News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1781 - 1805 of 2803
HELENA — Firearms dealers in states that regulate medical marijuana can't sell guns or ammunition to registered users of the drug, a policy that marijuana and gun-rights groups say denies Second Amendment rights to individuals who are following state law. It's already illegal under federal law for someone to possess guns if he or she is "an unlawful user of, or addicted to" marijuana or other controlled substances. A Sept. 21 letter from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, issued in response to numerous i...
HELENA — The House has endorsed a plan to use only mail-in ballots for the state's main elections on a 57-43 vote despite a divided Republican majority. The issue has failed for years in the Montana Legislature after the political parties took turns opposing it. Many of the conservative tea party Republicans opposed the measure on Thursday. The plan brought forward this time was a long time in the making and likely better researched than past efforts. Under House Bill 130, all local, municipal, state and federal elections wou...
OP chairman says he will run again for post HELENA (AP) — Montana Republican Party chairman Will Deschamps says he will seek re-election after the GOP's big wins last year. Deschamps is making it known early that he will seek another term as chairman when Republicans hold their state convention in June in Butte. Deschamps says Republicans had a great year by seizing large margins in the Legislature after November's election. He says the party needs to finish the job by duplicating that success with the statewide offices on t...
Mont. Senate acts to undermine federal health care MATT GOURAS,Associated Press HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Two Republican bills aimed at undermining federal health care reform advanced Wednesday in the state Senate despite objections that one of the measures may itself be unconstitutional. Republicans in control of the Legislature have made their opposition to the federal health care reform a priority this legislative session. A long list of GOP bills aim to stymie implementation that in many cases will have to be done by state a...
MISSOULA (AP) — Police say officers used stun guns to subdue two University of Montana football players Sunday morning after the team returned to Missoula following a game Saturday at Northern Arizona. Sgt. Collin Rose says quarterback Gerald Kemp and cornerback Trumaine Johnson scuffled with police officers who responded to a noise complaint at about 2:40 a.m. Rose says one player struck an officer in the chest with an open hand and the second player grabbed the officer to prevent the arrest of his teammate. Both players b...
BILLINGS — A federal judge has ordered settlement talks in a multi-million-dollar dispute over bone castings from three famed tyrannosaurus rex specimens. Attorneys say the case is the first of its kind involving a copyright fight over dinosaur castings — fossil replicas often used in museum displays. It pits a South Dakota research company against a Montana nonprofit that allegedly made unauthorized copies of castings from two t-rexes, dubbed Stan and Sue. AP Photo/Black Hills Institute of Geological Research This image pro...
HELENA — Several dozen people are suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena over sexual abuse they say they suffered as children at the hands of clergy members in western Montana. The 34 men and women, who now range in age from 45 to 73, say the diocese must answer for what they claim is its "gross negligence" in the alleged abuse by at least eight clergy members, including six priests and two nuns, that took place from the late 1940s through the 1970s in St. Ignatius, Missoula and Arlee. More alleged victims may be added a...
BILLINGS — As many as 360 migrating wild bison would be shot by hunters in Montana, captured for slaughter or shipped elsewhere this winter under a proposal from Yellowstone National Park officials seeking an alternative to the indiscriminate slaughters of years past. Documents obtained by The Associated Press show officials are considering "selective culls" to help reduce the park's bison population from 3,700 animals to about 3,000. Some of this winter's anticipated decrease would come from natural deaths. AP Photo/Janie O...
HELENA — The state Department of Transportation's chief human resources officer has resigned just days after the agency's former director stepped down amid revelations that his daughter was given a DOT job. The department's new director tells Lee Newspapers of Montana (http://bit.ly/nEbjvA ) that Jennifer Jensen quit Monday afternoon. Jensen was the chief human resources officer when former director Jim Lynch's daughter, Emily Rask, was hired in 2008 to work in the department's human resources office. Lynch resigned T...
HELENA — A judge has given the go-ahead to break up Montana's third-largest health insurance company as part of an antitrust settlement. U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull's Monday order sets the ground rules for the divestiture of New West Health Service's commercial insurance business. Five of the hospitals that own the company want to switch their 11,000 employees' insurance coverage to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana. Regulators say the deal would spell the end of New West's commercial business and drive out c...
HELENA (AP) — A Helena man who was shot to death in his apartment Thursday was denied a temporary restraining order last month and filed for divorce two days before his estranged wife was arrested on suspicion of killing him and another woman. Joseph Andrew Gable, 48, sought a temporary order of protection from Michelle Coller Gable on Sept. 20, alleging she was stalking him, the Independent Record reported Friday (http://bit.ly/pCOEBK). He said Michelle Gable, 48, had entered his apartment while he was trying to change t...
HELENA — A 911 call captured two women's voices saying, "Don't do it," and, "You took my husband," before gunshots rang out in a shooting that left a man and a woman dead in a Helena apartment, according to court documents filed Friday. The documents provided new details into the Thursday morning slayings of Joseph Andrew Gable, 48, and Sunday Cooley Bennett, 50, at Gable's home. Gable's estranged wife, Michelle Coller Gable, was due to appear in court Friday on two charges of deliberate homicide. AP Photo/The Independent Rec...
HELENA (AP) — Montana lawmakers are considering bills to regulate the growth and sale of medical marijuana. Republican Sen. Dave Lewis of Helena has introduced Senate Bill 154, which would have the Department of Revenue regulate medical marijuana. Lee Newspapers of Montana reports Lewis' bill would require growers to be licensed, file quarterly reports, submit to inspections and pay a 10 percent tax on the sale of marijuana. A separate bill, House Bill 68, would require a licensing fee to pay for the cost of regulation by t...
HELENA — Republicans running the Montana Legislature who have launched bills aimed at undermining a federal health care law they believe is unconstitutional may themselves be running up against the state Constitution by trying to order the attorney general to take action. The first GOP proposal on the issue to get a hearing Wednesday would direct the state attorney general to join about 20 other states suing the federal government over the health care plan. But the Legislature's top lawyer said in an analysis that ordering t...
HELENA — A Thompson Falls lawmaker wants Montanans to have the option of hunting with a hand-thrown spear. The Independent Record reports the Senate Fish and Game Committee discussed Republican Sen. Greg Hinkle's bill on Tuesday, and nearly voted to approve it. However, they decided the bill needed to clarify the hunting season in which the practice would be allowed. The committee is expected to consider the bill again on Thursday. Hinkle says about a dozen other states have legalized the use of spears in hunting. Senate b...
MISSOULA (AP) — Police in Missoula have reviewed cellphone videos as part of an internal investigation over the use of a stun gun in the arrests of two University of Montana football players. Police Chief Mark Muir says the videos do not show any of the officers using force or anything leading up to the officers' use of force. He tells KECI-TV (http://bit.ly/v7DaFX ) the video does not support claims by the players' attorney that police used excessive force in arresting two players during a loud party early on Oct. 23. An o...
LAUREL — State workers on Tuesday set fire to an oil-tainted logjam on an island along the Yellowstone River, the last of dozens of debris piles smeared with crude from an Exxon Mobil pipeline break that dumped 42,000 gallons of oil into the waterway. Two employees of the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, Derek Yeager and Matt Wolcott, used drip torches to ignite the woody debris as Exxon Mobil contractors looked on. With a blast of heat and a spiral of smoke, the fire spread quickly through the o...
HELENA — U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg is proposing a land swap to save a Jesus statue that is facing eviction from U.S. Forest Service land. AP Photo/Missoulian, Linda Thompson, File In this Feb. 20, 2011 file photo, Freshmen at the University of Montana, Jake Coburn, Stephanie Ralls and Claire Dal Nogare, from left, visit a statue of Jesus Christ at Whitefish Mountain Resort Whitefish on Feb. 20. The statue of Jesus on U.S. Forest Service land is about to be evicted amid an argument over the separation of church and state. The F...
HELENA — Republicans in control of the Montana Legislature are planning early votes next week in opposition to the new federal health care law, putting the spotlight on a major campaign theme for many in the GOP. Both the state Senate and House will take up bills next Wednesday that in some way oppose state implementation of the federal law, Republican leaders said. Their action is intended to coincide with a scheduled U.S. House vote on repealing the law. President Barack Obama's signature expansion of health insurance relie...
HELENA — Montana's Democratic secretary of state said Wednesday she's working with a Republican lawmaker to switch the state over to mail ballots for all elections. Secretary of State Linda McCulloch said counties that run polling places and elections could save more than $2 million each election cycle under a plan that she expects would dramatically increase voter turnout. Many voters currently mail ballots in through the absentee ballot process. But election officials must still staff and open polling places for others. P...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Gov. Brian Schweitzer has asked that an ethics case against him be dismissed, citing an "inexcusable delay," but the Montana Republican Party thinks the case should move forward, a news organization reported Thursday. "Any alleged delay in these proceedings is primarily a result of the governor's own litigation strategy," Republican Party attorneys Quentin Rhodes and Robert Erickson of Missoula wrote in a response cited by Lee Newspapers. "He should not be rewarded for his own dilatory tactics." Former C...
HELENA (AP) — An internal audit of supervisory changes at the Montana Department of Transportation over the past two years found a dozen instances in which the person who was hired or promoted didn't meet the minimum hiring qualifications for the jobs, the agency's director said. Tim Reardon told lawmakers Thursday he began the audit after a legislative audit reviewed five employment files and found three hires didn't meet the minimum qualifications. Reardon said two are performing their jobs well while a third appears to b...
HELENA — U.S. Sen. Max Baucus says he plans to marry his girlfriend and former director of his state offices. Baucus said Monday he and Melodee Hanes were engaged over the Christmas holiday in Helena. The 69-year-old veteran Democrat says they intend to marry in Montana this summer. Baucus and his second wife, Wanda, divorced in early 2009 after 25 years of marriage. The senator recommended Hanes for Montana's U.S. attorney post in 2009, a move that later came under scrutiny due to their relationship. By then, Hanes had w...
LIVINGSTON, Mont. (AP) — The district judge who lost a race for a Montana Supreme Court seat says a cable television company failed to run his campaign ads in the weeks before November's election. Judge Nels Swandal says his campaign had a contract with Bresnan Communications to run television advertisements in the state's larger markets. Swandal tells the Livingston Enterprise that the ads never ran. He says they could have increased his visibility among voters, but declined to speculate whether it would have changed a s...
BILLINGS — Authorities in Billings say the side of a waste water pond used by Western Sugar Cooperative has collapsed, flooding the factory and some downtown streets. Billings Police Sgt. Jason Gartner says the Sunday morning breach has caused deep water along State Avenue from Sugar Avenue to 31st Street, and that barricades have been set up. Billings Fire Department Battalion Chief Ed Regele describes the breach as a catastrophic failure that drained the pond. Regele says no homes have been flooded. BILLINGS — Aut...
