Good morning; on the Beacon today, a judge’s recent decision to overturn the suspension of a star football player from Flathead High School has highlighted questions surrounding School District 5’s extracurricular activities policy. U.S. Sen. Max Baucus assembled assault rifles yesterday at Sonju Industrial (SI) Defense in Kalispell. Montana’s U.S. Sen. Jon Tester introduced an amendment to exempt certain small farm operations from regulations in the upcoming Food Safety Bill. Montana U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg is hosting a series of public discussions on gray wolves prompted by the recent court decision to return the species to the endangered species list.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has asked the Forest Service to devote $49 million to battle a beetle infestation that has killed more than 3.5 million acres of pines in the Rocky Mountain region. The secretary of state’s office says people who vote absentee can check online to make sure their ballots are received by the county. Lawmakers say they will still keep talking settlement options with the governor over his lawsuit, but indicated Monday his first offer won’t work. Polson Police Chief Doug Chase had indicated he would call it a career if an amendment to the city’s budget eliminating overtime pay for city employees, except cases of emergencies, was passed. It may be the most far-reaching and important issue on the November ballot, but Constitutional Convention Call No. 2 is flying so far under the political radar that no one is even talking about it. Montana’s farmland yielded a record year for wheat in terms of bushels and prices are strong, but when the final tally on the value of the 2009 crop is made it will be hard to tell that those factors existed. The U.S. Supreme Court should not accept PPL Montana’s appeal of a decision leading to a multimillion-dollar state river lease, because Montana clearly owns the riverbeds under the company’s hydroelectric power projects, a top state attorney has told the high court. National polls indicate Republicans are poised to ride a wave of anti-Democratic Party sentiment to major gains in Congress on Election Day, and according to some of the state’s top political observers, the GOP could be headed for gains in the Montana legislature as well. Secretary of State Linda McCulloch, Montana’s top election official, wants to scrap polling places across the state in favor of an all-mail-ballot election, she said in Bozeman on Monday.