Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/news/page/58/)
The major airlines of the United States are grappling with consolidation and fleet standardization. At the same time, some regional airlines are dealing with expansion and traffic development. Hyannis, Mass.-based Cape Air has found the right combination. According to the Montana Department of Transportation, Cape Air effectively doubled traffic on Montana’s Essential Air Service routes during its first six months of service. (more…) Continue Reading →
It’s been 259 days and the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services continues to drag its feet fulfilling a public records request the Montana Center for Investigative Reporting originally submitted last Oct. 29, asking for newborn screening records. Getting answers to questions about Montana’s newborn screening program and its performance has been a daunting task. Why are the DPHHS and local hospitals so reluctant to release information? (more…) Continue Reading →
For a couple of hours last week, about three dozen people stood under ominous storm clouds, wandering across a windswept meadow near Meeteetse, Wyo., hoping to catch a glimpse of prairie dogs eating peanut butter. It wasn’t just peanut butter the wild rodents were ingesting. In fact, the tasty treat was merely the irresistible flavor used in a bait laced with an oral vaccine being tested as a way to control plague among limited populations of wild animals. (more…) Continue Reading →
Jolene Burdge does not look at Dennis Hastert and see a man who used to hold one of the most powerful positions in the United States. “This whole thing of him being the speaker of the House and the third in line to the presidency—I know it’s there, but it’s just not as prominent in my mind as being a teacher from a small town,” she said. “He’s just a teacher that all of us kids had that hurt my brother.” (more…) Continue Reading →
“Many people—especially those opposed to wolves—think of the wolf as a killing machine. And in a general sense they are right.”
Across decades of writing about wolves and the science associated with their study, I’ve seldom encountered a more gripping opening to a natural history book than the one above. (more…) Continue Reading →
At least two people running for seats on the Billings City Council said they received harassing phone calls from a former council candidate, and one of the current candidates said the caller told him he was wasting his time and should drop out of the race. The caller, Brian Kenat, said he is active in Republican and Tea Party politics and was only trying to find out where the candidates stood on various issues, and he denied advising anyone to end his candidacy. (more…) Continue Reading →
One of the most reliably stimulating reads about Mother Nature in Greater Yellowstone is a journal that few Americans have ever heard of. Nor is it found on newsstands. But here you can obtain a copy, free of charge, of what is perhaps the most important edition of Yellowstone Science published in its 23-year history. (more…) Continue Reading →
Wind chills the bright May morning as we walk the grassy plateau of Gordon Butte, a 2-mile-wide plug of volcanic rock towering above the plains about three miles west of Martinsdale, in Meagher County. The snow-streaked Crazy Mountains pull our gaze south, but we’re heading north, to the butte’s sharp, timbered edge. My tour guide, Eli Bailey, a project manager with Bozeman-based Absaroka Energy, stops to point out where an 18-foot-diameter water conduit will be drilled deep into the butte and diagonally out its base. This part of the plateau, he says, will become an 80-acre reservoir. (more…) Continue Reading →
Four months after 21-month-old Zachary Wyles was run over and killed in a parking lot in Billings, his family thinks justice is a long way from being served. The toddler’s parents, Zachary Sr. and Aleada Wyles, recently filed a civil lawsuit against Jamie Van Atta, the woman who was driving the truck that ran over the boy, and the owners and managers of the Rose Park Plaza Apartments on the 2300 block of Avenue C, where the incident occurred. (more…) Continue Reading →
A 62-year-old Australian man sustained serious injuries Tuesday morning after an encounter with a bison near Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone National Park. The man, whose name was not released by park authorities, is the second visitor in less than three weeks to suffer a serious injury after a close encounter with a bison near Old Faithful geyser. (more…) Continue Reading →
