News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 2170
HELENA — Congressional candidate Ryan Zinke says he has distanced himself from the political action committee he helped launch now that he is running for office. Special Operations for America has stockpiled more than $200,000 for the 2014 election cycle, thanks in part to the fundraising it paid Zinke to do. Zinke said he doesn't know if any of that money will be spent assisting his own election effort, or criticizing potential opponents. "I don't know, because I don't coordinate with them," Zinke said. Zinke, a former s...
BILLINGS (AP) — Attorneys for a Colorado man charged with killing an eastern Montana teacher filed court papers Friday saying his mental disabilities render him unfit to stand trial in a case that could carry the death penalty. Defense attorneys asked state district Judge Richard Simonton to commit 24-year-old Michael Keith Spell to the Montana State Hospital or another state facility for up to 60 days to undergo a mental examination. The Parachute, Colo., man faces a felony murder charge in the January 2012 death of S...
BILLINGS — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to settle a voting rights case in which American Indians in Montana sued to establish satellite voting offices on three reservations. Residents of Fort Belknap and other Indian reservations say the offices are needed to make up for the long distances they must drive to reach county courthouses for early voting or late registration. At Fort Belknap, they say, people living in remote Lodge Pole have to go to Chinook to register to vote. After a now-retired judge d...
BILLINGS (AP) — Montana's Department of Corrections will offer boot camp for female prisoners and cancel a mandatory treatment program that was criticized as degrading under a settlement announced Tuesday in a discrimination lawsuit. The state also agreed to pay $50,000 in legal costs and a combined $12,000 to the seven current and former prisoners named in the case, according to settlement documents provided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana. The lawsuit began with a complaint filed in federal court last y...
FARGO, N.D. — Top federal law enforcement agents who spent the last several days touring the oil patch in North Dakota and Montana came away comparing the scope of the crime problem to the cocaine cowboys of south Florida in the 1970s and '80s and the heyday of street gangs in Washington and Los Angeles in the early '90s. Officials from seven federal agencies on the trip say they want to help state and local authorities who are doing most of the heavy lifting but are often bogged down by an onslaught of service calls for d...
HELENA (AP) — Montana's entire congressional delegation may have taken a hit in their approval ratings because of the 16-day federal government shutdown, the director of a new Montana State University-Billings poll said Friday. The poll, conducted during the shutdown earlier this month, asked state residents their views on several national and state issues and to assess the performance of their elected leaders. Most respondents said they opposed President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, but even more people, r...
BILLINGS (AP) - Gov. Steve Bullock on Friday declared an energy emergency that lifts work time restrictions on truck drivers in eastern Montana, where disrupted fuel supplies have caused hours-long waits at pipeline terminals ahead of a winter storm forecast for this weekend. The executive order comes after a recent mudslide shut down a CHS Inc. refined fuels pipeline serving eastern Montana and western North Dakota. The closure of that line for repairs put a further strain...
HELENA (AP) — The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs is offering to mediate in a dispute that has split the governing body of the Blackfeet Indian tribe into two factions, but the tribal chairman said Friday he hopes to resolve their problems internally. The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council fractured this week after Chairman Willie Sharp Jr. unilaterally suspended two members and reinstated three others who had been previously suspended. The result has been a leadership struggle between the rival factions. Sharp said he has c...
HELENA - A state senator and suspended Blackfeet leader has pleaded guilty in tribal court to charges similar to those he faces in federal court over fleeing a sheriff's deputy who stopped him for erratic driving. Shannon Augare's surprise tribal court appearance and guilty plea Wednesday is the latest twist in a case that has become a testing ground for federal versus tribal jurisdiction in prosecuting American Indians for misdemeanor crimes. It is unclear what effect Augare'...
HELENA (AP) — Montana lawmakers who say term limits have reduced their effectiveness looked Wednesday to other states for ideas on how to strengthen their branch of government. The Legislature is supposed to be equal to the state's executive and judicial branches, but it has been weakened by eight-year term limits on lawmakers, Republican Senate President Jeff Essmann of Billings said. That frequent turnover in legislators results in the entire body lacking a deep knowledge of government agencies, issues and problems, he s...
HELENA — A judge has set a Feb. 3 trial date for five people charged with embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus aid from the Chippewa Cree Tribe. U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen ordered the new trial date Thursday after federal prosecutors arraigned the defendants earlier this month on a new indictment charging embezzlement, theft and bribery. The trial originally had been set for Nov. 12, but Christensen pushed it back due to the new charges and the complexity of the case. Former state Rep. T...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate leaders announced last-minute agreement Wednesday to avert a threatened Treasury default and reopen the government after a partial, 16-day shutdown. Congress raced to pass the measure by day's end. The Dow Jones industrial average soared on the news that the threat of default was fading, flirting with a 200-point gain in morning trading. "This is a time for reconciliation," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of the agreement he had forged with the GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. M...
HELENA — The Chippewa Cree Tribe has declared a financial disaster due to the federal government shutdown. Spokesman Wade Colliflower said Tuesday if the budget stalemate in Congress isn't resolved by Thursday, the tribal government will completely shut down. The exception will be the Rocky Boy's reservation's police department and health clinic, which will be fully staffed. Colliflower says senior citizens will receive meal deliveries, propane and firewood as the weather turns colder. But nearly all other tribal offices a...
HELENA (AP) — Republican state legislator Matt Rosendale says his campaign for the U.S. House will champion conservative ideals. Rosendale announced Tuesday that he will be running for the U.S. House after also first considering a U.S. Senate run. Republicans expect current U.S. Rep. Steve Daines to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Max Baucus in 2014. The race for the Republican nomination in the House could be crowded. Former state Sen. Corey Stapleton of Billings is already running and others are considering it. R...
HELENA (AP) — A Blackfeet tribal councilman and state senator accused of fleeing an officer during a traffic stop has refused a request by the tribe's chairman to remove himself from his duties until his legal troubles are behind him. Chairman Willie Sharp Jr. made the request of Sen. Shannon Augare, D-Browning, in a letter Friday, asking Augare to "respectfully step away" from tribal business so he can be involved in defending himself against the charges he faces. They will "determine what avenue is to be taken" regarding A...
HELENA (AP) — The government shutdown is slowing the wheels of justice in federal courts by delaying civil cases, forcing prosecutors to operate with skeleton staffs and raising uncertainty about the system's immediate future if the stalemate continues past Thursday. That's when federal courts officials expect the reserve funds they have been using since the Oct. 1 start of the shutdown will run out. Criminal cases, which are required by law to go to a speedy trial, are still moving ahead, as are most bankruptcy cases and a...
HELENA . (AP) — The rollout of an expensive, new computer program that will run complicated Montana Medicaid payments is behind schedule and has forced the lead contractor to seek an extension. Meanwhile, state officials — based on experience with software problems — negotiated a contract stating they don't have to pay Xerox until the $70 million program is finished and working. The Medicaid Management and Information System is scheduled to replace a system that is more than 30 years old. The old system is unable to keep...
HELENA (AP) — Montana's largest union, and six retirees and current employees in the Teachers' Retirement System sued the state Friday over cost-saving cuts to their pension payments, a move retirees argue is unconstitutional. The lawsuit involving the Montana Education Association - Montana Federation of Teachers has long been expected. Another is expected against the major pension plan that covers public employees. The retirees warned lawmakers earlier this year that they would oppose any reduction in their guaranteed i...
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will soon decide whether American Indians in rural Montana were wrongly denied on-reservation satellite voting offices that the plaintiffs say are needed to make up for the long distances they must drive to reach county courthouses. Attorneys representing tribal members and the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday told judges in Portland that a federal judge used the wrong legal standard when he denied a request to establish satellite election offices on three r...
HELENA — Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Daines said Tuesday that he is not interested in talking about continued funding for the federal government until Democrats agree to talk about spending cuts. U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, in an interview, countered that Daines and other House Republicans need to pass the funding resolution that is before the chamber and stop trying to make hostages of federal programs. The partial government shutdown is in its eighth day with little or no talk of a...
HELENA (AP) — Before Tuesday's launch, Montana insurers and state officials weren't exactly sure what would happen when a key component of the nation's new health care law kicked in and people could sign up for insurance plans through a new online marketplace. Would there be a rush to enroll in the insurance exchange? Would people sit back and wait to see what happens? Would there be kinks in the system? All of the above, as it turns out. A crush of people jammed the federal government website that featured insurance plans f...
BILLINGS (AP) — A second case of the livestock disease brucellosis in just over a week has turned up in a Montana cattle herd, coinciding with new restrictions on animals exported to Texas because of worries that infections could spread beyond the region. Friday test results from a federal animal health laboratory confirmed the latest infection in a bull that came from a herd of about 550 cattle in southern Montana's Park County, state veterinarian Marty Zaluski said. Another case was confirmed in a Madison County cow S...
GREAT FALLS (AP) — Five people who are accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus aid from Montana's Chippewa Cree tribe have pleaded not guilty to four charges in a new indictment. Former state Rep. Tony Belcourt, his wife, Hailey, and three others entered their pleas Thursday in U.S. District Court in Great Falls. They are accused of diverting some of the $33 million in federal funding the tribe received in 2009 and 2010 for construction of a water pipeline to the Rocky Boy's Indian R...
HELENA — Montana Lt. Gov. John Walsh said today he will run for the U.S. Senate in 2014, giving Democrats the high-profile candidate they've been scrambling for in a bid to keep the seat they've held for decades. Walsh told supporters this morning with a video message that he will run for the office that has been the focus of a great deal of speculation since Sen. Max Baucus announced earlier this year that he will retire at the end of 2014. The announcement said the 52-year-o...
HELENA — Five people who are accused of embezzling federal stimulus aid from Montana's Chippewa Cree tribe are to appear in court today on a new indictment after a tribal leader was dismissed as a defendant. Former state Rep. Tony Belcourt, his wife Hailey and three others are still accused of diverting some of the $33 million in federal funding the tribe received in 2009 and 2010 for construction of a water pipeline to the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation. Tony Belcourt is CEO of the Chippewa Cree Construction Corp., which i...
