News you can use
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HELENA — Tribal law-enforcement officers Friday arrested a state senator and Blackfeet leader accused of not complying with the terms of a plea agreement for drunken driving, a charge he has called false and politically motivated. Sen. Shannon Augare was found in a home east of Browning on Friday afternoon after two weeks of avoiding arrest, Blackfeet Tribal Business Council member Paul McEvers said. The arrest was made because Augare did not pay his fine after pleading guilty to driving drunk and then fleeing a Glacier C...
HELENA (AP) — A Republican Senate leader is claiming the governor and the commissioner of political practices are conspiring to remove him from office. Commissioner Jonathan Motl previously filed a civil action against Senate Majority Leader Art Wittich of Bozeman that said Wittich coordinated with and took illegal corporate contributions from a conservative group in the 2010 election campaign. If a judge upholds Motl's findings, Wittich could be removed from office and struck from the 2014 ballot. Wittich filed a c...
BOZEMAN (AP) — A higher education official says tuition and fees at Montana's two flagship universities are going up slowly compared to other states. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports (bit.ly/1lMSkf5) a new affordability study shows the cost of attending Montana State University and the University of Montana rose 55 percent in the last 10 years. Deputy commissioner for planning and analysis Tyler Trevor says other states have raised tuition up to 200 percent in the decade. The average increase among 14 western states was 1...
HELENA (AP) — A state lawmaker who faces possible impeachment over claims that his campaign took illegal corporate contributions has filed a constitutional challenge to the law he is accused of breaking. Republican Rep. Mike Miller of Helmville says the ban on corporate contributions is a ban on a form of political free speech. Miller is one of two sitting legislators accused of taking illegal in-kind contributions and coordinating their 2010 legislative campaigns with a conservative group called Western Tradition P...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Five couples have sued to overturn the nation's first constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. The couples on Monday sued the state of Alaska, which passed the ban in 1998. The plaintiffs are alleging in federal court that the ban is unconstitutional. The Human Rights Campaign says there's only three other states — North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana — that don't have legal challenges pending to same-sex marriage bans....
HELENA — Leaders of an American Indian tribe in Montana awaiting federal recognition say they are closer than ever to that goal. The Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians Council Chairman Gerald Gray spoke with Gov. Steve Bullock last week. Gray says recently proposed rule changes for recognizing American Indian tribes would put a nod from the U.S. government within their reach. Federal officials say the proposed rule changes are in the midst of a months-long finalization process. The landless tribe has been recognized by t...
HELENA (AP) — A Blackfeet judge has issued an arrest warrant for a state senator and tribal leader for not paying his fine for a drunken and reckless driving conviction. Sen. Shannon Augare says the May 2 warrant issued by Judge Marshalene Last Star is politically motivated. Augare says in a Tuesday letter to Last Star he paid the $200 fine in December but was submitting another $400 to remove his name from the warrant list. Tribal attorney Dawn Running Wolf says Augare must appear in court for arraignment. She says there i...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Steve Bullock's staff has been discussing Medicaid expansion options with some legislators and health-care and business representatives. The Democratic governor said Friday the discussions aren't driven by him but by lawmakers who heard from their community about the importance of the expansion. Lee Newspapers of Montana reports Republican Sen. Ed Buttrey of Great Falls is part of the group. He says the goal is to find a way to provide cheaper costs, better medical service and a healthier population. B...
MISSOULA (AP) — A Montana man charged with shooting a German exchange student might have been angry over an earlier alleged marijuana burglary from his garage. An April 28 search warrant seeking a blood sample from 29-year-old Markus Kaarma says Missoula police officers found a jar of marijuana in his pantry the day of the shooting. According to the warrant, Kaarma's girlfriend told a neighbor that Kaarma smoked marijuana in the garage and someone had taken pot and pipes in a previous burglary. Kaarma is charged with d...
MISSOULA (AP) — More than 100 people carrying candles held a vigil Friday in the Montana city where a 17-year-old German exchange student was gunned down in a homeowner's garage. The gathering for Diren Dede brought scores of people to the Fort Missoula soccer fields, where balloons with German and American colors were displayed for the somber memorial. Dede was an all-state soccer player for Big Sky High School. He started playing soccer the day he arrived in Missoula in August and quickly made friends, said Kate Walker a...
BILLINGS (AP) - The director of the Billings Area Indian Health Service has resigned less than 18 months into the job, saying her efforts to improve health care for Indians were being crippled by a dysfunctional system. The Billings Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/1fWcjmI ) Anna Whiting-Sorrell complained about the quality and level of services provided. The Billings-area IHS provides health services to more than 70,000 Native Americans and Alaska Native people in Montana and Wyoming. U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, chairman of the...
HELENA (AP) — Federal officials say more than 36,000 people in Montana selected insurance plans under the nation's health-care overhaul law by the March 31 deadline. That exceeds health officials' original target of signing up 31,000 Montanans by the end of the open-enrollment period. The Department of Health and Human Services released the data Thursday. Full story in Fridays' Havre Daily News....
MISSOULA (AP) — The special prosecutor in Barry Beach's 1984 murder trial says the case has been exhaustively reviewed and the state Board of Pardons and Parole should reject Beach's recent clemency application. Beach was sentenced to 100 years in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1979 killing of Kim Knees near Poplar. Both were 17 at the time. Former Gov. Marc Racicot wrote to the board Tuesday. That same day, supporters of Beach argued that young criminals can no longer be sentenced to life in prison w...
HELENA (AP) — The commissioner of political practices has found that one of his predecessors violated Montana campaign practices laws. But Commissioner Jonathan Motl says there is no way to enforce Thursday's decision against David Gallik. Gallik was commissioner from May 2011 to January 2012. During that time, Gallik signed a tax form as the treasurer for a political group called Council for a Sustainable America. Motl says Montana law prevents the commissioner from participating in any political activity. (Full story in F...
MISSOULA (AP) — The German consulate called for justice Wednesday after a homeowner fired four blasts from a shotgun into his garage, killing a 17-year-old exchange student who was inside. The investigation into the killing of Diren Dede of Hamburg should make clear that it is illegal to kill an unarmed juvenile just because he was trespassing, said Julia Reinhardt, spokeswoman for the consulate in San Francisco. "We consider what happened completely out of proportion to the probable risk," Reinhardt said. Dede's father, C...
BILLINGS — A former high school teacher who raped a 14-year-old student could be headed back to prison after the Montana Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that his original one-month sentence was too short under state sentencing laws. The court ordered a new judge to re-sentence defendant Stacey Dean Rambold. Rambold was released after fulfilling the original sentence last fall, and is expected to remain free pending his reappearance in state District Court. (Full story in Thursday's Havre Daily News.)...
DEER LODGE - Montana's parole board has the chance to correct a mistake made when Barry Beach was sentenced to 100 years in prison without parole in the 1979 beating death of a high school classmate, his attorneys said Tuesday. Science and the courts had not yet realized that a juvenile criminal had capacity to change when Beach was convicted in 1984, attorney Terry Toavs told three members of the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole in a hearing in Deer Lodge. Beach and the...
BAINVILLE (AP) — Amtrak says a train carrying 117 passengers has partially derailed in northeastern Montana, causing minor injuries to one passenger. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari says three cars on the 13-car Empire Builder slipped off the tracks at a switch Monday afternoon near Bainville, just west of the North Dakota line. The passenger train was headed west from Chicago to Portland and Seattle. Magliari says the injured passenger is being treated at the scene. Magliari says the train is upright and still has power, a...
MISSOULA (AP) — Pop legend Paul McCartney has added a stop in Missoula to his "Out There" tour. The University of Montana announced Monday that the former Beatle is scheduled to play at Washington-Grizzly Stadium on Aug. 5. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. on May 9. Prices range from $49.50 to $250 and will be available at all GrizTix locations. The Out There tour features music from McCartney's entire career, as a solo artist, as a member of Paul McCartney and Wings and as a Beatle. He also plays music from his most recent s...
MISSOULA (AP) — A 17-year-old boy who was shot and killed over the weekend by a Montana man who said the teen had broken into his garage was a foreign exchange student from Germany, authorities said. Police in Missoula arrested a man on suspicion of deliberate homicide in the death of Diren Dede of Hamburg, Germany. Dede was a junior at Big Sky High School in Missoula, Missoula Public Schools officials said. Officers responded to the reported shooting just before 12:30 a.m. Sunday. Markus Kaarma, 29, told officers he found a...
BILLINGS (AP) — Defendants in a corruption case on a Montana American Indian reservation won't have to repay most of the money they received through a fraudulent billing scheme, federal prosecutors said Friday. Seven defendants pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial after authorities said they diverted roughly $500,000 from tribal accounts while doing cultural monitoring work for the Crow Indian Tribe. Prosecutors pursued the case only on behalf of the tribe — not the outside companies that sought the monitoring work. As...
Rob Chaney, Missoulian MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — With scrutiny growing about the safety of moving crude oil by rail, western Montana residents wonder how increased shipments will be kept safe along sensitive places like the border of Glacier National Park. The Canadian government on Wednesday ordered the removal of 5,000 oil tank cars believed unsafe for duty, along with a demand to upgrade or remove another 65,000 similar tankers. Transport Canada also imposed speed limits of 50 mph or less in developed areas and near d...
BOZEMAN (AP) — As Waded Cruzado came to Bozeman four years ago to become Montana State University's president, she sent out copies of a business management book she found inspiring. Entitled "Good to Great," the book could describe what Cruzado is trying to achieve at MSU. MSU's first woman and first minority president has racked up a list of record-breaking accomplishments and fans. After this month's Equal Pay Summit at MSU, national activist Lilly Ledbetter called Cruzado "this fireball." Montana Gov. Steve Bullock had s...
HELENA . (AP) — Most of the claims by four Hispanic men who accuse the Montana Highway Patrol of engaging in systematic racial profiling during traffic stops should be allowed to proceed, a federal magistrate judge ruled. U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby recommended striking two allegations that the discrimination violated the Montana Constitution, saying the state claims can't be sued in federal court. Ostby recommended against dismissing the three other allegations of U.S. Constitution and federal civil rights v...
BILLINGS (AP) — Firefighters in Billings have removed the bodies of two women from a car that was found submerged in an irrigation ditch. Sgt. Shane Winden says an employee with the city's parks department spotted the vehicle on its top in the ditch at about 6:30 a.m. Friday. Firefighters used an engine to pull the vehicle out of the water just enough to determine if someone was inside. Winden says after officers spotted a body, police called for investigators and are treating the location as a crime scene. The coroner's o...
