(The Center Square) – The American Legislative Exchange Council called on state legislatures to embrace limited tax regulation and greater investment in artificial intelligence to facilitate effective government processes. The council released its AI policy toolkit calling for a “light-touch” policy approach to AI. “U.S. regulators risk jeopardizing A.I.’s massive potential and benefits to consumers Read More…
(The Center Square) – Veterans die by suicide at roughly twice the civilian rate, despite the Department of Veterans Affairs spending more than $500 million a year to address the problem. In 2023, the rate of suicide for veterans was 35.2 per 100,000, up from 34.7 per 100,000 in 2022, according to the most recent Read More…
(The Center Square) – Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson may be satisfied with the House of Representatives’ latest version of an income tax bill – so much so that he said he will sign it if it passes the Legislature – but plenty of others remain skeptical. In the wee hours of Friday morning, majority party Read More…
(The Center Square) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Mirabelli v. Olson deciding against California’s law that allowed for gender transitions of school children without parental knowledge has met with commendation from advocacy groups and law firms, with a legal counsel calling the decision one of the “biggest parental rights wins” in a generation. Chief Read More…
BOZEMAN — Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen sat down to talk about drugs in Montana on today’s Montana This Morning. Knudsen is currently touring the state talking with law enforcement and local leaders about crime and drugs in their areas. He recently met with Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer who told him this area is Read More…
Contango Oil & Gas will purchase all Wyoming natural gas assets owned by ConocoPhillips, the company revealed Thursday. The acquisition comes as ConocoPhillips moves to sell off some of its oil and gas assets and Contango looks to continue expanding its operations in Wyoming. The $67 million deal will transfer approximately 446 billion cubic feet Read More…
MISSOULA, Mont. – Missoula is growing, and with that, the downtown corridor is changing in order to support both its residents and tourists. One of the cornerstones of revamping downtown Missoula is the modern AC hotel on the corner of Pattee and Main Street. It can seem hard to believe, but just two years ago, Read More…
(The Center Square) – Wyoming is launching a reemployment campaign to help encourage Wyomingites back into the workforce following the pandemic. It’s a campaign simply to let people know they exist and offer a wide variety of services for free, according to Ty Stockton, communications manager for the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services. He noted the pandemic Read More…
With his sunglasses and cowboy hat, Bart Slaney smiles from his arena-side table as a capacity crowd begins to fill the stands of the Bigfork Summer Rodeo last Wednesday. After a year away from the sport in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Whitefish cowboy is excited to see the rodeo world returning to Read More…
GREAT FALLS — Governor Greg Gianforte, Montana Commission on Community Service Chair Kevin Myrhe, and the Governor’s Office of Community Service Director Sarah Sadowski presented five people and two organizations with their 2021 ServeMontana Awards. The awards were presented on June 25th in Helena. A news release says the purpose of the awards is to Read More…
Gen. Austin Miller, the commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, is stepping down on Monday — a symbolic end to America’s longest war that comes as the Taliban continue to gain territory in the absence of American troops. Miller, who has been commanding the coalition since 2018, will relinquish his post during a ceremony at Read More…
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A Haitian man arrested under suspicion of playing a leading role in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse appears to have presented himself as a potential leader of the impoverished Caribbean nation for as long as a decade. Police say Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 63, planned to assume the presidency and hire some of the men involved Read More…
Protesters took to the streets in Cuba on Sunday to protest shortages and the high cost of food amid the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Associated Press, protesters believe the Cuban government isn’t doing enough to help. The protests, which began around 2 p.m. local time, saw hundreds take to the street of San Lázaro, the Read More…
Alawsuit filed in federal court in late June alleges that Paul McCown, the former chief financial officer at Wyoming Catholic College, defrauded an investment firm out of $15 million. According to the suit, filed by New York-based advisory firm Ria R Squared, McCown is accused of faking bank statements that falsely said his bank account Read More…
HELENA — Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on NorthWestern Energy’s request for pre-approval of 225 megawatts of new electricity resources – including construction of a 175-megawatt natural gas-fired plant in Laurel. NorthWestern Energy’s proposal to build a 175-megawatt power plant fired by natural gas in Laurel, to help serve its Read More…
Don and John Mueller are brothers who share a love of the history of the nation’s oldest national park and a love of the old buses that used to tour it in the years before World War II. Driving down Broadway Avenue in Red Lodge in a bright yellow bus made by White Motors in Read More…
MISSOULA — Senator Jon Tester says the U.S. has been living “off our parents and grandparents infrastructure too long”, and it’s time to pass a bipartisan infrastructure package worth as much as $1.2 trillion. He’s hoping Montanans will jump on board to convince Congress to approve the deal. READ FULL STORY
Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who became famous for representing adult film star Stormy Daniels and publicly sparring with then-President Donald Trump, was sentenced in New York Thursday to 30 months in prison for trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike. Avenatti, 50, was convicted last year on charges that he tried to extort up to Read More…
(CNN)Loretta Smith and Wesley Hunt are members of different parties, separated by both distance and policy. And yet, Smith, an Oregon Democrat, and Hunt, a Texas Republican, find themselves in similar positions headed into the 2022 midterms: Both have announced plans to run for Congress, but neither know what the district they plan to run Read More…
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, won big on Alphabet Inc. stock and added bets on Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. in the weeks leading up to the House Judiciary Committee’s vote on antitrust legislation that seeks to severely limit how these companies organize and offer their products. In a financial disclosure signed by Nancy Pelosi July 2, her husband reported exercising call Read More…
Breaking with the longstanding norm of intraparty candidate neutrality, a Wyoming Republican Party official asked members of Congress for help vetting potential challengers to U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney in next year’s Republican primary. According to emails obtained by WyoFile, Wyoming Republican Party Revenue Committee Chairman Jeff Wallack contacted staffers for Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, on Read More…
About 125 soldiers from a Bismarck-based National Guard unit will be sent to the U.S. border with Mexico later this year for an undetermined amount of time, the North Dakota guard said Tuesday. The soldiers from the 957th Engineer Company are expected to begin the deployment this fall, the military said. READ FULL STORY
CASPER, Wyo. — Governor Mark Gordon is donating a wild bison hunting license to be raffled in order to raise funds to support Wyoming wildlife conservation. It is the third year in a row Gordon has donated a wild bison license for such efforts. “The bison is the symbol of Wyoming and a fitting hunt Read More…
WASHINGTON (SBG) — Economists believe the pandemic has revealed just how vulnerable the United States’ supply chain is to major economic shocks and that the time is coming where experts will have to rethink how to move products around the globe. The country has experienced severe shortages of everything from computer chips, to toilet paper, to furniture Read More…
Last month was the fourth hottest June on record in Kalispell, thanks in large part to the extreme heat wave that roasted the region the final week of the month. According to climate statistics from the National Weather Service in Missoula, the average temperature in June for Kalispell was 63.9 degrees, which is 6.3 degree Read More…
COLSTRIP, Mont. – One person has been charged with negligent arson after unintentionally starting a range fire north of Colstrip. The Rosebud County Sheriff’s Office reports the range fire was caused by fireworks. READ FULL STORY
DEER LODGE — Wildlife officials are continuing to search for a grizzly bear that killed a camper in Ovando on Tuesday morning. The Powell County Sheriff’s Office reports traps have been set in the area while a ground and air search is continuing for the grizzly bear. READ FULL STORY
RED LODGE – The Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office and other regional search and rescue crews on Wednesday joined the effort to find a missing hiker in the Beartooth Mountains outside of Red Lodge. The additional resources were deployed to search for 23-year-old Tatum “Tate” Morell, who has not been heard from since the evening of Read More…
BILLINGS — The question of whether to allow seven types of marijuana businesses into the Billings city limits could be up to the voters again in an election on Nov. 2, after the City Council directed staff on Tuesday to research ballot language and dates to bring back at a future meeting. Billings Assistant City Read More…
Two men arrested over the shooting of Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, who is fighting for his life in an Amsterdam hospital, will appear in court later this week, police said Wednesday. De Vries, a star reporter who had received multiple threats for his work covering the criminal underworld, was shot five times, Read More…
Nearly six months into President Joe Biden’s administration, Wall Street remains divided over the likelihood, and impact of, one of the Democrat’s key campaign promises: higher taxes. While the president and his Cabinet have made progress in persuading foreign partners to back a global minimum corporate tax rate, the Biden team does not appear any closer to passing Read More…
LEESBURG, Va.—Before Covid-19 forced its students into online classes, Loudoun County’s bimonthly school board meetings were often dry exercises in bureaucratic wrangling: Haggling over AP textbook availability and public construction projects. Poring over budget proposals for custodial supplies and debating about whether to renew the contract for a company supplying milk to cafeterias. Only a handful of parents showed up Read More…
Former President Donald Trump, who has complained about censorship by social media giants, filed class-action lawsuits Wednesday against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Why it matters: It’s the latest escalation in Trump’s yearslong battle with Twitter and Facebook over free speech and censorship. Trump is completely banned from Twitter and is banned from Facebook for another Read More…
Some companies are turning to signing bonuses to attract workers as they struggle to fill positions. While most often associated with higher-paying jobs that require secondary education, signing bonuses are increasingly being tied to job applications for low- and middle-wage jobs — a sign that some say is a symptom of a labor shortage. The Read More…
A federal judge has sentenced Allison Mack to 3 years in prison, along with a $20,000 fine, for her involvement in the NXIVM case. Mack was one of the lead deputies and recruiters for NXIVM — the cult group that masqueraded itself as a self-help organization. The group’s leader, Keith Raniere, was sentenced to 120 Read More…
Bill Cosby was released from prison Wednesday after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his sexual assault conviction and barred him from being retried. The 83-year-old comedian was released from custody just before 2:30 p.m., roughly two hours after the divided high court issued its decision, upending the first high-profile celebrity conviction of the #MeToo era. Read More…
The Montana Supreme Court announced on Tuesday it will issue a final ruling on the Legislature’s subpoenas, rejecting GOP lawmakers’ request to dismiss the case. The state high court is moving forward with the case because justices say the dispute over Legislative powers is a relevant issue likely to come up again. READ FULL STORY
BOZEMAN — It was the last school board meeting of the academic year in Bozeman – and it surely went out with a bang, going on for hours. The meeting was the first in-person in almost a year, and administrators heard from dozens of people who showed up to express their concern, mainly to talk Read More…
A recent pop-up clinic intended to encourage hesitant veterans to get vaccinated against COVID-19 reflects dwindling demand for the shot in Montana. Nurse Tina Arvish sits behind a table at a temporary COVID-19 vaccine clinic tucked away from the bustle of a recent American Legion conference in Helena. “We have two nurses’ stations where we’re Read More…
GREAT FALLS — Maren Reilly took the oath of office on Tuesday and became the first female fire officer at Great Falls Fire Rescue. Fire Chief Jeremy Jones conducted the ceremony, administering the oath and promoting her to the rank of lieutenant. Maren’s husband Eric pinned her new gold lieutenant badge on her uniform, and Read More…
BILLINGS – With the rising number of violent crimes in Yellowstone County, State Attorney General Austin Knudsen stopped in Billings to meet with local law enforcement leaders. Our team had the opportunity speak with the attorney general and ask him questions sent in from our viewers. Knudsen says there’s a violent crime problem in Montana Read More…
LIVINGSTON — School may be out for the summer, but a new school bus has rolled into town. Lion Electric presented a demonstration of a model school bus, powered by electricity. Michelle Uberuaga, from Moms Clean Air Force, organized the event and invited all to climb aboard. In tow, were representatives from Lion Electric, and Read More…
South Dakota is the latest state to send its residents to the U.S.-Mexico border to help overwhelmed federal and local law enforcement respond to sustained high levels of illegal immigration. But unlike Nebraska and Florida, which sent state troopers and local police officers to Texas earlier this month, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem will send in the Read More…
Efforts to defend Duke Energy from a proxy campaign led by billionaire Paul Singer have recently taken two quiet steps backwards. Last month, Singer’s hedge fund Elliott Management urged the utility to split its $78 billion electric-and-gas empire into three companies — an unusual proposal in an era of consolidation that a few analysts variously Read More…