News you can use
News you can use
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AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File An oil spill crew worker for Oil Mop Emergency Response stepping out of a ring of absorbent pads along a flood plain of the Yellowstone River on July 11, where oil was found collected, near Laurel. Exxon Mobil agreed Thursday to pay the state of Montana $1.6 million in penalties over water pollution caused by this pipeline break last summer that fouled dozens of miles of shoreline along the scenic Yellowstone River, a state official said. BILLINGS (AP) — Exxon Mobil agreed Thursday to pay the s...
HELENA — Montana officials gave their initial approval Thursday to a plan that would let hunters kill bison that stray beyond designated areas north of Yellowstone National Park and from the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap Indian reservations. The plan is to remove bison that wander outside of defined "tolerance areas" beyond the park and where wild Yellowstone bison have been slated for transfer, such as the two northeastern Montana reservations. AP Photo/The Livingston Enterprise, Garrett Cheen, File Mounted Yellowstone N...
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...
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...
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...
BILLINGS (AP) — The Yellowstone County Sheriff says a deputy is on administrative leave and a man is dead after a shooting Saturday night in Lockwood near Billings. Sheriff Mike Linder tells the Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/zwVmjO) that the cause of the death is under investigation. Linder says deputies were called to a home just before 10 p.m., and that the first deputy to arrive called for backup after shots were fired. Details of the shooting, the name of the man who died or deputy placed on leave have not been r...
SIDNEY (AP) — Authorities say two Colorado men are being held in a North Dakota jail on Sunday in connection with the disappearance of a Montana math teacher. Williams County Sheriff's deputy Jon Garrison says 47-year-old Lester Vann Waters Jr. and 22-year-old Michael Keith Spell are in the Williams County Correctional Center in Williston awaiting extradition to Montana. Garrison says the two men from Parachute, Colo., face aggravated kidnapping charges in Montana. The two were brought to the Williston jail Friday. O...
WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota judge has ordered two suspects in the disappearance of a Montana math teacher to be moved to Montana for trial. District Judge David Nelson ordered the extradition of 47-year-old Lester Vann Waters Jr. and 22-year-old Michael Keith Spell during Tuesday hearings in Williston, N.D. Waters and Spell are charged with aggravated kidnapping in the disappearance of 43-year-old Sherry Arnold of Sidney, Mont. Arnold disappeared Jan. 7 shortly after she left her home for a run. Authorities have s...
WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) — A judge on Tuesday ordered the extradition of two men from North Dakota to Montana to face kidnapping charges in the disappearance of a high school math teacher who is believed to be dead. Judge David Nelson ordered Lester Vann Waters Jr., 47, and Michael Keith Spell, 22, to be extradited during separate hearings in Williston, a city in northwestern North Dakota near the Montana border. They were to be transported about 45 miles to the southwest later Tuesday, to Sidney, Mont., where the missing t...
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...
Sherry Arnold HELENA (AP) — A Montana math teacher who disappeared last weekend when she left her house for a run is dead, and the FBI said Friday it had one man in custody and was questioning another in connection with her disappearance. Sidney Public School officials posted a statement online saying they learned of Sherry Arnold's death Friday morning. No further information was immediately available, although a news conference was scheduled for Friday afternoon. "I think we are starting to find some closure in the whole d...
BISMARCK, North Dakota (AP) — No immediate discipline is planned for any Dickinson State University employees in the wake of an audit determining the school awarded hundreds of degrees to foreign students who didn't earn them, the chancellor of North Dakota's university system said Saturday. AP Photo/The Dickinson Press, Dustin Monke Dickinson State University President D.C. Coston speaks on Friday, at the Badlands Activities Center in Dickinson, N.D. According to an audit report, the university awarded hundreds of degrees t...
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...
HELENA — The wolf population in the Northern Rockies rose in 2011 despite the removal of federal protections and hunts being held in Montana and Idaho. AP Photo/Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, File This undated image provided by Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks shows a wolf in Montana. Hunters in Montana have shot about 160 wolves as the season comes to an end Wednesday, falling short of the state's 220-animal quota. State wildlife commissioners are considering extending the season in the Bitterroot Valley near the Idaho bord...
HELENA — State regulators are examining a $1.5 million proposal by an Oregon insurer to take over a portion of Montana's third-largest health insurance company as part of a government anti-trust settlement. Commissioner of Securities and Insurance Monica Lindeen has scheduled a hearing Tuesday on the proposal by PacificSource Health Plans to buy New West Health Service's commercial business. The hearing will examine whether the deal is fair and protects the estimated 9,000 New West policyholders who will be affected, said L...
HELENA — A Helena judge said Monday that Gov. Brian Schweitzer's vetoes of some local infrastructure spending were unconstitutional. Schweitzer responded by calling the decision "a sad day for Montana" by restricting the ability of the governor to intervene in legislative spending. Schweitzer said a decision whether to appeal would come later. Six local governments sued the Democratic governor last year to undo the governor's vetoes of funding for their bridge and water projects. The local governments argued that S...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Brian Schweitzer quickly appointed a former labor leader Monday to be the next commissioner over political ethics and campaign complaints, the fourth in the last two years to serve in a post that has become mired in partisan wrangling and internal strife. The Democratic governor announced Monday that he had selected Jim Murry over three others recommended by legislative leaders to be commissioner of political practices. Murry was executive secretary of the Montana State AFL-CIO from 1968 to 1991. He was r...
HELENA — For months, Montana Republican congressman Denny Rehberg has been criticizing U.S. Sen. Jon Tester for being the leading recipient of campaign cash from lobbyists. But it turns out Rehberg has been taking donations from some lobbyists without disclosing their place of employment. The Rehberg campaign countered that the missing information is simply a byproduct of incomplete records submitted by the donors themselves, and not an orchestrated effort by the campaign. AP Photo/The Independent Record, Eliza Wile U.S. R...
HELENA — A large Democratic field running for Congress faces a difficult task: First survive a crowded primary battle, and then retake a seat Democrats haven't won in 18 years. The field seems to be solidifying into two groups as the March 12 filing deadline approaches: Three fundraising front-runners seeking to prove they can win in November — and several others with little financial backing who are nonetheless hoping to appeal to the party's liberal base. Havre Daily News/Nikki Carlson State Sen. Kim Gillan, D-B...
HELENA (AP) — The Ennis School District improperly used taxes levied for adult education and transportation to build a $9 million elementary and junior high school, Attorney General Steve Bullock said Friday. Bullock wrote in an opinion that school funds must be used for the purposes for which they were raised, in this case adult education programming and transportation services, not construction. In Montana, an attorney general's opinion has the weight of law and can only be overturned by a District Court or through the l...
HELENA — The commissioner of political practices dismissed the ethics case against Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Thursday, prompting a strong reaction from the Montana Republican Party, which promised to continue pursuing the case. Schweitzer, a Democrat, was accused of improperly using state resources to appear in a public service radio advertisement at the same time he was running for re-election in 2008. Last summer, a hearings officer recommended that Schweitzer pay a $4,100 fine for violating state laws that ban e...
HELENA — An appellate court will conduct a judicial misconduct review of Montana's chief federal judge, who sent an email to friends that contained a racist joke involving bestiality and President Barack Obama's mother. Judge Richard Cebull also plans to send Obama a formal apology, but that has not stopped calls for the judge's resignation. AP Photo/Billings Gazette, James Woodcock Chief Judge Richard F. Cebull makes a speech during a Naturalization Ceremony at the James F. Battin Federal Courthouse on June 23. Cebull is u...
HELENA (AP) — Montana's chief federal judge said Wednesday that he forwarded an email that contained a joke involving bestiality and President Barack Obama's mother, but he did so because he dislikes the president and not because he's racist. Judge Richard Cebull, of Billings, forwarded the email from his chambers to six other people on Feb. 20, The Great Falls Tribune reported. Cebull told the newspaper that his brother sent him the email, which he forwarded to six "old buddies" and acquaintances. He prefaced the email w...
