News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1724 - 1748 of 3210
We can’t have a competitive workforce without a healthy workforce. And a healthy workforce depends on the individual health of each of its citizens. Until recently, too many of our fellow Montanans lived each day knowing that access to health care was beyond their reach. They avoided regular checkups and screenings, and instead, were forced to the emergency room to access expensive, difficult to treat care. When you’re not healthy, it’s difficult to stay on the job and be a productive member of the workforce. Thank...
Some moments, those profound life moments, come at you like a truck wreck in the making, in slow motion, from a few miles out. You always knew that the road would be slick ahead, but you thought it wouldn’t happen for many miles. You thought maybe, when you got there, you’d spin out a bit or take out a reflector or dent a guardrail or some equivalent mishap. But you assumed you would drive away from the crisis relatively unscathed, maybe have to fill out an accident rep...
The Montana Food Bank Network is extremely disappointed that the House Agriculture Committee made no changes to Chairman Conaway’s harmful restrictions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) in his Farm Bill (H.R. 2). They advanced the bill closer to a full House vote, despite projections that millions will lose SNAP benefits with the proposed punitive barriers. Because SNAP helps 121,000 Montanans keep food on the table and provides food assistance to 1 in 5 Montana children, MFBN r...
My friend Dick is gone from our lives. We feel sad. We feel relieved he no longer suffers. We feel guilty we couldn’t take away his pain and confusion. We will miss him, his kindness, his motorcycle rides to Malta for lunch, his incredible stories. Dick and Jane. Who would have thought I’d have ready-made such good friends when I moved from Washington to Montana. Dick and I were in the same class in school but we didn’t hang out together. We’d reconnected when I visited...
Montana is at a crossroads. Will we continue to preserve and protect our access to public lands and waterways? Or, will we allow wealthy corporations and ultra-rich individuals pick apart our access to hiking, biking, fishing, hunting and enjoying the rights we have today? The strength and resilience of Montana’s economy is largely dependent upon the wild attractions of our beautiful state. Yellowstone Park and Glacier Park get a lot of attention, drawing millions of visitors. Of course, Montana has much more to offer. S...
Montanans expect a lot out of their elected officials, as well they should. Without regard to political party, they expect us to work together when we can and explain our differences with honesty when we cannot. They expect us to spend less time on spats in Helena, and more time on getting to work and strengthening our communities. More than anything, Montanans expect their elected officials to talk straight and be honest. Unfortunately for all Montanans, some Republicans in Montana are starting to act a lot like Republicans...
We perhaps agree that we will continue to use some form of energy for industry, home heating and lighting and transportation. We need energy to continue to live a lifestyle similar to what we have now. We will continue to eat. Food production will need to continue on a commercial basis to produce enough food for there to be opportunity for every citizen in the USA to consume adequate nutrients. We can agree that open spaces are important for many reasons, wildlife habitat, recreations and solitude and agriculture production....
It’s a pretty sure sign I’m in a crabby mood when I read the headline “Homeowner finds naked intruder in her tub, eating Cheetos,” and my brain says “Meh, whatever.” The story seems to have all the elements I would normally find appealing: the suspense of a break-in, the mystery of the man who supposedly told the female intruder to intrude, the surprise of finding her naked, the absurdity of her lounging in the tub rather than ransacking the house and the confusion of the intruder having brought her own cooler full of foo...
We don’t see ourselves. We aren’t able. Even surrounded by walls of mirrors, we only see glimpses and reflections. And I’m talking broad scope here. Not just the outside package of who I am. But the me beneath my skin and the life I create. So I delight in being able to share bits of my daily life with friends from afar who come visit. Sunday morning Steve and Theresa from Washington arrived tired and bedraggled after an overnight flight. Steve and Theresa are beneath the s...
The Bureau of Land Management just completed a series of public scoping meetings on the American Prairie Reserve’s request to convert 17 federal grazing leases from cattle to bison. The take-away from these meetings is that BLM is trying to balance the concerns of ranchers with the steps APR needs to advance their bison reserve agenda. Because the conversion of grazing leases from cattle to bison assures APR’s bison restoration goals, landowners firmly believe the real issue BLM should be examining is the big elephant in the...
Community diversion and re-entry programs rehabilitate offenders, save state tax dollars, and prevent mass incarceration. These programs help drug and non-violent offenders obtain treatment and get a job, rather than emerge from prison as hardened criminals. That much is clear. It’s also clear that American Indians, compared to our non-native peers, are disproportionately imprisoned in Montana’s correctional system. Indeed, Native people constitute around 7 percent of Montana’s population but account for 21 percent of the s...
As we move further away from the governor’s rejection of CoreCivic’s offer, I believe it is imperative that Montanans understand the true nature of the deal our governor inexplicably refused to take with the private U.S. prison operating company. CoreCivic’s final offer was for a two-year contract extension at a daily rate of $75.48 per inmate. Given that the state can house up to 600 prisoners in Shelby, the maximum total value of the contract extension would have been approximately $33 million. In exchange for this new d...
The Bureau of Land Management is asking for the public’s help in determining what it should analyze as it considers proposed changes to several grazing leases. American Prairie Reserve, or APR, controls private properties tied to 18 BLM grazing allotments in Fergus, Petroleum, Phillips and Valley counties. They have submitted a proposal asking the BLM to modify their grazing permits. Note that Page 2 of their proposal lists “other terms and conditions of APR proposed action.” Item 2 of this says, “Split BLM East Dry Fork al...
The Havre High Key Club would like to take a moment and share with the Havre community a summary of the past year of service. Our 47 members owe many thanks to a supportive Havre Public Schools administration and staff who encourage and supported our service projects throughout the year. The Key Club also would like to thank our local Kiwanis Club who support our members by sharing in the participation of service projects, fund raisers, and their financial support. It is because of the backing of our administration, local...
If sympathy was a tangible thing that you could use to fill a room, all the sympathy my siblings and I got from our parents when we were children would amount to a vast, empty hall filled with nothing but echoes of our complaints. Maybe a few crickets taking advantage of the awesome acoustics. I claim three parents so, sure, the odds are that there were moments of sympathy. Let’s put one box of sympathy in that room, in a far corner — one of those sturdy, but little, box...
Setenta tres. Seventy-three. I bought a fancy chocolate cake yesterday at my favorite pasteleria. I’m invited to dinner at John and Carol’s house tonight. Nobody knows it’s my birthday and I ain’t telling. But I’m taking my cake to share and will get great and secret pleasure from having a party when nobody else knows it’s my party. Day on top of day, the years have a way of rolling past. Getting older doesn’t hold the same pizzazz and crackle for me that earliest year...
The East Fork Fire Foundation Board is pleased to announce that funds so generously donated by our community have been dispersed, and all funds have been allocated. We wish to thank the Hill County Commissioners, with cooperation of the Blaine County Commission, for allowing our board to appoint individuals to evaluate applications and award funds based on those applications. Hill County had not removed any funds from the account and allowed us to disperse 100 percent of the donated funds. We asked that our board who made the...
As much as I am totally into dramatics, I do not think my adopted hometown of Havre deserved to be labeled as the worst city in the whole United States of America this winter. Yeah, I get it, our weather has sucked this year, truly, I’ve lived through it, but the worst, as in THE worst is a stretch —by hundreds of miles. I think it’s an ill-disguised attempt by those Weather Channel people to get more mileage out of the video they shot last year of the aftermath of the Oct....
Have you had “the talk” with your mother or father? You know, the one where you try to convince them to quit driving? It represents everything we fear about aging. How can you stay in the house you have lived in for years if you can’t drive to the grocery store? How can you keep up with your friends and family? What about getting to doctor’s appointments? How can you afford it? Some older people have the resources to afford appropriate housing, transportation and healthcare. Even then, helping a parent or loved one deal wi...
Over the years we inhaled plenty of Montana wilderness trail dust. We’re a couple of long-in-the-tooth recreational horse and mule packers who enjoy wandering in our Montana public lands. We have a few bones to pick with Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Greg Gianforte. Mainly, we don’t approve of their land grab of the people’s Wilderness Study Areas, or WSAs. Sen. Daines’ bill S2206 is titled, “The Protect Public Use of Public Lands Act.” Sounds benign right? It ain’t. It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This bill was introduced to...
That iguana spit on me today. I stood below him, next to the wall in my front-patio courtyard, watching him soak up the sun. He turned his head, looked me in the eye, and spit. Well, that’s a fine howdy-do. No manners. But, maybe, like many a youngster, he had a valid complaint: “She looked at me.” There’s a pair of what I call teen iguanas, middle-sized, who sun at the top of that particular section of wall. You should see them skitter up — or down — a vertical wall. Yet,...
It's just another week in weird news. First, some people really know how to celebrate the holidays, and some people are just a train wreck. We all know folks who go all out for the Easter holiday with colored eggs and an 8-foot blow-up Easter bunny, or multiple church services or a to-die-for-and-get-resurrected lamb dinner. But we don’t all know Ladonna Hughett, 54, from Ohio who really got into the Easter spirit this year, or should I say the Easter spirits. Hughett showed u...
We have talented people, great businesses, and an unparalleled entrepreneurial spirit in Montana. By raising capital, Montanans can leverage those assets to start new businesses, expand existing ones, and create more good-paying jobs in every community under the Big Sky. As your securities commissioner, one of my jobs is to encourage and help facilitate investment in Montana’s businesses. That’s why I launched my statewide “Invest in Montana” tour to promote capital formation. At our recent Invest in Montana event in Havre,...
This morning after Qi Gong, I told Jim, “I write my column today and my mind is blank. ” “Easy,” his reply. “Write about purple.” We were beneath the Jacaranda, which this week is a purple umbrella, sheltering 50 shades of birds burying their heads in each blossom, milking the honey-nectar. In that disconnected way that one thought leads to another, I knew that what I really wanted to write about is my simple life. “Jim, the more I pare down my life, the more important small t...
Banks and credit unions don’t always agree on much, but they agree on this: Sen. Jon Tester stood up for Montana’s communities, and their small banks and credit unions, when he helped author a bipartisan bill to provide regulatory relief to certain financial institutions. The Dodd-Frank Act was a “one-size-fits-all” congressional response to the 2008 financial crisis designed to address the risky decisions made by “Too-Big-To-Fail” Wall Street banks. It was 2,300 pages long and created more than 400 new regulations...
