Good morning; on the Beacon today, after two-and-a-half months of intensive remodeling, Brookies Cookies recently reopened for the summer season serving, not only sweets, but barbecue chicken. Since originally opening on First Avenue East in December of 2008, the Straight Blast gym has outgrown two facilities and added boxing, kickboxing and wrestling to its class schedule, in addition to its original classes. Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal wildlife officials say a young grizzly bear was struck and killed on U.S. Highway 93 south of Ronan. The Montana Highway Patrol says a man has been killed after he was thrown from a vehicle in a rollover crash in Arlee, then struck by another vehicle that did not stop.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Thursday that legalization of medical marijuana has not worked out as voters planned and that the state needs a legislative fix. Some of the nation’s largest cable companies are interested in buying Bresnan Communications, a mid-sized cable company operating in the West, a person familiar with the talks said. A state prison inmate who filed a $10 million federal lawsuit against Yellowstone County, alleging jailers interfered with his satanic religious practices, has agreed to settle the case for $50. With the 2011 Montana Legislature expected to face at least a $400 million budget gap, the Legislative Fiscal Division has begun identifying possible options for lawmakers’ consideration that would save or raise millions of dollars if enacted. Brent Arthur Wilson, who attempted to steal multiple homes in Polson, has altered his courtroom demeanor, but kept his tactics mostly the same. Selling the federal health reform bill to a skeptical public may take time, but once people know more about it, they’ll see it can expand health coverage without breaking the public bank, according to Liz Fowler, chief health counsel to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. Montana’s professional pharmacists say they don’t want to get into the medical marijuana business, scuttling an attempt by at least one lawmaker to firm up Montana’s controversial pot scene by making pharmacists dispense the drug, not “caregivers.”