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Articles from the December 10, 2023 edition


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  • Wolverines gain federal protections under Endangered Species Act

    Amanda Eggert, Montana Free Press|Updated Dec 13, 2023

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday that it's moving forward with federal protections for wolverines, a reclusive and wide-ranging carnivore. In a press release announcing the decision to add wolverines to the list of animals protected under the Endangered Species Act, USFWS Regional Director Hugh Morrisson said the decision will enhance wolverine viability in the contiguous United States. "Current and increasing impacts of climate change and associated...

  • Op-Ed: Protecting the American Dream

    Troy Downing|Updated Dec 13, 2023

    A question I am often asked is "Why? Why are you running?" The answer is simple: These United States of America, all she represents, and all of the opportunities she offers have been good to me, and I need to give back. I need to serve. I need to feel that I deserve all that she has offered without asking anything in return. I need to know that someone like me, from meager beginnings, an unplanned pregnancy to an unwed teenage mother, someone without money or connections, can...

  • Op-Ed: A 2023 Political Recap: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

    Sheila Hogan, Montana Democratic Party Director|Updated Dec 13, 2023

    Skyrocketing property taxes. Astronomical energy rate increases. Homes that are unaffordable to most Montanans. And yet more big tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, while the rest of us are left to foot the bill. When we look back on the last year, all these changes and more were brought you by one party and its supermajority: Montana Republicans. As 2023 ends, let's look back over the last 12 months to see where Republicans really took us as a state. The Good. Montana Democrats...

  • Op-Ed: Are you happy about your new property tax bill?

    Jan Lombardi, Seeley Lake|Updated Dec 13, 2023

    Are you happy about your new property tax bill? I'm definitely not. Everywhere I go, people are grumbling about how much their property taxes increased. But if you think nobody is happy, you're wrong. Governor Gianforte and the Republican legislative supermajority raised our property taxes. Yep, it's true, and it was intentional. Sure, taxes are complicated, and we pay them because we have to. So, you might be asking an obvious question, like I did: Why in the heck would...

  • Who was Tim Sheehy before he started running for Senate? Here's what we know

    Arren Kimbel-Sannit, Montana Free Press|Updated Dec 13, 2023

    Before Tim Sheehy was the frontrunner in Montana's 2024 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, the ex-Navy SEAL, aerial firefighter, millionaire business owner, part-time rancher and occasional political donor was a 2004 graduate of a Minneapolis-St. Paul area private high school who grew up in a lake house outside Minnesota's Twin Cities. Sheehy emerged earlier this year from relative obscurity as a top recruit of the National Republican Senatorial Committee - the organization...

  • FWP adopts new elk management plan and environmental assessment

    News release, Montana FWP|Updated Dec 13, 2023

    HELENA – Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has adopted the 2023 Elk Management Plan and accompanying environmental assessment. The elk plan lays out how FWP will manage elk; the EA is an evaluation and summary of potential impacts on the physical environment and human population. The new plan is flexible and reflects current elk management direction and challenges, as well as being forward looking in anticipating management changes. "Development of the new elk plan was a long a...

  • Op-Ed: States must finally end the unconstitutional scheme of home equity theft

    Madilynne Clark, Mountain States Policy Center|Updated Dec 13, 2023

    If someone were to borrow a cup of sugar to make a cake and doesn't return a similar amount, is the lender entitled to the cake? The lender would be viewed as excessively greedy to acquire so much in recompense. A fairer outcome would be for the borrower to offer a slice deemed equivalent to the value of the sugar. Yet, prior to the Supreme Court ruling in Tyler v. Hennepin County in May 2023, governments were allowed to "take the cake" from many citizens through home equity...

  • Restoration of grave fences continues at Lincoln Gulch Cemetery

    Roger Dey, BVD|Updated Dec 11, 2023

    The grave of Minnie Neal, who died and was buried in 1869 in the old Lincoln Gulch Cemetery has a newly reconstructed fence back in place around her grave. Her grave was one of three from the pioneer mining era that had picket fences around them, and the only one of them identified by a headstone. Lewis and Clark County Heritage Preservation Officer Pam Attardo, joined by Mary Webb and Emory Padgett with Preserve Montana worked to rebuild the fences during a visit Oct. 16 and...

  • Obituary: Judith Diane Jones

    Updated Dec 11, 2023

    Judith Diane Jones was known to all as Judy and so help you if you called her Judith or made fun of Joe Montana. She was born in Bremerton, Washington to Lillian and Willard Eaton. Her dad was a Navy Man, and she grew up as a Navy brat and proud of it. Because he was in the military, she moved around quite a bit from California to Guam. So, if you said you were from California, so was she, but her first love was the Mountains of Montana. She finished her schooling in Lincoln,...