GREAT FALLS, Mont.—A gun shop in Grand Falls, Montana, is back up and running after 20 heavily armed IRS agents raided and searched the business on June 14, seizing thousands of documents containing private customer information. Highwood Creek Outfitters owner Tom Van Hoose said agents of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI) showed…

A group of Gen Z climate change activists is calling on the court to force the Montana government to go green in a fight over the state’s climate laws and regulations. In Held v. Montana, 16 kids, ranging from ages 5 to 22, from across Montana argue that state legislators have put the interests of…

A coalition of states has filed a lawsuit seeking a review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to grant waivers to California that allows the state to ban new diesel-powered heavy-duty truck sales in 2035. Iowa’s Attorney General Brenna Bird led the group of 19 states that filed the legal action on June 5…

Republican Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte enacted a bill last week that would bar financial institutions from requiring that retailers in the state apply a special code to track firearms purchases. Last year, a committee on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)—a Switzerland-based organization that sets and monitors quality standards for a variety of industries—voted to…

Montana has become the first state in the union to ban “drag story hour” for children at public schools and libraries. The state’s Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the new bill on May 22 after the legislature passed it. The legislation (pdf), which went immediately into effect, was written to prohibit minors from attending “sexually oriented shows”…

Montana has become the latest state to strictly define the terms “female” and “male” based on biology, under a new law signed last week by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte. “In human beings, there are exactly two sexes, male and female, with two corresponding types of gametes,” states the law, previously known as Senate Bill 458….

TikTok has filed a lawsuit challenging Montana’s recent ban on the Chinese-owned short-video app in the state. The ban, scheduled to be enforced from Jan. 1, 2024, is being contested by TikTok Inc. on the grounds that it infringes upon the First Amendment rights of the company and its users. In the lawsuit filed in…

A Montana judge has temporarily blocked the state from enforcing a 15-week “dismemberment” abortion ban just hours after it was enacted. District Judge Mike Menahan granted a request by Planned Parenthood of Montana for a temporary restraining order on the enforcement of the law on May 18 after the organization argued it is unconstitutional. Menahan set a hearing to consider a…

Five TikTok content creators have filed a lawsuit against Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, challenging the state’s recent ban on the popular Chinese-owned video platform. Samantha Alario, Heather Dirocco, Carly Ann Goddard, Alice Held, and Dale Stout, represented by their legal team, argue that the ban violates their constitutional right to free speech, even if…

Montana has become the first U.S. state to impose a complete ban on TikTok, a Chinese-owned video-sharing platform that’s popular among both youth and adults in the United States. Gov. Greg Gianforte signed Senate Bill 419 on Wednesday. The ban on TikTok goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2024—unless Congress passes a national law overriding it,…