Catch up on the news you missed last week with our weekly recap. Below are the top five articles that our readers found most engaging. Enjoy! 5. Interest in solar power soaring while utility seeks rate cut GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — Interest in solar power is soaring in Montana because of the state’s sunny skies and profit potential. But NorthWestern Energy, ...

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A partial owner of Talen Energy Corp., which is the operator and a co-owner of Montana’s Colstrip power plant, is seeking to buy the entire company for $1.8 billion. Talen spokesman Todd Martin said Friday the planned acquisition by the investment firm Riverstone Holdings LLC will mean no immediate changes for Colstrip, whose future was already ...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Energy leaders from countries that pump out 75 percent of the world’s climate-changing emissions talked Thursday on the nitty-gritty of putting last year’s Paris climate accord into action, including funding the needed global technology overhaul. The annual gathering of energy leaders representing 23 countries and the European Commission was one of their first since December, when ...

VIENNA (AP) — OPEC countries failed Thursday to agree on measures to influence crude supplies and prices, in a missed opportunity to show the resolve that for decades let them set how much consumers and industries worldwide would pay for gasoline, heating and related necessities. At the same time, OPEC officials argued the cartel was alive and well, scoffing at ...

PARIS (AP) — Striking workers created blackouts by cutting power to a big electricity line in western France and occupied train tracks at a Paris railway hub Thursday as unions at nuclear plants and the national rail service protested the proposed abolition of some French labor protections. Workers have sector-specific demands, but are also tapping into months of widespread anger ...

WARRI, Nigeria (AP) — Militants blew up strategic gas and crude pipelines belonging to Shell and Agip on Saturday in an increasingly fierce campaign that has chopped Nigeria’s oil production in half, militants and residents said. A new militant group, calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers, reported in social media that they had dynamited the trunkline linking the Dutch-British Shell ...

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The Memorial Day holiday weekend is generally considered the start of the summer driving season, and this year it’s highlighted by relatively low gasoline prices. GasBuddy.com says the average retail price of a gallon of gas in North Dakota is up more than a nickel over the week to $2.26. But that’s still almost 30 cents ...

VIENNA (AP) — OPEC is not yet in safe harbor. But ahead of a top-level meeting, the 13-nation oil cartel appears close to weathering the storm of slumping crude prices that threatened to bankrupt some members and called into question its relevance. After touching a 13-year low early this year, the price of oil has moved steadily upward to its ...

PARIS (AP) — French company Technip has signed a preliminary $500 million deal to upgrade a key Libyan oil facility, along with Italy’s Eni and Libya’s state oil company. The move is part of French diplomatic efforts to boost Libya’s fragile unity government. The signing in Paris on Tuesday comes as Libyan forces are fighting to push back Islamic State ...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Utilities Board has called a meeting for Wednesday to consider allowing construction to begin on an oil pipeline in areas outside federal jurisdiction. Houston-based Dakota Access LLC wants to begin digging the Iowa portion of a 1,150-mile pipeline from North Dakota to Illinois. Construction has begun in North Dakota, South Dakota and Illinois ...