A Montana judge has mooted the state’s would-be TikTok ban before it could block a single viral video.  

U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy on Feb. 20 concluded the case over the legality of the Montana Legislature’s TikTok ban, which had been paused since Molloy temporarily blocked its implementation in 2023. 

Several Montana users of the popular social media platform, along with TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, filed lawsuits days after the ban law was signed. That civil litigation was later combined into a single case against the state, defended by Attorney General Austin Knudsen. The challenge alleged the law violated the First Amendment and overstepped the authority of state government by wading into national security issues. 

Molloy dismissed the case on the basis of a clause in the law, which Gov. Greg Gianforte signed in May 2023, that voided the ban if ByteDance sold a majority share of TikTok to a non-Chinese company. That change of ownership occurred in January. 

The 2023 Legislature’s TikTok ban grew out of concerns about Chinese access to Americans’ data. It was the first statewide attempt to ban TikTok in the United States. 

In a statement on Feb. 20, Knudsen lauded the transfer of ownership that led to the case’s dismissal.

“President Trump, with his years of business and negotiation experience, worked diligently and succeeded in finding the right American company to purchase TikTok and make sure that Montanans and Americans will no longer be spied on by a foreign adversary,” Knudsen wrote. “Today’s dismissal ends years of litigation, brought on by TikTok, and will stop wasting taxpayers’ money.”

The state Department of Justice did not respond to a Montana Free Press request for an interview for this story.

Knudsen’s office signaled its support for the Montana law banning TikTok when it was first heard in the Legislature in February 2023. Department of Justice Crime Information Bureau Chief Anne Dormady testified in support of the bill at its initial hearing. 

“There are grave concerns with the popular app related to national security and China’s influence through TikTok,” Dormandy said. 

The bill passed out of the Legislature with mostly Republican support. Gianforte expressed concerns that the bill’s language might subject it to a legal challenge, but ultimately signed it in spring 2023. The law immediately drew multiple court challenges. Before the ban could take effect as scheduled in January 2024, Molloy blocked it in November 2023. 

That year marked an uptick in the federal government’s scrutiny of TikTok over national security concerns. The Biden administration mandated that agency employees delete the app from government-issued mobile devices in February. And in March, members of Congress peppered TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew with questions about data privacy during a marathon hearing.  

While Montana’s ban languished in court, Biden signed a law in 2024 banning the social media app unless ByteDance sold it within the following 270 days. That law survived a slew of legal challenges, and TikTok ultimately blocked American users for a few hours on Jan. 18, 2025, a day before the federal law required it to. On Jan. 19, Trump assured the company he would issue an executive order that would extend ByteDance’s window to sell. He did.

In 2025, Trump extended the sale window on four separate occasions, allowing TikTok to continue to operate in the U.S. The company finalized a deal on Jan. 22, 2026. 

ByteDance retains 19.9% ownership of the new U.S. entity that owns TikTok. Other investors with substantial shares include technology conglomerate Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and United Arab Emirates-owned investment company MGX. 

That deal made Montana’s 2023 state law moot based on a clause in the state legislation voiding the ban if majority ownership was transferred away from a federally designated “foreign adversary.”

But some legal experts are casting doubt about whether that transfer actually mitigates concerns of Chinese access to Americans’ data.

Timothy Edgar, a cybersecurity expert at Brown University and Harvard Law School, filed an amicus brief in 2024 that argued against forcing ByteDance to divest from TikTok on constitutional grounds. 

Edgar said data privacy concerns had been better addressed at the end of Trump’s first term and early in the presidency of Joe Biden, when pressure from the executive branch forced TikTok to negotiate terms with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. 

“I felt that those restrictions were really quite significant, and no other social media company in the world has ever done anything like that,” Edgar said. Edgar said the forced sale that made Montana’s ban moot could give users a false sense of security. 

“I actually worry that there’s going to be less oversight of TikTok’s data, less pressure to uphold some of the requirements in that data safeguarding agreement that they had,” Edgar said. “And so, in a way, we’re in a worse position now than we were when TikTok was owned by ByteDance.”

Edgar emphasized that potential security risks remain, despite the company diluting its Chinese ownership.

“They focused on the wrong thing,” Edgar said about the supporters of the forced sale. “They focused on who owns the company instead of on what are the real risks? How would a country like China get ahold of data? And what are we going to do to protect our personal data against China? And, you know, TikTok is certainly one potential vulnerability, but there are so many others.”

This article was updated Feb. 26, 2026, to correct the spelling of Anne Dormady’s name, to correct ByteDance CEO Shou Zi Chew’s name, to correct the date TikTok was sold, and to correct the entity that is 19.9% owned by ByteDance.

The post The first-in-the-nation TikTok ban that wasn’t appeared first on Montana Free Press.

Dreaming of a job as a boiler operator, dentist? Gov. Greg Gianforte wants to explore making the path into those the rest of the state’s 50 licensed professions easier for Montanans by streamlining licensing standards. 

The catch? Getting professional associations and the state’s 176,000 licensed workers, many of whom like the rules the way they are, on board. To that end, the governor has assembled legislators, state agency heads and industry association representatives onto a Licensing Reform Task Force in an attempt to build support for licensing changes ahead of next year’s legislative session. 

Gianforte, a Republican, has long argued that bureaucratic inefficiencies around the licensing process prevent many working age Montanans from finding jobs.

“We have 100,000 people sitting on the sidelines,” Gianforte said at the task force’s inaugural meeting on Feb. 10. “So you can help us with this. We can and must tear down barriers to employment to grow our labor force.”

The group hasn’t outlined which specific parts of the licensure system it hopes to modify, but its 28 members represent a total of 18 industry associations, indicating which professions will have a voice in drafting legislation ahead of the 2027 session.

That list includes dentists, funeral directors and contractors. Associations from the health care industry, ranging from nurses to pharmacists to physician assistants, make up the plurality.

The state offers 233 distinct professional licenses, grouped into roughly 50 professional categories. An additional 25,000 workers have state-issued independent contractor certificates, which will also be examined by the task force.

Industry associations that represent licensed professions have typically argued in recent years that strict licensure requirements ensure a well-qualified labor force. Free market advocates have countered with allegations that licensure boards gatekeep industries and prevent fair competition. 

Gianforte made similar pushes to relax licensing requirements in recent legislative sessions with mixed success. Though he signed licensure reform bills in the 2023 and 2025, debate over some of those policies revealed deep divides over seemingly banal professional distinctions. 

2025’s House Bill 218, which would enable optometrists to perform certain surgeries currently authorized for ophthalmologists, spurred rigorous debate. Its hearing in the House Business and Labor Committee lasted one hour and 45 minutes. In its Senate committee, the hearing lasted two hours.

One of the bill’s opponents, Rep. Courtney Sprunger, R-Kalispell, worried that letting medical professionals with less training expand their scope of practice would lead to worse patient care. She said during debate on the floor of the House of Representatives that she credits an ophthalmologist with saving her mother’s life.

“She had ocular melanoma. He was certified to diagnose that. He saved her life. Had it been someone else who didn’t know what they were looking for, she would have died,” Sprunger said. 

But bill sponsor Ed Buttrey, R-Great Falls, argued the legislation permitted optometrists to perform only the procedures they had been trained in. He said the policy shift would increase rural health care access and accused ophthalmologists of gatekeeping. 

“If you haven’t figured out what this is about, it’s about turf. The procedures proposed in this bill for optometrists are currently only performed by ophthalmologists in Montana, and these are the folks that are opposing the bill,” Buttrey said during the House floor debate. “So this is about competition.”

HB 218 ultimately passed the Legislature with bipartisan support and received Gov. Greg Gianforte’s signature on April 16, 2025.

During the 2023 session, Gianforte tasked Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras with cutting bureaucratic red tape to boost the private sector. She backed a package of 159 bills intended to streamline redundant laws and sunset outdated statutes, some of which addressed professional licensing. That year’s Senate Bill 166, for instance, exempted hair-cutters who worked in detention centers and prisons from needing a state barber license. House Bill 87 contained a more sweeping overhaul of reform across all public licensing boards. The Legislature passed about 90% of the 159 bills.

But, much to the governor’s dismay, a long line of dissenters picked apart his central licensure reform bill, House Bill 152, during its first hearing. The Montana Medical Association, for example, worried changes shifting licensing authority into the labor department bureaucracy would erode the authority of medical practitioners to review alleged misconduct by their peers.

Katiana Stutzer, representing the Montana Athletic Trainers Association, said it removed the wording that differentiates certified athletic trainers from nonlicensed professionals and other health care workers.

“Eliminating this title protection places the health and welfare of Montana citizens at risk while not increasing clarity or efficiency necessarily of the laws enacted to ensure Montanans have access to the highest level of quality health care,” Stutzer said.

Jack McBroom, representing electrical workers unions, said the bill reduced the qualifications necessary to be an electrician.

“We don’t need our homes burning down because someone that didn’t have the proper qualification, or do the test properly, failed to do their job and caused a fire,” McBroom said.

At a press conference a few days after the hearing, Gianforte called the industry opposition a “comment on human nature.”

“Everyone hates red tape unless it’s their red tape,” Gianforte said. 

By the time the bill passed out of its first committee, amendments had slashed it from 234 pages to five. It ultimately died in the Senate. 

Now the governor is courting workers and industry associations well before the session. 

Jen Hensley, a longtime lobbyist who also advocated against the 2023 legislation, now sits on the newly created task force. She maintains that the licensing requirements currently on the books were put into place after careful consideration. She also said that the professional associations she lobbies for, including physician’s assistants, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists and optometrists, will want to retain control over their licensing process.

“They don’t want a bureaucrat deciding what a professional standard should be,” Hensley said. 

Hensley also said she feels better about the new task force than she did about the governor’s push for reform in 2023. 

“It’s doing what should have happened prior to the ‘23 session,” she said.

Task force chair Sarah Swanson, the commissioner of the state Department of Labor and Industry, said during its initial meeting that the task force will include four subcommittees, one focused on unwarranted barriers to entry and another on sunsetting outdated regulations. The other two will center on licenses in the construction and healthcare industries. Members of the task force also said they wanted a fifth subcommittee to examine professional requirements outside of those two fields. 

In the past, Gianforte has created task forces in efforts to move the needle around challenging policy topics. He assembled a task force in 2022 to address affordable housing and another in 2024 to handle rising property taxes. Both produced packages of legislation that the governor and his allies shepherded through the legislative process. 

Interested members of the public can submit comments or sign up to receive updates about the task force on a dedicated webpage. The group has its next full-group meeting set for April 13. It plans to present final recommendations to Gianforte in September.

This story was updated on Feb. 18, 2026, to clarify that the 50 professions licensed by the state include 233 distinct licensing categories, and also that independent contracting certificates will be included in the scope of regulations scrutinized by the task force.

The post Licensing rules for 176,000 Montana jobs up for discussion as Gianforte preps for 2027 Legislature appeared first on Montana Free Press.

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February 5, 2026

A Montana district court judge has denied an injunction to three Republican state senators disenfranchised at a party convention last summer.

Judge Christopher Abbott, of Lewis and Clark County, concluded Wednesday that he didn’t have the authority to intervene in Montana Republican Party management issues, while acknowledging that the party might have ignored its own bylaws by not allowing the senators to vote in its June 2025 leadership elections.

“The de-credentialing not only denied the Senators the opportunity to vote but also to make nominations and participate in debate,” Abbott said in his order. “Thus, if the only question for the court were whether the Senators’ de-credentialing comported with the Party’s procedures, the Senators’ complaint would present on its face a potential claim.”

Injunctions allow a judge to force parties to act, or stop them from acting, before a lawsuit is decided. Parties seeking an injunction must show they’re likely to win the still-undecided lawsuit.

The lawsuit filed by Sens. Jason Ellsworth, of Hamilton; Denley Loge, of St. Regis; and Shelley Vance, of Belgrade, is still playing out. The gist is that as party members with recognized voting privileges, the three lawmakers should have been allowed to vote for party leadership at the MTGOP officers’ convention June 28, 2025.

At the convention, Sen. Barry Usher, R-Molt, led a vote not to recognize the three lawsuit plaintiffs and six other Republican senators who had voted opposite the more conservative members of their caucus on several key votes during the 2025 Montana Legislature. The convention vote was supported by a strong majority of conventioneers.

The party chair elected at the convention, Art Wittich, promised a “red policy committee” to review legislative proposals. And, the new chair promised candidate endorsements in contested primary elections, something the Republican National Committee hasn’t supported in presidential primaries. 

“They will be vetted, and if we determine that they are good for the party, we will endorse them,” Wittich said at convention. The other faction of Republicans, he continued, “actually say they’re more conservative, and you are not … It will be very easy to tell the truth.”

In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs are asking the court to order a new round of leadership voting that the three senators can not only vote in, but also nominate Republicans for leadership, including each other.

Meanwhile, Republicans will finish the week in Great Falls for the launch of the 2026 election cycle. Friday, MTGOP leadership will introduce its legislative candidates at Meadowlark Country Club. Friday and Saturday, the party holds its Republican Winter Kickoff at the Heritage Inn.

Red Policy Committee member Rep. Jane Gillette is on the Saturday breakfast schedule. Gillette, of Three Forks, was instrumental in disenfranchising Senate moderates at the officers convention.

Several Republican legislative incumbents in both the House and Senate have been targeted for months by robocalls and anonymous ads on streaming services. Commissioner of Political Practices Chris Gallus concluded last June that his authority to enforce transparency in campaign advertising was limited to just 60 days before an election.

More recently, Americans For Prosperity is identified as the source of attack mailers against the Republicans who supported the 2025 Legislature’s bill to lower property taxes on primary residences. Legislators with multiple properties are sour on the tax break, which is a one-home deal. AFP is also on the Friday schedule for the kickoff in Great Falls.

Republican lawmakers who voted to extend the state’s expanded Medicaid program are also being hit by mailers. 

—Tom Lutey

A Chapter in Every School

Gov. Greg Gianforte endorsed Turning Point USA’s youth program, Club America, in front of high school students who gathered in the Rotunda at the Montana Capitol on Wednesday.

“In Montana, we have about 200 high schools. We’d like to see a Club America chapter in every single one of them,” Gianforte said.

Turning Point is looking to maintain momentum after a recent spike in participation that followed the death of organization founder Charlie Kirk in September 2025. Gianforte rallied the students alongside TPUSA field director Andrew Sypher during the press conference, which focused on increasing youth participation in the conservative Christian organization. Erika Kirk, who took the helm of TPUSA after the assassination of her husband spoke with students at a private reception after the rally. Press was not allowed. 

The event kicked off with a chant of “USA” from about 60 students gathered from the 20 Montana high schools that already host TPUSA chapters. Every Montana university except two, Great Falls College and Montana State University Northern, hosts a college chapter. At an Oct. 7 event, Gianforte and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy spoke in Charlie Kirk’s place at a Turning Point event in Bozeman that focused on faith and condemned political violence. 

Kirk’s death inspired some young Montanans to start Turning Point chapters oriented around faith.

Josie Abbott, a first-year student at Helena’s Carroll College who founded the school’s Turning Point chapter in the fall of 2025, said she was disappointed to find that the school didn’t have one when she first arrived. Abbott, a Catholic, said her chapter is more about faith than politics. 

“I view Turning Point as an organization with specific Christian-like values and traditional American beliefs,” Abbott said. “And it’s kind of like how even though the American Founding Fathers weren’t necessarily Catholics, they all had some religious belief, ‘one nation under God, all men are created equal,’ all that stuff has a base Christian flavor.”

High school students Kiera Kraft, Kirsten Kraft and Isabelle Nelson began a similarly faith-focused chapter in Sidney a week after Kirk’s death. The trio traveled to Helena to attend the event. 

“Our goal is to just start spreading the gospel in Sidney, trying to carry on the legacy of Charlie Kirk,” Kirsten Kraft said. 

—Zeke Lloyd

The post No cause for pause appeared first on Montana Free Press.

Dozens of local Montana businesses closed or adjusted their operations Friday as part of a loosely organized national protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

The protests are part of a “no work, no school, no shopping” strike that activists pushed for nationally in order to pressure ICE over aggressive tactics it and other federal agencies have used in Minneapolis and elsewhere since President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year.

“We are stepping away from business as usual to stand with those who are being harmed by systems rooted in fear, racism, and violence,” Noteworthy Paper and Press, a Missoula stationary store, wrote on Facebook. “We’re choosing solidarity over sales, care over convenience, and people over profit.”

Protesting businesses were concentrated in Missoula, Helena, Livingston and Bozeman, according to social media posts reviewed by Montana Free Press, with fewer participants in Billings, Great Falls, Kalispell and smaller Montana communities. 

Some establishments offered messages of solidarity online, but said they were unable to close their doors for a day. Helena’s Sunflower Bakery wrote on Instagram that, though it supported the strike, it would be open on Friday.

“Sourdough is a process that takes days in the planning and execution, and to shut down for one day impacts three days of work, leading to lost income and food waste we can’t justify at the moment,” the post read. 

Rihanna Thomas, owner of Bozeman-based Big Sky Fertility and Wellness, said on Facebook that she supported the movement but intended to work. 

“Today I’ll be working. Not because I don’t care — but because I do,” Thomas wrote. “I fully support immigrant communities and stand against ICE and fascism. I also run a small business, I’m a mom, and I don’t have the luxury of unpaid days off — just like many of the women I serve.

More than two dozen Missoula businesses were named as participating in the strike in a document circulated on social media, including many within the downtown area. About 18 of those were listed as “closed in solidarity.” Others were described as open to the public but not conducting business or open for business while pledging a portion of their proceeds to related charities.

Clyde Coffee, which operates a location at the Missoula Public Library and another on Higgins Ave., posted on Facebook that it would participate in the strike by halting sales Friday while leaving its spaces open as a community gathering space.

In Great Falls, Hi-Line Climbing Center announced it would be closed. 

“We support the people of Minnesota in their quest for fair and equitable governance,” the business wrote online. 

Two other Great Falls businesses, Cassiopeia Books and Luna Coffee, said the decision to remain open was a result of pragmatic assessments of the community’s needs.

Millie Whalen, who owns Cassiopeia Books, said she supported the strike and would have participated, but chose to keep the store open because she only learned about the movement the day before. She thought closing on short notice would disrupt the shopping plans of her out-of-town customers.

“The problem is I get a lot of people who come in from Choteau and Augusta to do their weekly shopping here, and they don’t come back for another month,” Whalen said.

Matt Pipinich, who was born and raised in Great Falls and works as the managing owner of Luna Coffee, said in a Friday interview that he chose to remain open because his business serves as an inclusive community space for minority and marginalized communities. He highlighted that is relatively rare in Great Falls and noted the local LGBTQ Center announced on Friday that it was permanently closing. 

“We weren’t going to sacrifice our local community for something that might have had a marginal impact,” Pipinich said. “I don’t want to belittle anything, but the work we do outside of being a business, the work we do to support our community, is reliant on our being open.”

Pininich believes more impactful political action would require businesses and community members coordinating an intentional, local campaign. That didn’t happen ahead of Friday.

“When I tried to reach out to other businesses in our network, they hadn’t even seen that it was going to be a thing today,” Pipinich said.

In Livingston, Creative Reuse Montana, a second-hand craft store, said on Facebook that it would open its space for a pay-what-you-can-donation session on Friday.

“We believe in the power of community resources and collective creativity,” the business wrote. “Call your senators. Call your representatives.”

Bozeman’s Country Bookshelf said on Facebook it will remain open “with no expectation of sales.” 

“If you need a welcoming space to sit, read, make signs, write to your senators, or simply connect, we will be here with free coffee and donuts (while supplies last) and community (unending supply),” the business wrote online.

The store plans to donate 10% of Friday sales to the National Immigration Project.

In Helena, downtown coffee shop Montago Coffee Co. announced it would be open for business on Friday, but that all proceeds will go to the legal fund of Roberto Orozco-Ramirez, a Mexican citizen and diesel repair shop owner arrested in northeast Montana’s Froid earlier this month. 

“We really struggled with the decision in how we should support the national ICE OUT protests that feels right to us and have decided to keep our doors open to the community,” Montago said in its post. “We love having a safe space for community discourse and want to provide that to those who want it.”

This story was updated Jan. 30, 2026 to include statements from additional businesses.

The post Montana businesses close, shift operations to participate in national strike over ICE activities appeared first on Montana Free Press.

An Anaconda judge on Wednesday denied an attempt by six Montana media organizations, including Montana Free Press, to make public all of the court documents in the murder case against Michael Brown, the man police say shot and killed four people in Anaconda last summer. 

The shooting took place inside The Owl Bar in the town of about 9,000 in southwestern Montana. The victims were Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64; Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59; David Allen Leach, 70; and Tony Wayne Palm, 74. Immediately following their deaths, Brown hid in the mountains outside city limits for a week before he was apprehended by law enforcement. Charges against Brown include four counts of deliberate homicide, as well as arson, theft and intentionally evading law enforcement.

During the time that Brown hid from police, District Court Judge Jeffrey Dahood granted a motion to seal all documents in the case, a move that was later lifted for some — but not all — of the case records.

The press had sought to become a part of the criminal case against Brown in a very limited scope, only to ask that the documents be unsealed. Dahood rejected that request Wednesday, saying the media outlets did not show why they would have authority to become a part of the case.

Though Dahood unsealed many of the documents in late August, some remained inaccessible at the request of Smith. Smith argued that because of the “extensive media coverage and public engagement in this case,” the court should continue to seal “numerous documents” to protect Brown’s right to a fair trial.

“Many of the facts and evidence within the State’s possession have not been disseminated publicly and will be crucial to the State’s prosecution of this matter,” Smith wrote. “The details surrounding the commission of the crimes alleged in this case, should they be subject to public dissemination, would greatly prejudice the prospective jury pool and taint the ability to impanel an impartial jury.”

The media coalition includes Montana Free Press; Montana Newspaper Association; Montana Broadcasters Association; Montana Freedom of Information Hotline Coalition; Lee Enterprises, which owns five in-state newspapers; and States Newsroom, which operates the Daily Montanan. 

In their motion, attorneys for the media outlets cited the state Constitution’s right-to-know clause, which entitles the public to view the documents and proceedings of public entities, “except in cases in which the demand of individual privacy clearly exceeds the merits of public disclosure.” The media coalition argued the court cannot justify the lack of public access and was errant when it did not allow the press to object to the sealing of the documents before that happened.

President of the Montana Newspaper Association Jim Strauss, who is part of the legal effort to unseal documents, declined Thursday to comment on the motion’s denial prior to speaking with counsel on Friday.

In a Jan. 21 interview, Strauss said the motion was intended to prevent a legal precedent of sealed documents. 

“The press is statutorily entitled to be heard before documents are sealed,” Strauss said. “That did not happen.” 

John Adams, executive director of Montana Free Press, said unsealing the documents “allows journalists to accurately report on what the court is doing, rather than try to explain a case that’s unfolding largely out of public view.” 

“This isn’t just about one case. It’s about whether Montana’s transparency laws mean what they say,” Adams wrote in response to emailed questions. “If court records can be sealed wholesale without notice or findings, that affects every newsroom and every Montanan who relies on open courts to understand how justice is administered in our state.”

Neither Smith nor Brown’s public defenders responded to requests for comment about the motion.

In mid-December, the court rescheduled Brown’s upcoming January trial because Brown “lacks fitness to proceed,” according to a joint motion from the state and defense that was accompanied by a psychologist’s assessment. Brown is currently undergoing a 90-day psychological evaluation with the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services that will conclude in March. 

Montana Free Press is a party to the lawsuit reported on in this story. 

This story was updated Jan. 30, 2026, to correct the name of the Montana Freedom of Information Coalition. 

The post Judge denies Montana media outlets’ motion to unseal all documents in trial of alleged Anaconda killer appeared first on Montana Free Press.

The discovery of a “suspected improvised explosive device” Thursday led Helena police, school authorities and a student organizer at Helena High School to cancel a walkout that had been planned as a protest against aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities.

The device consisted of a jug of gasoline and fireworks, according to a statement from Helena Public Schools. The explosive materials were discovered on private property near Dakota and Davis street, according to a police press release. The corner of Dakota and Davis is behind the Capital City Health Club, which is across Montana Avenue from the high school.

According to police, a person discovered the device and removed it from the immediate area and called authorities at about 10 a.m., around an hour before the protest was scheduled to start. Law enforcement agencies including the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office’s bomb squad; the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the FBI searched the surrounding area and found no other threats. Authorities say they are continuing to investigate the incident. 

Helena High senior Ella Nasset, the protest’s central organizer, said the demonstration had been planned as a way to “spread peace” in response to ICE adopting more aggressive tactics after President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year. In a Wednesday interview with Montana Free Press, Nasset also noted eight individuals have been killed by ICE so far in 2026.

“Many people I know personally have had ICE question them at Home Depot, at the grocery store, and ask them for their papers — which thank God they had with them,” Nasset said. “But no one’s safe. And seeing American citizens that are not criminals, that are white, getting killed by ICE, just proves that no one is really safe.”

Nasset said she was pulled from class by school administrators about 45 minutes before the protest was supposed to begin and informed about a “suspicious item.”

“They thought it would be in my best interest to cancel the protest,” Nasset said. “And it was upsetting to hear, but my priority is always our students’ safety.” 

Nasset said she hopes to work with law enforcement to plan another walkout in the future. She also said she planned to join another protest planned at the state Capitol Thursday afternoon.

Helena Public Schools Superintendent Rex Weltz published a message about the situation on Thursday afternoon, saying there were “no known threats” to school buildings at that time. Nonetheless, he wrote “the Helena Police Department (HPD) advised that student organized walk-outs be cancelled in an abundance of caution for all students’ safety.”

The post Fireworks-and-gasoline ‘device’ causes Helena High School students to cancel anti-ICE protest appeared first on Montana Free Press.

While Montana saw fewer tourists in 2025, they came with more gray hair — and more dollars for Montana businesses.

That’s according to visitor surveys conducted by the University of Montana’s Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research, presented by economist Melissa Weddell at a seminar organized in Helena Tuesday by the university’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research.

According to Weddell’s figures, the number of people who visited Montana last year declined by 3.6% to 13.8 million compared to 2024. However, nonresident spending in Montana jumped 12% to an estimated $5.6 billion.

“Less visitors, more spending — I think that’s what we like to hear,” Weddell said.

In addition to dropping more money in Montana, last year’s tourists reported having more to spend than visitors did before the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, about 43% of visitors reported more than $100,000 in annual income. In 2025, that percentage grew to 55%.

Tourists are also getting older. The most common age bracket for visitors in 2019 was 60 to 65 but is now between 65 and 69, according to the tourism institute figures.

“We’re seeing a higher age category of visitors and more luxury travel,” Weddell said.

Visitors spent less money on where they stayed and more on activities, with an 11% dip on lodging spending offset by a 120% increase in spending on outfitters and guides.

Weddell said the trend reflects an increase in luxury-seeking tourists who “want to go out for an experience,” like flyfishing or overnight hiking. Weddell pointed to research from the Outdoor Industry Association, which indicates people older than 65 have more than doubled their participation in outside sports in the last decade.

Weddell also noted that the state saw declining tourism from Canada, a trend that other experts have attributed to the Trump administration’s trade disputes.

About 74,200 Montanans, roughly 13% of the state’s workforce, worked in hospitality and recreation in 2024, according to the Montana Department of Labor and Industry. Between 2020 and 2024, the leisure industry was the third-fastest growing, adding an average of 1,200 jobs annually.

The post Montana’s tourists are getting older, richer and rarer appeared first on Montana Free Press.

The 467,000 postcards sent to Montana households with pictures of Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen and President Donald Trump cost $196,829 to produce and mail, according to the Montana Department of Administration.

When MTFP wrote an initial story about the mailers last week, the Secretary of State’s office declined to share the number printed and their cost. DOA provided that information on Friday after MTFP submitted a formal public records request.

The blue postcard features a photo of Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen and President Donald Trump with a red banner featuring white text that reads “ONLY CITIZENS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO VOTE.” The rest of the postcard introduces an election security program Montana will “soon implement” designed to verify voters’ immigration status and ensure only citizens vote in U.S. elections. A footer at the bottom reads, “under Secretary Jacobsen’s leadership, non-citizen voting will not be tolerated.”

Secretary of State spokesperson Richie Melby said last week that the mailer was intended to celebrate the new tool offered through a federal partnership called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, which recently flagged 23 Montana voters as potential non-citizens. The Secretary of State’s Office tallied 784,949 registered voters in Montana as of Wednesday evening, meaning those flagged make up about 0.003% of registered voters.

Rep. Kelly Kortum, D-Bozeman, said in a Wednesday interview that he saw Jacobsen’s mailers as fearmongering about a nonissue in order to bolster her political profile for a future run for office.

On Jan. 7, Harlowton resident Susan Beley filed a complaint with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices over Jacobsen allegedly using state funds to support false claims about non-citizen voting. Commissioner Chris Gallus said on Friday that he would not be launching an investigation as a result of the complaint because it did not provide a detailed description of an alleged violation of state law.

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