Good morning; on the Beacon today, heavy rain in June has led to conditions ripe for a high number of mosquitoes in Western Montana, according to the Flathead City-County Health Department. New details are emerging in the plan to salvage decades-old submerged logs from the floor of Flathead Lake. Flathead County received a considerable range of bids for the Sam Bibler Commemorative Trail project last week, with a $270,000 difference between the lowest and highest bidders. A trial is under way in Polson in the case of a man charged with trying to steal a house by removing “for sale” signs, changing the locks and filing strange paperwork with the county claiming he purchased the house from Yahweh.
The NCAA has granted another year of athletic eligibility to former University of Montana cornerback Jimmy Wilson, who was acquitted of murder charges in the June 2007 shooting death of his aunt’s boyfriend. Deep-sea robots swarmed around BP’s ruptured oil well Monday in a delicately choreographed effort to attach a tighter-fitting cap that could finally stop crude from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico nearly three months into the crisis. Two University of Montana football players — Chase Reynolds and Andrew Selle — are on the initial 2010 Walter Payton Award watch list. The murder trial of Charles Ivan Branham got under way Monday in Missoula with prosecutors establishing their theory that the defendant stabbed another man to death in a fit of jealous rage. The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council has re-elected Willie Sharp Jr. as its chairman. The body of Leroy Emack, 21, of Hildale, Utah, was recovered Monday from the Missouri River, eight days after he disappeared in a canoeing accident near Great Falls, the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office said. State employees aren’t eligible to enroll their children in a portion of Healthy Montana Kids, the government-funded health insurance plan for low- and middle-income families, but that may change soon. Enrollment for Montana’s expanded children’s health insurance plan continues to inch upward but is still far short of the 30,000 additional kids that supporters hoped for by year’s end, the latest numbers show.