MISSOULA – According to the latest issue of AARP Magazine, Missoula ranks seventh on a list of the nation’s skinniest towns. The list is based on lowest average body mass index, or BMI, a formula that factors body weight and height. A person with a BMI of 25 is considered overweight. Thirty and above means […]

MISSOULA – Fire crews are demobilizing from the Deep Draw fire that burned between Elmo and Hot Springs. The fire was listed as 100 percent contained Monday and fire information officer Pat Cross said the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe’s fire team would take over command. The Deep Draw fire burned 2,022 acres or 3¼ […]

Kalispell City Council meets tonight at 7 p.m. to hammer out a series of votes on the fiscal year that began July 1, as well as vote on whether to create a parks maintenance district to provide funding for the city’s parks, and vote to set the city’s annual tax levies. The overall draft budget […]

POLSON – Lake County authorities say the search continues for a 70-year-old Bigfork-area man who disappeared Friday while swimming in Flathead Lake. Larry “Ty” Beardsley was riding on a boat with a couple of friends when the owner of the boat dove into the lake at about 8:30 p.m. near Black Point, north of Polson. […]

No sooner did the City of Whitefish slap pavement down on the Wisconsin bike trail than bicyclists and walkers started using it. “We’ve needed it for a long time,” said Mike Henson, who tested the new trail with his two children last Friday. The two-mile Wisconsin bicycle-pedestrian path–one more link in the Fish Trails project–is […]

HELENA – Gov. Brian Schweitzer is ordering flags be flown at half-staff on Wednesday and Thursday in honor of a Marine from Whitefish who died while supporting combat operations in Iraq. Cpl. Stewart Trejo died on Aug. 7 after being injured in a vehicle accident in Anbar province. Also killed in the accident was Cpl. […]

12:18 a.m. The lights of a home that is for sale were on. No one was there. 2:30 a.m. A caller reported that a woman claimed to be locked in her car just after bar time. The woman struggled and after some time unlocked the doors, got out of the vehicle and went inside her […]

Montana has benefited immensely from federal free trade agreements, with its number of exports growing at nearly the highest rate in the nation. Tiny businesses and large companies alike are taking advantage of the new markets. But according to U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the state has seen only the […]

HELENA – Bob Rowe, the new president of NorthWestern Energy, said the company wants to own power production facilities in order to stabilize prices. “My hope is that, if you look at it a few years down the road, we will be an innovative company…,” he said. “We will do it better, more creatively, more […]

There’s no business like show business and sometimes that includes appearing at county fairs. Three shows a day for a couple of days, cooking live (as opposed to my video-taped gigs where the editing room frequently saves my bacon, so to speak). At this particular fair there were no big-name bands, no country crooners, no […]

Fall may be fast approaching, but there is still plenty of time to use your camping gear and visit the Northwest section of Glacier National Park and Polebridge. Plan an adventure this weekend and brave a few miles of jarring dirt road to explore Glacier’s northwest lakes, Kintla and Bowman, from the Poleridge Entrance Station. […]

The adage “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure” could easily have been coined for Columbia Falls photographer Cari Stiffarm. When Stiffarm got word five years ago that the original windows from the Glacier Park Lodge in East Glacier were being removed and thrown away, she saw an artistic opportunity in what others were ready […]

HELENA – The commissioner of political practices has disclosed that a senior official in Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s administration contacted him outside of official proceedings in an ongoing ethics case. Commissioner Dennis Unsworth, who acts like a judge in the proceedings, said Friday the contact came from Eric Stern, Schweitzer’s senior counsel. Unsworth said Stern had […]

BOZEMAN – The prospect of petroleum drilling in Bridger Canyon near Bozeman has some residents of the area looking at zoning as a way to control how oil and gas work might affect the ambiance. The state owns mineral rights in the canyon and plans a Sept. 9 auction of rights to conduct exploratory oil […]

BIGFORK –The PacifiCorp hydroelectric dam operator has gone home for the day and the turbines are slowly winding down. It’s just after 5 p.m. on Wednesday evening, and one of the two arches under the dam, churning out bubbling water, is starting to slow down. A few minutes later bubbles from the next arch grow […]