News you can use
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HELENA (AP) — Montana's high-tech industries are booming, and the growth isn't showing signs of stopping, a new study reports. The study by the University of Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research showed that wages in those industries are twice the median earning per Montana worker, and they are projected to pump $35 million of investments into the state this year. The study commissioned by the Montana High Tech Business Alliance also projects the growth of high tech businesses to be eight to 10 times greater t...
BOZEMAN (AP) — A former janitor at Montana State University is suing the college over how he was treated by co-workers. Akram Zahran filed the lawsuit this past week in Gallatin County District Court against MSU, two co-workers and a supervisor. Zahran says he's a native of Jordan who became a U.S. citizen. He says in his lawsuit that co-workers called him a "terrorist," harassed him and humiliated him until he was forced to quit. The suit contends MSU was negligent in failing to provide a workplace free of discrimination a...
BOZEMAN (AP) — Khloe and Kim Kardashian are safe after the vehicle they were in slid off a Montana road and into a ditch on Saturday. Montana Highway Patrol Capt. Mark Wilfore says the accident occurred before noon on a highway between Bozeman and Belgrade, where the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport is located. Wilfore said he did not know their destination. Wilfore said a third person in the vehicle was not hurt and was not identified. He said there was no damage to the vehicle, which was pulled from a ditch and d...
ARLEE (AP) — A Head Start school in Arlee has been shut down after officials found traces of a drug and drug paraphernalia. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes spokesman Rob McDonald says an unused pipe was found in the Early Child Service center's laundry room on Jan. 14. McDonald says traces of methamphetamine were subsequently found in the building and tests confirmed the drug on Wednesday. About 35 children attend the school. Officials say the building will be closed while it is thoroughly cleaned. It could take up t...
(Rep. Stephanie Hess, R-Havre, voted no. Reps. Roy Hollandsworth, R-Brady, Bruce Meyers, R-Box Elder, and Mike Lang, R-Malta, voted yes.) HELENA (AP) — The House has passed a measure that would require certain welfare applicants to take drug tests in Montana. House Bill 200 sponsored by Republican Rep. Randy Pinocci of Sun River passed by a 55-45 vote Friday. People who apply for assistance under the state's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program would have to fill out a questionnaire about drug abuse and possibly t...
HELENA (AP) — A new law in Montana will increase penalties for swindling elderly and disabled people. Gov. Steve Bullock on Wednesday signed House Bill 57 sponsored by Rep. Moffie Funk. The law will increase punishments for people convicted of securities fraud that victimizes vulnerable people, which includes anyone at least 60 years old or mentally disabled. Maximum punishments for stealing from the elderly and disabled will increase from $5,000 to $20,000 and from 10 years to 20 years in jail. Possible restitution for v...
HELENA (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines railed against Washington D.C. politics and told Montana lawmakers that solutions to the state's problems need to come from them. Daines addressed a joint session of the House and Senate Wednesday, saying lawmakers must be wary of increasing dependence on a federal government he says is accruing debt at an unprecedented rate. He says the Environmental Protection Agency through regulation is killing jobs in the timber and coal industries and that President Barack Obama's t...
BILLINGS (AP) — A 54-year-old man who graduated from an impaired driving treatment court has been sentenced to four years in prison for a 10th DUI conviction. Yellowstone County District Court Judge Ingrid Gustafson handed down the sentence Friday to Ray Alan Roma in Billings. The Billings Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/1EtjNdE ) that the sentence included a $1,000 fine and was part of a plea agreement that included two misdemeanors being dismissed. Prosecutors have said that Roma had three previous DUI convictions in M...
HELENA (AP) — Before the hearing began Friday at the Capitol on a bill that would abolish the death penalty, its sponsor Rep. Doc Moore warned the testimony would be "raw." The Republican form Missoula introduced House Bill 370 in the House Judiciary Committee. He told lawmakers his life has been touched by homicide four times but he thinks, as the bill states, instead of the death penalty people should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. "I couldn't imagine a worst fate than being locked up a...
VICTOR (AP) — When members of the Victor Volunteer Fire Department were called out to a nearby ranch for a horse stuck in the mud, none of them could have imagined the challenge they'd soon face. "When we arrived, all you could see sticking out of the ground was the horse's head," said Fire Capt. Mason Kay. The horse had stepped into a natural spring Wednesday and apparently began to struggle when its hooves slipped in the mud. "We're not really sure how the horse got itself in that situation," Kay said. "The spring wasn't t...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — State senators on Friday heard the first of two Republican representatives' plans to lower income taxes. Republican Rep. Keith Regier introduced in the Senate Taxation Committee a measure to permanently cut income taxes in every bracket by 0.1 percent. The Kalispell representative said he would support an amendment to House Bill 166 suggested by supportive peers to increase the cut to 0.2 percent. "The state of Montana can afford a tenth of a percent or two-tenths of a percent tax reduction," Regier said,...
MISSOULA (AP) - A Montana man wasn't defending his family but rather hunting someone when he shot and killed a German high school student who was trespassing in his garage, a judge said Thursday as he sentenced the man to 70 years in prison with no parole possible for at least 20 years. "Here you have a 12-guage shotgun, not to protect your family but to go after someone. And go after someone you did," District Judge Ed McLean said sternly in sentencing Markus Kaarma for delib...
HELENA (AP) - Members of an anti-abortion group gathered Wednesday at the Montana Capitol in support of a proposed state constitutional amendment that would define human life as beginning at conception. Annie Bukacek, a Kalispell physician and president of the Montana Prolife Coalition, said the proposal is designed to stop the killing of unborn children. "It is designed to stop the killing and not regulate the killing," she said, referring to other laws that place...
HELENA (AP) — Republican lawmakers have proposed three bills in the House Judiciary Committee to augment Montana gun laws. Rep. Kerry White's House Bill 371 would allow people with concealed carry licenses to take concealed guns into bars and banks. Opponents say the measure could also allow for guns in schools. Rep. Bill Harris' House Bill 298 would nullify Montana's concealed carry permit system. The least contested of the three, Rep. Carl Glimm's House Bill 320, would remove an existing requirement for school boards to a...
https://storify.com/MichaelJWright/today-feb-11-at-mtleg...
Press release MISSOULA — The University of Montana will host a National Endowment for the Humanities 2015 Summer Institute titled “Indigenous Literary Studies through Global Conversations” June 22-July 17. The tuition-free, four-week professional development institute will provide high school teachers and advanced graduate students with increased knowledge of indigenous people from those peoples’ perspectives. For application guidelines visit the institute’s website at http://indigenouslit.org. Applications are due no later...
https://storify.com/MichaelJWright/today-feb-10-at-mtleg...
By Michael Wright Community News Service UM School of Journalism In her address to a joint session of the Montana Legislature last week, Superintendent Denise Juneau praised Montana’s schools and called for more investment in them. “We have a lot to be proud of in this state,” she said. Juneau listed accomplishments like the highest graduation rates in the state’s history and growth in organizations like the Future Farmers of America. She also called for investment in Gov. Bullock’s so-called Early Edge preschool plan, whi...
Community News Service reporter Michael Wright takes a look at activities at the state Capitol on Friday. https://storify.com/MichaelJWright/today-feb-6-at-mtleg...
Community News Service's Michael Wright's recap of Thursdays' events at the Montana Legislature:.: https://storify.com/MichaelJWright/today-feb-5-at-mtleg...
HELENA (AP) — A Democratic lawmaker on Thursday called for Montana to support a convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to limit corporate donations in election campaigns. Rep. Ellie Hill of Missoula introduced House Joint Resolution 3 in the State Administration Committee. Committee members did not take immediate action. "I believe the corporate buyout of our elections is the reason to do it," she said of a Constitutional amendment that calls for free and fair elections. It takes 34 states to trigger a convention. T...
HELENA (AP) — Montana lawmakers are considering legislation that would remove the words "half breed" and "breed" from the names of creeks and other places around the state. Republican Rep. Nicholas Schwaderer of Superior introduced House Bill 331 in the State Administration Committee Thursday. He says it's the government's duty to remove offensive language from the places they name. The bill would require state and other agencies to remove the terms from maps, signs and markers when age or vandalism calls for an update. It w...
LAUREL (AP) — The main building of a southeastern Montana company that make fiberglass tanks for use in oil fields was destroyed by fire Thursday afternoon, company officials said. Heavy, black smoke rose into the air as firefighters from Billings and Laurel battled the blaze at Fiberglass Structures Inc. in Laurel. There were 20 employees inside when the fire started, and all of them got out safely, plant supervisor Bob Degely told The Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/1Dj9c6W). The black smoke was likely caused by the h...
HELENA (AP) — The Senate has narrowly endorsed a bill that would allow people to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. Republican Sen. Cary Smith of Billings says it would prohibit restrictions on guns on state university property with some exceptions. Under Smith's Senate Bill 143, Montana's Board of Regents would keep the authority to regulate the firing of guns, possession at campus events where alcohol is served and could prohibit guns in dorms, among other exceptions. Senators approved the measure by a vote of 2...
HELENA (AP) — The Senate has narrowly endorsed a bill that would allow people to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. Republican Sen. Cary Smith of Billings says it would prohibit restrictions on guns on state university property with some exceptions. Under Smith's Senate Bill 143, Montana's Board of Regents would keep the authority to regulate the firing of guns, possession at campus events where alcohol is served and could prohibit guns in dorms, among other exceptions. Senators approved the measure by a vote of 2...
