Kay Erickson

If you enjoy films, Billings is the place to be this week when five days of some of the best independent films from around the country will play on movie screens downtown.

ZooMontana, the only zoo and botanical garden in the state, achieved a major milestone today.

A kookaburra named Sidney laughs at ZooMontana. She's just one of the over 80 animals that live at the only true zoological and botanical park within a 500 miles radius of Billings. She could be announcing that her home on the west end of Billings was just granted accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ independent accreditation commission.

ZooMontana’s Executive Director Jeff Ewelt says this recognition is a big deal.

Between 1901 and 1922, 17 libraries from Missoula to Miles City and Havre to Dillon were built in Montana. There’s a new book that takes us back to the turn of the 20th century, when the generosity of a Scottish immigrant and the vision of 17 Montana communities brought libraries to the far reaches of the state.

Large swaths of Montana and Wyoming are facing critical fire danger today.

A fourth dead elk has been found in the southwest part of Musselshell County.

The West Nile virus, the leading mosquito-borne disease in the U.S., has just been detected for the first time this year in mosquitoes in three counties in south-central, central and northeast Montana. And public health officials are urging everyone to take precautions.

Hot, dry weather has settled over Montana and brought with it wildfires, burn bans and red flag warnings.

Montana State University will offer a centralized gun storage locker for students this fall. The new locker replaces locked gun storage units in student residence halls.

No arrest has been made and no charges filed against the Montana State University employee who was the focus of a campus “shelter-in-place” order Thursday in Bozeman.