News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1677 - 1701 of 2820
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...
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...
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...
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...
BILLINGS (AP) — The FBI says dozens of calls have come into an automated tip line set up to help find missing Montana teacher Sherry Arnold. Agency spokeswoman Deborah Bertram says authorities are reviewing all tips that have come in so far. She urged people to continue calling with any information in the case. The FBI on Thursday issued a missing person poster for Arnold, a 43-year-old math teacher from the oil boom town of Sidney near the North Dakota border. Authorities are investigating the possibility Arnold was a...
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...
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) — Eight people were in serious or critical condition Monday after the bus they were riding in crashed on an icy interstate highway in southwestern Montana, killing two people and injuring the 32 others onboard. The victims of Sunday morning's crash were a 60-year-old woman from Illinois and a 56-year-old man from Kalispell, the Missoula County Sheriff's Office said. AP Photo/The Missoulian, Kurt Wilson Officials remove two bodies from the scene of the crash of a Rimrock Stages bus that slid of an icy stretch o...
Sherry Arnold BILLINGS (AP) — The search resumes Monday for a Montana high school teacher who didn't return from a weekend run. Forty-three-year-old Sherry Arnold was last seen at 6:30 a.m. Saturday in Sidney. More than 200 people participated in a search Saturday that yielded a shoe believed to belong to Arnold's near one of her regular routes. Assistant Police Chief Bob Burnison says authorities had to turn away hundreds of volunteers who wanted to help search on Sunday. National Guard troops, a helicopter, several a...
BILLINGS (AP) — A Verizon Wireless spokesman says service has been restored after a Sunday morning outage of more than seven hours in Montana and northern Wyoming. Bob Kelley tells the Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/yLV45O) that a switch failed about 1 a.m. during scheduled maintenance on the network. He says engineers fixed the problem by 8:30 a.m. Customers reported cellphone calls could not be completed after 1 a.m. and text messaging had problems. Kelley says the company's network team typically does maintenance and s...
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...
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 (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...
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...
HELENA — Attorney General Steve Bullock is holding onto his lead in the money race among gubernatorial candidates. Candidates for statewide office on Thursday filed their campaign finance reports detailing how much money they spent and took in over the last three months. The deadline comes as the 2012 campaigns start to ratchet up with the new year. Bullock's campaign reported raising $160,691.12 between October and December. That and the $549,242 he has raised to date are tops among candidates from either party. The D...
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 — 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...
