Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/149/)
I was planning to ride off into the sunset today, but if I may appropriate an observation by Benjamin Franklin, it looks as though I might be heading in the direction of the rising sun.
In the week since I announced that Last Best News would cease publication today, I have heard so many expressions of interest in reviving it in some shape or form, with or without my continued involvement, that it appears likely that this independent online newspaper will live on.
Editor’s Note: This is the first of two stories looking at the 2016 primary race ahead of Montana’s June 7 primary election. On Tuesday we’ll look at the Democratic race.)
In 2008, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton nearly deadlocked in their race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Montana voters headed to the polls on June 3 not knowing who the party’s nominee would be. Continue Reading →
When I moved back to my hometown of Billings in 2007, I had been away from Montana for 25 years. And it soon became clear that either I had changed, Montana had changed, or my memory of Montana was off the mark. Continue Reading →
This is the sixth chapter of the 32-part video series “The Montana Ethic Project.” This chapter features the Rev. Jessica Crist speaking on “Religion and Politics: Can They Co-exist?” Crist, who lives in Great Falls, is bishop of the Montana Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can watch the whole video below. Here is how this chapter opens: Continue Reading →
Some years back, I wrote an expose of an article that ran in the now-defunct Weekly World News.
The article claimed that Montana Highway Patrol officers had gunned down a Bigfoot, also known as a sasquatch, after the brute terrorized a New Zealand couple in Beaverhead Rock State Park near Dillon. Continue Reading →
By now the demise of the Otter Creek mine is old news.
I thought I should write something about it but I didn’t. Talking to a good friend a couple of weeks later, I told him that it felt weird to write, photograph, organize and spend a significant amount of my life and emotional energy on something and then let the end of it pass without a note or retrospective. Continue Reading →
Butte native Rob O’Neill,best known as the member of the Navy SEAL Team Six credited with shooting Osama bin Laden, was arrested for driving under the influence at 2:30 a.m. Friday in Butte. He was found asleep at the wheel of a 2005 Nissan at the Town Pump, 531 S. Montana St. The car was running, police said. O’Neill failed a portion of the field sobriety maneuvers administered at the scene, and he failed the rest of the test at the detention center, police said. O’Neill was in Butte to attend a birthday celebration at the Butte Depot, a local bar. Continue Reading →
A Billings-based environmental group has taken to social media to spread stories of Westerners whose lives have been touched by oil and gas development.
Still in its early stages, the experiment appears to be a budding success. In just two months, the Living with Oil and Gas project has attracted more than 2,200 likes on Facebook and more than 400 followers each on Twitter and Instagram. Continue Reading →
Billings voters in 2013 approved two new middle schools and renovations of two elementary schools in School District 2. Now, school supporters say, it’s time to add more staff.
The Yes for Kids Ballot Initiative Committee kicked off its campaign for passage of a mill levy on Thursday at the Mansfield Health Education Center. Mail-in ballots for the May 3 election are expected to arrive in mailboxes on April 16. Continue Reading →
Mariah Bryant has seen a lot of troubles in her 15 years.
She was mostly neglected by her parents, who were into drugs and alcohol, and when she was 6 her mother dropped her off at Mariah’s grandmother’s house and never came back.
Mariah has suffered from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, and in school she was often subjected to bullying. Even so, she sounds surprisingly optimistic.
“I hear other people’s stories and I feel pretty lucky,” she said. Continue Reading →
