Good morning; on the Beacon today, a West Valley landowner’s effort to bring a commercial motocross track to the Flathead Valley has caused a stir with some neighbors who say the track would be too noisy for the area. Whitefish residents will soon get their first look at three proposed design plans for a new or renovated high school. Kalispell Mayor Tammi Fisher was in Washington D.C. last week lobbying Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester for more direct funding to municipalities that could be used to put private contractors to work. A Kalispell girl charged with two counts of deliberate homicide after police say she attempted suicide by driving her car into oncoming traffic has filed a lawsuit against the estate of the woman who died. Montana’s economic outlook is grim, but it could be, and has been much worse. This was the message delivered Thursday in Kalispell during a mid-year economic update presented by the Montana Chamber Foundation along with the University of Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research. Authorities are investigating the death of a well-known traditional Native American dancer and singer who died in Glacier National Park. And Kitchen Guy Jim Gray shows just how easy key lime pie can be.
Three grizzly bear cubs whose mother killed one person and mauled two others in a late-night attack at a Montana campground were malnourished and still in their winter coats. Tornadoes in Montana this year have been more frequent and more powerful than at any point over the past decade, as evidenced by twisters that destroyed an arena in Billings and killed two people in the state’s northeastern corner. A pair of lightning-caused wildfires near Missoula had firefighters on the move from Clearwater Junction to the Bearmouth rest area east of Missoula on Sunday afternoon. The state securities division is investigating the reported misappropriation of $250,000 from at least five clients of Edward Jones Investments in Bozeman. Sen. Jon Tester says the lawmakers who oversee the budget of the post office will block a proposal to reduce mail deliveries to five days a week. After a major slowdown, oil permits filed with the state of Montana are on the rise again. Lee’s Jennifer McKee reveals e-mails from a retired judge demonstrating how the state’s public defender system is failing in many ways. And Chuck Johnson describes how, back home in Montana last week, Nancy Keenan is focusing the attention of the nation’s leading abortion rights advocacy group on the millennial generation — those voters younger than age 30.