News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1831 - 1855 of 2803
SUPERIOR — Longtime guidance counselor Dan Lucier studies hallway-mounted photos of past graduating classes at Superior High School, pointing to the teenagers who joined the military. There are usually one or two in each class of about 30 students who graduate from the one-story wooden school in Superior, a town of 900 residents in the forested northern Rockies. But the class of 2003 was the most striking for its military service, coming two years after the attacks of Sept. 11 and just months after the country went to war w...
AP Photo/Destini Vaile Ruben Moreno of the Blackfeet Tribe displays his hands that he had placed in pools of oil July 15 near Cut Bank Creek in order to take a sample for Blackfeet Community Hospital Water Lab. FX Energy Inc. plans to permanently shut down two oil wells in northwestern Montana where a spill went unreported for a month and spread nearly a mile before being discovered, a company executive said July 19. HELENA — Crews reported being a third of the way through the cleanup of a northwestern Montana oil spill T...
HELENA — Montana Republicans think the time is ripe for them to retake the governor's mansion they previously held for 16 years before losing in 2004. But here's the problem: The sheer number of hopefuls is creating a jumbled, messy courtship of the far-right voter bloc critical to winning the GOP nomination. An abnormally large and possibly still-growing field of nine is engaged in the crowded race to win the conservative heart of the Montana GOP. The candidates are banking that some momentum remains in the wake of the t...
MATT GOURAS,Associated Press HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Legislative supporters of extractive and other industries want to ask voters to change the Montana Constitution's "clean and healthful environment" provision to help aid development. The declaration in the Constitution's inalienable rights has long been a sore point for those who say it gets in the way of development — while conservationists and others hail it as forward-thinking language that has helped preserve the state. A Republican lawmaker told the House Judiciary Com...
BILLINGS (AP) — Overwhelmed and almost giddy, Billings Central High freshman Mikayla Nelson was ecstatic as she left the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday night after the State of the Union address. "It was the most amazing and touching experience of my life," she said. Nelson was invited by the White House last week to sit with first lady Michelle Obama and her other guests at the State of the Union address. She said the invitation and then the actual experience of being there Tuesday night were surreal. During the broadcast, N...
Senate moves to undermine federal health care HELENA — The state Senate is advancing two Republican measures aimed at undermining federal health care reform. One measure tells the attorney general to join an ongoing lawsuit from other states challenging the federal law, despite objections that plan could run up against the state Constitution by trying to give an order to the attorney general. The other bars the state from implementing the federal requirement to purchase health insurance. The GOP holds a 28-22 majority in the...
HAMILTON (AP) — The Ravalli County prosecutor says the owners of a Stevensville marijuana growing operation raided in July will face four felony charges. The Ravalli Republic (http://bit.ly/uC23Io ) reports the partners who ran Banana Belt Caregivers are due in court Jan. 13 to answer to charges including drug production, distribution and possession with the intent to distribute On July 20, Ravalli County sheriff's deputies seized evidence at the growing facility. Banana Belt was claiming to be a "provider" under the state o...
ROUNDUP — Part of the legacy of flooding earlier this year by the Musselshell River in central Montana goes beyond how high the river rose to how much it changed the landscape, residents say. Ranchers say it covered cropland in river sand, made some irrigation projects useless and left one suspension bridge with nothing to span. AP Photo/Billings Gazette, Larry Mayer, File This May 26, photo shows the Musselshell River flooding the town of Roundup. Part of the legacy of flooding earlier this year by the Musselshell River i...
BILLINGS (AP) — High temperatures, low humidity and steady winds helped a wildfire in southeastern Montana spread to more than 5,000 acres Tuesday, prompting evacuations near Lame Deer. Fire officials say the blaze is about half a mile north of the town on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. Marilyn Krause, a spokeswoman for the Northern Rockies Type II incident management team, said the fire is not contained and is among five burning in the area. She said mandatory evacuations have been ordered northwest of Lame D...
HELENA — The Montana Supreme Court is making it clear that it won't be easy to preserve Montana's century-old ban on corporate political spending. Justices peppered Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock with questions during oral arguments Wednesday morning. Bullock is appealing a state judge's ruling that the ban is unconstitutional in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year on a related issue. Justice James Nelson says he agrees with Bullock that the state's ban is needed to limit corruption. But he also says j...
Kathleen Helen Schweitzer, the mother of Gov. Brian Schweitzer and the daughter of Box Elder homesteaders, died Sunday. She was 83. She died following a fall on Friday morning when she became tangled in her miniature schnauzer's leash on a visit to the veterinarian in Helena and banged her head, the Montana governor said. She was initially taken to a hospital in Helena and seemed OK, the governor said, but was later transferred to Benefis Medical System in Great Falls after doctors realized she had suffered a broken blood...
BILLINGS — Montana ranchers are not likely to face new sanctions on cattle exports following yet another round of suspected brucellosis infections, signaling an effective truce in the long-running debate over the animal disease, state officials and outside veterinarians said. Tests are pending to confirm the suspected cattle infections, which officials said last week were found in a 150-head herd in southern Park County. Brucellosis causes pregnant animals to prematurely abort their young and is blamed for weight loss and o...
LITTLE BIGHORN BATTLEFIELD NATIONAL MONUMENT, Mont. (AP) — — On a hot, nearly windless day in early August, Edwin C. Bearss is looking across the Little Bighorn River as he describes an early scene in the battle that would come to be known as Custer's Last Stand. He is dressed in a ball cap, two T-shirts and a pair of stained khaki pants held up by an ancient leather belt. His hiking boots, by contrast, are sturdy and relatively new. He looks like a man who can't be bothered by superfluities. AP Photo/The Billings Gaz...
HELENA — A battle in the Montana Supreme Court over a century-old ban on corporate political spending could determine the fate of some third-party attack ads in the 2012 elections. A conservative group called Western Tradition Partnership — which does not file campaign finance reports — has riled Democrats and even some Republicans with its hard-hitting attack mailers. The ads generally slam Republicans in primaries that the group considers too moderate or liberal, and then take aim at Democrats in the general elect...
HELENA (AP) — State Sen. Kim Gillan is leading the other candidates in fundraising in the campaign for the 2012 Democratic nomination for Montana's U.S. House seat. Gillan's campaign reported Friday that the Billings Democrat had raised about $97,000 from July to October and has $90,046 in the bank. State Rep. Franke Wilmer of Bozeman was next, reporting $55,559 raised for the quarter and $41,757 on hand. Wilmer also loaned her campaign $7,500. Missoula City Council member Dave Strohmaier raised $22,636 for the three-month p...
BILLINGS (AP) — Students at Montana State University Billings College of Technology have created a digital, three-dimensional model of coal mine tunnels crisscrossing under Red Lodge that give a much better picture than the century-old, ink-on-linen maps. Red Lodge Mayor Brian Roat tells the Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/t7t7ab) that many people hadn't realized how vast the underground complex extended until viewing the computerized map. Historians say organized mining began in the area in 1889 and persisted through the e...
MISSOULA (AP) — A Missoula police officer who stopped at a downtown bar to interview a witness to a fight came back outside to find he was without transportation. Sgt. Bob Bouchee says witnesses reported a man wearing pajama bottoms and an Elmer Fudd-type hat with fur drove off in the car late Friday. The Dodge Charger was found, undamaged, near the Elks Lodge about four blocks away. Bouchee says they're still trying to find the suspect and are looking at surveillance video that might help in identifying him. He could face a...
HELENA (AP) — A new report says the Montana public employee pension system's projected shortfall is growing larger. Analysts hired by the Montana Public Employees Retirement Administration say past market losses and other factors remain a drag on the system. The annual look at the pension system shows that the projected shortfall, known as the unfunded liability, has grown about 20 percent over the past year to $1.6 billion. The analysts found that investments fared well over the past year, growing about 19 percent. But t...
HELENA (AP) — Republican Steve Daines of Bozeman is reporting that he raised another $180,000 over the last quarter in his bid to succeed U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg. Havre Daily News/Tim Leeds Republican candidate for the U.S. House Steve Daines of Bozeman, Mont., speaks during a meet-and-greet in Havre on Oct. 3. Daines has raised a total of about $760,000 since first declaring a U.S. Senate bid last year. He switched to the House race when Rehberg announced early this year that he would be leaving the office to challenge D...
BILLINGS — Nearly half of the 460 or so students at a Billings elementary school called in sick Friday as health officials continue to investigate what is making them ill. Billings School District 2 Superintendent Keith Beeman says he doesn't think all 230 Beartooth Elementary students who stayed home were sick, but were kept away from the school by their parents as a precaution. Up to 100 students went home sick Thursday. Beeman says an inspection of the school kitchen Thursday didn't reveal any problems. Meanwhile, city a...
HELENA — Montana officials on Friday approved the relocation of 68 quarantined bison from Yellowstone National Park to two Indian reservations amid intense debate over whether the animal that once populated the American West has a place on today's landscape. The Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission gave its permission to move the animals once agreements are negotiated with Fort Belknap and Fort Peck tribal leaders over monitoring for disease and how to prevent the animals from escaping to neighboring land. Ownership of the a...
HELENA (AP) — Conservation groups are asking a higher court to evaluate their lawsuit that challenges the federal Bureau of Land Management's plan for the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in central Montana. Three groups totaling six plaintiffs filed appeals Monday after a federal judge dismissed their lawsuit in August. The groups, including The Montana Wilderness Association, The Wilderness Society and Friends of the Missouri Breaks Monument, are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to agree that the B...
HELENA — It has been months since Rep. Denny Rehberg, a champion of the town hall meeting, has held one of the wide-open events — but the congressman is not abandoning the platform. Rehberg told The Associated Press in a recent interview that he has been forced to hold other types of events in recent months when back in Montana due to a new leadership post requiring he build part of a proposed federal budget, the demands of his developing campaign against U.S. Jon Tester and other factors. The change comes as many in Con...
KALISPELL — A SWAT team has arrested a fugitive after a six-hour standoff at a Kalispell motel. Police Chief Roger Nasset says officers tossed three flash bangs and then stormed the room shortly before 5 p.m. Friday and arrested Thomas Mulligan. He's accused of an alleged parole violation stemming from a kidnapping conviction. Police held off making any moves for several hours because Mulligan claimed to have a gun and said he would not be taken alive. Nasset says when it became clear efforts to talk Mulligan out weren't goin...
HELENA — Montana wildlife officials on Wednesday said they will recommend the relocation of 68 quarantined Yellowstone National Park bison to two Indian reservations after running into strong opposition by ranchers and landowners to proposals to move the animals to other parts of the state. The bison could be moved to the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations this winter if the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission approves the recommendation at its Dec. 9 meeting. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File A government horseback rider h...
