Good morning; on the Beacon today, the Montana Highway Patrol says a bus carrying the Kalispell Glacier volleyball team ran a red light and crashed into a truck, but there were no serious injuries. After four years of interviewing, compiling and editing, the MontanaPBS documentary “Never Long Gone: The Mission Mountain Wood Band Story,” is premiering all over Montana in the coming week. Just three years old, the Glacier High School Wolfpack are contending for the Class AA state football championship. Mick Holien is relieved the feud between Griz coach Bobby Hauck and the UM student newspaper, the Kaimin, is over – for now. And Warren Miller reminisces about the “good old days” of skiing in the 1940s in southern California.
The unemployment rate has surpassed 10 percent for the first time since 1983 — and is likely to go higher. House Democrats are scrambling to secure enough support to pass President Barack Obama’s historic health overhaul initiative, working to soothe last-minute concerns from rank-and-file Democrats ahead of a make-or-break vote. The owner of a downtown Bozeman bar has filed the seventh lawsuit against NorthWestern Energy over a deadly March 5 natural gas explosion. David Benson, a veteran of political campaigns in South Dakota and Minnesota, has taken over as executive director of the Montana Democratic Party. Billings Republican lawmakers said Thursday that they will exert state rights if health insurance becomes mandatory under federal law. At the opposite end of the spectrum, single-payer supporters haven’t given up hope. And two hunters near Boulder are shaken after a very close encounter with a lion.