Good morning; on the Beacon today, as the election year progresses, several local legislative races are likely to gain statewide attention as key battlegrounds. After retiring from the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office five years ago, Chuck Curry, the county’s new sheriff-elect, will head back to the Justice Center in January to take his seat in the ground-floor corner office. With a few things new and a lot of the old, 4-B’s has reopened in Polson, much to the pleasure of the legions of faithful who yearned for the tomato soup and were left begging when the family restaurant closed three years ago. Lido’s got a slideshow of a group of students celebrating the beginning of summer at the Woodland Water Park.
A federal judge heard arguments Tuesday on whether gray wolves in Montana and Idaho should be protected once more under the Endangered Species Act and whether those states can ensure the species won’t be wiped out under their management. President Barack Obama’s address last night on the BP oil spill was a call to action on developing cleaner sources of energy. A 46-year-old Livingston man is one of 27 members of the Outlaws motorcycle gang charged with participating in a criminal enterprise. The Montana secretary of state says that unofficial results show there will be no recount in the close Republican primary for the public service commission. The local turf club has assembled an application that, if approved, will lease the Flathead County Fairgrounds track in Kalispell for horse racing on Aug. 21 and 22, a Saturday and Sunday. Canadian energy giant TransCanada, which is proposing a 280-mile oil pipeline through Eastern Montana, must clearly accept state power to regulate access to the line by local oil producers, the state Public Service Commission said Tuesday. Efforts to ensure mining and development doesn’t crop up on land adjacent to Yellowstone National Park have gotten a boost with the purchase of 772 acres of mining claims in the New World Mining District north of the park.