News you can use
News you can use
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HELENA — Montana has enough cash in the bank to cushion a temporary delay in federal funding to the states if the debt-ceiling showdown in Congress continues into next week, Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Friday. The Democratic governor announced Thursday that the state ended the fiscal year with a $340 million surplus, making Montana one of eight states not facing a shortfall. That cash would allow the state to weather the storm for a month or possibly longer if the government defaults because of gridlock over raising the n...
HELENA — A family of Montana medical marijuana providers has been indicted on federal charges after their business locations across the state were raided by agents in March. The three new indictments bring the total to six marijuana providers charged with alleged crimes stemming from the searches of more than two dozen businesses, residences and warehouses this spring. Richard Flor, his wife Sherry Flor and their son Justin Flor appeared Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby in Billings on 11 counts. The c...
HELENA — A judge on Thursday blocked Montana from enforcing a new law ending commercial medical marijuana operations, saying banning pot providers from making a profit will deny people a fundamental right to seek health care by legal means. Helena District Judge James Reynolds issued a preliminary injunction against parts of a restrictive overhaul of the state's voter-approved medical marijuana law, which was due to take effect on Friday. One part of the law would have limited marijuana providers to distributing to a m...
Indian tribes prepare way for buffalo's return MATT VOLZ, Associated Press POPLAR — American Indians depended on the buffalo for hundreds of years for food, clothing, tools and medicine. Now today's tribes want to return the favor by helping preserve one of the last genetically pure herds in North America. The Sioux and Assiniboine tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars preparing 5,000 rolling acres in northeastern Montana for 50 wild bison from Yellowstone National Park. T...
HELENA — Montana's congressional delegation is criticizing President Barack Obama's decision to involve the U.S. military in Libya, but only Democratic Sen. Max Baucus will say outright that he opposes American intervention in the conflict. Baucus said in a statement Friday the U.S. can't afford to be involved in another prolonged conflict with the nation facing record deficits and the resources needed by troops already in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I have deep concerns about the clarity of the mission in Libya, and I continue t...
HELENA — Three medical marijuana providers have been arraigned in the first criminal case stemming from a series of federal raids this spring on Montana pot distributors. Jason Burns, Jesse Leland and Joshua Schultz appeared Wednesday on charges of conspiracy, manufacture of marijuana, distribution of marijuana and money laundering. All three pleaded not guilty. They have been conditionally released. Schultz's Natural Medicine of Great Falls and Burns' and Leland's Queen City Caregivers in Helena were among more than two d...
AP Photo/Mike Albans,File In this Jan. 19, 2011 file photo, Brigadier Gen. Mayhew "Bo" Foster, 99, speaks to the Associated Press at his nursing home in Missoula, Mont. Foster, a retired brigadier general of the Montana National Guard who flew captured Nazi leader Hermann Goering into Allied hands at the end of World War II, has died at 99. Montana pilot who flew captured Nazi leader dies MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — Mayhew "Bo" Foster, a World War II Army pilot who transported the one-time heir to Adolf Hitler for i...
HELENA — The family friend of Greg Mortenson who has stepped in to run the Central Asia Institute while the "Three Cups of Tea" co-author is hospitalized promised Wednesday "full transparency" into how the charity's finances are managed. AP Photo/Department of Defense, U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley In this July 15, 2009 file photo released by Department of Defense, "Three Cups of Tea" co-author Greg Mortenson shows the locations of future village schools to U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the J...
1. AP Photo/Family Photo This undated photo shows suicide victim Chelle Rose Follette of Poplar, Mont. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death behind unintentional injuries among Indian children and young adults, and is on the rise, according to the Indian Health Service. 2. AP Photo/Michael Albans This picture shows a memorial message painted on the rear window of suicide victim Chelle Rose Follette's family's pick-up truck, outside their home on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Poplar. 3. AP Photo/Michael Albans...
Lawmakers punt on physician-assisted suicide MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — Montana legislators had been asked to choose between two proposed bills in creating a physician-assisted suicide law: Ban the practice altogether or create regulations for doctors and terminally ill patients to follow. Now it appears they'll do neither, leaving the state in the same legal limbo that has existed since a Montana Supreme Court ruling effectively legalized the practice more than a year ago. Attempt to bypass committee failed Both b...
Montana bill would 'embrace' global warming MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — A Montana legislator is proposing the state embrace global warming and wrest control of greenhouse gas regulation from the federal government, ideas that scientists and environmentalists call an indefensible denial of physics and a waste of taxpayer money. Republican Rep. Joe Read of Ronan aims to pass a law that says global warming is a natural occurrence that "is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana." Montana holds large tr...
HELENA — A Republican member of the Public Service Commission joined with the Democratic minority Friday to oust the GOP chairman and take over as leader of the dysfunctional panel that regulates utilities. The removal of chairman Bill Gallagher and insertion of Travis Kavulla caps a tumultuous three months for the commission and dissolves a rare Republican majority for a panel that had been under Democratic control for most of the last 30 years. Friday's meeting started as a discussion on how to reprimand vice chairman B...
HELENA — A Republican member of the Public Service Commission has joined with the Democratic minority to oust the GOP chairman and take over as leader. Friday's hearing started as a discussion on whether to reprimand vice chairman Brad Molnar over a recent trip Washington, D.C. Democratic commissioner Gail Gutsche and Republican Travis Kavulla say chairman Bill Gallagher knew about the trip but he and Molnar kept it a secret from the other three members. The meeting devolved into a heated argument before a recess was h...
GREAT FALLS — Walter Breuning, the world's oldest man and second-oldest person, died Thursday. He was 114. AP Photo/Mike Albans 114 year old-Walter Breuning sits for an interview with a reporter for the Associated Press in the lobby of his senior residence in Great Falls. Breuning died of natural causes in a Great Falls hospital, said Stacia Kirby, spokeswoman of the Rainbow Senior Living retirement home where he lived. Breuning had been hospitalized since the beginning of the month with an undisclosed illness. Breuning w...
HELENA — A Republican lawmaker wants to put a constitutional amendment before Montana voters that would remove term limits for state legislators. Kristin Hansen of Havre told the House State Administration Committee Monday that constituents from both parties urged her to back the proposed repeal, saying term limits have resulted in a weaker Legislature. Term-limit supporters testified that they didn't want to see a Legislature of ordinary citizens replaced by one made up of career politicians. "New people may bring new i...
HELENA — Gov. Brian Schweitzer has signed a bill giving a tax break to all businesses operating in the state. The Democratic governor had opposed the Republican plan to reduce the business equipment tax for all the businesses in Montana, saying large, out-of-state companies shouldn't get the break. But he says he signed the bill Friday because vetoing it also would have thrown out help for small businesses. Schweitzer had favored his own proposal to eliminate the tax altogether for businesses with less than $1 million in e...
HELENA — The pilot of a single-engine plane that crashed and killed 14 people in Butte in 2009 cut safety corners and then did not take the appropriate action after discovering a problem with his fuel system, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded Tuesday. The privately owned plane carrying seven children and seven adults from California to a ski vacation in Bozeman crashed moments after the pilot requested a diversion to Butte without explanation. The board's findings of probable cause lay the blame on the 6...
HELENA — The Milk and Musselshell rivers were receding Thursday after reaching record levels and flooding streets and homes in Glasgow and Roundup. But it may be a brief respite as the melting snowpack and continuing rain were expected to mean more high water across Montana. Flooding has been reported from the Clark Fork River near Missoula to the Sun River in central Montana and the Missouri River in the eastern part of the state, forcing many residents to evacuate. Flooding expected to continue in several areas through t...
HELENA — Former congressman Rick Hill is leading Republican gubernatorial candidates in fundraising, while Democratic Attorney General Steve Bullock is keeping pace without yet saying whether he'll actually run for the state's top job. Candidates filed their campaign finance reports for the last three months with the state Commissioner for Political Practices with less than a year before the June 5 primaries to decide the party nominations for governor. The biggest question hanging in the gubernatorial race is whether Bullock...
HELENA — Federal prosecutors have charged two charter bus drivers with reckless endangerment for driving a group of seventh graders on a Yellowstone National Park field trip while under the influence of alcohol. U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman John Powell says Kevin Stark and Jack Parrent made an initial court appearance Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Cole in Mammoth Hot Springs. Jerry Perkins, owner of the Bozeman-based bus company Karst Stage, says the drivers were arrested Friday by park rangers. The men h...
HELENA — A pipeline failure has cut off the water supply to about two dozen homes in a contaminated area of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, leaving residents without drinking and bath water for more than three weeks. The pipeline from Poplar's water supply system to the homes north of the city has been out of service since May 13, said Deb Madison, the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes' environmental program manager. The 23 homes have received the piped water since 2005, after the Environmental Protection Agency o...
House GOP introduces new school funding plan MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — Republicans running the House Appropriations Committee on Friday restored millions of dollars they had threatened to ax from Montana's public education budget, but on the condition that the Legislature pass separate measures that would change the way schools are funded. The plan adopted by the committee would funnel $183.5 million next year and $96.6 million in 2013 into an account dedicated to school funding. The money would come from a variety...
HELENA — Some of the changes in Montana's medical marijuana law that took effect Friday have created confusion among users and distributors after a judge blocked other parts of the restrictive overhaul. Helena District Judge James Reynolds on Thursday temporarily blocked portions of the law that eliminated Montana's "caregiver" system for distributing marijuana. The law renames caregivers as providers and bans them from making a profit or distributing marijuana to more than three patients. But while the judge blocked the b...
HELENA — The mother of a teenager who shot himself last year during a rash of child suicides on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana has filed a lawsuit claiming the school district and the state are responsible for his death. Dalton Gourneau's death in Wolf Point in November followed five suicides and 20 attempts at a middle school in Poplar, about 20 miles east on the reservation, leading tribal officials to declare an emergency. Federal health officials were sent in for several months last year to p...
HELENA — The red needles of a tree killed in a mountain pine beetle attack can ignite up to three times faster than the green needles of a healthy tree, new research into the pine beetle epidemic has found. AP Photo/Star-Tribune, Tim Kupsick Northern Laramie Range Management Project Forester Nick Williams describes what Camp Wyoba had to do to remove and kill the Mountain Pine Beetle from the property in Casper, Wyo. More than 45 trees were cut down and cooked as a part of the process over the summer. New research into the m...
