Senate Bill 354 prohibiting the purchase of soft drinks and candy with SNAP benefits cleared second reading in the Senate Wednesday on a 31 to 19 vote with bipartisan support and opposition. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget. The bill will go through ...
Montana set another record with 60 firearms seized at airport security checkpoints across the state last year. In 2023 TSA officers detected 59 guns during routine passenger screenings statewide. Congress first enacted legislation to prohibit accessible weapons aboard aircraft in 1961 decades before TSA was created to help secure the nation’s ...
New executive orders from the White House are now in effect calling for tariffs on most Canadian and all Mexican imported goods worth over $800. A recent LendingTree study shows Montana imports more than $6.8 billion worth of goods from Canada and over $110 million from Mexico every year. Over 94% of Montana’s imports come from Canada Me...
The Montana Department of Labor and Industry has set up a “Rapid Response Event” to help the hundreds of Montanans who were recently fired in a mass federal workforce reduction find new jobs. The March 12th event will help to “guide affected workers back into the workforce.” Impacted workers who attend can also receive assistance filing unemp...
The next chief of the U.S. Forest Service will be Tom Schultz a former state-level land and natural resource manager in Montana and Idaho and most recently a vice president at a logging company in that state. He’ll replace outgoing Chief Randy Moore who will retire Monday. The Forest Service is the second-largest land management agency by area...
The Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance James Brown is asking for comments on Digital Assets including cryptocurrency Bitcoin and other related financial instruments including Blockchain Tokens. The input from all U.S. citizens and not just Montana residents will help shape potential regulatory approaches that safeguard investors ...
Legislators heard a bill Monday that would increase DUI penalties for repeat offenders. House Bill 542 would make it so that a third dui conviction is a felony offense. Currently under state law standard DUIs are not a felony until the fourth offense. The Legislative Service Division estimates around 400 cases a year that would currently be ch...
76,543 children relied on the summer lunch program in 2024 but the Joint Subcommittee on Health and Human Services has voted to cut the $20 million of mostly federal money for the biennium out of the state budget. The state Legislature could still vote to restore the funds which provide a $120 grocery benefit per eligible child for the summer ...
Through a new immigration enforcement agreement announced Thursday by Attorney General Austin Knudsen with the Department of Homeland Security Montana Highway Patrol troopers and Division of Criminal Investigation agents are authorized to arrest illegal aliens in Montana. They will work together with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to depo...
Montana property owners saw on average a 20% hike on their tax bills last year and the Department of Revenue projects property taxes could again rise for residents by about 11% this year. Governor Greg Gianforte created a task force to look at the rising rates ahead of the session and Montana lawmakers are considering several ideas that it pu...
