Good morning; on the Beacon today, the high rate of foreclosures on the Flathead is reverberating into the broader community, especially local financial and real estate sectors. Overcrowded jails in Montana have altered the sentencing habits of judges, forced county officials to release nonviolent offenders to make room for inmates accused of more serious crimes and led detention officers to retrofit their jails to accommodate more inmates. A preliminary injunction has been negotiated to open the records of a Polson company in an alleged Ponzi scheme. And Beacon columnist Dave Skinner wonders what Plum Creek’s end game is.
A judge yesterday granted GM’s request to drop its contract with Montana’s Stillwater Mining Company. The Kootenai Creek fire has now burned 175 acres in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness west of Stevensville. The U.S. Senate rejected a measure allowing a person with a concealed weapon permit in one state to also hide his firearm when visiting another state. The Missoulian’s Michael Jamison reports on Mars scientists looking for similarities between the rocks of Glacier Park and the red planet. Kalispell physician Annie Bukacek is in Washington D.C. urging against proposed health care reform and trying to keep government out of the medical industry. Lawyers have concluded a second round of settlement talks in a lawsuit by shareholders seeking $3 billion plus punitive damages from the former Montana Power Co. And Gov. Brian Schweitzer got an earful from world’s oldest man, Walter Breuning, in Great Falls.