Good morning; on the Beacon today, on Dec. 2 at Grouse Mountain Lodge, an eight-person panel of health care professionals, school district officials and clergy members discussed what the community can do to increase its knowledge and become better equipped to prevent suicide and cope with its aftermath when it does occur. A trailer house fire in Hungry Horse badly burned a 2-year-old boy and destroyed the trailer. Sen. Jon Tester is urging Columbia Falls Aluminum and the Bonneville Power Administration to reach a long-term energy agreement by year’s end that would restore jobs to the shuttered plant. Negotiations to remove Northern Rockies gray wolves from the endangered species list hit an impasse Monday, after Wyoming and Idaho refused to go along with an Interior Department proposal on the issue, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said.
Brushing past Democratic opposition, President Barack Obama announced agreement with Republicans Monday night on a plan to extend expiring income tax cuts for all Americans, renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and grant a one-year reduction in Social Security taxes. Gov. Brian Schweitzer has been named the next president of the Council of State Governments. Gov. Brian Schweitzer has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff on Tuesday to honor a Montana trooper shot to death outside Three Forks. A group that will allocate mine cleanup funds in southwestern Montana is hearing arguments over how the money should be divvied up. The oilfield megaloads proposed to be trucked through Idaho and Montana may exceed Idaho’s bridge weight limit. As a state, Montana is in better physical shape than a year ago, but residents are not nearly as healthy as they were in 1990, according to America’s Health Rankings, an annual report that measures the overall healthiness of Americans. The Meth Project has been named the third-most-effective philanthropy in the world by Barron’s, the business and financial magazine. Two more people applied for the job as state political practices commissioner before Friday’s deadline to bring the total number of applicants to 19.