Ed Kemmick

For Montanans, there’s not much question about the importance of Lee Metcalf’s legacy. Thanks to his work in the U.S. House and Senate over 25 years, Metcalf had a direct hand in setting aside millions of acres in Montana as wilderness and national wildlife refuges, and many miles of wild and scenic rivers.

In describing the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, a vast, high plateau in southwestern Montana encompassing nearly 1 million acres, people tend to employ lofty terms. They employ similar language in describing the late Sen. Lee Metcalf, who introduced the bill to establish the Absaroka-Beartooth, which became law on March 27, 1978, soon after his death.

Several Stillwater County property owners filed a lawsuit Monday against the Stillwater County Commission and county clerk and recorder, saying the officials illegally stymied their efforts to create a citizen-initiated zoning district.

Two Native American couples who say they were insulted and discriminated against at a basketball game in Reed Point early in 2017 intend to file lawsuit against the Reed Point School on Monday.

Margie MacDonald, a Democrat who represents Senate District 26, said she has asked for a bill that would ensure that the firearm background check system in Montana includes everyone who is prohibited under federal law from buying firearms due to serious mental illness.

For Yellowstone County Republicans to embrace former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, a symbol of partisan hatred, a serial defiler of the Constitution, a dancing bear who performs for pay and an inciter of violence, is a shame, and a disgrace.

Employees at the Lee Enterprises-owned Casper Star-Tribune are trying to unionize, according to a story by Corey Hutchins at the Columbia Journalism Review. One prime motivator of the unionization drive is the desire by Star-Tribune reporters to report on the newspaper itself.

Xavier Springer’s photo, “Swiftcurrent Falls on a Smoky Morning” (above), taken during a bright orange sunrise in Glacier National Park, has been chosen as the grand-prize winner of the Montana Wilderness Association’s 2017 photo contest.

n a cost-cutting move, the state Department of Revenue has discontinued an online service that allowed Montanans to file individual income taxes for free. Instead, the state is now directing taxpayers to the Free File Alliance.

Many hundreds of marchers — children, women and men — turned out for the Montana Women’s March Billings on Saturday morning in a show of solidarity and a call for women everywhere to get more involved in politics. Held a year after millions of women around the world rallied the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the Billings march was one of at least half a dozen such events pla