Montana News

The University of Montana will be presenting its voluntary early retirement plan to eligible faculty Friday. UM President Sheila Stearns says early retirement will be offered, “exclusively to a subset of full-time tenured faculty at the university’s main campus and Missoula College.”

Yesterday I spoke with the Republican candidate for Montana's US House seat, Greg Gianforte. ERIC WHITNEY: When we last talked to you about the House healthcare bill, last Thursday, that was the day the House passed the bill, at the time you told us you need a little more time to study it before you could say whether you would have voted for it. So, would you have voted for the House bill?

Montana’s senior U.S. senator is calling for a special investigator to look into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The U.S. Senate could not muster enough votes Wednesday to undo rules designed to reduce methane pollution. Senators voted 51-49 Wednesday against an attempt to eliminate an Obama-era rule to limit methane emissions from oil and gas production facilities on federal and tribal lands.

An escalating trade war brewing between the United States and Canada could save timber mills in Montana, but at the cost of over 1,000 jobs north of the border in British Columbia. It all started in April, when the Trump administration slapped tariffs on softwood lumber coming across the border, making them up to 24 percent more expensive. It’s something Montana lumber producers have been asking for, and it’s a test of Trump’s ‘America First’ trade policy.

Starting this weekend, Glacier National Park will begin operating a spring transit shuttle for hikers and bicyclists traveling the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Going-to-the-Sun will be vehicle free for several weeks.

Before Rob Quist became a politician, or toured the country in a bluegrass band, he lived in Cut Bank, a rural Hi-line town near where the Rocky Mountains meet the eastern plains. The young Quist lived on a ranch just north of the town with his family. Back then, Cut Bank was one of Montana’s big-time oil producers, Quist was his high school’s student body president, and he helped the Cut Bank Wolves win a state basketball championship, leading the team in scoring in the title game.

This week, the shore of the lower Flathead River west of Ronan is the biggest classroom in Montana. Fourth and fifth graders from across western Montana are here for the River Honoring, an annual event hosted by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, where they learn about the plants and animals native to the reservation.

Healthcare has again moved toward the top of the agenda in Montana’s special election race for the state’s lone seat in the U.S. House. Whichever candidate wins the race, there’s no way they’ll be able to represent everyone in Montana on healthcare .

It’s a short school week for students at a Helena middle school that was damaged by a fire Monday afternoon. Classes were canceled today at C.R. Anderson Middle School and won’t resume until Thursday at the earliest.