News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 2551 - 2575 of 2807
BILLINGS (AP) — A judge heard arguments in a newspaper's lawsuit that seeks to prevent the Southern Montana Electric Cooperative from closing its meetings. Attorney Martha Sheehy argued for The Billings Gazette, saying Montana's open meetings law provides that meetings of public or governmental bodies "or organizations or agencies supposed in whole or in part by public funds or expending public funds must be open to the public." SME's attorney, John Ross, argued Wednesday that SME is not a public entity and the $2 million the...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Brian Schweitzer launched plans Monday to cut almost all the state's tax on business equipment and give homeowners a property tax refund as part of his budget plan — making tax relief a primary goal even before Republican lawmakers taking over the Legislature have a chance to do so. The Democratic governor unveiled the highlights of his budget plan to a room full of agency directors, staff and a few Republicans who will be running the Legislature at the start of the year. Schweitzer said his budget increase...
Steve Daines, a fifth generation Montana, announced Saturday he will challenge Sen. John Tester for re-election in 2012. Daines, a Bozeman businessman, said he was challenging Tester because he has constantly voted with President Barack Obama. "Jon Tester has made his choice," Daines said in announcing his candidacy. "He stands with Obama not Montana." "I too have made my choice. I stand for Montana and not Obama," he said. Daines was especially critical of Tester for voting in favor of President Barack Obama's health care re...
BOZEMAN (AP) — Where's the bear? That's what Gardiner High School students were asking themselves when they got to school early last week. The large bruin statue that normally guards the school's front entrance was gone. But a series of messages — using low-tech duct tape and higher-tech text messages — alerted the students to just where it might be. Yup, those pranksters over at Shields Valley High School to the north had absconded with the bear. It finally turned up in the rival school's weight room. Law enforcement folks...
BILLINGS (AP) — Federal agencies plan sessions in the Rockies and across the country on working with Native Americans on suicide prevention. A meeting in the Rocky Mountain region is scheduled Nov. 23 at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Billings, Mont. Another session is set for Dec. 2 at the Best Western Ramkota Hotel and Convention Center in Rapid City, S.D. The agencies involved are the Indian Health Service, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Interior Department's Indian Affairs. I...
KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — The attorney for state Sen. Greg Barkus says the Kalispell Republican didn't receive special treatment in a plea deal that would allow him to avoid jail and expunge his record after 18 months. Barkus is accused of crashing a boat while drunk last year in Flathead Lake and injuring four passengers, including U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg. The plea agreement would allow Barkus to plead no contest to felony criminal endangerment and receive a three-year deferred sentence. A judge must approve the agreement. T...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana's attorney general has asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by seven gay couples seeking the same rights as married couples in making decisions about their families' health care and finances. Spousal benefits are limited by definition to married couples, and the Montana Constitution defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, Attorney General Steve Bullock said. The court does not have the jurisdiction to require the state to extend spousal benefits beyond that definition, B...
Barkus to plead no contest to 1 felony KALISPELL (AP) — A state senator from Kalispell accused of piloting a boat while drunk and crashing into the rocky shoreline of Flathead Lake, injuring all five on board, has reached a plea agreement that calls for a three-year deferred sentence. The agreement filed late Tuesday says Republican Sen. Greg Barkus will plead no contest to felony criminal endangerment for the August 2009 crash south of Bigfork. The agreement has been signed by Barkus, his attorney Todd Glazier and F...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Brian Schweitzer says state workers will get a four percent raise over two years beginning in 2012 under a proposed deal with employee unions. But the first pay raise the workers have seen in two years may not be enough to cover anticipated increases in health insurance costs that they will also face. Schweitzer said Wednesday the agreement is a good deal for the state and was the product of tough negotiation. Union leaders say they are encouraging their members to approve the proposal. After that, it w...
HELENA — Former Congressman Rick Hill's entrance into the race of Republicans seeking the party's 2012 gubernatorial nomination raises questions of who will be seen as the conservative choice. Former state Sens. Ken Miller of Laurel and Corey Stapleton of Billings are the other candidates. But Hill is likely the best known of the three after serving two terms in Congress in the late 1990s, while the others have not held statewide elected office. Hill's campaign announcement speech on Monday advanced a fiscal conservative t...
BOZEMAN (AP) — A Montana State University official says an eight-story laboratory building has reopened following an asbestos scare. Spokesman Tracy Ellig tells the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that Leon Johnson Hall opened Saturday after tests found no asbestos. Asbestos can cause fatal lung diseases if inhaled. Officials quickly closed the building on Thursday when it was discovered workers were removing ceiling tiles for three weeks without proper precautions to prevent the possible release of asbestos dust. That prevented s...
MATT VOLZ, Press HELENA — A federal appeals court declined a BNSF Railway Co. request to block a lawsuit filed by 152 Livingston residents who want the company to pay for the cleanup of toxic chemicals from a contaminated rail yard. The city and residents said in the lawsuit that huge quantities of diesel fuel and solvents have seeped into the soil, surface water and groundwater. BNSF had asked a federal judge to block the 2007 lawsuit filed in state district court, arguing the injunction was necessary to keep jurisdiction i...
Former U.S. Rep. Rick Hill to run for governor HELENA (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Rick Hill made it clear Friday he will be running for governor in 2012, scheduling a formal announcement for Monday. Word of the Republican's candidacy, long expected, comes after some of the biggest election wins seen by the GOP in years. The Republicans dominated state legislative elections, securing the biggest lead in the state House either party has had in decades. Hill retired from Congress in 1999 after two terms due to eye problems. He h...
HELENA (AP) — A man who absconded from parole in California 12 years ago has been arrested in northern Montana after disclosing his location in an update on his Facebook page. A fugitive task force in California learned that Robert Lewis Crose, 47, was working in northern Montana after he complained about the cold weather, Glacier County sheriff's Sgt. Tom Siefert told the Independent Record. Crose's Facebook page includes an Oct. 28 posting complaining that his "water line froze even with heat tape and wrap" after the temper...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The Public Service Commission's only Republican says he expects to become chairman after two GOP wins in Tuesday's election handed the party a majority on the regulatory board. Commissioner Brad Molnar tells the Lee Newspapers State Bureau that he never wanted to be chairman, but will take the role as the only experienced Republican on the panel that regulates utilities. Republicans Bill Gallagher of Helena and Travis Kavulla of Great Falls easily beat Democratic incumbents. Molnar, from Laurel, will m...
MATT GOURAS Associated Press HELENA— Republicans were looking ahead to taking full control of the Legislature in 2011 as the bulk of the returns still trickling in early Wednesday favored their candidates. The GOP was competitive in races in traditional Democratic strongholds, and appeared to be holding their own seats with relative ease. "Right now we are ahead in 21 of our 25 targeted races in the House and three of four targeted races in the Senate," Republican state Sen. Jeff Essmann of Billings said late Tuesday. The R...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The Montana GOP is confident a rising tide of conservative politics nationwide will trickle down into the state's local races and give Republicans full control of the Legislature for the first time in six years. Democrats believe their effectiveness in running the state will be rewarded on Election Day. In the weeks leading up to Tuesday's election, Republicans have launched an aggressive campaign spurred by anger from their base over federal health care reform and spending as they vowed to use control o...
HELENA (AP) — No trespassing signs and locked gates on 670 acres of land owned by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Mullan Pass appear to contradict his campaign pledge to not allow outsiders to buy up land and restrict public access. The Independent Record reports that Schweitzer closed access to the land he had just bought in 2008 about the same time he was running for a second term as governor and pledging to continue public access to recreational land. Schweitzer's actions do not prevent access to public land in the a...
BOZEMAN (AP) — Montana State University officials are trying to raise the graduation rate at the school. The school graduates about half of the students who enroll, below the national average. About 57 percent of students who enroll in four-year colleges in the U.S. earn a degree in six years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Montana State officials tell the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that the retention rate — students returning to classes in the fall — improved this year. The school says last year'...
GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is seeking public comment on the proposed drilling of a gas well in the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in southern Blaine County.. The agency is taking comments until Nov. 30 about the plan by Texas-based NFR Bear Basin LLC to drill in the Bullwhacker Coulee area of the monument. The monument straddles the Missouri River for about 150 miles in central Montana. Don Judice of the BLM said the company wants to re-establish production for an existing l...
Conservative groups challenge Mont. ethics chief MATT GOURAS,Associated Press HELENA (AP) — Conservative groups have renewed their assault on Montana campaign finance rules with a new lawsuit and allegations of "frivolous investigations." The lawsuit comes as the organization that challenged the state campaign finance law's constitutionality resumed sending attack political mailers. Western Tradition Partnership is sending the mailers in apparent defiance of a finding last week by the state's political practices chief that t...
HELENA (AP) — A poll released Friday shows Montana voters largely favor the state ballot initiatives in Tuesday's election and they want the Legislature to crack down on medical marijuana and drunk driving. The Montana State University-Billings also found that nearly 60 percent of voters are undecided in the race for a Montana Supreme Court seat. Those who picked a candidate were evenly split between attorney Beth Baker and district court judge Nels Swandal, with each getting support from about 20 percent of the r...
GOP newcomer outraises ex-senator in PSC race GREAT FALLS (AP) — A first-time Republican candidate for one of two Public Service Commission seats up for election has received more than double the campaign contributions of his Democratic opponent. The Great Falls Tribune reports Travis Kavulla has raised more than $43,000 total during the campaign. Kavulla is a 26-year-old Fife-based writer and editor for the conservative magazine National Review. His opponent, former Democratic state Sen. Don Ryan, has raised $18,000. In t...
U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg said Monday that he could support U.S. Sen. Jon Tester's plan to expand wilderness and increase logging - but only with more assurances that the logging will occur. Rehberg, who has held 22 meetings on the measure, said he doesn't think Tester's plan accomplishes its intended goals the way it's written. Tester's bill would create more than 600,000 acres of wilderness, mostly in southwestern Montana's Beaverhead- Deerlodge National Forest, and mandate 70,000 acres of logging in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge...
Mont. woman fends off bear attack with zucchini FRENCHTOWN, Mont. (AP) — Police say a Montana woman used an unlikely weapon to fend off a charging bear — a zucchini. Missoula County Sheriff's Lt. Rich Maricelli says a 200-pound black bear attacked the woman's 12-year-old collie just after midnight Wednesday on the back porch of her home about 15 miles west of Missoula. When the woman, whom police did not name, screamed to draw the bear's attention, it charged her and swiped at her leg. Maricelli says the woman jumped bac...
