Although newly minted GOP candidates for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate have garnered heavyweight endorsements, the Montana Republican Party said Thursday it won’t throw its support behind any candidates for federal office in the primary.

“The Montana Republican Party (MTGOP) stands behind its deep bench of qualified candidates seeking to represent Montanans and supports a competitive primary process to let voters pick their preferred candidates,” the Montana GOP said in a news release Thursday.

Monday, U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke announced he was retiring due to health concerns once his term ends, and he immediately tapped talk-show host Aaron Flint as his preferred successor in Congress.

Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen and Flathead County Republican Central Committee Chairperson Al Olszewski also filed for the U.S. House as Republicans, as did Ray Curtis of Bonner.

Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines withdrew, and in a statement the same night, announced an endorsement of former U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme, who had filed the same day.

In the Senate, Lee Calhoun and Charles Walking Child also filed to run in the Republican primary.

Endorsements for Flint and Alme cascaded. U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed both candidates, and U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy and Gov. Greg Gianforte threw their weight behind Flint and Alme.

Late on Wednesday, the Montana GOP did not immediately have comment on the news Daines, Montana’s senior U.S. senator, had resigned, but Thursday, the party thanked Zinke and Daines for their service.

A news release said the party would not endorse any candidates in the federal primary and would leave the job in the hands of voters.

“The party hopes every candidate will make their case to the public, contrasting their Republican policies and principles with those of Democrats — as well as phony ‘Independents,’” the news release said.

Former University of Montana President Seth Bodnar announced a run for the U.S. Senate as an independent this week.

A tension within the Republican party has emerged in recent years between hardline conservatives and more moderate members, and some legislative primaries illustrate the split.

This week, the state GOP said the number of primaries for state legislative seats shows a high interest from Montanans who want to serve the state and pass Republican policy, and the MTGOP “is glad to see so many Republicans being called to public service.”

In a brief call, MTGOP spokesperson Ethan Holmes said the party had not ruled out endorsements in legislative primaries.

In the news release, however, the MTGOP offered its view of the larger political debate.

“Montana voters know that beyond the primaries, there is a clear choice between Republican and Democratic governance; one path leads to lower taxes, less crime and stronger families, and the other leads to higher taxes, more crime, and social decay,” MTGOP Chairperson Art Wittich said in a statement.

The news release also said the state GOP is working “tirelessly to deliver a Bright Red Future” at both the state and federal level and looks forward to help candidates whom voters select win in November.

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Authorities have canceled an AMBER Alert after they say a 10-month-old child taken by a non-custodial parent was found safe.

North Las Vegas Police said Thursday that Leilani Williams (aka Leilani Duke) was taken by her father, Roderick Duke.

Duke and Leilani were last seen at an apartment complex in the area of Martin L. King Boulevard and Cheyenne Avenue at 1:40 a.m.

“An AMBER Alert has been activated due to Roderick being in emotional crisis and making threats to harm himself and 10-month-old Leilani,” NLVPD said in a statement.

By 10:05 a.m., NLVPD said that Leilani was located unharmed.

Officers took Duke into custody without further incident, and the AMBER Alert has been canceled.

The number of confirmed measles cases in New Mexico increased to six after the state’s Department of Health confirmed Wednesday a new case inside a local jail in Las Cruces.

A federal inmate being held in the Doña Ana County Detention Center is the latest person to have tested positive for measles. The New Mexico Department of Health said others may have been exposed to the highly contagious disease from this confirmed case if they visited the U.S. District Court building in Las Cruces on Feb. 24.

State heath officials are now urging anyone who was at the courthouse that day to check their vaccination status and report any measles symptoms from now until March 17 to a health care provider.

“The New Mexico Department of Health continues to urge people to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination,” Dr. Chad Smelser, New Mexico’s deputy state epidemiologist, said in a statement. “Vaccine is the best tool to protect you from measles.”

Measles spreads through the air and people who contract the virus may experience symptoms such as runny nose, fever, cough, red eyes and a distinctive blotchy rash. These symptoms can develop between one and three weeks after exposure.

All of the six confirmed measles cases in New Mexico so far are federal detainees.

The first measles case was detected in the Hidalgo County Detention Center on Feb. 25, when a detainee, whose vaccination status was unknown, tested positive for the disease by the New Mexico Department of Health’s Scientific Laboratory.

Two days later, a second federal inmate in the same jail tested positive for the virus alongside two detainees in the Luna County Detention Center and another in the Doña Ana County Detention Center.

Both the Luna County and Doña Ana detention centers are local jails that also serve as holding facilities for federal immigration enforcement.

New Mexico health officials said they are the state’s first confirmed cases of this year, following a statewide outbreak in 2025 that sickened 100 people from mid-February to mid-September.

With two measles cases reported on each of the three local jails, Smelser said that the New Mexico Department of Health has sent vaccination teams to all three facilities.

State health officials are also “coordinating with all the facilities to assure all quarantine, isolation, testing and vaccination protocols are followed to minimize risk of measles spread.”

According to the NBC News measles tracker, more than 1,000 cases have been counted nationwide just in the first two months of this year. That’s nearly half the amount of cases confirmed in the United States in all of last year.

As 2026 already stands as one of the three worst years for measles infections in the country since 2000, another measles outbreak was confirmed this week in Texas inside the nation’s largest immigration detention facility.

On Wednesday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson told NBC News that a least 14 cases of measles were confirmed inside Camp East Montana, which is located on the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso.

The people who tested positive for measles have been “cohorted and separated from the rest of the detained population to prevent further spread,” the ICE spokesperson said.