and announced plans to bring the new offering to supermarkets by the end of the month. In the last decade, chicken has overtaken beef as Americans’ top meat choice, making it a target for the companies like Impossible that are looking to replace or Read More…