News you can use
News you can use
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BUTTE (AP) — A Butte justice of the peace who authorities say doctor-shopped to get multiple prescriptions for the painkiller methadone has been charged with 12 felony counts of fraudulently obtaining dangerous drugs. Robert "Bob" E. Lee was charged Friday in Anaconda District Court, The Montana Standard reported (http://bit.ly/wrF9jP ). Authorities allege Lee received simultaneous care from physicians through much of 2010 to get the prescriptions, and filled the prescriptions at different pharmacies. Earlier on Friday in a...
BILLINGS (AP) — As thousands of workers and their families move to North Dakota's Bakken oil field in search of jobs, nearby rural Montana communities' resources are being pushed to the limit. Housing, education and infrastructure are top government concerns regionally. But after the recent disappearance and apparent murder of Sidney high school teacher Sherry Arnold, communities also are looking closely at law enforcement. "We have a lot of activity now in this part of the state," Sidney Police Chief Frank DiFonzo said in e...
HELENA (AP) — Gov.-elect Steve Bullock has named the state's current environmental quality chief as the next leader of the Department Public of Health and Human Services. Richard Opper has served in Gov. Brian Schweitzer's administration for eight years. He will now run the state's largest agency under Bullock. Bullock had previously named Tracy Stone-Manning to succeed Opper at the Department of Environmental Quality. Bullock on Thursday also picked Sheila Hogan of Helena to run the Department of Administration. She has b...
GREAT FALLS (AP) — Strong winds caused travel difficulties and power outages across Montana on Wednesday. A combination of gusty winds and slick roads caused a school bus to run off U.S. Highway 2 near Browning on Wednesday morning, the Montana Highway Patrol said. None of the students on the bus was injured. In the Missoula area, Missoula County deputies and the highway patrol responded to more than a dozen slide-offs as light rain caused a layer of black ice to form on Interstate 90. "The worst areas we saw were east of B...
MISSOULA (AP) — Authorities say an Idaho middle school teacher drove drunk the wrong way for miles on Interstate 90 in Montana. Charging documents filed by prosecutors say vehicles headed in the right direction Monday night were forced to maneuver out of the driver's way. The driver continued the wrong way even after a sheriff's deputy turned a spotlight on the car. The affidavit by Deputy Missoula County Attorney Suzy Boylan says 55-year-old Thomas Philip Mentzer's blood-alcohol level was .202. The legal limit to drive is ....
In December, the fourth month in a row, Montana's jobless rate declined. The state's unemployment rate went down from 7.1 percent in November to 6.8 percent in December. The national unemployment rate has declined steadily since August, registering at 8.5 percent in December. "Montana's employment growth has gained momentum in the last half of 2011, posting large job gains and a sizable drop in the unemployment rate, due in part to the strong agriculture economy and the oil activity on the eastern part of the state, " said...
Montana's senior senator announced that today he will hold the first meeting of a special committee tasked with extending benefits that are hoped to help with the economic recovery. Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, released an advisory Monday saying that the conference committee on payroll tax deductions, which he co-chairs with House Ways and Means Committee Chair Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., would meet today at 12:30 p. m. "Each member of this conference committee will bring a unique set of...
HELENA — A contested donation of $500,000 gave Republican Rick Hill a fundraising win over Democrat Steve Bullock in campaign reports filed Monday in the race for governor. Bullock reported raising about $321,000 in September and much of October. That fell far short of the whopping $733,000 that Hill reported for the same fundraising period. The Republican Party earlier disclosed it gave Hill $500,000 during a six-day window that opened earlier this month after a federal judge threw out the state's contribution limits. An a...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Brian Schweitzer is shrugging off a judge's decision to temporarily block the use of university money in a state deal to buy a Milk River ranch for public recreation. A Gallatin County District Court on Thursday sided with opponents of the deal trying to block the use of $2 million in university money toward the state's purchase of the Aageson Ranch in Hill County in north-central Montana. Overall, state agencies led by Fish, Wildlife and Parks are paying nearly $8 million for roughly 4,500 acres. The j...
MISSOULA (AP) — The state Board of Regents plans a system-wide look at the way it handles reports of sexual assault after an ongoing investigation uncovered reports of at least five recent attacks at the University of Montana. At Thursday's meeting in Helena, board members expressed concern about the sexual assaults at UM and made a commitment to work to prevent similar attacks on all of Montana's college campuses, the Missoulian reported. The regents called the attacks "intolerable" and affirmed their commitment to safe s...
HELENA (AP) — Two Montana Democrats who could play a big role in the U.S. Senate's debate on gun control are not immediately closing the door on new restrictions. But U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester are taking a more cautious approach than some other pro-gun members of Congress who have expressed a willingness to bend on the issue. The two Democrats led a push in 2009 against early Obama administration discussions about reinstating the ban on what it considered to be assault-style weapons. Tester, who last month just won...
BILLINGS — Authorities on Wednesday started extradition procedures against two men held in North Dakota in the kidnapping of a Montana teacher who is presumed dead. Richland County Attorney Mike Weber said he expects a hearing within the next 30 days on whether to extradite 47-year-old Lester Vann Waters Jr. and 22-year-old Michael Keith Spell. The two requested the hearing in an initial court appearance Tuesday in Williston, N.D. The pair face aggravated kidnapping charges in the Jan. 7 disappearance of Sherry Arnold, a 4...
WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) — Two suspects in the disappearance of a high school teacher requested an extradition hearing Tuesday that could delay their transfer from North Dakota to Montana to face aggravated kidnapping charges. North Dakota District Judge Josh Rustad on Tuesday set bonds of $2.5 million each for 47-year-old Lester Vann Waters and 22-year-old Michael Keith Spell. The two men have been held in Williston, N.D. since their apprehension last week in the Jan. 7 disappearance of math teacher Sherry Arnold of Sidney. D...
HELENA (AP) — Political practices commissioner Dave Gallik said Tuesday that he was resigning amid an escalating dispute with the office's four permanent staff members. The former Democratic legislator was appointed to the position last year by Gov. Brian Schweitzer after the Republican-led Senate rebuffed his first pick for the post. Gallik said he told the governor he would be resigning after he learned that office staff called the police with a complaint when he was out of the office talking to reporters. Gallik said t...
HELENA — The Montana Supreme Court has rejected a request that gay couples be guaranteed the same benefits as married couples. The court wrote in Monday's 4-3 decision the request was "overly broad" and sided with a lower court's decision last year to dismiss the lawsuit. But the Supreme Court left the door open for the couples to modify their request and try again. The couples are not asking to for the right to marry. Instead, they argue the state is constitutionally required to let them make the same decisions about t...
HELENA — The Montana Supreme Court on Monday rejected an "overly broad" request that gay couples be guaranteed the same benefits as married couples. The court wrote in Monday's 4-3 decision Monday that a lower court was within its discretion when it earlier dismissed the request. But the Supreme Court left the door open for the gay couples to modify their request and try again. A Helena district court judge dismissed the six couples' case last year after state prosecutors argued that spousal benefits are limited by d...
WILLISTON, N.D. — Authorities renewed calls Monday for landowners near the northern North Dakota-Montana border to look for signs of a missing Montana teacher's buried body, while documents revealed one of the two suspects in her disappearance has spent time in prison. At a news conference Monday, authorities asked that "landowners and landowners only" help look for the body of 43-year-old Sherry Arnold, a math teacher from Sidney, Mont., who has been missing since Jan. 7 and is presumed dead. This photo provided by the W...
HELENA (AP) — Authorities said Friday that two men in the Dakotas were being questioned in connection with the death of a Montana math teacher who vanished last weekend when she left her house for a run. Sidney police Chief Frank DiFonzo said a 47-year-old man was in custody in the Williams County jail in North Dakota, while a 22-year-old man was being questioned in Rapid City, S.D. He did not identify them and declined to answer questions about the investigation. AP Photo/The Billings Gazette, Larry Mayer Sidney Police C...
HELENA (AP) — Gov.-elect Steve Bullock has filled two more cabinet posts as he prepares to take office next month. Bullock says outgoing Montana Highway Patrol director Mike Tooley will take over as the new head of the Montana Department of Transportation. The two worked together during Bullock's tenure as attorney general. The incoming governor says John Tubbs of Helena will lead the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. Tubbs previously worked at the DNRC and most recently was a deputy at the U.S. Department o...
HELENA (AP) — A judge has authorized the start of payments to American Indians in a $3.4 billion settlement involving the federal government's mishandling of land trust royalties. The settlement was the result of a lawsuit originally filed by Elouise Cobell of Browning, Mont. Cobell died of cancer last year. A law firm representing Cobell and others said Wednesday that a judge authorized it to start sending $1,000 checks to about 350,000 beneficiaries. Attorney Keith Harper says the firm wants to get the first round of c...
BILLINGS — Authorities expanded their search Monday for a high school teacher who's missing from an oil boom town in northeast Montana, after recovering only a single running shoe since she failed to return from a weekend run. No solid evidence has emerged to indicate 43-year-old Sherry Arnold was kidnapped, authorities said. But FBI agents were called in to assist local law enforcement in the case, and an agency spokeswoman said the possibility of abduction was under investigation. AP Photo/The Billings Gazette, Larry M...
MISSOULA (AP) — A bus crashed Sunday on an icy interstate highway in southwestern Montana, killing at least two people and sending more than two dozen to area hospitals, officials said. The westbound Rimrock Trailways bus crashed on Interstate 90 near Clinton, about 18 miles southeast of Missoula, shortly after 7 a.m., Dan Ronan of the American Bus Association said. The crash was one of several reported along that stretch of highway Sunday morning, closing a portion of the interstate. It was not clear if there were a...
MISSOULA (AP) — A bus crashed Sunday on an icy interstate highway in southwestern Montana, killing two people and sending more than 30 others to area hospitals, officials said. The westbound Rimrock Trailways bus crashed on Interstate 90 about a mile west of Clinton, 18 miles southeast of Missoula, shortly after 7 a.m., Dan Ronan of the American Bus Association said. All of the 34 people on board were either injured or killed. AP Photo/The Missoulian, Kurt Wilson Officials work at the scene of the crash of a Rimrock Stages b...
BILLINGS (AP) — Hundreds of people are assisting in the search for a Sidney High School teacher who did not return home after going for a jog. The Billings Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/AycLHY ) that 43-year-old Sherry Arnold was last seen at 6:30 a.m. Saturday. More than 200 people participated in the initial search Saturday, finding a shoe believed to belong to Arnold near one of her regular jogging routes. Sidney Assistant Police Chief Bob Burnison says Arnold was classified Sunday as missing. He says nearly 1,000 p...
BILLINGS (AP) — A dog that was feared dead after it was swept away in a weekend avalanche that killed its owner showed up four days later at the Montana motel where its owners had stayed the night before going backcountry skiing. Search and rescue team member Bill Whittle said he was "positive" that the Welsh corgi — named Ole — had been buried in Saturday's avalanche. AP Photo/Natasha Baydakova In this photo released by Natasha Baydakova on Wednesday Jan. 4,2011 showing a Welsh corgi dog named Ole that showed up at a Cooke...
