News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 3192 - 3210 of 3210
When traveling north down tree-lined 3rd Avenue in Havre, Montana you will pass by many well-kept historic and contemporary houses. Beautiful wood, brick and stone churches are found nearby on parallel streets to the right. The Hill County Courthouse, also on the right, marks the end of the residential area and the beginning of the city business district in earnest. The vacant United States Post Office and courthouse building circa 1930 occupies roughly a quarter of a city block on the left. A newer USPS building can be found...
By Hillary Hanson, Alicia Thompson, Ellen Leahy, Melanie Reynolds The United States is having a furious debate about how best to address the nation's financial problems. A variety of proposals have been suggested, but we need to be careful. Making poor decisions now could result in even worse problems down the road. This is the case with proposed cuts to federal funds for preventive health programs in Montana. Do you remember Benjamin Franklin's quote, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? This is precisely the c...
Sondra Ashton As one of my duties as a Harlem city councilperson, I serve on the Unified Disposal Board. Every fall this board meets at the landfill rather than in our usual meeting room at the courthouse. This fall, we met at the new landfill. After the meeting, while we were putting away chairs and wandering around admiring the pristine new facility, occupied with chit-chat and discussion of the football season, Clay Vincent spotted a cricket skittering across the sparkling...
The 2011 Montana Legislature is over. House Bill 198, the eminent domain bill, passed and is now law. The bill did NOT expand the traditional scope of eminent domain in Montana. Since Montana's early days, eminent domain has been an essential (but rarely used) tool to build important infrastructure. HB 198 simply clarified that this would still be the case in the future. HB 198 faced strenuous opposition from groups in north-central and southwestern Montana attempting to obstruct construction of the Montana Alberta Tie...
Montana's economy is fueled by the dynamic interplay of many sectors that are dependent on one another in order to be successful. One area of our economy that involves several industries and has been a bright spot for our state is exporting. In 2010 alone, Montana exported $1.96 billion in goods to other countries, making last year our second most successful year ever for exports. Only 2008 was a better year for Montana in this important category. In order for our state's export-dependent industries to continue to grow, it...
Essie St. Dennis and members of the Bullhook Clinic Board of Directors A leaner federal budget might be the order of the day in the nation's capital, but in our corner of rural America the solution is not so simple. Cutting programs that provide vital services to vulnerable populations — and specifically the federal Community Health Centers program — might actually increase the costs borne by all taxpayers. In our experience as Community Health Center board members serving our community here in Havre, we see firsthand wha...
The public is feeling a little light-headed from the deluge of recent news about economic turmoil, and Pamville News is here to continue sucking the oxygen out of the topic with these news items. Pamville News reporters have discovered that www.msnbc.com contributor Brian Alexander has discovered that psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner has discovered this shocking information: Rich people are different from poor folk — different in a not good way. Pam Burke Keltner and his team have "done 12 separate studies mea...
Pam Burke We ought to just call the vet and have me put down and out of misery, give me the long sleep goodnight — now that I don't have anything else to live for, it seems like the humane thing to do. It's a tragic tale. I was going along breathing in and out just fine and then my husband took a photograph of the bird that's been eluding our identification for almost 20 years. Now look at me. I'm directionless. Afloat in a sea of life rendered moot (as in deprived of all p...
The other day I was at Harlem City Hall for a swimming pool committee meeting. I don't know how I got on the pool committee. I don't know how to swim. I have tried numerous times to learn. The city has a great team of lifeguards this year, and they promised me that they can teach me to swim. I wouldn't put money on it. But this is not about swimming. Sondra Ashton Before I left the office, I ran into a friend from Malta. "Have you been out to pick asparagus this year?" he...
A couple of weeks ago at the Havre City Council public hearing to consider a local social host ordinance, a teenager stood before the council and made a compelling case to prohibit people from providing a place for teens to drink alcohol. She said, "When adults provide teens with a place to drink or alcohol to drink, it gets harder to say no … I just want my friends to be safe." The Havre City Council agreed. Under its authority to "protect public health, safety, and general welfare" and "enforce laws prohibiting the c...
After 88 days of Republican leaders repeatedly ignoring our input, it is not surprising to hear them now cry foul and blame the governor for "breaking the budget deal." Fact is, they didn't listen much at all this session, so disregarding the budget agreement they signed seems to be right on cue. Rather than collaborating with Democrats to craft a balanced, responsible budget to live within our means and maintain critical services for Montanans, the Republicans postured and procrastinated for weeks. They decided their...
As the leaders of the House and Senate for the 62nd legislative session we strived to adhere to a higher standard of ethics that Montanans should expect from their elected officials. One of the basic ethical rules says: When you make a promise, keep it. We put the state's budget on the governor's desk on the 75th day of the legislature, earlier than any other in history. This gave him a chance to look it over and discuss any changes he would like to see with us. Following these negotiations, we signed a public budget agreemen...
My friend Katie recently became manager (that is probably not her official title) at the Little Rockies Center here in Harlem. The Little Rockies Sondra Ashton Center houses the Sweet Medical Clinic in several rooms, a number of apartments for senior residents, and a gathering place for senior citizens and other community members. The facility includes a well-stocked kitchen and large dining room with comfortable chairs around huge tables. Although Katie had insisted that I...
Call off the Border Patrol, send home the National Guard, I am the front line against terrorism 'round these parts. In fact, according to Nepal Airlines' standards, I should be getting a Congressional Medal of Honor for carrying on every day, fighting the good fight, battling the forces of evil in a world gone mad, for I am the mighty mouse killer. The Associated Press reported Monday that flight attendants on a Nepal Airlines flight to Bangkok saw a mouse in the pantry and...
Back when he presided over the Senate's health care reform debate, Max Baucus, chairman of the all-powerful Senate Finance Committee, had said everything was on the table — except for single-payer universal health care. When doctors, nurses, and others rose in his hearing to insist that single payer be included in the debate, the Montana Democrat had them arrested. As more stood up, Baucus could be heard on his open microphone saying, "We need more police." Yet when Baucus needed a solution to a catastrophic health d...
A few weeks ago in Billings, at a municipal officials workshop, while eating lunch and eavesdropping on a conversation between the mayor of Malta and the mayor of Saco, I heard her ask him about his hay mulch garden. I overheard the words "no weeds." I quit eavesdropping and scooted into the conversation. "Tell me everything you know," I said. And that is how Howard Pippin, mayor of Saco, became my garden mentor. When I moved back to Montana after 25 years in the Pacific Northwest, I bought my dad's house on the edge of...
The 1977 movie "Smokey and the Bandit" is truly an American classic. The plot was simple enough. A couple of Georgia politicians needed 400 cases of their favorite beer for a shindig, the catch being that Coors was only available west of the Mississippi at the time. The politicians, known as the Enos brothers, offered to pay a hefty price if the beer could be fetched from Texarkana, Texas, and delivered to Atlanta, Ga., within 28 hours. Rick Dow A glorious, gas-guzzling Pontiac Trans Am V-8 ran interference and distraction...
Many residents around Hill County do not have a trash collection service and must haul their garbage to the landfill or one of our remote sites. Most of these sites are owned by Hill County and are considered public land. My office has received many calls over the past few years concerning the upkeep of these sites. It seems that there are a few citizens in Hill County who feel that they can dump their trash on the dirt pad instead of in the large dumpsters. This creates a...
The Pamville News editor is out with a phlegm-based illness this week kindly leaving us Pamville reporters free to tell you how we feel about this week's news. - Our first news item is a backhanded tip of the hat to the Pamville editor's upbringing. The Associated Press reports that a group of Pennsylvania eighth-graders were taken to a Hooters restaurant for lunch on their let's-toss-out-the-books-and-burn-off-the-last-few-days-of-class field trip. The article didn't say if...
