Montana News

Just hours after The Missoula City Council passed a new ordinance requiring background checks on gun sales, a Republican state lawmaker challenged it. House Speaker Austin Knudsen is asking State Attorney General Tim Fox to review the law.

An unanticipated surge in prisoner numbers means Montana’s Department of Corrections has gone over budget, and will likely have to ask state lawmakers for more money in the 2017 legislative session.

Senator Jon Tester is asking Montanans who think they’ve been caught up in problems with Wells Fargo to get in touch with his office. Earlier this month the bank acknowledged opening more than two million customer accounts without their consent, incurring fees and other negative financial consequences.

This week the U.S. Department of the Interior asked a federal judge to give them more time to respond to a lawsuit over canceled oil and gas leases in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. The former lease owner is suing. Earlier this month, lawyers for Louisiana based Solenex LLC asked the court to find that the Secretary of the Interior acted outside the law when canceling their 33-year old lease.

All three members of Montana’s congressional delegation voted in favor of the first-ever override of a veto by President Obama. Last week the President vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. Wednesday, Democratic Senator Jon Tester joined Congressman Ryan Zinke and Senator Steve Daines, both Republicans, in voting to overturn that veto.

Death and taxes are supposedly two certainties in life. But at the moment, in Lake County, property taxes aren’t so certain. The county is suing the state Department of Revenue over one property -- the Seli’š Ksanka Qlispe’ (say-LISH kuh-ZAHN-kuh kud-LEE-speh) Dam, formerly known as the Kerr Dam, which the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes bought from NorthWestern Energy last year. The sale was negotiated in 1985 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

A new budget analysis projects that the state’s general fund balance will fall by more than half by the end of 2017. That’s because state revenues are expected to continue declining into the next fiscal year.

Vietnam veterans probably remember ‘stand downs’ - those safe retreats for units returning from combat duty. Ben Wight, American Red Cross Armed Forces Coordinator in Great Falls, says stand downs, "represented a time in which you brought the troops back to get them showered up, resupplied and gave them a couple of days off to regroup until they put them back in the field.” Wight is helping organize The 10th annual Vets for Vets Stand Down this week in Great Falls. It will bring together people

The Montana Standard is suing to make Superfund negotiations in Butte public after they've been veiled in secrecy for 14 years. Nora Saks speaks with David McCumber, the editor of the newspaper, to find out more about their lawsuit and why the state pulled out of the clean-up settlement last week.

Vietnam veterans probably remember "stand downs" - those safe retreats for units returning from combat duty. Ben Wight, American Red Cross Armed Forces Coordinator in Great Falls, says stand downs, "represented a time in which you brought the troops back to get them showered up, resupplied and gave them a couple of days off to regroup until they put them back in the field.” Wight is helping organize The 10th annual Vets for Vets Stand Down this week in Great Falls. It will bring together people