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Good morning; on the Beacon today, prices are plummeting in an oversaturated equine market, people are neglecting or abandoning their horses at a higher rate and more ranchers are trading in four legs for four wheels and in Montana, a final frontier of the American West, there is no consensus on what to do. Leaders of Montana and British Columbia said Tuesday they will ban drilling and mining in the Flathead Valley along the US-Canada border that companies have tried to develop for more than a quarter-century. The Kalispell airport isn’t going anywhere – at least not if Monday night’s city council meeting is any indication. Local candidates continue to file for state and Flathead County offices, adding to the initial flurry of filings from January. The Montana Human Rights Network is criticizing a Kalispell pregnancy counseling service for accepting funds from white supremacists, but the head of the agency said it has not received any donations of that nature. Members of Flathead Wildlife Inc. are meeting in Kalispell this week to discuss a plan from the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes to gill-net lake trout on Flathead lake.

The state's Supreme Court chief justice pitched a new ballot measure Tuesday that would use alcohol tax money for prevention and treatment efforts, while lawmakers cooked up ideas of their own for cracking down on drunken driving. Montanans have offered more than 700 suggestions for making cuts to the state budget, from cutting or eliminating the state motor pool to consolidating school districts and counties. Americans backed off from holiday spending in January, but retail sales rose for a third month in a row compared with a year earlier, largely because of gas price hikes, according to figures released Wednesday by a key data service. A Ravalli County woman wants to amend the Montana Constitution to restore the state's boundaries that were deleted when the state charter was rewritten in 1972. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is set to release the latest version of its 20-year energy plan for Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. Public Service Commissioner Ken Toole, a Helena Democrat, kicked off his re-election campaign Tuesday, saying he wants to continue working on behalf of small consumers and to develop clean energy sources.