News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 966 - 990 of 3210
Consumers have the right to know the origin of their beef purchases, and ranchers have the right to a fair and competitive market. This is a reasonable expectation. However, since 2015 Congress specifically exempted beef and pork from labeling laws. Consumers do not know where their beef comes from, and ranchers do not have fair prices. If you are a consumer learning of this for the first time, you might be incredulous. The last time you purchased beef from the supermarket, the labels clearly stated “USDA Graded” and “Pr...
When I was a unionized worker for 18 years, my worksite was twice as safe and my wages and benefits were 23 percent more than a non-unionized workplace in my field. The union was my choice and was optional. Now, I work for that same union because I believe in what unions do for employees. I represent over 1,000 workers from Great Falls eastward and each of them has that same choice. These union workers are the essential front line before, during and after COVID. They maintained the roads you drove on today, the safe drinking...
Gov. Greg Gianforte and other high-ranking officials within his administration don’t trust their colleagues or Montanans to make their own decisions. Despite a majority of legislators and voters agreeing a piece of legislation was bad for Montana, Gianforte insisted on pushing his national agenda onto the people of Montana. A bipartisan group of legislators in the House State Administration Committee voted to defeat and subsequently table House Bill 176. This bill would end Election Day voter registration, a process that has...
That 2019 news about scientists teaching rats to drive a car is making the rounds again like it’s been cruising the drag and is coming back up the street. I was going to sit at my stop sign and let the fast and the furriest drive on by without commenting or even waving. But, I don’t know, it’s a story about lab rats being happy about driving a car to a spot where someone brings food to your window like going to an old-fashioned drive-up restaurant where a carhop brings you you...
My last two were heavy-with-grief. I received unprecedented response. And lots of questions. I’ll talk about that in a minute. First, the good news. My son is back, truly the Prodigal Returned. He is returned to his life. He is grieving, hurting, yet doing the hard work of a multi-faceted recovery. My daughter’s family has a plan, well, more an examination of possibilities and potentialities for when Sweet Jess, and she is a dear woman, slips and lands on the hard ice of add...
My husband, Peter, is taking no chances. I knew this about him before I married him. Peter has a plan for everything and a plan in case the first plan doesn’t pan out. My father would call this “belt and suspenders” planning. Peter’s been walking around in a belt and suspenders ever since I’ve known him. Peter’s planning has made surviving the pandemic a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. We never run out of anything. That might sound impossible, but it’s almost...
The honeymoon is over. The gloves are coming off. No more Mr. Nice guys. We are beginning to see more and more dissension in chamber. Little jabs and uncalled for remarks; it is not the way I like to see business conducted. If you watch the State of the State and the minority rebuttal you would have seen what I am referring to. This is not happening as much in the Senate, as there has not been near the turnover of legislators during the last election cycle as the House had. Many are new lawmakers to this process and want to m...
Last week, Gov. Greg Gianforte, for the first time since taking office, shared his vision for our state — a vision that is limited to massive giveaways for Montana’s wealthiest, and gives quiet approval for an unprecedented barrage of attacks on the freedoms of Montana’s women and children. Democrats have a better plan that aims to meet the challenges of our time by creating jobs and opportunity for Montanans. Rather than prioritizing out-of-state interests, Democrats are investing in the people who live here, have roots...
For the past 20 years, I have called the Havre Daily News my home, so nearly half of my life has been dedicated to putting out the best community newspaper possible, but while I celebrate this anniversary I am also announcing that, as of today, I have moved on to another pursuit. Though I am excited about the opportunities that await me in the future, it is with sadness that I say goodbye. My time here has been marked by both challenges and triumphs, and each has made me feel...
I think we’re in trouble when the phrase “everything old is new again” applies to the writing of instruction manuals. Prehistoric drawings all over the world show images of all types of animals that lived in the region when the paintings were made – and we’re talking 20,000 to 100,000 years ago, maybe more. Those paintings serve as Basic Hunting 101 instructions for hunter gatherers: We need to eat. Go to the “store.” Kill one of these. Of course, some of the paintings sho...
Around 7 percent of Montanans are Native Americans, yet Indigenous people account for 26 percent of the missing persons cases in our state. Addressing the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons must be a priority for all leaders and communities throughout Big Sky Country, and as both a state senator and a member of the Northern Cheyenne, I’ve made it a top priority. Unfortunately, it can be extremely difficult to locate missing Indigenous people due to the vast, rural expanses of Montana and the jurisdictional b...
Nobody could have written a soap opera to equal the drama of these pandemic days. It’s not just me and my family. We are all part of the drama. Nobody would believe it. No soap would sponsor such a program. Last week’s episode of my family drama left us hanging with my son struggling with seizures resulting from the COVID virus, on strong medication, and Oops — The Secret Storm we were not supposed to know — drinking. He was a mere month away from celebrating six years o...
A friend of mine told me something so amazing, I had to look it up to see if it was true. In 1960, a series of experiments were done with flatworms in which a bunch of flatworms were taught where to find food. This was news all on its own, as the flatworm is not a species known for its scholastic aptitude. But that wasn’t the interesting part. It got interesting when the educated flatworms were ground up and fed to flatworms who had no idea where the food was and, miraculously...
What a great week! Judy and I hosted our daughter's twins, grandsons Bauer and Brant, at the house. They were both pages at the Senate for Week 3, along with the Evans brothers from Helena. All four boys are football players and 4-H members, so they had much in common, to the point the page director mixed up the families. This week was to be 4-H week for legislators and local 4-H'ers, we have shared an annual breakfast the last two sessions. This year was virtual and felt...
Like so many Montanans, I grew up with a rifle in one hand and a shotgun in the other. I converted my love of shooting into a 25-year career in the firearms industry. I helped build an iconic international gun company. I sold millions of guns. I’ve won awards, even been a finalist for the “Firearms Industry Person of the Year,” which is the industry’s highest honor. It’s an award that has also been bestowed on firearms royalty like Charlton Heston and Bill Ruger. I’ve got a long history with guns, but I never forgot the...
Because I think being up-to-date in the news also means reading the “Odd News” articles, I occasionally get a sense that human and animals lead parallel lives, or maybe we are influenced by the same forces in the universe. I don’t know, but the correlations seem uncanny sometimes. Humans have been increasingly aggressive and recently erupted into serious attacks, with bloodshed, at the Capitol building, the political home of our national lawmakers. Well, get this, people in a...
With the holidays behind us and a new year in front of us, now is an appropriate time to reflect on the very unusual year we all just experienced and consider what 2021 might look like. Importantly, while we know we can’t control a good amount of what we’ll be dealing with in the new year, focusing on what we can have an influence on will help us contribute positively to the communities in which we live and work. During the Christmas season, it was a pleasure to shop locally and discuss with small business owners how the hol...
When one thinks it can’t get worse, it can. And it does. This coming Feb. 20 would have been my son’s sixth sobriety birthday. I considered a thousand different ways of talking about this and each one led to, “Just vomit it out.” In “Looking Out My Backdoor,” I write about what is pertinent in my life. And I vowed to be honest with myself and honest with you. My son, Ben, this man who is super-intelligent with a computer mind, this man with such a big heart that, a year ago,...
I don’t remember exactly when I took to living in stretch pants full time. The process was gradual, I’m sure of that. I started out wearing a pair of bell-bottom stretch pants when I was writing. I didn’t actually live in them; they were part of my writing costume and they were comfy. But as the pandemic wore on, I noticed the legs of my stretch pants were getting longer and longer until, one day, I saw they were covering my feet, and it was not a very respectable look. “I ne...
This has been a week with lots of requests for my opinion on various current political matters. First, my thought about what happened in Washington, D.C. All I can say is what a travesty. The next question has to do with the legators’ safety at the Montana State Capitol. I have discussed this in prior articles, but it bears repeating. Personal and family safety has been an issue for me since my days in the Army. I worked security in the military and some training just sticks with you. Yes, I am concerned, not only for s...
Politicians, by nature, are calculators, oddsmakers, bettors, bookies. They bet on winning and losing all the time. Montana Sen. Steve Daines bet on President Trump. But following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Daines changed his wager. That day, a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol, erected a gallows, killed a U.S. Capitol policeman, and searched like terrorists for lawmakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence. They threatened to stop Congress from doing its constitutional duty to...
The overwhelming number of videos about the D.C. protest-turned-siege of the U.S. Capitol didn’t make me think of my grandpa until I saw an entirely unrelated video that seemed to complete the picture, like a Venn diagram with the American flag in the center. I’ve written about Grandpa before, a gentleman with a warm heart, a quick humor and strong ethics. The son of immigrants, one Irish and one German born on the boat over to the U.S., Grandpa loved life, so loved many thi...
Jim from Missouri, funny how we label people, isn’t it, was talking with me the other day, distanced and masked, when, in an idle comment, I mentioned that I miss summer sausage, a treat that ordinarily I wouldn’t give thought to since if I had a hankering, in my previous lives, I could go to the grocery and buy a chunk. Or a friend might gift me a chunk of deer sausage after a successful hunt. Our spicy chorizo sausage is easily obtainable here in Jalisco, and like els...
Dax stared at me in disbelief. I am the Treat Lady, and I had no treats. It was inexplicable. Dax is one of my regular customers. He is a young black dog with a lot of energy. His sister, Zia, is a little older and has the uncanny ability to find me with or without her owner anywhere in the vicinity. On this particular day, Dax was with his owner on a run and he was beside himself to suddenly encounter the Treat Lady, without even the help of his resourceful sister. Dax was ov...
The Montana Budget & Policy Center is a nonprofit organization providing research and analysis on budget, tax, and economic issues. Imagine someone gave you a million dollars and told you to spend $1,000 every day and come back when you ran out of money. You would return in less than three years. If someone then gave you a billion dollars and you spent $1,000 each day, it would take you 2,740 years before it was gone. That’s how much money the 2021 Montana Legislature is already proposing to cut from the state budget to p...
