News you can use
News you can use
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UM School of Journalism HELENA — In a soft and affable voice, Republican Rep. Pat Ingraham introduced herself and said she represented the people of Sanders County. Those words were the last the entire room would agree on in an emotional two-hour hearing Friday on her bill to require that women have an ultrasound before they get an abortion. Last week marked 38 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a woman has a right to an abortion. But as the tears, outrage and gavel-slamming that attended Ingraham's House Bill 2...
BILLING — Wildlife agencies in the Northern Rockies go to lengths to warn people of the dangers of grizzly country — from signs advising hikers to carry mace-like bear spray to radio ads that warn hunters to take care when stalking elk in bear habitat. But after two hikers were fatally mauled in Yellowstone National Park over the summer, officials acknowledge their drive to make visitors "bear aware" is not reaching everyone. As a result, park officials, bear biologists and others say that in coming months they plan to sha...
HOUSTON — TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline may be threatened by legislation in Nebraska that would re-route the $7 billion project designed to bring Canadian crude to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. At a special session on Nov. 1, Nebraskan lawmakers will consider a bill aimed at forcing Calgary-based TransCanada to move the pipeline to the state's eastern edge, a step that company officials said may put the project in jeopardy. The other five states the pipeline would traverse — Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Okl...
BROWNVILLE — The failure of a Missouri River levee in northwest Missouri offered a brief reprieve Friday from flooding near the Cooper nuclear power plant in southeast Nebraska, although officials expect the waterway to rise back up to a threatening level. The National Weather Service said the river dropped more than a foot at Brownville to 43.1 feet Friday morning after the breach Thursday evening upstream in northwest Missouri. Before the breach, the river had been 44.8 feet deep at Brownville. AP Photo/Dave Weaver M...
MISSOULA — Authorities say they believe a former militia man is still alive nearly two weeks after he fired at sheriff's deputies and then fled into the western Montana woods. The Missoula County Sheriff's Department says authorities were working to rule out that 47-year-old David Burgert was injured or had harmed himself. More than 40 officers and two cadaver dogs participated in the search on Thursday but turned up no sign of him. A department statement issued Friday says officers searched between U.S. Highway 12 and I...
HELENA — A medical marijuana provider indicted on federal drug charges is warning other caregivers to shut down their businesses or they'll be next. Jason Burns of Helena says that federal agents told him before his arraignment Thursday that the Department of Justice plans to indict every Montana caregiver raided this spring. U.S. Attorney spokeswoman Jessica Fehr says she cannot comment on whether criminal charges are pending against other providers. Queen City Caregivers, operated by Burns and Jesse Leland, was among m...
HELENA — Veteran state legislator Kim Gillan of Billings says she will be running for Montana's open U.S. House seat in the 2012 elections. Gillan joins two other Democrats who are seeking the state's lone congressional seat, left open now that incumbent Republican Denny Rehberg has decided to challenge U.S. Sen. Jon Tester. Gillan, known for her tenacity in state legislative debates, says she wants to be a vocal and independent advocate for Montana families in Congress. Businessman Steve Daines of Bozeman is the lone R...
HELENA — A judge is expected to finish hearing arguments on whether to block Montana's new medical marijuana law from taking effect July 1. AP Photo/The Independent Record, Eliza Wile Dr. Jack Hensold, a Bozeman oncologist, testifies via teleconference Monday in Judge Jim Reynolds' district courtroom in Helena. Hensold is concerned about the ability of patients to obtain medical marijuana after a new law takes effect July 1. The two-day hearing continued Tuesday before Helena District Judge James Reynolds. The Montana C...
KALISPELL (AP) — A 24-year-old Kalispell woman who police say fractured the skull of a 7-month-old girl by dropping and then shaking her has been charged with assault. The Daily Inter Lake reports (http://bit.ly/q03Bw4 ) that Kimberly Butler was arrested Wednesday and charged with aggravated assault, assault on a minor and criminal endangerment. She was being held at the Flathead County Detention Center with bail set at $40,000. Authorities say a caller alerted the Kalispell Police on June 5. According to court documents, B...
The Montana Highway Patrol says two North Dakota men have died in a two-vehicle crash on U.S. Highway 2 west of Wolf Point in northeastern Montana. Police say the two men, ages 35 and 56, were in the backseat of a westbound Chevrolet Suburban that collided late Friday with a Dodge pickup that veered into the westbound lane. Police tell the Billings Gazette that the driver of the Suburban tried to avoid the collision by swerving into the eastbound land, but the driver of the pickup got back into the eastbound lane at the last...
HELENA — A debt collection agency filed negative credit reports against more than 8,000 Montana residents in an attempt to recover late fees they supposedly owed the bankrupt Movie Gallery Inc. and Hollywood Video rental stores, a state prosecutor said. The volume of negative credit reports filed by National Credit Solutions was discovered by the state Department of Justice as part of a legal settlement last month between the state and the Oklahoma-based company, Chief of Consumer Protection James Molloy said Tuesday. In e...
HELENA — Lawyers for BP asked a judge Wednesday to dismiss a Montana lawsuit that alleges the oil giant and its subsidiaries collected millions of dollars in insurance money while letting the state foot the bill for cleaning soil and groundwater contaminated by their leaky storage tanks. The state and the Montana Petroleum Tank Release Compensation Board filed the lawsuit in February, accusing the British company and its North American subsidiaries of fraud and negligence when it came to paying for the cleanup of decades o...
HELENA — The chief revenue forecaster for the Montana Legislature told lawmakers that state tax collections are coming in about $70 million higher than was predicted last November. Legislative Fiscal Analyst Terry Johnson says tax collections will be $67.7 million to $77.7 million higher for the fiscal year ending June 30. Lee Newspapers of Montana reports Johnson attributed the increases to strong growth in wage and salary income, higher individual tax payments and improved corporate profitability. State revenue estimates w...
HELENA — Two wind developers have asked Montana's Public Service Commission to keep their bids to buy a 40-megawatt wind farm in Judith Basin County from public view. The Independent Record reported Friday that Sagebrush Wind and Invenergy want their proposals for the project sealed, citing trade secrets. They made the request in May while the PSC considers approving NorthWestern Energy's plans for the farm. Lee Newspapers of Montana and The Associated Press objected to the request, saying if price and cost information for N...
BUTTE (AP) — Authorities say two people died in a single-engine plane crash west of Butte. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mike Fergus tells the Montana Standard (http://bit.ly/p4imYJ ) that two people were aboard the plane that crashed Monday morning and that there were no survivors. Neither the identities of the victims nor the cause of the crash was immediately known. Police and fire officials are at the site of the crash between Rocker and Ramsay. The wreckage can be seen just south of Interstate 90. Fergus s...
HELENA — State and federal education officials have reached a compromise on Montana's No Child Left Behind benchmarks for the 2010-2011 school year. Monday was the deadline for the state to comply with the law's requirements for determining adequate yearly progress or else risk losing funding. Under the law's Annual Measurable Objectives, 92 percent of Montana schoolchildren are supposed to be proficient in reading and 84 percent in math. But the students measured 83 percent proficient in reading and 68 percent in math. T...
HELENA — Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Monday blasted legislation that reshapes the way the state leases cabin sites, saying it is sending the state toward a certain lawsuit. Schweitzer, who chairs the Montana Land Board, was reacting to a recent letter from the Montana University System indicating it may indeed launch a lawsuit over the issue. The rate the state charges leaseholders of prized cabin sites has long been a political sticky wicket, and efforts by the Department of Natural Resources and the Land Board to raise the r...
HELENA — State and federal education officials reached a compromise on Montana's No Child Left Behind benchmarks Monday, the deadline for the state to comply or risk losing some of its funding. The compromise lowers the state's 2010-2011 goals to measure adequate yearly progress, called Annual Measurable Objectives, which aim for 100 percent student proficiency in reading and math by 2014. The deal eliminates the U.S. Department of Education's threat to withhold at least a portion of the state's share of Title I, Part A f...
MISSOULA (AP) — A 22-year-old man accused of killing three family members on the Crow Indian Reservation appeared Thursday in federal court in Missoula, where he was appointed a public defender and ordered to remain in the custody of U.S. marshals. Sheldon Bernard Chase has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder stemming from last week's shootings of his grandmother, cousin and cousin's boyfriend at their home near Lodge Grass. He faces life in prison if convicted. Chase was captured in Washington state on O...
KALISPELL — A 10-year-old Kalispell boy using a rubber worm caught a largemouth bass in western Montana that wildlife officials say is nearly twice as old as he is. Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist Mark Deleray said the bass caught and released by Garrett Frost in Rose Creek Slough on July 16 could be as much as 19 years old, which may be the oldest on record for Montana. The fish was 20 to 22 inches long and weighed about 3.5 pounds. Garrett removed a tag that had been placed on the fish in 1997 in another Flathead R...
MISSOULA (AP) — An employee of a Missoula mental health center who told police about a client's computer search for child pornography was fired, in part for making the report, according to court records The client, John Gribble, has been charged with sexually abusing a child after a DVD with photos of nude children was found at his house, the Missoulian reported Wednesday. An employee of Three Rivers Mental Health Solutions contacted police about Gribble on Oct. 17 after seeing the words "female child nude" and "preteen n...
HELENA (AP) — A second Democrat is entering the attorney general's race, even though incumbent Steve Bullock has said he won't announce his 2012 election plans until after Labor Day. Attorney Pam Bucy of Helena announced Thursday she was seeking the office of attorney general. She has been a criminal prosecutor in Lewis and Clark County and served for seven years as executive assistant attorney general under Mike McGrath, who is now chief justice of the Montana Supreme Court. Bucy says if Bullock does run for governor, M...
HELENA (AP) — A former congressman and Republican hopeful for governor is among those leading a group of investors alleging they were cheated out of millions in a real estate investment deal, a group that will be asking the Montana Supreme Court later this month to let them take the dispute to court. The issue goes back several years, when a real estate investment deal fell apart as the housing crisis began to hit the country. Investors, including former congressman Rick Hill, accused the Idaho-based investment company called...
PHILIPSBURG (AP) — A 73-year-old Butte man faces a felony aggravated assault charge after another man was punched in the stomach during a heated argument at a water district meeting last week. Granite County Attorney Christopher Miller says Don Lembke has not been arrested and has cooperated with investigators. The Montana Standard reports (http://bit.ly/uVdXQ5 ) the victim was Shakopee Heights water district board member Don Turner, who is also in his 70s. Miller says Turner suffered three broken ribs, a punctured lung a...
POLSON (AP) — Emmett May doesn't just believe in the Great Pumpkin. He grew it. The greatest one Montana's ever seen, anyway — an 893-pounder that smashed the previous state record by 111 pounds. AP Photo/The Missoulian, Kurt Wilson Kurt Wilson sits on his 893-pound pumpkin in Polson, Mont. When they weighed it over the weekend at the Harvest Fest in Ronan. Mont., on a certified scale from Spokane, it outdistanced May's previous personal best by a whopping 250 pounds, and broke the Montana record of 782 pounds set by She...
