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Montana Free Press
Fulfilling a mission for Missoula
In the 50 years since volunteers started a soup kitchen in downtown Missoula, the Poverello Center has grown to a leading nonprofit in the community, operating two emergency shelters and serving more than 120,000 meals annually. The Poverello Center — commonly known as the Pov — has expanded its footprint,...
Help on the way
Crystal Hiwalker wonders if her heart and lungs would have kept working if the ambulance crew had been able to give her a transfusion as the blood drained from her body during a stormy, 100-mile ride. Because of the 2019 snowstorm, it took 2.5 hours to drive from her small...
Could Montanans vote for ranked-choice voting?
The MT Lowdown is a weekly digest that showcases a more personal side of Montana Free Press’ high-quality reporting while keeping you up to speed on the biggest news impacting Montanans. Want to see the MT Lowdown in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. The group backing a...
How key will Native turnout be come Nov. 5?
Get an insider’s look into what’s happening in and around the halls of power with expert reporting, analysis and insight from the editors and reporters of Montana Free Press. Sign up to get the free Capitolized newsletter delivered to your inbox every Thursday. June 13, 2024. Tribal communities...
Reported birth of rare white buffalo calf in Yellowstone National Park fulfills Lakota prophecy
The reported birth of a rare white buffalo in Yellowstone National Park fulfills a Lakota prophecy that portends better times, according to members of the American Indian tribe who cautioned that it’s also a signal that more must be done to protect the earth and its animals. “The birth...
Can Dems keep winning in Indian Country?
This story is excerpted from Capitolized, a weekly newsletter featuring expert reporting, analysis and insight from the reporters and editors of Montana Free Press. Want to see Capitolized in your inbox every Thursday? Sign up here. Tribal communities have for decades been an essential part of the voter base that...
By the Numbers: special session edition
This story is excerpted from Capitolized, a weekly newsletter featuring expert reporting, analysis and insight from the reporters and editors of Montana Free Press. Want to see Capitolized in your inbox every Thursday? Sign up here. Number of distinct calls for special sessions of the Montana Legislature voted down in...
Where electricity transmission and energy transition meet in Montana
Project developers, policymakers and think tanks working in the capital-intensive arena of energy development say a new Montana-North Dakota high-voltage transmission line could be a game changer for an area of the American West that’s seen limited expansion to its power grid in four decades. The North Plains Connector Line would be the region’s first major grid expansion since the construction of a 500-kilovolt line that carries power from the Colstrip coal-fired power plant to population centers in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1980s.
DEQ halts rewrite of water quality standards
Three years into a legislatively mandated effort to adopt looser standards for two nutrients abundant in Montana waterways, the state has halted rulemaking on the contentious effort. Following a hearing on Monday at which stakeholders on multiple sides of the issue expressed displeasure with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality’s...
New initiative tests nonpartisan observation in Missoula primary
More than a dozen trained volunteers fanned out across 19 of Missoula County’s 22 polling stations on June 4, fixing their eyes not on the results of inter-party primary battles but on the election process itself. Their presence constituted the trial run of the Montana Election Observation Initiative, a new effort by a pair of former political heavyweights in Montana’s election integrity debate to combat misinformation with firsthand nonpartisan insight.
Backers say they have signatures to qualify nonpartisan primary and majority vote initiatives for fall ballot
Backers advancing a pair of constitutional initiatives that would overhaul how Montana voters elect state and federal candidates said Wednesday that they have collected enough signatures to have the measures placed on the November ballot. The first initiative, CI-126, would replace Montana’s current party-based June primary elections with a fully...
Fostering community in a childcare crisis
Montana Free Press recently investigated the challenges facing working families and childcare providers in Montana, in collaboration with the national news nonprofit Open Campus. The following portrait provides a deeper view into the experience of one of the sources crucial to that reporting, offering readers another lens through which to understand how childcare issues are impacting everyday Montanans.
Helena schools cut $2.5 million in budget, nearly 40 staff positions
The Helena School Board of Trustees approved about $2.5 million in budget cuts, including the elimination of nearly 40 positions, for the upcoming school year during a meeting Tuesday night. The finalized cuts came nearly a month after Helena voters rejected five levies proposed by the district to alleviate the...
After Great Falls mayor declines Pride proclamation, advocates see missed opportunity for support
April 14 kicked off Animal Control Officer Appreciation Week. National Deaf Youth Day was on March 6. May was Jewish American Heritage Month. The city of Great Falls memorialized these dates with official proclamations, routine recognitions that are read aloud at the beginning of city commission meetings. But on June...
Health officials tout funding for maternal home-visiting programs
Public health advocates in Montana are endorsing a boost in federal grants for maternal home-visiting programs and asking Biden administration officials to continue funding services for Montanans who are pregnant and parenting young children. Health Resources and Services Administration head Carole Johnson appeared in Bozeman Tuesday to tout $5.4 million...
Fire season forecast: Wetter than expected
Montanans can anticipate a generally normal fire season this summer, a regional fire weather forecaster reported at a Tuesday morning briefing in Bozeman. Dan Borsum, a Missoula-based forecaster with the Northern Rockies Coordinating Center, said springtime moisture has mitigated the impacts of a generally dismal winter snowpack in Montana. (Water supply forecasters noted in early January that half of their monitoring stations were reporting record-low accumulations due to an exceptionally dry stretch of weeks in November and December, but that trend later improved with the development of storms such as an early May soaker that dropped multiple inches of precipitation in some regions of the state.)
Helena’s real estate market still up, but cooling
“Helena This Week” is reported and written By JoVonne Wagner. Send your Helena news and tips to jwagner@montanafreepress.org. Real estate experts say that Helena’s housing market shows signs of stabilizing this spring but still faces challenges. The Helena Association of Realtors maintains housing market statistics for Helena, Lewis...
Maintenance, pedestrian accessibility are priorities in forthcoming Great Falls transportation plan
A multi-agency effort is underway to develop the latest long-range transportation plan for Great Falls, which was last updated in 2018. Drivers shouldn’t expect major changes coming from this effort. Great Falls and Cascade County are seeing nearly flat growth trajectories, which is a departure from Montana’s other largest counties. Thus, the top-line goal for the 2024 plan is the preservation and maintenance of the existing transportation system.
Future in doubt for Kalispell shelter amid neighborhood complaints
The city of Kalispell is considering amending or revoking the permit for the area’s only low-barrier homeless shelter following a rash of complaints from area residents about how it has impacted their neighborhood. The Kalispell City Council has been grappling with complaints about the Flathead Warming Center on North...
How election admins say the primary went
The MT Lowdown is a weekly digest that showcases a more personal side of Montana Free Press’ high-quality reporting while keeping you up to speed on the biggest news impacting Montanans. Want to see the MT Lowdown in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Tuesday’s primary election made...
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