Montana News

Bernie Sanders’ first campaign stop in Montana for Democratic U.S. House candidate Rob Quist drew thousands, enough to mostly fill the Adams Center arena on the University of Montana Campus in Missoula.

Approximately 20,000 Montanans have developmental disabilities. "Everyday they face discrimination," says Bernadette Franks-Ongoy, who is the executive director for Disability Rights Montana based in Helena.

Gov. Steve Bullock will hold a signing ceremony tomorrow for a bill that will allow Native Americans to wear traditional regalia during public events, including high school graduations. “This bill means a lot to me. It’s important that our youth are able to display their culture and their identity during monumental events, such as graduation,” says Marci McLean, the director of Western Native Voice, a nonprofit advocacy group.

The Environmental Protection Agency has identified two compounds in the mysterious oily sheen detected along the shoreline of Flathead Lake near Somers earlier this month. Volatile organic compounds and semi-volatile organic compounds were previously detected in samples taken from water pooled along the shoreline at Somers Bay .

Flathead County Commissioners Friday approved plans for a 100-spot RV park outside the west entrance to Glacier National Park. With a unanimous vote by the commissioners, the company Glacier Park, Inc., is now cleared to move forward with its plan to develop 25 cabins and a 102-spot recreational vehicle campground adjacent to the village of West Glacier outside the western entrance to the park.

Colleen O’Brien didn’t know her usual polling place wouldn’t be open for Montana's May 25’s special election to fill Montana’s U.S. House seat until last week. "It's making it incredibly inconvenient at best, and it is disenfranchising an underserved, underrepresented population at worst," O'Brien says.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told Congress this week that American farmers are facing plenty of challenges and deep uncertainty. “Our farm economy is down by about a 50-percent drop in net income from where it was in 2013 as you all were contemplating the ’14 Farm Bill" Perdue says. "We’ve got several members who – particularly younger farmers – have levered up in this situation where their revenue is not supporting their debt structure and they’re in some dire straits.”

One of the longest-running high school parades in the United States has been criticized by the ACLU and others for its portrayal of Native Americans. “This is racism, 21st century racism," says Meg Singer, a Helena resident and member of the Navajo Nation. She says Helena High School students at the Vigilante Day Parade last Friday dressed in Hollywood-style Native American costumes with short skirts and other scantily-clad clothing.

Candidates and outside groups are dumping more than $12 million into Montana’s short special election race for the U.S. House, surpassing the spending in last year’s race by $3 million. That’s according to the latest federal campaign reports filed this week.

Montana’s largest utility provider announced Wednesday it is looking for small-scale renewable energy projects that it’s required by law to buy. But utilities and their regulators in Montana say that requirement is outdated, and that the law should be repealed.