The white powder, found in a letter sent to the Department of Labor and Industry earlier this week, was a pain relief tablet, inadvertently placed in the envelope, along with a standard state form, and apparently smashed in the mailing process, and what was identified as a possible "triggering device" was a lollipop stick.

A state hearings officer has ruled that Public Service Commissioner Brad Molnar violated state ethics laws, by soliciting money from energy companies to fund a Billings conservation event in 2007, and by using state equipment for his 2008 re-election campaign, and should pay a $5,570 fine.

Yesterday Governor Brian Schweitzer sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius, asking her to "certify" importation of prescription drugs, for use in Medicaid, Healthy Montana Kids, the State Employee Health Plan and State Institutions, which could save $40 million of the $100 million the state spends in prescription drug costs.

David Hayes, Deputy Interior Secretary, told members of the House Natural Resources Committee yesterday that it wants to close the book, and look ahead, after a settlement announced in December that the Federal Government had reached a resolution with Blackfeet Tribal member Eloise Cobell, from Montana, ending a decades' long lawsuit alleging mismanagement of tribal trust funds drew criticism of exhorbitant lawyers' fees, meager payouts to victims and a lack of overall transparency.

A U.S. Governement Accountability Office report shows that in Region 1 of the U.S. Forest Service, which includes Montana and the Idaho Panhandle, as far as projects to reduce wildfire risk is concerned, environmental groups sue at the highest rate in the nation, and that Montana environmental groups file more lawsuits than any other in the country.

David Cole, after a 37 year career in state government, says the Schweitzer Administrastion forced him to quit last Friday, from his postion as Administrator of the Commerce Department's Community Devlopment Division, because he responded to Senator Dave Lewis's inquiry about $3.5 million in local government grants were being stalled. Governor Schweitzer's spokesperson, Sarah Elliott, says they didn't know anything about it til after it happened.

The Montana Environmental Information Center has won an open records battle with the city of Great Falls over documents concerning the proposed Highwood Generating Station Power Plant east of the Electric City. State District Judge E. Wayne Phillips cited "the clear constitutional right of Montana citizens to view documents of their Governmental entities." The ruling came nearly three years after the lawsuit was filed.

The Montana Trail Gallery has joined most of the business and property owners affected last year by a natural gas explosion in historic downtown Bozeman, in filing a lawsuit against Northwestern Energy, saying the company knew, or should have known, that its threaded connector, in the service line behind the Gallery, was substandard, and had the potential to fail.

Yesterday morning, an envelope, with a return address of Butte, armed with a triggering device, after being opened, dispersed a small amount of white powder in a room at the Department of Labor nad Industry, promoting officials to close the building's third floor and isolate three employees, as a precaution. It was a false alarm.