News you can use
News you can use
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HELENA — Attorney General Steve Bullock is holding onto his lead in the money race among gubernatorial candidates. Candidates for statewide office on Thursday filed their campaign finance reports detailing how much money they spent and took in over the last three months. The deadline comes as the 2012 campaigns start to ratchet up with the new year. Bullock's campaign reported raising $160,691.12 between October and December. That and the $549,242 he has raised to date are tops among candidates from either party. The D...
HELENA — An appellate court will conduct a judicial misconduct review of Montana's chief federal judge, who sent an email to friends that contained a racist joke involving bestiality and President Barack Obama's mother. Judge Richard Cebull also plans to send Obama a formal apology, but that has not stopped calls for the judge's resignation. AP Photo/Billings Gazette, James Woodcock Chief Judge Richard F. Cebull makes a speech during a Naturalization Ceremony at the James F. Battin Federal Courthouse on June 23. Cebull is u...
HELENA — A 2006 Big Sky Conference championship ring belonging to a former University of Montana quarterback was seized in a series of raids on medical marijuana providers this month. Federal agents executed 12 search warrants on Nov. 16 on businesses, homes and warehouses related to three medical marijuana operations. The warrants called for the seizure of drugs, firearms, records and proceeds from drug sales, including cash and jewelry. Among those targeted but not arrested was Jason Washington, a medical marijuana b...
HELENA — The deadline is Friday for organizers to turn in signatures for proposed ballot initiatives that aim to repeal new state laws restricting medical marijuana and expanding eminent domain powers. Rose Habib, coordinator for a proposed initiative referendum sponsored by the Montana Cannabis Industry Association, said Thursday that the group has met the requirements required to put the question to voters in the 2012 general election. That meant gathering more than 24,337 voter signatures from at least 34 legislative d...
HELENA — The deadline is Friday for organizers to turn in signatures for proposed ballot initiatives that aim to repeal new state laws restricting medical marijuana and expanding eminent domain powers. Rose Habib, coordinator for a proposed initiative referendum sponsored by the Montana Cannabis Industry Association, said Thursday that the group has met the requirements required to put the question to voters in the 2012 general election. That meant gathering more than 24,337 voter signatures from at least 34 legislative d...
HELENA — Federal agents seized more than $184,000 from bank accounts associated with a former Montana Grizzlies quarterback and his medical marijuana and automotive detailing businesses, according to inventories filed in U.S. District Court. The seizures from at least nine bank accounts and one safety deposit box associated with Jason Washington and his businesses were part of a yearlong marijuana trafficking investigation by federal authorities. No charges have been filed. Washington, 28, did not return calls for comment l...
HELENA — Firearms dealers in states that regulate medical marijuana can't sell guns or ammunition to registered users of the drug, a policy that marijuana and gun-rights groups say denies Second Amendment rights to individuals who are following state law. It's already illegal under federal law for someone to possess guns if he or she is "an unlawful user of, or addicted to" marijuana or other controlled substances. A Sept. 21 letter from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, issued in response to numerous i...
AP Photo/Destini Vaile Ruben Moreno of the Blackfeet Tribe displays his hands that he had placed in pools of oil July 15 near Cut Bank Creek in order to take a sample for Blackfeet Community Hospital Water Lab. FX Energy Inc. plans to permanently shut down two oil wells in northwestern Montana where a spill went unreported for a month and spread nearly a mile before being discovered, a company executive said July 19. HELENA — Crews reported being a third of the way through the cleanup of a northwestern Montana oil spill T...
HELENA — The line of people stretched out the door of the committee room, all waiting for their turn to condemn or express their fears about the federal government. Most identified themselves as ordinary Montana citizens or tea party supporters united by the belief that the government is chipping away at their rights and abusing the constitutions of the state and the nation. They'd arrived for a public hearing on the so-called "Sheriffs First Act," a Montana senator's proposal to make sheriffs the supreme authorities in their...
HELENA — The federal government is investigating an alleged fraud scheme in which people handed over their savings to invest in what they believed was an oil and gas development project on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. The investors received nothing in return and the individuals soliciting the investments through Hotmail and Yahoo!-maintained email accounts don't actually own any oil and gas leases on the northeastern Montana reservation, according to court filings. Since last year, three people have sent more than $...
BROWNING — Elouise Cobell was remembered on Saturday as a warrior whose compassion and grit drove her to dedicate the last 16 years of her life to holding the U.S. government accountable for billions lost or stolen from her fellow Native Americans. Friends, family and American Indian leaders gathered in the Browning High School gymnasium on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation for a funeral Mass for Cobell, who died last Sunday of cancer. She was 65. "She proved that with hard work and determination, the impossible is p...
BROWNING — Elouise Cobell was remembered on Saturday as a warrior whose compassion and grit drove her to dedicate the last 16 years of her life to holding the U.S. government accountable for billions lost or stolen from her fellow Native Americans. Friends, family and American Indian leaders gathered in the Browning High School gymnasium on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation for a funeral Mass for Cobell, who died last Sunday of cancer. She was 65. "She proved that with hard work and determination, the impossible is p...
MATT VOLZ,Associated Press HELENA — A Montana senator has revived legislation that would make sheriffs the supreme authorities in their counties. The bill by Republican Sen. Greg Hinkle of Thompson Falls would require federal agents to get written permission from a sheriff before they could conduct a search, seizure or arrest in that sheriff's jurisdiction. A similar bill was vetoed by Republican Gov. Marc Racicot in 1995. At Friday's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, dozens of people waited in line to condemn t...
HELENA — Several dozen people are suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena over sexual abuse they say they suffered as children at the hands of clergy members in western Montana. The 34 men and women, who now range in age from 45 to 73, say the diocese must answer for what they claim is its "gross negligence" in the alleged abuse by at least eight clergy members, including six priests and two nuns, that took place from the late 1940s through the 1970s in St. Ignatius, Missoula and Arlee. More alleged victims may be added a...
HELENA — A bill that would prohibit Montana wildlife officials from relocating Yellowstone National Park bison is being heard in a state Senate committee. Senate Bill 144 sponsored by Republican Sen. John Brendan would ban Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks from moving bison anywhere in the state except the National Bison Range. The Senate Fish and Game Committee is taking it up Thursday afternoon. The Scobey Republican has said bison relocation would create a disease threat for ranchers and farmers. On Wednesday, 25 wild b...
HELENA — Elouise Cobell, the Blackfeet woman who led a 15-year legal fight to force the U.S. government to account for more than a century of mismanaged Indian land royalties, died Sunday. She was 65. Cobell died at a Great Falls hospital of complications from cancer, spokesman Bill McAllister said. Cobell was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed in 1996 claiming the Interior Department had misspent, lost or stolen billions of dollars meant for Native American land trust account holders dating back to the 1880s. After y...
HELENA (AP) — Montana prosecutors are asking the state Supreme Court to lift a district judge's block of portions of a new state law meant to restrict the sale of medical marijuana. Judge James Reynolds in June issued an injunction that prevented key parts of the bill from becoming law, including a ban on marijuana providers from making a profit. He also blocked a ban on medical marijuana advertising, unannounced searches of providers and investigations into doctors who recommend marijuana for more than 25 patients in a y...
HELENA — A judge has given the go-ahead to break up Montana's third-largest health insurance company as part of an antitrust settlement. U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull's Monday order sets the ground rules for the divestiture of New West Health Service's commercial insurance business. Five of the hospitals that own the company want to switch their 11,000 employees' insurance coverage to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana. Regulators say the deal would spell the end of New West's commercial business and drive out c...
HELENA — A Montana judge abdicated his responsibility when he dismissed a lawsuit by six gay couples seeking the same legal benefits as married couples, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday in an appeal to the state's highest court. The six couples, barred from marrying under the state's voter-approved constitutional definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, aren't asking for the right to wed. Instead, they say they want to be able to make decisions like married couples about their families' health c...
HELENA — A 911 call captured two women's voices saying, "Don't do it," and, "You took my husband," before gunshots rang out in a shooting that left a man and a woman dead in a Helena apartment, according to court documents filed Friday. The documents provided new details into the Thursday morning slayings of Joseph Andrew Gable, 48, and Sunday Cooley Bennett, 50, at Gable's home. Gable's estranged wife, Michelle Coller Gable, was due to appear in court Friday on two charges of deliberate homicide. AP Photo/The Independent Rec...
HELENA — State lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it easier for utilities to meet the standard for renewable energy production, a proposal that conservationists say would make the standard meaningless. The state's largest utility is also opposed to the bill because it would mean a windfall for hydroelectric power generators but end up costing its customers more. The measure sponsored by Republican Sen. Debby Barrett, of Dillon, would allow electricity produced by large hydroelectric facilities to count toward s...
HELENA — Montana officials on Friday approved the relocation of 68 quarantined bison from Yellowstone National Park to two Indian reservations amid intense debate over whether the animal that once populated the American West has a place on today's landscape. The Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission gave its permission to move the animals once agreements are negotiated with Fort Belknap and Fort Peck tribal leaders over monitoring for disease and how to prevent the animals from escaping to neighboring land. Ownership of the a...
HELENA — State lawmakers failed to come up with a proposed energy policy over the legislative interim because of the Republican committee members' denial of climate change, a Democratic senator said Friday. Sen. Ron Erickson, of Missoula, told a group of industry leaders at Helena conference on Montana energy the science is clear, but that GOP resistance prevented the interim committee from forwarding a bill to the full Legislature. "We had a really difficult time in the interim committee on energy. I will blame that on t...
WASHINGTON — A Supreme Court dominated by Easterners tried to make sense Wednesday of a Western water dispute. The court heard arguments in a lawsuit between a power company and the state of Montana over who owns the riverbeds beneath 10 dams sitting on three Montana rivers. AP photo Holter Dam on the Missouri River near Wolf Creek, s privately owned by Pennsylvania Power and Light. U.S. Supreme Court justices heard arguments that invoke the Lewis and Clark expedition from two centuries ago in a dispute that could affect w...
HELENA — Montana wildlife officials on Wednesday said they will recommend the relocation of 68 quarantined Yellowstone National Park bison to two Indian reservations after running into strong opposition by ranchers and landowners to proposals to move the animals to other parts of the state. The bison could be moved to the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations this winter if the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission approves the recommendation at its Dec. 9 meeting. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File A government horseback rider h...
