Good morning; on the Beacon today, Sanders County officials have released the names of a Columbia Falls couple killed in a fiery head-on crash near Paradise: 78-year-old Rudy Arriaga and 60-year-old Beverly L. Smith-Arriaga. The Stumptown Ice Den rink advisory board gave unanimous approval Aug. 24 to a proposal to begin a Northern Pacific Hockey League team in Whitefish. Construction crews have re-routed a dammed-off portion of the Whitefish River as part of a cleanup process mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency. The latest battle in the case of an Evergreen teenager charged with two counts of deliberate homicide is over the location of her pending trial, a matter that is scheduled to be resolved on Sept. 15. On Sept. 14, men wearing fish suits will arrive at the offices of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in Kalispell to voice their opposition to a proposed gill netting project in Flathead Lake.
Government agencies are seeking broad new authority to ramp up killings and removals of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes, despite two recent court actions that restored the animal’s endangered status in every state except Alaska and Minnesota. This year’s volatile election is bursting with money, setting fundraising and spending records in a high-stakes struggle for control of Congress amid looser but still fuzzy campaign finance rules. The University of Montana moved up to the No. 1 spot in the Sports Network Football Championship Subdivision poll released Monday. The president of the Big Sky Tea Party Association has been removed from his position and booted from the party after coming under fire for a post he made on his Facebook profile that implied he condones violence against homosexuals. Mike Dennison analyzes the political winds blowing against state Democrats. Montana National Guard soldiers deploying overseas will be able to read books to their children, courtesy of a new program to distribute children’s books that record and replay the reader’s voice. Two nieces and a nephew of the reclusive heiress of a Montana copper fortune are asking a Manhattan court to appoint a guardian to oversee the 104-year-old woman’s personal and financial affairs. A new report ranks the Montana state highway system second-best in the nation based on performance and cost-effectiveness. Former Montana Supreme Court Justice and current Whitefish trial attorney Terry Trieweiler has been named the state’s Trial Lawyer of the Year.