Billing’s attorney Emily Jones’s has been appointed to the Judicial Standards Commission. Jones is a University of Montana graduate as well as an appointee to the Montana Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

An 180-room hotel, event center, public plaza and riverfront trail has been announced by Missoula city officials and representatives from Averill Hospitality. The site, known as Riverfront Triangle has sat vacant for decades, despite multiple redevelopment attempts. The Missoula Redevelopment Agency signed three agreements related to the $100 million project. One of the documents included one for the sale of a city-owned lot to Montana-based company Averill Hospitality, which is developing the project. 

NorthWestern Energy is continuing its project to deploy wildfire smoke detection cameras across Montana. The company has installed 20 of the cameras over the past two years. These cameras use AI technology to check for potential causes of fires by assessing dust, haze, smoke from clouds, or other components that may be confused as smoke. NorthWestern Energy collaborated with fire responding agencies, dispatch centers, and emergency managers on selecting camera locations.

The state and U.S Forest Service inked a new 20-year shared stewardship agreement on a bid to expand logging in the forests of northwestern Montana. The Shared Stewardship Agreement between Montana and the federal Forest Service will aid in forest restoration, wildfire risk reduction and sustainable timber production.

Montana’s state parks saw bigger crowds in 2024. Visitation neared the record set during the pandemic years. The state’s annual park visitation report was published last month by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. The estimated 3.2 million visitors to Montana’s state parks falls about 150,000 short of the all-time record set in 2020. It is a 20% increase from before the pandemic, and nearly double the visitation levels from a decade ago.

President Trump signed an executive order recently to increase entrance fees for international visitors to national parks. The idea was put forward by the Property and Environment Research Center based in Bozeman. The order directs the Department of the Interior, under Secretary Doug Burgum, to raise fees on foreign tourists.

Upper Missouri Waterkeepers, a conservation group concerned about water quality in the Gallatin River has filed a lawsuit against the Montana Department of Environmental Qualit...