News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 332
om Brokaw to receive honorary degree from MSU BOZEMAN (AP) — Montana State University will award former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw an honorary degree next month. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports the journalist and author plans to deliver a speech on Feb. 28 when university president Waded Cruzado presents him with the degree. Brokaw anchored NBC's Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He has also written five books, won 12 Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award and the Congressional Medal o...
ROUNDUP — Part of the legacy of flooding earlier this year by the Musselshell River in central Montana goes beyond how high the river rose to how much it changed the landscape, residents say. Ranchers say it covered cropland in river sand, made some irrigation projects useless and left one suspension bridge with nothing to span. AP Photo/Billings Gazette, Larry Mayer, File This May 26, photo shows the Musselshell River flooding the town of Roundup. Part of the legacy of flooding earlier this year by the Musselshell River i...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Republicans running the Legislature say their proposal for fixing the state's expensive workers' compensation insurance system will decrease rates up to 44 percent. The GOP touted their legislative fix Monday amid concern from both parties over the cost of the insurance in Montana. The new GOP proposal will be competing with a compromise bill that was four years in the making. That bill aims to reduce costs in several ways, but has run into opposition from doctors and insurance companies who say it r...
BROWNVILLE — The failure of a Missouri River levee in northwest Missouri offered a brief reprieve Friday from flooding near the Cooper nuclear power plant in southeast Nebraska, although officials expect the waterway to rise back up to a threatening level. The National Weather Service said the river dropped more than a foot at Brownville to 43.1 feet Friday morning after the breach Thursday evening upstream in northwest Missouri. Before the breach, the river had been 44.8 feet deep at Brownville. AP Photo/Dave Weaver M...
Montana Prep Football Poll The Associated Press The Associated Press Top 10 Montana high school football poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records, rating points and previous rankings Class AA Rec. Pts Prv 1. Helena (12) 3-0 120 1 2. Helena Capital 3-0 108 2 3. Billings West 2-1 95 3 4. Billings Senior 2-1 75 5 5. Kalispell Glacier 2-1 51 4 Others receiving votes: Butte 19, Kalispell Flathead 12. Class A Rec. Pts Prv 1. Billings Central (8) 3-0 116 1 2. Miles City (4) 3-0 108 2 3. Dillon 3-0 96 3 4. Laurel 3-0 88...
Former State Sen. Greg Barkus listens to District Judge John McKeon speak in Flathead District Court on Thursday in Katispell, Mont. Barkus accepted a sentence that will allow him to avoid jail and eventually expunge his record for a 2009 boat crash that injured U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg and four other people. Barkus was given a four-year deferred prison sentence, $29,000 in fines and supervised probation, The Daily Inter Lake newspaper reported. AP Photo/The Daily Inter Lake, Nate Chute Former Mont. state senator sentenced in...
YONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Even as the world changed around him, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il remained firmly in control, ruling absolutely at home and keeping the rest of the world on edge through a nuclear weapons program. Inheriting power from his father in 1994, he led his nation through a devastating famine while frustrating the U.S. and other global powers with an on-again, off-again approach to talks on giving up nuclear arms in return for energy and other assistance. Kim was one of the last remnants of a Cold W...
BONNERS FERRY, Idaho — A grizzly bear wounded by a hunter later attacked and killed the hunter's partner Friday after the two men tracked the animal in a remote area along the Idaho-Montana boarder, authorities said. Steve Stevenson, 39, and Ty Bell, 21, members of a hunting party from Winnemucca, Nev., were going after black bears when the attacked occurred about 10 a.m. PDT in a mountainous, heavily forested region in Lincoln County, Mont., near the Canadian border. AP Photo/The Bonner Daily Bee, Julie Golder Boundary C...
EAST MISSOULA — A Montana woman photographing a bald eagle in a spruce tree near her house also made a picture of what was left of its prey — a fawn carcass dangling from a power line. AP Photo/Lee Bridges A power company lineman uses a pole to remove a young deer carcass that was dropped onto a power line. It is suspected the carcass was dropped after being snatched by an eagle in East Missoula. The incident caused a brief power outage. Lee Bridges, of East Missoula, says she photographed the eagle Wednesday morning bec...
MISSOULA — Missoula County Sheriff's deputies are still pursuing leads in the hunt for David Burgert, the former militia leader who is accused of shooting at deputies this week. The sheriff's department said Friday it was patrolling the Petty, Graves and Howard Creek areas of Lolo National Forest west of Missoula. Burgert fled into the forest after exchanging shots with deputies on Sunday following a car chase. Police say he may be hiding in the mountains along the Montana-Idaho border. Burgert once led an anti-government m...
KINGMAN, Ariz. — An Arizona inmate whose escape sparked a three-week national manhunt last summer was sentenced Friday to 43 years behind bars for breaking out of prison and abducting two truck drivers whose big rig was used as a getaway vehicle. John McCluskey's sentence came the same day a Mohave County jury found him guilty of escape, kidnapping, aggravated assault and other charges in his July 30 break from the medium-security Arizona State Prison in Golden Valley. AP Photo/Matt York In this Aug. 20, 2010 photo,former e...
DEVON — A school bus carrying about 40 people returning from a church camp flipped on its side Friday on a rural highway in northern Montana, injuring several students, although none was seriously hurt, authorities said. The bus was carrying students from a church study camp in Hungry Horse, Mont., to Harlem, Mont., when the accident occurred at 2:45 p.m. on Highway 2 near Devon, Highway Patrol Sgt. Joel Knutsen said. AP Photo/Shelby Promoter/Chris Muller This image provided by the Shelby Promoter shows investigators at the s...
BILLINGS — Montana's request for a presidential disaster declaration was approved by federal officials Friday following flooding that has caused at least $8.6 million in damage. The declaration makes the state eligible for federal assistance to repair and replace damaged roads, bridges and other infrastructure washed out by weeks of high water. It also means 31 counties and four tribes can be reimbursed for flood-fighting expenses ranging from overtime, to sandbagging and setting up temporary shelters. Courtesy photo An e...
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says congressional bargainers are preparing a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and expiring jobless benefits as a fallback plan in case negotiations on a yearlong package don't succeed. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., left, accompanied by Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois show the front page story of the Washington Post during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday to discuss the payroll tax c...
HELENA — Minority Democrats in the state House opposed the bill that pays the Legislature's expenses as a protest to Republican moves to cut state spending elsewhere. Democrats argued Wednesday it is wrong for the controlling party to increase funding for legislative benefits after GOP moves a day earlier to start cutting state programs for the needy and elderly. Republicans said the Democrats are just trying to score political points by politicizing a normally routine bill. Gov. Brian Schweitzer has already taken issue with...
HELENA — A Thompson Falls lawmaker wants Montanans to have the option of hunting with a hand-thrown spear. The Independent Record reports the Senate Fish and Game Committee discussed Republican Sen. Greg Hinkle's bill on Tuesday, and nearly voted to approve it. However, they decided the bill needed to clarify the hunting season in which the practice would be allowed. The committee is expected to consider the bill again on Thursday. Hinkle says about a dozen other states have legalized the use of spears in hunting. Senate b...
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A medical marijuana advocate facing criminal charges in Missoula will be allowed to travel to Helena to lobby state lawmakers. Jason Christ faces two counts of felony intimidation stemming from what police say was a bomb threat against a Verizon store on Aug. 18. The Missoulian reports that Justice of the Peace John Odlin on Friday allowed Christ to remain free on his own recognizance, and also said Christ could travel within the state. Employees at the Verizon store in Missoula told police Christ s...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Gov. Brian Schweitzer has asked that an ethics case against him be dismissed, citing an "inexcusable delay," but the Montana Republican Party thinks the case should move forward, a news organization reported Thursday. "Any alleged delay in these proceedings is primarily a result of the governor's own litigation strategy," Republican Party attorneys Quentin Rhodes and Robert Erickson of Missoula wrote in a response cited by Lee Newspapers. "He should not be rewarded for his own dilatory tactics." Former C...
HELENA — State gambling regulators say video gambling revenues have declined over the past two fiscal years, including a 16 percent drop in the most recent reporting period. The Gambling Control Division reported taxes collected from electronic poker and keno machines fell from $62.1 million in fiscal 2009 to $54.2 million in fiscal 2010, which runs from July 2009 through June 2010. The fiscal 2008 taxes were $63.4 million. Gaming Industry Association of Montana executive director Neil Peterson attributed the 2 percent d...
HELENA — U.S. Sen. Max Baucus says he plans to marry his girlfriend and former director of his state offices. Baucus said Monday he and Melodee Hanes were engaged over the Christmas holiday in Helena. The 69-year-old veteran Democrat says they intend to marry in Montana this summer. Baucus and his second wife, Wanda, divorced in early 2009 after 25 years of marriage. The senator recommended Hanes for Montana's U.S. attorney post in 2009, a move that later came under scrutiny due to their relationship. By then, Hanes had w...
SEATTLE — A Burlington Northern Santa Fe spokesman says icy weather has backed up trains on New Year's Day and forced it to halt Amtrak service on its tracks across Montana and North Dakota. BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas says traffic has been slowed by snow, freezing temperatures and winds that have pushed wind chills into the minus-20s and lower. He says freight trains are still running, but at slower speeds. Crews also have to remove snow from tracks and work on switches to keep them from freezing up. Amtrak spokeswoman C...
NORFOLK, Va. — The Navy said Sunday it will investigate "clearly inappropriate" videos broadcast to the crew of nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in which a top officer of the ship used gay slurs, mimicked masturbation and opened the shower curtain on women pretending to bathe together. The star of the videos, made in 2006 and 2007, is a former Top Gun pilot who now commands the same ship, the Norfolk-based USS Enterprise, which was deployed in the Middle East at the time and is weeks from deploying again. The V...
BILLINGS — Authorities in Billings say the side of a waste water pond used by Western Sugar Cooperative has collapsed, flooding the factory and some downtown streets. Billings Police Sgt. Jason Gartner says the Sunday morning breach has caused deep water along State Avenue from Sugar Avenue to 31st Street, and that barricades have been set up. Billings Fire Department Battalion Chief Ed Regele describes the breach as a catastrophic failure that drained the pond. Regele says no homes have been flooded. BILLINGS — Aut...
HELENA — A former public school discipline officer and elementary school principal is bringing that skill set to the Montana House of Representatives as the new sergeant-at-arms this session. Russell Bean tells the Independent Record his goal is to make life as easy as possible for the 100 state representatives. Bean is a former state representative, serving one term for House District 17 as a Republican. He didn't run for re-election in November, but says he wants to get back into the Legislature eventually. Former House s...
MISSOULA — A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Jon Tester says the Democrat plans to reintroduce his forest bill that would create new wilderness areas in parts of the Montana, increase logging requirements and establish permanent recreation areas. Spokesman Aaron Murphy tells the Missoulian that the bill will be introduced at the start of the 112th session of Congress. He says the bill will be in the same form as it appeared in the final days of the 111th Congress when it was added to a huge catchall spending measure. That spending m...
