News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1767 - 1791 of 2820
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A plan to use only mail-in ballots for the state's main elections, which haltingly moved forward with fragile bipartisan cooperation, failed Friday after allegations of racism from a Native American lawmaker and defensive counter-accusations. The simmering tensions between Republicans and Democrats erupted, somewhat surprisingly, over a bill that modifies the way elections are run. The House had abruptly changed its mind on the proposal after endorsing the proposal a day earlier. The bill failed after man...
KALISPEL (AP) — A state judge has denied a request for a temporary restraining order to prevent a student charged with assaulting teammates on a freshman football bus from returning to classes at Glacier High School on Monday. Attorney Sean Frampton, of Whitefish, filed a petition Wednesday on behalf of the parents of three Glacier High students who reported being sexually assaulted last month. District Judge David M. Ortley denied the request for the restraining order Thursday and set a Nov. 14 hearing, Frampton said F... Full story
HELENA — Montana is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stick with a lower court ruling that the state owns the riverbeds where hydroelectric dams sit and can charge power companies rent for their usage. PPL Montana has gone to the nation's high court, asking it to reverse a 2010 ruling by the Montana Supreme Court that declared the riverbeds were state property. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case in December. Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock argued in a Thursday filing that state title to the r...
HELENA — U.S. Sen. Max Baucus says he will sponsor a bill to expand the wilderness on the Rocky Mountain Front. AP Photos/Susan Walsh, File Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., speaks during a news conference on Jan. 24, 2008, on the economy on Capitol Hill in Washington. Baucus is expected to throw his support behind the proposed Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, and will propose the measure to Congress that expands wilderness. Conservationists who have been working on the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act tout the proposal as a c...
AP Photo/The Independent Record, Dylan Brown Gov. Brian Schweitzer pauses during his 2011 State of the State Address, Wednesday night. MATT GOURAS Associated Press HELENA — Gov. Brian Schweitzer delivered an energetic fourth and final State of the State speech Wednesday that highlighted his administration's achievements in everything from coal to schools while outlining an optimistic and aggressive agenda for his last two years in office. Along the way, Schweitzer poked some fun at Republicans, who have been a constant a...
RICHMOND, Va. — Several states and U.S. territories are weighing in on a lawsuit over proposed graphic cigarette warning labels that include a sewn-up corpse of a smoker and a picture of diseased lungs, saying the federal government should be allowed to require the labels for the "lethal and addictive" products. The 24 attorneys general filed a friend of the court brief on Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington in support of the Food and Drug Administration's challenge of a lower court ruling in the case. Last m...
BILLINGS (AP) — The Montana Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an internal document related to the investigation of a Billings police department employee suspected of misconduct should be made public. The Billings Gazette reports that in a 4-3 decision, the high court upheld a district judge's December ruling that the information should be released. The newspaper sued the city seeking its findings in an internal investigation of credit card purchases made by Deanna Anthony, a senior administrative coordinator with the d...
HELENA — There is enough evidence of innocence to order a new trial for a man who has spent nearly 30 years in prison for murder — but not enough proof yet to set Barry Beach free, a judge ruled. Beach told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday that the decision, subject to appeal to the Supreme Court, was a huge breakthrough "after 32 years of fighting the system." The case has gripped the small northeastern Montana town of Poplar since 17-year-old Kim Nees was killed in 1979 on a festive summer night at...
BILLINGS (AP) — The man convicted in the 1979 killing of a Poplar girl is getting a new trial. KULR-TV reports (http://bit.ly/rrj5q1 ) a District Court judge in Fergus County ruled Tuesday that new evidence could convince a jury to acquit Barry Beach. The 49-year-old was convicted in 1984 in the beating death of 17-year-old Kimberly Nees largely based on his own confession. Beach, who has spent 28 years in prison, argues that he was coerced into the confession by out-of-state police. His attorneys have argued a group of g...
BILLINGS — A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region need continued protection under the Endangered Species Act due to the decline of a tree species that serves as a key food source for some of the animals. The ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocks the federal government's effort to lift protections on about 600 threatened grizzlies across 19,000 square miles of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Such a move would have turned over management of the animals to state wildlife...
BROWNING — Elouise Cobell was remembered on Saturday as a warrior whose compassion and grit drove her to dedicate the last 16 years of her life to holding the U.S. government accountable for billions lost or stolen from her fellow Native Americans. Friends, family and American Indian leaders gathered in the Browning High School gymnasium on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation for a funeral Mass for Cobell, who died last Sunday of cancer. She was 65. "She proved that with hard work and determination, the impossible is p...
BROWNING — Elouise Cobell was remembered on Saturday as a warrior whose compassion and grit drove her to dedicate the last 16 years of her life to holding the U.S. government accountable for billions lost or stolen from her fellow Native Americans. Friends, family and American Indian leaders gathered in the Browning High School gymnasium on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation for a funeral Mass for Cobell, who died last Sunday of cancer. She was 65. "She proved that with hard work and determination, the impossible is p...
BILLINGS (AP) — Former U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns told tea party supporters Thursday that President Barack Obama wants the "whole country to become like an Indian reservation." Burns spoke at a small rally organized by Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group founded with support from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch that lobbies for lower taxes and less government. The Billings Gazette reported (http://bit.ly/r24i1S ) that a group of more than 40 responded approvingly to the former senator's remarks, which i...
OMAHA, Neb. — A meeting of Missouri River governors Monday revealed significant disagreement between Montana and states further downstream over flood control, even as federal officials warned the group that damage from this year's high water may make their states even more vulnerable next year. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer fought against a developing notion that flood control for states further down the river should dominate how reservoirs are managed upstream. He told governors of the downstream states that such a plan w... Full story
HELENA (AP) — Remembrances of Elouise Cobell are coming in from across the nation as news spread of the Native American leader's death. Cobell, who had cancer, died Sunday in Great Falls. She was 65. The Blackfeet woman from Browning was best known for leading a long legal fight over misspent Native American land royalties that resulted in a $3.4 billion settlement with the U.S. government. President Barack Obama says Cobell helped hundreds of thousands of Native Americans and strengthened the government's relationship w...
BONNERS FERRY, Idaho — A grizzly bear wounded by a hunter later attacked and killed the hunter's partner Friday after the two men tracked the animal in a remote area along the Idaho-Montana boarder, authorities said. Steve Stevenson, 39, and Ty Bell, 21, members of a hunting party from Winnemucca, Nev., were going after black bears when the attacked occurred about 10 a.m. PDT in a mountainous, heavily forested region in Lincoln County, Mont., near the Canadian border. AP Photo/The Bonner Daily Bee, Julie Golder Boundary C... Full story
HELENA (AP) — Montana prosecutors are asking the state Supreme Court to lift a district judge's block of portions of a new state law meant to restrict the sale of medical marijuana. Judge James Reynolds in June issued an injunction that prevented key parts of the bill from becoming law, including a ban on marijuana providers from making a profit. He also blocked a ban on medical marijuana advertising, unannounced searches of providers and investigations into doctors who recommend marijuana for more than 25 patients in a y...
BILLINGS — Montana officials on Thursday announced environmental approval for a major oil pipeline from Canada's tar sands to the Gulf Coast, but the proposal still needs approval from the federal government and Nebraska. TransCanada's 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline would carry oil from western Canada to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. The project has been fiercely opposed by environmental groups and some landowners along the route, and the Obama administration l...
MISSOULA (AP) — The University of Montana brought in an outside investigator to review allegations that two female students may have been given a date-rape drug and sexually assaulted by male students, a campus official said. Former state Supreme Court Justice Diane Barz will begin the investigation Thursday, university Vice President Jim Foley told the Missoulian (http://bit.ly/uPPrvX ). Barz has been asked to complete her review by the end of the year. The allegations surfaced in the past few days, Foley said. "Through t...
HELENA (AP) — A state judge has dismissed a charge of felony assault on a peace officer filed against a Helena man who was shot by a police officer while allegedly driving his pickup truck toward the officer. District Judge James Reynolds made the decision after Brian John Temple's attorneys argued that investigators removed the windshield from the pickup before Temple's defense could run tests to determine where Sgt. Peter Callahan was standing in relation to the vehicle when he fired the shot. "What if Temple's own t...
HELENA — Minority Democrats in the state House opposed the bill that pays the Legislature's expenses as a protest to Republican moves to cut state spending elsewhere. Democrats argued Wednesday it is wrong for the controlling party to increase funding for legislative benefits after GOP moves a day earlier to start cutting state programs for the needy and elderly. Republicans said the Democrats are just trying to score political points by politicizing a normally routine bill. Gov. Brian Schweitzer has already taken issue with... Full story
BILLINGS — Attorneys from Montana and Wyoming squared off before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday in a cross-border dispute over how they share the region's scarce water supplies. Montana has accused its southern neighbor of taking too much water from the Tongue and Powder rivers, breaking a 1950 agreement between the states. Justice skeptical of Bullock argument But justices Monday voiced skepticism when Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock said new irrigation practices had put Wyoming in violation of the agreement. "... Full story
HELENA — Montana Republicans running the Legislature are analyzing the federal health care law and may consider getting out of Medicaid altogether as one of the options. Sen. Dave Lewis chairs the Senate Finance Committee and is among those that want to cut state spending by more than $300 million. The Helena Republican says bucking mandates under the federal health care law will be a big part of the conversation. Lewis says it is probably not politically feasible to get out of Medicaid this legislative session. But he says i...
LEWISTOWN — After spending nearly 29 years behind bars, convicted murderer Barry Beach was released on his own recognizance Wednesday to await a new trial in the 1979 death of a 17-year-old girl on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. District Judge E. Wayne Phillips ordered Beach's release at a hearing in Lewistown just weeks after ordering a new trial for the 49-year-old man. AP Photo/Billings Gazette, Larry Mayer Surrounded by the media, Barry Beach hugs family members after his release by District Judge Wayne Phillips in L... Full story
BILLINGS (AP) — A Yellowstone County prosecuting attorney is questioning why a state agency didn't report a child molestation complaint to police. "It bothered me," Scott Twito told the Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/u2i2Nh ). "It is clearly a criminal matter and should have been reported to law enforcement." He said the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office received an anonymous tip in March that a 43-year-old man had molested a 9-year-old girl. He said investigators then learned that months earlier officials with the C...
