News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1931 - 1955 of 2813
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...
HELENA (AP) — Canada-based RX Exploration has applied for an operating permit to expand a gold and silver mine northwest of Helena after regulatory officials became concerned the company was pushing the limits of its existing permit. The company made the application Thursday to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to expand operations at the historic Drumlummon Mine. "This is a big step toward moving forward," Bob Taylor, the company's chief operating officer, told the Independent Record. The mining company has b...
BUTTE (AP) — An Arizona man is ringing in the New Year with good news after a local animal warden found his dog — which had been missing for a month — near Butte. Phil Nichols and his 6-year-old lab mix, Buddy, became separated in November while stopped in Dillon, he told The Montana Standard in a telephone interview Friday. Exactly when and how Buddy jumped out of his camper, Nichols isn't sure. But the news received this week that Buddy is alive — albeit thin, haggard and nursing a badly hurt back foot — has Nichols b...
BOZEMAN (AP) — On Bridger Canyon Road between mile marker seven and eight, there's a small ranch with an unusual breed of cattle. They're black, brown and tan beasts with long shaggy hair and horns that curve into sharp points. They look something like yaks, but call them that and you're sure to get corrected. AP Photo/Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Erik Petersen A pair of Scottish Highland steers are photographed in their pasture on Bridger Canyon Road in Bozeman. The breed originated in Scotland, and though there are a few h...
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...
In Montana, a plan to empower local sheriffs MATT VOLZ, Associated Press 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 Mon...
HELENA — Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Wednesday that the latest revenue figures show his budget projections were right all along and that Republican lawmakers deflated the figure to justify steeper cuts. A Republican leader countered that the GOP didn't want to spend more even if it had believed more money would be coming in. Last week, legislative fiscal analysts reported state tax collections for the year are about $70 million higher than predicted. All through the legislative session that ended in April, Schweitzer s...
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 — 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...
BILLINGS (AP) — ?A Billings child and adolescent psychiatrist is expected to plead guilty to a federal charge of possessing child pornography. The Billings Gazette reports that Dr. James Peak has been suspended from Billings Clinic and had previously reported to investigators that he had a collection of child porn. A plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court Monday says Peak will plead guilty to one count of possession of child pornography. The crime normally carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 f...
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...
HELENA — State health officials have confirmed Montana's first case of salmonella that matches a nationwide outbreak linked to ground turkey. Jim Murphy of the Department of Public Health and Human Services says the case was confirmed Friday in an adult from Cascade County. Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. earlier this month recalled approximately 36 million pounds of ground turkey products that may be contaminated with a multi-drug resistant strain of Salmonella Heidelberg, Murphy said Monday the Cascade County case was not l...
HELENA — Montana officials are changing their method of carrying out executions after one of the drugs previously used was taken off the market. The move by the Montana Department of Corrections follows similar action in other states that have substituted a drug called pentobarbital for sodium thiopental. The state says that the new drug has already survived court challenges to execution procedures. The agency, which has come under fire from death penalty opponents in the past for its execution methods, says it is making s...
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...
HELENA — U.S. Sen. Jon Tester released campaign fundraising reports Thursday showing that the Democrat continues to stockpile cash in his closely watched re-election battle against U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, again topping the Republican challenger. In reports covering the fundraising quarter that ended Sept. 30, Tester maintained an edge in the critical race to pile up campaign cash. The Democrat reported $1.2 million in new donations, while Rehberg pulled in less than $700,000. Tester said in an interview that he was going to...
HELENA — Now that a $3.4 billion settlement has been approved in a lawsuit over past mismanagement of Native American land royalties by the federal government, a panel is being formed to recommend changes to ensure it doesn't happen again. The U.S. Department of the Interior is taking nominees over the next month to serve on the five-member Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform. Its formation comes after a judge last month approved a $3.4 billion settlement over claims that U.S. officials over the last c...
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...
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — Yellowstone National Park authorities will not try to capture a female grizzly that killed a backcountry hiker because the bruin was trying to defend its cubs when it was surprised by the man, a spokesman said Thursday. The mauling of Brian Matayoshi, 57, of Torrence, Calif., was a purely defensive act, park spokesman Al Nash said. He added that Yellowstone typically does not try to capture or remove a bear in what he called "a wildlife incident." AP Photo/Jim Urquhart A grizzly bear roams n...
BILLINGS — The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it will collect indoor air samples from homes downstream AP Photo/Jim Urquhart Cleanup workers use oil absorbent materials along side the Yellowstone River in Laurel, Wednesday. An Exxon Mobil pipeline near Laurel ruptured and spilled an estimated 1,000 barrels of crude into the Yellowstone. of a Yellowstone River oil spill after residents raised concerns about health risks from the tens of thousands of gallons of crude that poured into the watercourse. About 150 p...
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — A killer grizzly is roaming Yellowstone National Park's backcountry after mauling a man who apparently surprised the female bear and its cubs while hiking with his wife. Officials closed remote campgrounds and trails near the scene of Wednesday's attack close to Canyon Village, which sits in the middle of the sprawling park. The identity of the 57-year-old victim was being withheld until his family could be notified, said Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash. The mauling occurred just after Y...
HELENA (AP) — A substitute teacher hired about two weeks ago at Four Georgians Elementary in Helena and who police say downloaded child pornography at home has been charged with felony sexual abuse of children. The Independent Record reports (http://bit.ly/srGYR2) that 34-year-old Jason Lawrence Carrick was taken into custody Thursday by Helena police and the Montana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Police said they searched Carrick's home and seized his computer. According to an FBI affidavit, law enforcement o...
HELENA — A crowded Republican primary field vying for governor in 2012 is growing even larger, with state Sen. Jeff Essmann and two others joining an already large field. Two others, a science fiction author and an anti-wolf activist, also joined the long list of GOP candidates seeking to replace Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who is leaving office because of term limits. AP file photo/Dylan Brown.Independent Record From left, Sen. Jeffrey Essmann, R-Billings, House Majority Leader Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, and Rep. W...
