News you can use
News you can use
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HELENA — A Montana judge has blocked part of a voter-approved law that requires proof of citizenship or legal standing to receive state services, but he left most of it intact to "preserve the intent of the people." The law approved overwhelmingly by voters in November requires a person to provide proof that he or she is eligible for services from unemployment benefits to crime-victim assistance. Immigration-rights attorneys challenged the law in December, saying Legislative Referendum 121 violated constitutional rights to pr...
HELENA — The chairwoman of Montana's Yellowstone County Republican committee denies she posted on her Facebook page a racist photo mocking President Barack Obama. Jennifer Olsen says she has received dozens of calls and emails since a blogger last week claimed Olsen posted an image of a box propped up with a stick with a watermelon underneath. The caption says "BREAKING NEWS: The Secret Service just uncovered a plot to kidnap the president." Olsen said Monday the blogger who claims she posted the photo is lying and she has n...
HELENA — A panel of appellate judges has upheld as constitutional the 2011 federal raids on Montana medical marijuana businesses, warehouses and homes that pot providers claimed violated their right to operate under state law. The three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel on May 15 affirmed U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy's dismissal of the lawsuit brought by 14 medical marijuana providers and associations. The appellate judges agreed with Molloy that the federal government did not overstep its authority when i...
HELENA — Federal officials this week lifted their temporary hold on funding for a $361 million water pipeline for a Native American reservation in northern Montana after Chippewa Cree tribal officials demonstrated they were addressing conflicts and accounting problems. The Bureau of Reclamation notified tribal leaders in March there would be no additional funding for the 50-mile pipeline project until the tribe showed action had been taken. The federal agency found problems that included missing money, a conflict of i...
AP Photo/Matt Volz Kenneth Blatt St. Marks sits at his home in Box Elder. St. Marks, the former chairman of the Chippewa Cree tribe, is participating in a federal investigation into corruption on the reservation that includes money missing from a $361 million pipeline project to bring fresh drinking water to the reservation and parts of north-central Montana. BOX ELDER — Federal officials temporarily stopped funding a $361 million water pipeline for Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation and parts of north-central Montana after l...
HELENA — Former Montana Disaster and Emergency Services employees claim the division's chief of staff traded sex for favoritism with a subordinate, and that those who complained were met with hostility and ultimately forced out of their jobs. The result was a dysfunctional workplace in which the agency's emergency management mission was overshadowed by the intra-office tumult, and longtime employees were replaced by unqualified ones, according to multiple lawsuits filed over the past year. The most recent, filed in January by...
HELENA — A Montana family and their accountant are accused of tacking $70 million in bogus charges onto customer phone bills nationwide, then funneling some of that money through a religious organization to buy land and pay for the husband's legal bills. Steven Sann, his wife Terry, son Nathan and accountant Robert Braach run a maze of nine companies engaged in "cramming, " or adding unauthorized charges to a customer's phone bill, according to a civil complaint filed this month by the Federal Trade Commission. When c...
BOX ELDER — Federal officials temporarily stopped funding a $361 million water pipeline for a Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation after learning that millions of project dollars were missing and a Chippewa Cree leader, former State Rep. Tony Belcourt, D-Box Elder, in charge of the project steered federal dollars to a company he owns. AP Photo/Matt Volz Kenneth Blatt St. Marks sits at his home in Box Elder. St. Marks, the former chairman of the Chippewa Cree tribe, is participating in a federal investigation into corruption on t...
HELENA — Former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf has been moved from a drug treatment center to the Montana State Prison for threatening a staff member and violating his treatment plan, a corrections official said Thursday. The former San Diego Chargers and Washington State Cougars quarterback was charged last spring with breaking into two houses and stealing prescription painkillers near his hometown of Great Falls. He pleaded guilty in May to burglary and criminal possession of dangerous drugs, and his five-year sentence called f...
HELENA — Former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf has been moved from a drug treatment center to the Montana State Prison for threatening a staff member and violating his treatment plan, a corrections official said Thursday. The former San Diego Chargers and Washington State Cougars quarterback was charged last spring with breaking into two houses and stealing prescription painkillers near his hometown of Great Falls. He pleaded guilty in May to burglary and criminal possession of dangerous drugs, and his five-year sentence called f...
HELENA, — A secretive conservative group that targeted moderate Republicans in the last two Montana elections and caused an upheaval in the state's election laws has revealed its board of directors for the first time. Doug Lair, Geoff Goble and Peter MacKenzie submitted a legal document to state district court last month identifying themselves as American Tradition Partnership directors. The filing was in response to state attorneys' demand for proof that ATP's new attorney had the authorization to represent the group in a l...
HELENA (AP) — The Montana Supreme Court said Tuesday that a judge was wrong to release Barry Beach from prison two years ago and order a new trial in the 1979 slaying of a teenage girl. The Supreme Court's 4-3 ruling reversed a Lewistown judge's 2011 decision that found new evidence raised doubts about Beach's guilt. Beach had been in prison since the 1980s since his original conviction for the murder of a 17-year-old girl on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. A long list of advocates persistently argued he had been wrongly co...
HELENA (AP) — Flu outbreaks are spreading across Montana, with one death reported and 57 people hospitalized so far, a state health official said Friday. Influenza cases have been reported in all but 18 of Montana's 56 counties, and the number of cases is expected to increase for at least a few more weeks, said Department of Public Health and Human Services spokesman Jon Ebelt. "It does seem to be shaping up to be our worst flu season since 2009," he said. Montana is one of 47 states where flu is considered widespread, in w...
HELENA — If American society's tolerance for marijuana is now growing, then what happened in Montana illustrates just what can happen when the government decides things have gone too far. Pot advocates were running caravans, helping hundreds of residents in a day get medical marijuana user cards. Some doctors who conducted cursory exams on scores of people were fined. As the number of users quickly grew, so did a retail industry that led some to dub the state "Big High Country." AP Photo/Matt Volz Drug Enforcement Agent In C...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A Montana Supreme Court justice and a Billings district judge are being recommended to fill two open federal judgeships, U.S. Sen. Max Baucus' office said Monday. The Montana Democrat will recommend that District Judge Susan Watters take U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull's Billings seat and that Supreme Court Justice Brian Morris replace U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon of Great Falls. "Judge Watters and Justice Morris are exceptionally qualified and highly respected individuals who I have no doubt will s...
HELENA — Wildlife officials are asking lawmakers to make it easier to hunt and trap wolves in Montana. The House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee is scheduled to hear two proposals Thursday. The first by the FWP agency would allow hunters and trappers to buy multiple tags and use electronic calls. It also would reduce the price of a non-resident tag from $350 to $50 and eliminate the requirement that hunters wear fluorescent orange outside of deer season. The second bill by Republican Rep. Ted Washburn of Bozeman would g...
HELENA (AP) — Montana Department of Military Affairs leaders are asking their employees to participate in a workplace assessment after a study found distrust and dysfunction within the division responsible for emergency preparedness. The Department of Administration is conducting the survey. A link to an online questionnaire was sent to employees last week, with responses due April 17, Adjutant Gen. Matthew Quinn told a panel of state lawmakers Wednesday. A state human resources team will discuss the results with staffers a...
HELENA — Wildlife officials are asking lawmakers to make it easier to hunt and trap wolves in Montana. The House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee is scheduled to hear two proposals Thursday. The first by the FWP agency would allow hunters and trappers to buy multiple tags and use electronic calls. It also would reduce the price of a non-resident tag from $350 to $50 and eliminate the requirement that hunters wear fluorescent orange outside of deer season. The second bill by Republican Rep. Ted Washburn of Bozeman would g...
HELENA (AP) — A power struggle that has splintered the Blackfeet Indians' governing council and divided the tribe is moving beyond the reservation's boundaries. The intra-tribal political feud has been escalating for nearly a year, leading to the dismissal or suspension of several members of the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council and leaving just five of its nine members to make decisions for the governing body. The division has led to accusations of corruption by supporters of both factions and street protests outside t...
GREAT FALLS (AP) — A Chippewa Cree tribal leader, a former state lawmaker and three others used a fake billing system and a shell company to pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus aid meant for the Montana tribe, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. The Chippewa Cree Tribe received $33 million in federal funding between 2009 and 2010 for construction of a $361 million pipeline to supply fresh drinking water for the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation and surrounding counties in northern Montana. Most of that $...
GREAT FALLS — A Chippewa Cree tribal leader, a former state lawmaker and three others used a fake billing system and a shell company to pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus aid meant for the Montana tribe, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. AP Photo/Matt Volz Chippewa Cree tribal leader John "Chance" Houle, left, walks out of U.S. District Court in Great Falls after being arraigned on Tuesday. Houle and four others are accused of diverting federal stimulus funds. The Chippewa Cree Tribe received $33 m...
HELENA — A sharply divided Montana Supreme Court has ruled that forcing a Hutterite religious colony to pay workers' compensation insurance for jobs outside the commune is not an unconstitutional intrusion into religion. The 4-3 decision upholds a 2009 law requiring religious organizations to carry workers' compensation insurance, which the Legislature passed after businesses complained they could not outbid the religious workers. The Big Sky Colony of Hutterites in northwestern Montana sued, saying the law targeted its r...
HELENA — A midnight court hearing in Kalispell helped a Montana prosecutor accused of assaulting a family member avoid spending last weekend in jail, but his attorney said there was no special treatment for the prosecutor and it was held out of concern for his safety. Flathead County Deputy Attorney Kenneth "Rusty" Park's attorney was arrested Friday night after a woman at his home in Kila called authorities. Park was charged with creating reasonable apprehension of bodily injury, which is a crime under the partner or f...
HELENA — Federal prosecutors say two Montana hospitals will pay $3.95 million to settle allegations they gave doctors incentive payments for patient referrals. The hospitals received reimbursements for those payments through Medicare, which is prohibited. The settlement released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice involves payments by St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings and Holy Rosary Healthcare in Miles City between 2003 and 2010. The hospitals are operated by Denver-based Sisters of Charity Leavenworth Health S...
HELENA — The Montana National Guard brigadier general who ordered an investigation into the state's Disaster and Emergency Services was fired last year after he rehired a woman who was suing the state over her dismissal from the troubled agency. Brigidier Gen. Joel Cusker said he was given no explanation for his dismissal, but he concluded from meetings and conversations with then-Gov. Brian Schweitzer's chief of staff and Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger that it was over the decision to rehire a person who had shown such "...
