Isabel von Rittberg was on a road trip from California to Montana when she had the idea to start a combined dancing and climbing performance. As she watched the sunlight reflect off sandstone cliffs in Utah’s Virgin River Gorge and listened to music in her car, she imagined bodies dancing across the vertical terrain around […]

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – NorthWestern Energy has reported second-quarter earnings nearly four times as much as same time a year ago. North Western recorded $9.5 million in net income, compared with $2.4 million from April through June of 2007. The per-share income was 24 cents, compared with 6 cents a year ago. Mike Hanson, NorthWestern […]

Three Marion men implicated in an attack on migrant workers that authorities say was racially motivated pleaded not guilty Thursday to hate crimes. Prosecutors say Edward L. Hubbs, 26, Daniel J. Devine, 25, and Karl Trent, 46, assaulted a group of Asian mushroom pickers at a campground in Marion. The men, who are white, have […]

Good morning; on this day in 1981, MTV launched with its first video, “Video Killed the Radio Star,” by the Buggles. On the Beacon this morning, the three Marion men accused of a racially motivated attack on Asian migrant workers pleaded not guilty. Flathead County commissioners voted yesterday to let voters decide on a $10 […]

Huck season is here. In the lower elevations of the Whitefish Range, huckleberries are popping out thick. Contrary to recent summers, pickers are finding abundant berries—perhaps due to the long, wet spring. Most huckleberry pickers won’t divulge their prime picking locations, but pickers are finding stashes of the ripe blue berries around Tally Lake, Big […]

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke might be surprised to hear themselves compared to Wyatt Earp, the iconic figure in American history, who helped restore some order to the Wild West of the 1800s. But Bill Gross, manager of $812 billion of investments (about 1 percent of the total financial market […]

It’s high season for roiling, billowing and drifting dust on the North Fork Road. A low altitude flight at mid-day reveals a ribbon of dust wafting over the divinely colored waters of the North Fork River. The beauty masks the bull trout habitat being destroyed by the accumulation of barely measurable sediments. Looking east toward […]

TROY – Lincoln County authorities continue to search for a 21-year-old University of Montana student who has been missing since jumping into the Kootenai River last week. Authorities say Samuel Sylvester of Massachusetts jumped off a rock outcropping about six miles south of Troy on July 25. Witnesses said they saw him floating and go […]

The city of Whitefish’s battle to retain control of the planning doughnut surrounding the city took another hit this week when the Montana Supreme Court denied its request for an injunction pending appeal. “Essentially it means the county is free to continue its activity in changing things in order to assume a role of control […]

I’m going to come right out and say it: I couldn’t care less that the Summer Olympics are beginning some time in the next couple of weeks (I’m not sure when). I know I’m the only person in America who feels this way but I can’t make myself give a hoot about the uneven bars. […]

HELENA – A federal judge has halted a small portion of a northwestern Montana logging project, saying its effect on grizzly bears hasn’t been adequately addressed. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula said the U.S. Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to sufficiently consider the effects of helicopter logging on “core” […]

6:13 a.m. A red Ford Taurus was reported stolen from the Packer’s Roost. Some time later, though, the vehicle was recovered from a person who wasn’t supposed to be driving it. 10:25 a.m. A psychotic woman refused medical attention. 11:20 a.m. Someone called in to report a man who has been going door to door […]

Live Music: Friday: Can’t Hardly Playboys at Red’s; Alice Cooper at Raceway Park; Good Wood Trio at Scotty’s; Bettty and the Boy at The Cottage; The Bad Larrys at Blue Canyon; Rudy and Gena Mendez at Los Caporales; Deja Vu at Great Northern; Big Daddy and the Blue Notes at McGregor Lake Resort; Full Moon […]

BILLINGS – A wildfire pushed closer to a ski hill outside the resort town of Red Lodge Wednesday, as 30 mile-per-hour winds fanned the flames and authorities asked resort employees to evacuate. By early evening, the fire had grown to 7,539 acres, or almost 12 square miles. An evacuation order remained in force for 90 […]

The Temple Décor in Kalispell has the basics you would expect to find in any tattoo parlor: black leather chairs; artists dressed in dark clothing and showing little blank skin; posters, drafts and photos of tattoo artwork on the walls and in photo albums. It’s the age of the average customer, however, that may surprise […]