News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1731 - 1755 of 2813
NEW YORK (AP) — Months after Montana copper mining heiress Huguette (hew-GEHT') Clark died in New York comes a big surprise: a will in which she leaves almost everything to her family — and a second will in which they get nothing. The childless Clark died in May at age 104. On Monday, relatives filed a will signed in March 2005. It leaves much of her $400 million fortune to relatives. But five months earlier, his lawyer and accountant filed another Clark will, this one from April 2005. It gives her family nothing and lea...
HELENA — Federal agents seized more than $184,000 from bank accounts associated with a former Montana Grizzlies quarterback and his medical marijuana and automotive detailing businesses, according to inventories filed in U.S. District Court. The seizures from at least nine bank accounts and one safety deposit box associated with Jason Washington and his businesses were part of a yearlong marijuana trafficking investigation by federal authorities. No charges have been filed. Washington, 28, did not return calls for comment l...
WHITEFISH (AP) — Authorities say the body of a resident has been found in an apartment at a Whitefish nursing home after a fire on Christmas Eve. Whitefish Fire Captain Justin Woods tells the Daily Inter Lake (http://bit.ly/spThsf) that fire fighters responded to an automatic fire alarm at Mountain View Manor about 7:30 p.m. and found smoke coming out from under the door of one of the apartments. Woods says fire fighters entered and found sprinklers had put the fire out, but that the resident was dead. Officials did not r...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Republicans running the Legislature say their proposal for fixing the state's expensive workers' compensation insurance system will decrease rates up to 44 percent. The GOP touted their legislative fix Monday amid concern from both parties over the cost of the insurance in Montana. The new GOP proposal will be competing with a compromise bill that was four years in the making. That bill aims to reduce costs in several ways, but has run into opposition from doctors and insurance companies who say it r...
HELENA — The line of people stretched out the door of the committee room, all waiting for their turn to condemn or express their fears about the federal government. Most identified themselves as ordinary Montana citizens or tea party supporters united by the belief that the government is chipping away at their rights and abusing the constitutions of the state and the nation. They'd arrived for a public hearing on the so-called "Sheriffs First Act," a Montana senator's proposal to make sheriffs the supreme authorities in their...
HELENA (AP) — The board that runs the state's colleges said Thursday that it is picking one of its own to replace the retiring higher education commissioner. The Montana Board of Regents said current chairman Clayton Christian is the right choice to succeed Sheila Stearns, who announced her retirement this year after nine years in the position. The board said in a release that Christian, a Missoula businessman, was recruited and recommended by the board's search consultant. The board said it decided to make a quick decision T...
HELENA — The federal government is investigating an alleged fraud scheme in which people handed over their savings to invest in what they believed was an oil and gas development project on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. The investors received nothing in return and the individuals soliciting the investments through Hotmail and Yahoo!-maintained email accounts don't actually own any oil and gas leases on the northeastern Montana reservation, according to court filings. Since last year, three people have sent more than $...
HELENA (AP) — A coalition that challenged Montana's public school funding system as inadequate in 2002 is now asking a judge to order the state to restore an $8 million funding cut that kicked in when the governor vetoed a bill backed by Republicans. The Montana Quality Education Coalition filed its latest lawsuit in District Court in Helena on Friday, Lee Newspapers of Montana reported. The lawsuit said the 2011 Legislature approved separate bills that provided a two-year, 3.43 percent inflationary increase in state f...
HELENA — A candidate for governor in Montana says the family of Moammar Gadhafi sought his help earlier this year in finding an exit strategy for the deposed Libyan leader. But Republican Neil Livingstone told The Associated Press on Thursday that he and other Americans interested in helping broker such a deal were rebuffed by the Treasury Department, so he never proceeded with any negotiations. Livingstone has been a security and terrorism expert in Washington, D.C., for decades. He was vocal earlier this year in his o...
HELENA — A Montana Republican gubernatorial candidate who runs a Washington, D.C.-based security and counterterrorism firm says the family of Moammar Gadhafi sought his help earlier this year in finding an exit strategy for the deposed Libyan leader. But Neil Livingstone told The Associated Press in a Thursday interview after Gadhafi's death that he and other Americans interested in helping broker such a deal were rebuffed in April by the Obama administration, so he never proceeded with any negotiations. Gadhafi was killed T...
MT lawmaker resigns leadership post after citation HELENA, Mont. (AP) — State Sen. Jim Shockley resigned Thursday as Judiciary Committee chairman after he was cited for driving with an open beer in his vehicle, but said he will continue his run for state attorney general. The Republican from Victor told The Associated Press he will not let the incident derail his plans to run for higher office in 2012. But, he added, he broke the law and it is not possible to continue running the Senate Judiciary Committee when its focus i...
Former State Sen. Greg Barkus listens to District Judge John McKeon speak in Flathead District Court on Thursday in Katispell, Mont. Barkus accepted a sentence that will allow him to avoid jail and eventually expunge his record for a 2009 boat crash that injured U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg and four other people. Barkus was given a four-year deferred prison sentence, $29,000 in fines and supervised probation, The Daily Inter Lake newspaper reported. AP Photo/The Daily Inter Lake, Nate Chute Former Mont. state senator sentenced in...
HELENA — State senators moved to cut 5 percent out of the Legislature's own budget amid criticism to looming cuts for other areas of government. The so-called "feed bill" pays for operation of the Legislature and is normally routine. But it unexpectedly hit the news earlier this month when Gov. Brian Schweitzer criticized lawmakers for tapping taxpayer money to get new, personal laptop computers. Then House Democrats opposed the measure after pointing out it included previously scheduled small increases for per diem and h...
Lawmaker resigns leadership post after citation MATT GOURAS, Associated Press HELENA — State Sen. Jim Shockley resigned Thursday as Judiciary Committee chairman after he was cited for driving with an open beer in his vehicle, but says he will continue his run for state attorney general. The Republican from Victor told The Associated Press he will not let the incident derail his plans to run for higher office in 2012. But, he added, he broke the law and it is not possible to continue running the Senate Judiciary Committee w...
HELENA — Elouise Cobell, the Blackfeet woman who led a 15-year legal fight to force the U.S. government to account for more than a century of mismanaged Indian land royalties, died Sunday. She was 65. Cobell died at a Great Falls hospital of complications from cancer, spokesman Bill McAllister said. Cobell was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed in 1996 claiming the Interior Department had misspent, lost or stolen billions of dollars meant for Native American land trust account holders dating back to the 1880s. After y...
HELENA (AP) — U.S. Sen. Jon Tester's plan for more logging and wilderness areas in Montana again appears doomed by partisan differences accentuated by his heated 2012 Senate race with U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg. Tester, a Democrat, has been trying to attach his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act to the year-end congressional budget deal. But Rehberg, a Republican, opposes the measure and says he is making sure House leaders won't accept it. Rehberg is challenging Tester in a race that is already among the most watched in the country...
HELENA — Montana lawmakers tackled illegal immigration Friday, pushing forward a bill to ban illegal immigrants from receiving workers' compensation insurance benefits and hearing initial debate on a plan to turn to a federal immigration database before issuing Montana driver's licenses. Staunch opponents to illegal immigration want the state to use that federal database to verify legal immigration status before issuing a driver's license. Opponents of House Bill 178 argue the state would be subjecting its residents — and con...
HELENA — Montana lawmakers said Monday they are uncertain whether they should come up with a backup plan should their crackdown on medical marijuana be struck down in the courts or rejected next year at the ballot box. The state's tough new medical marijuana law is under attack by the industry both in the courts and with an initiative asking voters to reject the new law at the ballot box in 2012. A legislative interim committee decided Monday that it will continue to monitor both before making any plans to draft backup l...
HELENA — A Montana judge abdicated his responsibility when he dismissed a lawsuit by six gay couples seeking the same legal benefits as married couples, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday in an appeal to the state's highest court. The six couples, barred from marrying under the state's voter-approved constitutional definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, aren't asking for the right to wed. Instead, they say they want to be able to make decisions like married couples about their families' health c...
HELENA — No one can recall the last time an illegal immigrant hiked into the rugged and remote wilderness of Glacier National Park in an attempt to slip into the U.S. But that isn't stopping some in Congress from proposing to give border agents control over environmental laws in protected areas such as the popular tourist attraction in Montana, Washington's North Cascades National Park and all federal land within 100 miles of the U.S. border. Associated Press interviews with northern border local sheriffs, federal o...
BOZEMAN (AP) — Montana State University alumnus and Colorado businessman Jake Jabs is making a $25 million donation to MSU's College of Business. MSU officials say it's the largest private gift in the history of Montana's higher education system. "Thanks to his generosity, Mr. Jabs' visionary gift will benefit generations of students to come," MSU President Waded Cruzado said Friday. Cruzado said she will seek approval from the Board of Regents and lawmakers to construct a new building for the College of Business. If a...
HELENA (AP) — Montana's Department of Commerce Office of Tourism is launching a new marketing campaign in hopes of luring tourists during the winter months. Gov. Brian Schweitzer announced the campaign in a press release last week, saying the state needed a winter campaign "as compelling and memorable as a Montana winter vacation." The campaign features skier and cinematographer Warren Miller, Olympic mogul skier Heather McPhie and X-Games medalist, author and photographer Kevin Connolly. The campaign includes magazine and o...
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A medical marijuana advocate facing criminal charges in Missoula will be allowed to travel to Helena to lobby state lawmakers. Jason Christ faces two counts of felony intimidation stemming from what police say was a bomb threat against a Verizon store on Aug. 18. The Missoulian reports that Justice of the Peace John Odlin on Friday allowed Christ to remain free on his own recognizance, and also said Christ could travel within the state. Employees at the Verizon store in Missoula told police Christ s...
BILLINGS — The executive director of the troubled Two Rivers Detention Center in Hardin says an agreement is in the works with a Burbank, Calif., production company that is interested in filming a TV show in the facility. Jeff McDowell told KTVQ-TV in Billings the company is interested in renting the jail for a couple of months. But he adds that the deal has not been completed. The $27 million jail, which was completed in 2007 and promoted as a means of jump-starting rural Hardin's struggling economy, has had a string of setb...
HELENA — State lawmakers failed to come up with a proposed energy policy over the legislative interim because of the Republican committee members' denial of climate change, a Democratic senator said Friday. Sen. Ron Erickson, of Missoula, told a group of industry leaders at Helena conference on Montana energy the science is clear, but that GOP resistance prevented the interim committee from forwarding a bill to the full Legislature. "We had a really difficult time in the interim committee on energy. I will blame that on t...
