News you can use
News you can use
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BILLINGS (AP) — Kevin Reski thought the "Dirty Jobs" staff from the Discovery Channel TV show had made a mistake when they called to ask him about filming an episode with his tower-building crew. "This is no dirty job, it just sucks," he said he told them. "Living on the road sucks. Staying in hotels sucks. Eating restaurant food sucks. The other guys in the crew suck. "They said sucky is good, we're down to sucky jobs." The episode ends the show's 50-state tour and airs on Tuesday, Feb. 7. Dramatic aerial video clips from t...
HELENA — State Sen. Jeff Essmann of Billings said that he is dropping out of the crowded Republican primary, indicating his presence in the race could detract from the GOP effort to take back the governor's office. Essmann sent a letter to supporters, dated Thursday, saying Republicans need to be united in their financial support for the primary winner if they hope to defeat Steve Bullock, the Democratic attorney general running for governor. The letter was released to the public on Friday. Essmann told supporter that "the c...
BOZEMAN (AP) — Montana State University plans to tear down about 55 so-called "Monopoly houses" that for decades housed students. "They're just wearing out," said Tom Stump, MSU director of auxiliary services, "The majority are already vacant. The floor joists are failing. They have asbestos siding, asbestos in the floors." The houses are scheduled to be torn down this summer as part of a $9.1 million project to save energy, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported (http://bit.ly/yJZgMl). The school has been paying to heat the h...
HELENA — Gov.-elect Steve Bullock announced Friday that he was bringing back a former Fish, Wildlife and Parks director to run the agency, a move welcomed by some critics and employees alike. Jeff Hagener led the department for four years under former Gov. Judy Martz. He also held the same post during Gov. Brian Schweitzer's first term before he was replaced at the end of 2008 by current director Joe Maurier. Bullock, a Democrat who is preparing to leave his post as attorney general to take over the governor's office, also n...
BILLINGS — State schools superintendent runner-up Sandy Welch is likely to wait until next week to request a recount in a race she narrowly lost but has pledged to challenge, her campaign manager said Tuesday. The Republican education consultant from Martin City trailed incumbent Denise Juneau by 2,231 votes in results certified Tuesday by state elections officials. State elections officials say she has until Monday to request a recount. Welch plans to use that time to line up observers to oversee ballot counting in each o...
MISSOULA (AP) — A Missoula woman should be allowed to defend herself against a charge of driving under the influence by arguing someone put a date rape drug in her drink without her knowledge, the Montana Supreme Court has ruled. The 4-3 decision filed last week returned Leigh Paffhausen's case to Municipal Court, saying she should have the chance to offer evidence that her January 2010 intoxication was involuntary, the Missoulian (http://bit.ly/V8eJZH ) reported. Shortly after Paffhausen was charged, she told police she b...
HELENA — A Montana medical marijuana provider staring down an 80-year prison sentence has become something of a martyr among pot advocates, but he's not finding much support for his constitutional challenge of the federal raids that landed him in jail. Chris Williams was the only provider among those indicted after the 2011 raids on more than a dozen medical marijuana operations across Montana who rejected multiple plea deals and insisted on a jury trial on the eight drug trafficking and weapons charges he faced. AP P...
BILLINGS (AP) — County treasurers will soon begin using a new computer system to verify whether people have liability insurance on a vehicle when they license it or renew its registration. Yellowstone County has been testing the Montana Insurance Verification System and Treasurer Max Lenington tells The Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/T2Qbvh ) it works surprisingly well. Counties will start using the system in January, but Motor Vehicle Division administrator Brenda Nordlund says no one will be denied registration or r...
HELENA — Buoyed by the success of voter initiatives in Washington and Colorado, an East Helena medical marijuana advocate has refiled a proposal to make the recreational use of pot a constitutional right in Montana. The proposed constitutional initiative by Barb Trego is the first 2014 ballot question submitted to the secretary of state for approval. It duplicates the one she put forward last year, but which did not make it on the 2012 ballot because backers failed to collect the required signatures in time. Trego is a m...
HELENA — The Supreme Court refused a request Tuesday to overturn a court order that keeps Montana's campaign contribution limits intact through the election. American Tradition Partnership and 11 other conservative groups, individuals and businesses seeking to toss out the limits had appealed to Justice Anthony Kennedy, asking him to lift the order by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals keeping them in place. Kennedy denied the application in a one-sentence statement released by the Supreme Court's public information o...
LIBBY (AP) — The CEO of an Arizona-based bridge manufacturing company and one of his employees were killed in a plane crash as they flew to northwestern Montana for a company Christmas party. Stinger Welding Inc. CEO Carl Douglas, of Coolidge, Ariz., and John Smith, also of Coolidge, died in the crash late Tuesday or early Wednesday near Libby, Sheriff Roby Bowe said in a statement. The men left Coolidge at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday with Douglas piloting the twin-engine Beechcraft, Bowe said. They were to arrive just after m...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Brian Schweitzer is advising the first Republican in 20 years to be elected attorney general not be too partisan. Attorney General-elect Tim Fox asked for the Friday meeting with the Democratic governor. He has been gathering advice from current and past officeholders as he prepares to take his first statewide office. Schweitzer told Fox to not listen too much to partisans in his party who may want him to be a Republican attack dog. The governor says he has learned "the best political friends give the w...
WHITEFISH (AP) — Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer says a plan by Amtrak to charge a $10 baggage fee for skies and snowboards will unfairly affect the Flathead Valley. The Flathead Beacon reports (http://bit.ly/RKm3WR) that Schweitzer visited Whitefish Depot on Friday and says the policy singles out Whitefish and that it's a "knuckleheaded idea." Amtrak passengers have been allowed in the past to being four pieces of baggage, two of which can be carried on free of charge. Whitefish Mountain Resort officials say 14 percent of s...
HELENA — In the six days between a judge tossing out Montana's campaign contribution limits and an appellate court reinstating them, the Montana Republican Party dumped $500,000 into Rick Hill's campaign in the former congressman's tight race for governor. Hill's opponent, Democrat Steve Bullock, called Hill's acceptance of the donation a crime. The state GOP also donated $32,000 to attorney general candidate Tim Fox in that time, and tried but failed to assemble donors for Sandy Welch, the Republican trying to unseat O...
Authorities investigating the reported death of a Montana school teacher asked landowners in parts of Montana and North Dakota to check vacant farmsteads for signs of disturbed soil or matted grass, saying her body might be buried at such a site. As new details about 43-year-old Sherry Arnold's mysterious disappearance emerged, law officers released the names of two men being held in the case and planned to hold a news conference at midday Monday. Lester Vann Waters Jr., 47, and Michael Keith Spell, 22, both of Parachute,...
MISSOULA (AP) — Top University of Montana officials have arranged a public meeting to discuss the school's investigation into several reports of sexual assault occurring both on and off campus. University vice president Jim Foley said Tuesday night's community forum will feature President Royce Engstron, who will make a statement and then take questions from the audience. In December, the university asked former Montana Supreme Court Justice Diane Barz to investigate sexual assault reports after allegations surfaced that two...
GREAT FALLS (AP) — Office of Public Instruction Superintendent Denise Juneau wants to raise the dropout age in Montana from 16 to 18 and increase funding for Montana Digital Academy so that more students can access online courses without having to pay. Those are some of the plans for an ambitious legislative agenda Juneau unveiled Thursday to education supporters in Great Falls. She said that 65 percent of schools in Montana have signed on to her Graduation Matters initiative launched two years ago in an effort to improve g...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana's top education official urged school leaders Friday to review their emergency plans and procedures in the wake of a Connecticut school shooting that killed 20 children and six adults. Every public school in Montana is required to have a plan to respond to all kinds of emergencies, from an intruder to a fire to a bomb threat. Such a plan is meant to minimize the risk of a tragedy such as the one that unfolded Friday morning in Newtown, Conn. But there is no requirement or set process for M...
BILLINGS (AP) — A Billings SWAT team raiding a house where they suspected a meth lab to be set off a "flash-bang" grenade that burned a 12-year-old girl sleeping on the floor of her sister's bedroom, the girl's mother said. Jackie Fasching said her daughter was treated for first- and second-degree burns to her left side after the raid Tuesday morning. "She's got severe pain," Fasching told The Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/UQ0VTL ) for a story published Friday. "Every time I think about it, it brings tears to my eyes." P...
BILLINGS — Republican Sandy Welch dropped her request for a recount in the state schools superintendent race on Tuesday after failing to come up with $115,000 to cover the costs of the effort. Welch had pledged since the days following the Nov. 6 election to challenge her 2,231-vote defeat to incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau. AP Photo/The Daily Inter Lake, Patrick Cote Sandy Welch exits the courtroom Friday afternoon, in Flathead County District Court in Kalispell, Mont. A Flathead County judge h...
HELENA — Federal agents claim in inadvertently released court documents that a former University of Montana quarterback caught up in a medical marijuana raid contemplated bribing police and politicians. But Jason Washington of Missoula told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday that the allegation is "ridiculous" and blown out of proportion by agents overhearing a running joke among friends. Drug Enforcement Agency agents said they were monitoring Washington's communications before raiding his and two other m...
BILLINGS — After four days with no answers, authorities said they were considering scaling back their search for a Montana math teacher who left her home for a pre-dawn run and never returned. The only publicized clue into Sherry Arnold's disappearance Saturday was a single running shoe, found by a ditch along her running route in her hometown of Sidney. FBI agent Deborah Bertrand said late Tuesday that tips were starting to come into an automated hotline set up for the case, but would not offer any details. The FBI and l...
MISSOULA (AP) — Doug Taylor remembers somebody saying a heartfelt "Oh Jesus" just as the Rimrock Stages bus careened into the median on Interstate 90 early Sunday morning. As the bus slid out of control, bounced onto its side, turned upright again and finally rolled onto its side for a second time, the 51-year-old Texan remembers experiencing two odd sensations. AP Photo/Missoulian, Kurt Wilson Doug Taylor, 51, of Austin Texas, describes the terrifying scene on Sunday morning, Jan. 8, when the Rimrock Stages bus he was r...
MISSOULA (AP) — Researchers at the University of Montana say the state has seen a climb in tourism numbers this year. The Missoulian (http://bit.ly/RhDmSS ) reports the university's Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research said Friday that more than 10.9 million out-of-state travelers visited the state in 2012. That's a 3.2 percent increase over the previous year. The uptick in tourism meant more dollars for the state, with nonresident travelers spending $3.2 billion this year, a 15 percent increase over 2011. R...
As Montanans surge to the polls today, some legislators are already working on changing state laws that say who, how and when future voters can register or cast their ballots. Rep. Ted Washburn, R-Bozeman, says he plans to propose bills in the 2013 Legislature that would eliminate same-day voter registration, stiffen voter identification laws, and require a longer period of residency before a citizen can vote. Voters line up outside the Missoula Election Center at the Missoula Fairgrounds on Tuesday morning to register to...
