Plans to close 25 Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers across the country were reversed Wednesday by the Trump administration. Commissioners in Gallatin and Lewis and Clark counties are moving toward asking voters if they want to remove party affiliations from several local elected offices.

An audit found Secretary of State Corey Stapleton misused a state vehicle, likely to commute home on the weekends. Law enforcement officers in western Montana say a 16-year-old boy who was driving a stolen vehicle died today after fleeing a traffic stop in Missoula and jumping into the Clark Fork River. A Nevada man pleaded not guilty today to deliberate homicide in the suspected death of his girlfriend, who was last seen in Montana in September 2018.

Congressman Greg Gianforte launched his gubernatorial campaign Friday. Montana lawmakers did not have enough support to override four vetoes by Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock. A former Montana bank executive has denied charges that he approved two bank loans to a coal executive without disclosing separate private loans that he had either made or facilitated on behalf of an investor group.

Gov. Steve Bullock is not among the 20 candidates set to participate in the Democratic National Committee’s first debates of the 2020 presidential campaign. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to criminal charges in the case of Jermain Charlo, who has been missing for a year. The East Helena School District has temporarily stopped work on the athletic fields for its new high school after the soil tested higher for lead than the limit

Vice President Mike Pence is pushing a combination of tough law enforcement and treatment for addicts to combat Montana's methamphetamine crisis. A three-year fight over a proposed water bottling plant near Kalispell continues on several fronts. A jury in Seattle has awarded $4 million in damages to a Montana woman for injuries she suffered after being ejected from a duck boat tour vehicle in a crash that killed five college students and injured dozens.

The company that operates Colstrip's coal-fired power plant says it will close two of the four units this year. Talen Montana said in a statement today the older units of the Colstrip Steam Electric Station, will be permanently retired on December 31. House Minority Leader Casey Schreiner of Great Falls is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor of Montana.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear an appeal from the Atlantic Richfield Co. A judge awarded more than $500,000 to the family of a quadriplegic man who died from complications from an injury he suffered inside a Montana care facility.

Montana Democrats insist the Democratic National Committee is unfairly preventing Gov. Steve Bullock from participating in the party’s first national primary debates later this month. An appeals court has lifted a judge's injunction that blocked construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the US. But it's not clear whether yesterday's ruling will have any immediate effect. Vice President Mike Pence is planning to travel to Montana and Yellowstone National Park next week.

Earlier this morning, Montana’s attorney general announced that members of a new task force to address the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous people throughout the state. Gov. Steve Bullock will get a briefing on Montana’s wildfire outlook Friday from a group of interagency fire partners. The Montana Invasive Species Council wants feedback on its plan for what the state and partners should do if new infestations of weeds, pests and wildlife diseases are detected in the state.

An attempt to force the Trump administration to resume collecting information about donors to certain nonprofit groups is facing a key courtroom test. A Helena judge says Montana's secretary of state does not have the authority to unilaterally override Gov. Steve Bullock's veto of a bison bill. A Montana man dubbed the AK-47 bandit has been sentenced in a Nebraska federal court to 35 years in prison.