(The Center Square) – As colleges and universities scale back diversity, equity and inclusion programs amid federal funding pressure from the Trump administration, supporters of the cuts argue DEI has negatively affected academics and higher education. Approximately $3.7 billion in federal research funding has been targeted for cuts, disrupting hundreds of clinical trials and research Read More…
WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy expanded at a 3.4% annualized rate in the third quarter of 2026, exceeding economists’ expectations as business investment accelerated and consumers continued spending, according to new data from the Commerce Department. The growth rate, the strongest in a year, marked a significant acceleration from the 2.2% expansion recorded in the Read More…
WASHINGTON — A 34-year-old California man has pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State terrorist organization after federal investigators determined he supplied money, firearms and other equipment to individuals he believed were affiliated with ISIS. Ammaad Akhtar, a U.S. citizen, admitted to attempting to support the terrorist organization between February Read More…
SpaceX has secured commitments for a $40 billion financing arrangement to purchase advanced artificial intelligence chips, but the transaction is drawing attention to borrowing costs and growing investor concerns about the capital required to expand AI infrastructure. The company, which trades under the ticker SPCX, announced Oct. 26 that it had reached a binding commitment Read More…
A Forbes report alleging Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross “grifted” more than $120 million from former business partners has been widely slammed for relying heavily on anonymous sources and being laced with “petty” accusations, raising questions of whether the magazine’s Chinese owners were ultimately bashing Ross for his tough pro-American stance in trade talks with Beijing. Read More…
Fifty percent of likely U.S. voters approve of President Donald Trump’s job performance, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows. Another 49 percent disapprove of Trump’s performance, according to Rasmussen. READ THE FULL STORY.
The six Republican candidates for governor found more agreement than disagreement at a forum at Gillette on Monday night as they echoed stances on many issues. Other times, they used humor that drew laughter from the large crowd at the forum sponsored by Campbell County Republican Party. Candidates Bill Dahlin, Foster Friess, Sam Galeotos, Mark Read More…
Kara Landolfi said she felt “super excited” as she helped greet hundreds of hungry people at Monday’s opening of Rendezvous, Montana State University’s newest and largest $18.2 million dining hall. “I think it’s going to be one of the greatest gathering spots on campus,” said Landolfi. She is farm-to-campus coordinator for MSU, bringing Montana-grown beef Read More…
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) on Sunday denied allegations posted on social media accounts linked to the family of his former girlfriend that he had behaved abusively towards her. Ellison, who is battling four challengers for his party’s nomination in the race for Minnesota attorney general, spoke out through his campaign after a Facebook post alleging Read More…
HELENA — Montana Insurance Commissioner Matt Rosendale says he’s finalized next year’s rates for companies that sell health insurance policies through the Affordable Care Act’s federal exchange. The rates approved Friday include premium rate hikes for two of the three companies. Rosendale’s office said in a statement the rate proposals contained no deficiencies. The commissioner Read More…
GREAT FALLS- Roberto Salaman Garcia, initially charged with two misdemeanor counts of sexual assault, has now also been charged with two felony counts of sexual assault. Garcia is a Thomas Carnival worker who has been accused of sexually assaulting four females while he was on the job as a ride operator at the Montana State Read More…
One by one, the founders of six startups will walk onto the Center Theater stage Thursday afternoon and pitch their businesses to a panel of judges and a general audience. Each entrepreneur — in one case a duo — will take a few follow-up questions from the judges and then yield the stage to the Read More…
A two-week trial is slated to get under way in Gallatin County District Court this week in a dispute between a prominent Bozeman developer and a local construction supply company over a downtown hotel. Jury selection begins Monday for the civil trial between Andy Holloran and Kenyon Noble and its co-owner Rick Ogle. The trial Read More…
LAKE MCDONALD — The Howe Ridge Fire started Sunday as a small fire smoldering on a hillside overlooking Lake McDonald. By nightfall it had become a massive inferno spewing smoke and flames hundreds of feet into the air and forcing the evacuation of a section of Glacier National Park. Glacier National Park officials are still Read More…
WikiLeaks is claiming that the Senate Intelligence Committee has asked its founder, Julian Assange, to testify as part of the panel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The organization posted a letter on its Twitter account dated Aug. 1 that purports to come from committee leaders Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Read More…
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Making West Virginia political history, the House Judiciary Committee has voted in favor of impeachment articles for all four remaining members of the state Supreme Court. Only former Justice Menis Ketchum was spared because he announced his resignation the day before impeachment proceedings were set to begin. READ THE FULL STORY.
The Democratic Party’s left-wing insurgency found its limits Tuesday night, with voters favoring establishment candidates over more liberal challengers in almost every closely watched race across several states. In Michigan, former state senator Gretchen Whitmer easily won the Democratic nomination for governor over Abdul El-Sayed, a doctor backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who was Read More…
Majority of US business owners want more tariffs: Report UBS Wealth Management CIO Mike Ryan on a new study on U.S. business owners’ views about the economy and tariffs. Business owners are cheering President Trump’s tough talk on trade. A recent study from UBS showed 71% of business owners approve additional tariffs on China. In Read More…
Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market plunged on Wednesday after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission delayed a decision on whether to approve a proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). The federal agency said it will continue deliberations on the bitcoin ETF, which, if approved, would be the first of its kind. The bitcoin ETF, which Read More…
Elon Musk’s lawyers are probably poring over rule 14e-8 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 right about now. That regulation is the one the Tesla CEO may or may not have violated when he sent the markets into a frenzy and halted trading in Tesla’s shares after nonchalantly tweeting Tuesday that he was thinking Read More…
They kept telling us to get used to it. It’s the new normal. Coal is dead. Coal is dying. Move on. Now this, from Bloomberg News: Trump’s Making U.S. Coal Exports the Greatest They’ve Ever Been READ THE FULL STORY.
The Billings, Montana kids are only two wins away from the Little League World Series. This, after a big win over Alaska earlier in the week. That’s what Coach Scott Sears told me Wednesday morning on our Montana Talks radio show. Sears is also a doctor at St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings and is coaching Read More…
The flames of the Ferguson Fire in California have become the latest symbols of a seemingly perennial challenge of fighting fires in the West. I just returned from the Ferguson Fire camp, where I met with firefighters who are working to combat the fire as it bears down on Yosemite National Park and its visitors, Read More…
HAMILTON – It’s not often that Ravalli County has the attention of the U.S. House of Representatives, but on Tuesday Hamilton played host to Congressman Greg Gianforte and his field briefing on wildfire management. Gianforte was joined by three officials who all stressed the importance of good wildfire practices, especially with Montana’s heightened wildfire danger. Read More…
A Bigfork man with a lengthy criminal record for felony theft and fraud was recently found guilty in U.S. District Court in Billings of 21 counts for running a Ponzi scheme. A jury found John Kevin Moore guilty Aug. 3 of 11 counts of wire fraud, nine additional counts of money laundering and one count Read More…
A small fire has been discovered in Yellowstone National Park. The Folsom fire was spotted near the headwaters of Blacktail Deer Creek on the Blacktail Deer Plateau on Saturday during a reconnaissance flight. It was caused by lightning. READ THE FULL STORY.
UPDATE KALISPELL – The Northern Rockies Coordination Group announced on Tuesday that the fire danger in Northwest Montana had been hiked to “extreme” with the exception of Glacier National Park — which remains at “very high.” Ali Ulwelling with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation says that as this week may be the Read More…
MISSOULA – With the school year around the corner, a Montana start-up is working to get their invention in classrooms across Montana. They say the non-lethal product is more effective than pepper spray. Ben Gladwin, the assistant chief of the University of Montana Police department and education director for Reflex Protect, says the spray is Read More…
A startup unicorn is joining the streaming-video fray. Media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg has raised $1 billion for a new mobile streaming service he’s calling “NewTV,” CNN reports. Disney, Warner Bros, Entertainment One, and other major media firms have invested. Katzenberg recruited in January former eBay and HP CEO Meg Whitman to helm “NewTV.” The service Read More…
Helena – The Commissioner of Political Practices has ruled that Democrat State Representative Zac Perry of Hungry Horse violated campaign finance regulations during his 2016 campaign. First elected in 2014, Zac Perry narrowly defeated Republican challenger Taylor Rose in the 2016 Election for House District 3 by 271 votes. On Tuesday, Commissioner of Political Practices Read More…
Two topics guaranteed to provoke conservative anger on the internet are the Obamas and Susan Rice, and over the past few months, Netflix has brought both into its corporate family. In March, Netflix appointed Susan Rice, a former UN Ambassador under President Obama, to its board of directors. The choice enraged some conservatives who criticized Read More…
Barnes & Noble is cashing in on anxiety. The bookstore chain said in a press release on Wednesday that sales of books related to anxiety are up 26% year-over-year compared to last June. The bestselling books in the category include workbooks, toolkits, and self-help books about managing anxiety. “The Anxiety category has really popped in Read More…
The Texas Senate race between Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) is neck and neck, according to a new poll released Wednesday. The 2018 Texas Lyceum Poll showed Cruz leading O’Rourke by a hair — 41 percent to 39 percent, respectively, among likely voters. That’s well within the survey’s margin of error Read More…
BILLINGS – Billings Mayor Bill Cole, Roundup Mayor Sandra Jones and Colstrip Mayor John Williams were among a handful of Montana officials who visited the White House last week as part of Montana State Day in Washington D.C. The mayors were invited by the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, the city of Billings announced Read More…
HELENA – Data is driving new ways to market Montana as a tourist destination and is helping to convince visitors to find new adventures outside of Glacier and Yellowstone national parks. The main challenge of tourism marketing in Montana in the past was to get people to drive all the way to Big Sky Country Read More…
Republicans in Gallatin County say they found a replacement candidate for House District 65 incumbent state Rep. Jon Knokey, who withdrew from his re-election bid in mid-July. The Gallatin County Republican Central Committee nominated Jane Gillette to take Knokey’s place in the district, which includes the northern part of Bozeman from East Valley Center Road Read More…
The Imerys talc mill in Three Forks is facing a union lockout if its members don’t accept a new contract from the mill’s French owners — a contract the union members have already rejected three times. The lockout would leave 32 union members and their families without paychecks or health care for an undetermined amount Read More…
The competition had been fierce most of the day under the watchful eye of Cindy Ostrem-Johnston. Inside Libby High School, the health and physical education teacher had brought her son to school that day, and he had been entertaining himself by challenging Ostrem-Johnston’s teenage students at the ping-pong table, dispatching eager challengers one-by-one. He made Read More…
A nature photographer in Wyoming has snagged one of only 10 new hunting licenses issued by the state’s Game and Fish Department following the state’s decision to allow the hunting of grizzly bears, but he isn’t planning on shooting any. Not with a gun, at least. Tom Mangelsen, a critic of Wyoming’s new hunting initiative, Read More…
As many Democrats and activists worked to stop Gina Haspel from becoming CIA director this spring, Sen. Joe Manchin derailed them with one move: blurting out his support for the controversial pick in a TV interview, effectively clinching her confirmation for President Donald Trump. Now Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer faces the monumental task of Read More…
Karen Alderman Harbert, President and Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute will be the speaker at the annual Petroleum Industry Appreciation Day Luncheon on August 29. The event which is sponsored by the Montana Petroleum Association will be held at the Doubletree Hotel in Billings, and is open to Read More…
The newest member of the growing group of hotels in the Flathead Valley, TownePlace Suites by Marriott, opened its doors last week in Whitefish. The property had been under construction since last fall. The 81-room hotel on U.S. 93 South is focused on a specific set of clients: those who are staying five days or Read More…
The City of Missoula has filed for summary judgment in its lawsuit against Montana Attorney General Tim Fox regarding a universal background check ordinance for gun purchases, asking a judge to rule in its favor on the application of state laws without going through a trial. Summary judgment can be used when the two sides Read More…
Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Montana, recognized 11-year-old Emma Anderson of Kalispell with his Spirit of Montana commendation for her compassion, generosity, and willingness to reach out to those in need. Anderson is the creator of Emma’s Cuddle Bears. Launching the project with her allowance money and 20 teddy bears six years ago, she has sent over Read More…