CHEYENNE, Wyo.—Gov. Mark Gordon has appointed Nancy Vehr as interim director of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality following the retirement of longtime director Todd Parfitt. Vehr, who has been serving as the department’s deputy director, took over the role effective Oct. 2. She previously led DEQ’s Air Quality Division for nearly a decade and Read More…
BOZEMAN—Gov. Greg Gianforte and the Montana Chamber of Commerce will host the third annual Big Sky, Bright Future Economic Summit on Oct. 15 in Bozeman, with this year’s event focused on technology and innovation in Montana. The summit will bring together business leaders, policymakers and technology executives to discuss artificial intelligence, national security, precision agriculture, Read More…
WASHINGTON—The Justice Department said UCLA School of Law discriminated against white and Asian applicants in admissions for its 2023, 2024 and 2025 incoming classes, finding that the school continued to consider race after the Supreme Court restricted race-conscious college admissions. The department’s Civil Rights Division said its investigation found UCLA Law violated Title VI of Read More…
(The Center Square) – Fraud could cost federal taxpayers as much as $521 billion annually, according to a Foundation for Government Accountability report citing a federal estimate. The report estimates that improper payments by the federal government have totaled about $3 trillion since 2003. Liesel Crocker, the report’s author and senior research fellow at FGA, spoke with Read More…
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Thursday that she and financial market regulators needed to “understand deeply” what happened in the trading frenzy involving GameStop Corp and other retail stocks in recent days before taking any action. READ FULL STORY
Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Americans on Wednesday that large Super Bowl parties could turn into “super-spreader” events for COVID-19. During an interview on the Today show, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden and the director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases urged football fans to keep gatherings small for Sunday’s game. Read More…
KALISPELL — The Flathead County Sheriff’s Office reports they are still searching for Nassem Ali Saleh Mohammed who illegally crossed the United States and Canadian border on the weekend of Jan. 23. Flathead Sheriff Brian Heino said Mohammed was taken into the custody of the Border Patrol in Whitefish, as the patrol agents were scanning Mohammed’s Read More…
BILLINGS, Mont.- Montana Highway Patrol Captain Keith Edgell said 50% of the deaths on Montana highways this year have involved people driving under the influence. There have been 17 deaths on Montana Highways so far in 2021. There were 209 deaths on Montana Highways in 2020. Ninety-one of those were linked to DUI. “You know, over the Read More…
BOZEMAN — As Montana State continues to search for its head football coach, one coach who had been a part of Jeff Choate’s staff since 2019 is packing his bags and heading to the NFL. MTN confirmed that Erik Frazier, the Bobcats’ wide receivers coach and pass game coordinator, has taken a position with the Read More…
A U.S. federal judge has ruled that Indian Health Service must make a report public, which details how the agency failed to stop pediatrician Stanley Patrick Weber from sexually abusing Native American children for decades, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times sued the federal government in April Read More…
MISSOULA, Mont. — The Missoula City Council agreed to sign the city on to an interlocal agreement with Missoula County, Bozeman and Helena to hire a green tariff consultant. A green tariff is a rate, not a tax, offered to people who want to opt into receiving 100% clean, renewable energy. The consultant will help leaders Read More…
Jalina Porter, who has been named deputy spokesperson for the U.S. State Department under President Biden, once wrote that the largest threat to U.S. national security may be a domestic one. In a 2016 Facebook post, Porter wrote that U.S. cops posed the largest national security threat, greater than that of both Russian hackers and ISIS, because of killings Read More…
Bryan Moss could be the luckiest man in Idaho. The dad from Meridian just won the lottery – for the sixth time. Moss won the Idaho Lottery Scratch Game $250,000 Crossword on Thursday, the lottery said in a press release. Moss plays the lottery regularly because it benefits Idaho schools. Since 1989, the Idaho Lottery has Read More…
CHEYENNE – In homes with children, fighting over who gets to use the internet or who needs to stop their streams has become a common American experience over the last couple decades. It’s an argument that Laramie County resident Jackie Fornstrom knows well, living with her husband and four teenage boys on their family farm Read More…
A little more than one week ago, U.S. Border Patrol agents took four men into custody near Whitefish after they allegedly made an illegal border crossing from Canada into the U.S. Three remain in custody, including one accused of murder in Canada, but one walked away before agents fully realized who he was. Now, law Read More…
Longtime Titans coach Jeff Fisher is reportedly a candidate for the Montana State head coaching position. Fisher, 62, a Franklin resident, recently expressed interest in the Tennessee Vols vacancy. The Montana State position came open on Jan. 28 when Bobcats coach Jeff Choate became co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Texas. READ FULL STORY
Brown said it’s hard for many universities to maintain the expenses of library collections, and this reduction will save about $500,000 annually. “There’s inflationary rises in those costs. Similar, you know, to electricity, water, heat — the library really is, you know, like a utility and part of the basic infrastructure. But it is a Read More…
New York’s nursing-home death toll from COVID-19 may be more than 50 percent higher than officials claim — because Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration hasn’t revealed how many of those residents died in hospitals, state Attorney General Letitia James announced Thursday. In a damning, 76-page report, James also said that some unidentified nursing homes apparently underreported resident fatalities to the state Department of Read More…
DETROIT — General Motors wants to end production of all diesel- and gasoline-powered cars, trucks and SUVs by 2035 and shift its entire new fleet to electric vehicles as part of a broader plan to become carbon neutral by 2040, the company said Thursday. The company plans to use 100% renewable energy to power its U.S. Read More…
BOISE, Idaho — Dr. Ryan Cole, a pathologist and owner of Cole Diagnostics, a testing lab in Garden City, last spoke to KTVB in mid-December about rarely leaving the lab with so many COVID-19 samples waiting to be tested. Just over a month later, the pandemic in Idaho is starting to slow, much as he Read More…
About 13 percent of North Dakotans have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. But a study by Columbia University suggests a much higher percentage of the state may have already had the virus. So how close is North Dakota to herd immunity? Researchers at Columbia University say a computer model estimates 105 million Read More…
PIERRE – South Dakota voters created an unconstitutional super agency that would be a fourth branch of government when they voted to legalize small amounts of recreational marijuana, a lawyer challenging the vote argued Wednesday. Amendment A conveyed broad powers to the South Dakota Department of Revenue to regulate and tax marijuana, lawyer Lisa Prostrollo told Circuit Read More…
After 15 years working in western oil patches, Antonio Magana finally struck out on his own, starting a small oil and gas well servicing company. Then the pandemic hit. Demand tanked and production ground nearly to a halt here in Wyoming’s Jonah Field. Magana and his skeleton staff are down to working just three days Read More…
BILLINGS – A Billings woman was able to return stolen property to multiple residents this week, including one item that had been stolen over two years ago. Billings resident Courtney Kirkwood owns multiple rental properties. She said one of her tenants was trying to do a good thing by lending a room to a man and Read More…
(RAPID CITY, SD) – In a ceremony on January 25, 2021, United States Attorney Ron Parsons presented several federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials with the prestigious Attorney General’s Award, the highest honor given by the Department of Justice, for their exceptional efforts in the multi-district federal prosecution of Stanley Patrick Weber. A longtime pediatrician with Read More…
A truck driver hauling produce was stopped at the Sweet Grass border crossing into Canada in December and found to have roughly 500 pounds of meth on board. The news came in a press release from the Canada Border Services Agency on Wednesday. It was the largest meth seizure at a land border crossing on Read More…
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A 20-year-old Montana man was arrested in Miami Beach after investigators said he admitted to sending threatening text messages about conducting a mass shooting at an elementary school in his home state. Linde Teo Lambson was arrested in Miami Beach on Tuesday, Jan. 26, after police tracked his vehicle to a parking Read More…
KALISPELL — Anthony Weimer of Columbia Falls, who was found guilty of felony criminal mischief for removing a Ten Commandments monument outside of the Flathead County Courthouse in June, has been given a deferred three-year sentence. Court documents state that Weimer is ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $6,900 to reimburse insurance policies Read More…
In a report released by the Florida Museum of Natural History, 10 people were killed by sharks worldwide in 2020, which is the highest number since 2013. According to the International Shark Attack File, there were 13 shark-related fatalities in 2020, 10 of which were confirmed to be unprovoked. Six of those fatalities happened in Read More…
A New York Times editor lost her job after receiving criticism for tweeting about her excitement for President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Journalist Yashar Ali broke the news of Lauren Wolfe’s departure from The Times in a series of tweets last Thursday, saying that she had been let go from her editing job at The Times for tweeting about Read More…
Robert Kraft’s legal issues in Florida seem to finally be behind him for good. A federal judge in Florida ordered on Friday that a video allegedly showing the New England Patriots owner paying for sex at a massage parlor be destroyed, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. U.S. District Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II ruled that any videos Read More…
(The Center Square) – California, the state that has led population growth nationally for the last 170 years, reported a population loss under Gov. Gavin Newsom for the first time since 1850, according to newly published Census Bureau data. Until 2020, California had gained population in every year since 1900. Increasing taxes, restrictive policies on Read More…
MISSOULA, Mont. – Right now, cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the state and one in seven Montanans are using tobacco. The Montana Tobacco Quit Line is working to lower that number by launching new programs to make it easier for Montanans to get support and get more tools. The program Read More…
BOZEMAN — Montana State’s football coaching staff has taken another hit. Kane Ioane, who returned to Bozeman in 2019 as the Bobcats’ defensive coordinator, has agreed to become the co-defensive coordinator at Boise State. Multiple sources told MTN Sports that Ioane told his players on Friday and is flying to Boise on Sunday. MTN Sports’ Read More…
HELENA, Mont. – Governor Greg Gianforte today launched the state’s COVID-19 vaccine dashboard. “With over 77,000 safe and effective vaccine doses administered in Montana, we continue to make strides to protect the most vulnerable. We can make even greater progress if the federal government increases our supply,” Governor Gianforte said. “I encourage Montanans to use Read More…
BUTTE – Montana Tech director of athletics Matt Stepan announced the upcoming addition of track and field to the Orediggers’ list of varsity sports. The men’s and women’s teams will begin recruiting immediately and are scheduled to compete in the Frontier Conference and the NAIA indoor and outdoor seasons in the spring of 2022. “We Read More…
BOZEMAN – Montana State University announced that it will extend free asymptomatic COVID-19 testing for students living on campus beyond the first two weeks of spring classes. The tests are offered by appointment at MSU’s Student Testing Center near Bobcat Stadium. Only students living in the campus residence halls are eligible for asymptomatic testing, though any student showing symptoms Read More…
HELENA – Gov. Greg Gianforte announced Friday he requested the returning home of Montana National Guard soldiers deployed for security assistance at the presidential inauguration in Washington D.C. In a tweet, Gov. Gianforte wrote, “With their mission complete, I have instructed Adjutant General Hronek to bring our @GuardMontana soldiers home.” READ FULL STORY
BILLINGS — A portion of Governor Greg Gianforte’s proposed Montana budget is aimed at bolstering drug and alcohol treatment, both inside and outside prison walls. He demonstrated his agenda on his first day in office by having Yellowstone County District Court Judge Mary Jane Knisley administer the oath of office. Then, at the top of Read More…
HAVRE, Mont. – The Department of Veterans Affairs announced 250 veterans will receive their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in Havre Thursday. The Montana VA Health Care System (MTVAHCS) was chosen to be the forefront of the VHA pilot program bringing vaccines to rural veterans nationwide. “With the vaccines, our Veterans and staff finally have Read More…
BISMARCK — North Dakota’s statewide mask mandate will expire at 8 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 18, as COVID-19 cases continue to drop in the state. Medical professionals have widely credited North Dakota’s mask mandate with reducing the spread of COVID-19 in the state, but Gov. Doug Burgum said on Friday, Jan. 15, he believes Read More…
South Dakota, a state that weathered months of criticism from the media and Democrats for how it handled the COVID-19 epidemic, has become a model for vaccine distribution while other states struggle. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, South Dakota is the third-most successful state in administering its provided coronavirus vaccines, following West Read More…
Smoke could be smelled for miles and the sky blazed red through the night in northwest South Dakota on Thursday, January 14. A grass fire broke out just after 4:30 p.m. in Adams County, North Dakota, just across the border from Lemmon, South Dakota. Wind speeds in Lemmon at the time were 30 to 40 Read More…
JACKSON —PAWS of Jackson Hole Executive Director Amy Moore’s four-person staff gathered in an office around the holidays to open a certified letter inbound from the Lynn and Foster Friess Family Foundation. Only one person present, PAWS Development Director David Watson, knew what was concealed within. “As we opened up the envelope, we had no Read More…