Good morning; on the Beacon today, a 63-year-old Flathead County man has died from complications of contracting the H1N1 flu, according to the Flathead City-County Health Department. If it takes only one man to change an election, Rick Blake appears to be that man in Whitefish. Three family members accused of fraudulently obtaining prescription drugs have been arrested in Evergreen: Darrell Burghduff, his wife, Virginia Burghduff and their son, Lyle Blackburn. Kalispell City Council is moving closer to adopting an ordinance limiting excessive noise at certain times of the day, while grappling with enforcement of an ordinance regulating outdoor lighting standards that roughly 80 businesses are still out of compliance with four years after it was enacted. Greg Franson of Whitefish-based Bluebird Guides is running ski trips to the big mountains of British Columbia. The National Guard 639th QM Co. is scheduled to return home to Kalispell from their second tour in Iraq soon, and a group of volunteers is looking to make the homecoming as welcoming as possible for the troops.
Workers losing their jobs at the Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. in Missoula are eligible for a federal job assistance program. The Missoulian’s Michael Jamison talks to Flathead loggers about how they’re going to manage without Smurfit. History may be calling but time’s running out to act by Christmas, so Senate Democrats are coming to terms with the idea they won’t get everything they want from health care overhaul. The Libby town clerk is asking divisive city councilman D.C. Orr to reimburse her for the expenses she incurred defending herself against his allegations. A federal program offering rebates for energy saving major appliances is coming to Montana next spring. State and local governments would be forbidden from imposing a tax on real estate sales and transfers under a proposed 2010 constitutional initiative ballot measure submitted Tuesday by the Montana Association of Realtors. Fourteen state legislators from Eastern Montana, all Republicans, sent a letter Tuesday to the state Land Board, urging it to vote next week to lease 570 million tons of state-owned coal in the Otter Creek Valley, for possible development. And the Montana projects funded in the latest U.S. Senate Appropriations bill totals $52 million.