Good morning; on the Beacon today, Lee Sturdevant is launching a taxi business serving Kalispell and Whitefish after both cities have gone for months without one. A 30-year-old Flathead Valley man, Justin R. Calbick, pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he killed his father and brother before holding multiple people hostage east of Kalispell. A piece of land near Kila that was involved in a public-private exchange with Tim Blixseth in the 1990s may again return to public ownership. The Natural Resources and Conservation Service says Montana’s mountains have experienced a third straight month of below-average precipitation.
State biologists have culled 28 bighorn sheep from a herd near Philipsburg in western Montana to determine the extent of a recent pneumonia outbreak. Climate change might be hurting some populations of the American pika, a relative of the rabbit, but not enough to warrant endangered species protection for the tiny mountain-dwelling animal, according to a decision released Thursday. The unemployment rate dropped unexpectedly in January to 9.7 percent, while employers shed 20,000 jobs, according to a report that offered hope the economy will add jobs soon. Missoula police say a man committed suicide as an officer tried to serve an arrest warrant at an apartment where a kitten was found badly abused over the weekend. Seeking to elect “small-government” conservatives to the Legislature and weed out “big-government” Republican incumbents, some local Tea Party groups and other organizations have banded together to form the Montana Conservative Alliance. The Montana Supreme Court has upheld an $80,000 fine against a former Bankers Life and Casualty Co. agent in Troy who defrauded two elderly women. Human-service advocates are urging the Schweitzer administration to minimize any cuts to human-service programs when balancing the state budget, saying such programs are vital in an economic downturn. Montanans lobbying for green energy jobs urged federal lawmakers Wednesday to pass comprehensive climate change legislation.