Good morning; on the Beacon today, incumbent Democrat Joe Brenneman and GOP challenger Pam Holmquist will go head to head in the race for the District 2 seat on the Flathead County Commission. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Mutual Self-Help Housing program is aimed at helping low-income borrowers buy homes with reasonable mortgages and no down payments. A design team is asking for public input on a street project in Whitefish that will reconstruct two downtown blocks of U.S. Highway 93 from Baker to Spokane avenues. The president of a Montana-based conservation group, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, is asking hunters in the Northern Rockies to refrain from "vigilante" killings of endangered gray wolves.

Republicans nationwide are attacking Democrats with a "failed stimulus" campaign drumbeat. At least 75 House seats — the vast majority held by Democrats — are at serious risk of changing hands, and roughly 25 more where Democrats were assumed to have the upper hand have tightened in recent weeks, raising the possibility that some could flip to the Republicans as well. The government is offering American Indian farmers who say they were denied farm loans a $680 million settlement. Settlement talks over Gov. Brian Schweitzer's lawsuit alleging the Legislature unconstitutionally passed a major bill stalled during a testy meeting. A trial is underway in Thompson Falls over whether the 2004 suicide of a girl at a boarding school for troubled youth could have been avoided. About 300 people from across the state are expected to attend the Montana State Conference on Mental Illness on Oct. 27-29 in Billings. A Montana man who at first blamed his common-law wife's shooting death on a hitchhiker has been sentenced to more than 33 years in prison. Just by chance, a woman putting air in her car tires stumbled upon eight puppies in a cardboard box sealed with duct tape, Bozeman Animal Control Officer Kathy Middleton reported Tuesday.

 

E-mail Story   Print Story

 

Good morning; on the Beacon today, after talks with the federal government collapsed, Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter ordered Idaho wildlife managers Monday to relinquish their duty to arrest poachers or to even investigate when wolves are killed illegally. Montana and the Flathead Valley were well represented at the 16th Annual 24 Hours of Moab, one of the premier mountain biking endurance races in the country. The state is moving forward with plans to buy 32,000 acres of former Plum Creek Timber Co. land near the Blackfoot River as early as next month, even though it will cost the general fund $1.5 million a year. And on the Police Blotter, a parent on White Birch Lane said their 14-year-old son was being sassy and fighting with his sister.

A state judge says Montana's century-old ban on corporate political spending is unconstitutional. Supreme Court candidate Beth Baker has outraised and outspent her opponent, District Judge Nels Swandal, in their latest campaign finance reports to the state. As the effort to remove beetle-killed trees along forest roads gets under way this week, it appears that the number of mountain pine beetles in trees on the Helena and Beaverhead/Deerlodge national forests is declining, which could signal that the epidemic has peaked here. A 45-year-old man accused of punching his girlfriend so hard she needed reconstructive surgery has been charged in Billings with aggravated assault.

 

E-mail Story   Print Story

 

Good morning; on the Beacon today, forecasts are calling for one of the strongest La Niña weather events on record. “Here we are again,” Darryl Kistler said to the small crowd gathered around him, holding candles on the sidewalk across from the Kalispell library last week – part of a candlelight vigil held as a response to the Holocaust denial film being shown in the library’s basement by Craig Cobb, who moved to Kalispell from Vancouver this summer after he was investigated by a Canadian hate crimes unit. A Flathead Valley woman, Jessica McGee, awaiting sentencing for embezzling $67,000 from a Christian radio station in Kalispell has been charged with writing bad checks. Local attorneys Glen Neier and Dan Wilson are in the race for an open seat in Flathead County Justice Court. Sitting in the crowd during a Bravette’s volleyball game, it’s not uncommon to hear the masses chanting, “smack it Sackett" or "Holy Hannah.”

Idaho officials are disputing a claim by Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana that Idaho won't enforce federal protection of wolves. The steel is staged, and crews are waiting to lay the last and most expensive leg of TransCanada Corp.'s multibillion-dollar pipeline network that would carry Canadian oil to refineries along the Gulf Coast, yet final U.S. government approval for the massive project, once assumed to be on a fast track, is now delayed indefinitely. Montanans will get to decide this year whether it is time to rewrite the state Constitution. Authorities say a Montana man is dead after a two-vehicle crash southeast of Arlee. The Grizzly offense, after being held to just a couple big plays by a fast Portland State defense, came up big at the end of Montana's 23-21 Big Sky Conference win over the Vikings on Saturday. Gwen Florio's got a great piece on the legal troubles of medical marijuana businessman Jason Christ. U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., continues to have a big fundraising advantage over Democratic challenger Dennis McDonald, raising more than three times more money over the past three months, new campaign finance reports show. Authorities in Eureka are trying to figure out if an early morning fire at a bank was a diversionary tactic connected to a robbery at a pharmacy less than a mile away. Gallatin County's construction boom may be over, but a recently released report shows people are still flocking to live there, making it the fastest-growing county in the state and a leading growth area in the Northern Rocky Mountain region.

 

E-mail Story   Print Story

 

Good morning; on the Beacon today, Nate Thompson, a senior running back at Columbia Falls, has rushed for 1,357 yards on 163 carries through six games, an average of more than 226 yards per game on 8.3 yards each carry. Ladies, get out your checkbooks – the first Save a Sister bachelor auction is headed to the Flathead Valley and these guys are prepared to put it on the line to help bring awareness to women in the valley. An early morning fire gutted Glacier Bank in Eureka Thursday in what John Livingston, president of the Eureka Rural Volunteer Fire Department, characterized as a “total loss.” And Mick Holien assesses the prospect of UM adding sports to its athletic program.

An attorney for Smurfit-Stone Container says the company has a prospective buyer for its Frenchtown paper mill site. Montana lawmakers and others said Thursday they are skeptical about Gov. Brian Schweitzer's plan to privatize Medicaid services, especially those who remember a disaster in the mid-1990s to contract out some of those services. Public Service Commissioner Brad Molnar has appealed an ethics ruling against him in which he was ordered to pay nearly $21,000 in fines and investigation costs. An oil company is denying an environmental group's report that says huge loads of refinery equipment will be shipped over scenic U.S. 12 in the Rocky Mountains for the next decade. On Thursday, Mick Mee and his wife, along with two friends, sat in a courtroom here to watch a Missoula man plead guilty to taking the leash off his pit bull, which then charged into a campground and attacked a dog before clamping down on Mee's face. In an unprecedented collaboration, state legislators from Wyoming, Montana and Idaho have formed a commission to find how the three states can get wolves removed from the federal endangered species list and put under state control. A speech by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin helped raise $130,000 for a Missoula shelter for young mothers with addictions to alcohol or drugs. After a two-and-a-half day trial, a Gallatin County jury Thursday found a 67-year-old man, John Brandon Lacey, guilty of raping a teenage boy twice in the mid-1990s.

 

E-mail Story   Print Story

 

Good morning; on the Beacon today, Ray Thompson once ran one of the Flathead Valley’s biggest employers, but after Semitool was sold to Applied Materials Inc. last December, he found enough time to pursue an endeavor he had considered years earlier: the purchase of Sykes in downtown Kalispell. The winner of the legislative race for House District 8, which encompasses downtown Kalispell, is perennially difficult to predict – but this year, it’s downright impossible. At first blush the title alone might cause consternation and hesitance about purchasing Claudia Cunningham’s recently released book “Biting Back – A No-Nonsense, No Garlic Guide to Facing the Personal Vampires in Your Life.” And Dave Skinner weighs in on wolf policy in Washington.

Tim and Edra Blixseth owe the state $57 million in taxes on the money they drained from the Yellowstone Club and spent on luxury jets, cars and yachts that they wrote off as business expenses, Montana tax officials say. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of the only known Canadian on death row in the United States. The Air Force has chosen the Montana Air National Guard's base in Great Falls as the preferred location for a new mission for four C-27J transport aircraft. Lenders seized more U.S. homes this summer than in any three-month stretch since the housing market began to bust in 2006. But many of the foreclosures may be challenged in court later because of allegations that banks evicted people without reading the documents. A group analyzing the impact on Libby of the criminal case of W.R. Grace & Co. convened Wednesday at the University of Montana for the 20th annual Society of Environmental Journalists conference, a five-day event hosted by UM to discuss environmental issues that shape the Rocky Mountain West. North-central Billings mailboxes have been flooded with attack ads and candidate literature as the most expensive legislative race in state history hits full speed. Medicaid, the state-federal program that pay medical bills for the poor and disabled, covers about 99,600 people in Montana — its highest level ever. The Schweitzer administration is considering a test run of having a private, managed-care firm run Medicaid, the state’s $900 million health care program for the poor.

 

E-mail Story   Print Story

 

Good morning; on the Beacon today, at a Kalispell meeting focused on wolves last week, outdoorsmen and ranchers made it clear they want three things: the return of state management, revised wolf population numbers and, in the absence of local control, federal rule changes that better protect livestock in Northwest Montana. Here's a rundown of what to expect at this weekend's first flat-track roller derby bout. Check out Lido's killer video feature of the 17th Annual Glacier Jazz Stampede. Whitefish city councilor Bill Kahle has been in intensive care in a Great Falls hospital with a broken pelvis and brain contusion following a Saturday car accident while on a pheasant hunting trip. Whitefish Girls Soccer are again in the hunt for a state title.

Authorities say a man who was running down a Billings street naked before police subdued him with a stun gun over the weekend died Tuesday afternoon. Up to 40 state attorneys general are preparing to launch a joint investigation into the mortgage industry over the foreclosure-document mess. The Obama administration is lifting the six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico imposed after the BP oil spill, officials said Tuesday. Montana State University officials say they have just over $3 million of the $4 million needed by late November to begin work that would add 2,500 seats to the south end zone of Bobcat Stadium. The Obama administration on Tuesday greatly expanded protections for waterways critical to the restoration of threatened bull trout, making it tougher for agencies to approve logging, mining and livestock grazing across a large swath of federal land in the West. Public Service Commissioner Ken Toole, D-Helena, this week blasted the multimillion-dollar rewards that Qwest executives would receive for a company buyout, saying it’s an outrageous use of company funds. Montana regulators have resolved an action alleging the North Carolina company ACN Inc., was operating a pyramid scheme in Montana. By a 6-3 vote Tuesday night, Helena School District trustees approved the health enhancement curriculum that caused a tidal wave of opposition from parents who thought it taught too much sex education too soon. NorthWestern Energy, the state’s largest electric utility, filed Tuesday for a 5 percent increase in electric rates to cover costs of its new gas-fired power plant near Anaconda.

 

E-mail Story   Print Story

 

Good morning; on the Beacon today, the company operating two of the Flathead’s biggest sporting goods stores, Sportsman & Ski Haus, will double in size with the acquisition of four Idaho-based retailers. Incumbent Justice of the Peace Mark Sullivan faces off against newcomer Travis Bruyer in the race for Flathead County Justice of the Peace, Department 2. The University of Montana wants to produce its own energy in the future by building a $16 million wood-fired biomass boiler to complement its existing heating plant.

Friends and family say a 23-year-old Harrison man, Army Sgt. J.D. Williams, serving in Afghanistan has been severely injured by a land mine. Real estate mogul Tim Blixseth is alleging that a judge who issued a $40 million fraud judgment against him is biased and should be removed from the case. The principal of a predominantly Native American middle school where five children killed themselves last year is under pressure to resign after she called dozens of failing children to the gym floor during an assembly. Kristi Allen-Gailushas has dropped her complaint against a proposed Helena School District sex education program. A resurgent Republican Party aims to recapture dozens of seats it lost in 2006 and 2008, putting junior Democrats under political duress from New Hampshire to New Mexico. The Missoulian reports on a heated three-way race for sheriff in Sanders County. Authorities say a 53-year-old Lewistown woman, Jan Kirkham Duncan, was killed in a climbing accident in the Crazy Mountains over the weekend.

 

E-mail Story   Print Story

 

Good morning; on the Beacon today, Secretary of State Linda McCulloch, Montana’s top election official, plans to introduce a bill in the 2011 Legislature that would institute all-mail ballot elections. On the eve of the landmark Whitefish planning doughnut decision, the Beacon has decided to look back at the last three years, at the convoluted timeline of doughnut talks and quotes that accompanied those moments. Authorities say a 21-year-old man, Chason Buxton, was killed when the car he was riding in was struck by another vehicle heading in the opposite direction near Seeley Lake. Flathead County Commissioner Joe Brenneman has filed a complaint with the state Commissioner of Political Practices concerning an advertisement he says misrepresents his position on property rights. Diane Pickavance, a Bigfork bar manager accused of allowing alcohol to be served after hours to a man who died in a head-on crash with a Montana Highway Patrol trooper, has pleaded guilty to violating the conditions of her parole. And Kitcehn Guy Jim Gray instructs on how to make a mind-blowing cheese cake.

Supporters of an initiative to cap interest rates on payday and title loans are making a final campaign push after the measure's opponents failed to convince a judge to remove it from the Nov. 2 ballot. Two years after the bankruptcy of Montana's Yellowstone Club laid bare a massive real estate scheme fueled by greed, fraud and hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-advised loans, criminal investigators are probing the activities of one of the founders of the ultra-exclusive resort. Michael Steele, embattled chairman of the Republican National Committee, brought his "Fire Pelosi" bus tour through Billings over the weekend. The two Republicans running for the Montana Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities and enforces the renewable-power law, are attacking renewable-power mandates as needless government meddling that has driven up costs for consumers. Chuck Johnson has an interesting column about when third-party candidates should be included in debates. Medical marijuana patients, caregivers and supporters from around the state spent Sunday in Helena asking questions and listening to panel discussions about the medicinal plant that’s generated significant interest since voter approval in 2004.

 

E-mail Story   Print Story