Good morning; on the Beacon today, the midwife service at Kalispell Regional Medical Center is providing a more personal, less clinical approach to pregnancy and childbirth. Kalispell city council members congratulated City Manager Jane Howington in the closing minutes of a work session Monday night wrapping up the preliminary budget, for turning in a proposed spending plan for the year that is both balanced and should double Kalispell’s cash reserve, from $244,122 in 2009 to an estimated $556,457 in 2010. Our new seasonal magazine, Escape, is included in this week’s paper, with features on everything from pizza to the 10 moments that shaped Glacier National Park. Glacier National Park officials say the historic Going-to-the-Sun Road is expected to open across Logan Pass by midday Thursday. A freight train has derailed after a rock slide slammed into its side in northwestern Montana, east of Libby. The Kalispell man who died Saturday in the Graves Creek Bay area has been identified as Michael Keith Usery, 25. The 20th annual Climb Big Mountain is scheduled for July 17 at Whitefish Mountain Resort, the largest fundraiser of the year for Flathead Industries.
America’s Afghan and international allies embraced the choice of Gen. David Petraeus to run the war in Afghanistan, hoping the architect of the Iraq surge will seamlessly pursue the strategy laid down by his predecessor and smooth over divisions that led to his dismissal. Hardin’s economic development authority is patching broken pipes in the city’s never-used Two Rivers Detention Center in hopes of finally landing a contract for the 464-bed jail, the agency’s executive director said Wednesday. There is too little control over the use of state fuel credit cards, according to an audit that uncovered potential for abuse and is prompting further investigation by state officials, lawmakers were told Wednesday. Three medical marijuana patients are asking a judge to block a Great Falls ban on pot businesses, claiming the city has overstepped its authority and is keeping patients from receiving their legal medication. The state is reminding massage therapists they must now get a license to practice. America’s beer consumption is on the decline and that’s keeping malt from Montana’s barley out of brown bottles. Leaders of Montana’s Department of Corrections told lawmakers Wednesday that the agency is working to clean up the way it monitors millions of dollars in contracts following a blistering audit earlier this year. A historic site near the Continental Divide whose significance pre-dates Montana’s statehood was vandalized earlier this month.