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Emily Wang Fujiyama, Tara Copp and Lolita C. Baldor Associated Press BEIJING — China’s Foreign Ministry said today that a balloon, seen over locations including Montana, that the U.S. suspects of conducting surveillance was a civilian “airship” used for research, mainly meteorological purposes. The statement said the airship has limited steering capability and “deviated far from its planned course” because of winds. It said China regrets the unintended entry of the airship into U.S. airspace. The discovery further str...
by Elinor Smith University of Montana Legislative News Service HELENA — The House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would provide $61,000 of the state’s money to pay for a grant program for training local, community-led search teams in missing persons cases. House Bill 18 passed the House with 98 of the 98 present Representatives voting for the bill. The bill now moves to the Senate. “Every Montanan has a fundamental right to life safety in these communities, to live in their lives without fear. But for too m...
by Elinor Smith University of Montana Legislative News Service HELENA— The House Judiciary committee heard testimony Wednesday on a bill that supporters say would address substantial problems with how Montana responds to sexual assault cases by expanding sexual assault nurse examiner, or SANE, training and services to rural communities. Rep. Amy Regier, R-Kalispell, is sponsoring House Bill 79. She says the bill will provide the Department of Justice the ability to address sexual assault at a statewide level to provide t...
by Mara Silvers Montana Free Press A bill that would bring a degree of regulation to Montana’s sober living homes and incentivize operators to seek accreditation from industry organizations produced conflicting testimony in a Tuesday hearing before the Legislature’s Senate Judiciary Committee. If it becomes law, the policy would mark a new effort in Montana to rein in a currently unregulated part of the addiction recovery industry. Unlike clinical treatment centers and medical providers, recovery homes are not subject to sta...
HELENA (AP) — The owner of a former vermiculite mine in northwestern Montana that spread harmful asbestos in and around the town of Libby has offered $18.5 million to settle the last of the state’s claims for environmental damages, Gov. Greg Gianforte announced Tuesday. The proposed settlement was filed in W.R. Grace & Co.’s bankruptcy case in Delaware for the Libby Asbestos Superfund Site in Lincoln County. Asbestos from a vermiculite mine owned by W.R. Grace beginning in 1963 polluted the area until the mine was shuttered i...
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks HELENA – On Tuesday, a District Court in Lewis and Clark County issued a temporary restraining order impacting some of Montana's wolf hunting and trapping regulations. The changes go into effect immediately. The changes outlined in the temporary restraining order are as follows: • Reinstitutes wolf management units (WMU) 110, 313, and 316 as they existed in the 2020 wolf regulations. WMU 110 borders Glacier National Park and WMUs 313 and 316...
MISSOULA (AP) — A federal judge Wednesday ordered the arrest of a neo-Nazi website publisher accused of ignoring a $14 million judgment against him for orchestrating an anti-Semitic harassment campaign against a Montana woman’s family. U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen issued a bench warrant for the arrest of Andrew Anglin, founder and operator of The Daily Stormer website. Attorneys for Montana real estate agent Tanya Gersh have said Anglin did not pay any portion of the August 2019 judgment and has ignored their req...
Alex Sakariassen Montana Free Press The 2022 general election is Tuesday, Nov. 8, and as absentee ballots have already gone out, odds are that scores of Montanans are already busy filling in their votes. If you’re not registered yet, are planning to vote at the polls, or are still confused about what election laws may or may not be in effect right now, Montana Free Press has endeavored to make things a little easier with our 2022 Election Guide. And since the legal landscape has been such a moving target this year, we’re tak...
Matt Volz Kaiser Health News Montana voters will decide Nov. 8 whether to approve a ballot initiative declaring that an embryo or fetus is a legal person with a right to medical care if it survives an abortion or delivery. The measure would impose severe penalties on health workers who don’t provide that care. Legislative Referendum 131 was approved for next month’s election by state lawmakers in 2021, more than a year before the U.S. Supreme Court removed federal protections for abortion in June. Abortion remains legal in Mo...
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — A Montana man has been charged in a woman’s 1993 slaying in West Virginia, police said. Ricky Louie Woody of Billings, Montana, 59, was charged earlier this month in the March 1993 death of Melissa Martinez in Huntington. She had a gunshot wound to the torso and lacerations to the head and died at a hospital, police said in a news release Tuesday. Witnesses initially provided information that led detectives to Woody, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him. Woody moved from Huntington to...
Mara Silvers Montana Free Press A prominent Republican operative backing Montana Supreme Court candidate James Brown has filed two ethics complaints against Brown’s opponent in the race, incumbent Supreme Court Justice Ingrid Gustafson, with less than a month until Election Day. Jake Eaton, a longtime Republican political consultant and treasurer of the conservative political action committee Montana for Judicial Accountability Initiative, sent copies of the two complaints he filed with the Judicial Standards Commission to m...
HELENA (AP) — Two physician groups have asked Montana election officials to issue a correction to statements printed in a voter information pamphlet that they argue are false and could confuse voters as they consider an abortion-related ballot measure. The complaint was made Friday by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology on Friday. They asked the Montana Secretary of State’s Office to issue a correction to statements. “The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Ame...
Amanda Eggert Montana Free Press Montana livestock-producer groups and two Republican elected officeholders continued their pressure campaign to halt bison grazing on federal lands late last week, asking the Bureau of Land Management to reconsider its recent approval of grazing leases in north-central Montana. In three separate appeals, the Montana Stockgrowers Association, Gov. Greg Gianforte and Attorney General Austin Knudsen asked the BLM to reverse its July 28 decision...
Alex Sakariassen Montana Free Press Throughout the past two weeks, a steady stream of witnesses have taken the stand in Yellowstone County District Court. Each spoke to the perceived pros or cons of three election administration laws passed in 2021 by the Montana Legislature — testimony that collectively addressed broader concerns about voter access and election security that lie at the heart of the case. Thursday marked the close of those proceedings, leaving Judge Michael Moses to review roughly 60 hours of testimony and h...
Arren Kimbel-Sannit Montana Free Press A federal ethics probe has concluded that former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, who is running to represent Montana’s western district in the U.S. House, misled an internal ethics watchdog during a probe into the department’s decision not to act on a gaming application from two Native American tribes. The report, instigated in 2017 and released Wednesday by investigators working under Trump-appointed Interior Secretary Inspector General Mark Greenblatt, said Zinke and his the...
Amanda Eggert Montana Free Press Coming into office last year as Montana's first Republican governor in nearly two decades and looking to implement a muscular conservative agenda made possible by his party's unified control of the Legislature and governor's office, Gov. Greg Gianforte's leadership has attracted scrutiny from media, environmental groups and left-of-center political activists. As was intended by the framers of Montana's 1972 Constitution, who included an...
by Alex Sakariassen Montana Free Press Seated in his wheelchair next to the witness stand in a Billings courtroom Monday, 26-year-old Mitch Bohn calmly responded to a series of rapid-fire questions about his voting habits over the past eight years. How does he typically cast his vote? By absentee ballot, Bohn said, filling it out as early as possible and relying on his parents to drop it in the family’s mailbox. Has he ever returned his ballot another way? Once, Bohn said, when he filled his ballot out later than intended w...
by MARK SHERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years in a decision by its conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade. Friday's outcome is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states. The decision, unthinkable just a few years ago, was the culmination of decades of efforts by abortion opponents, made possible by an emboldened right side of the court that has...
Gov. Greg Gianforte today declared a statewide disaster due to severe flooding in Carbon, Park, and Stillwater counties, as well as flood warnings in other parts of the state. “With rapid snowmelt and recent heavy rains, communities in south-central Montana are experiencing severe flooding that is destroying homes, washing away roads and bridges, and leaving Montanans without power and water services,” Gianforte said in a press release. “Today’s disaster declaration will help impacted communities get back on their feet as...
Federal Bureau of Investigation In recognition of National Senior Fraud Awareness Day May 15, 2022, the FBI Salt Lake City Field Office is raising awareness about an increase in reporting of cyber scams targeting the elderly in Montana. The FBI Billings Resident Agency has received at least one call a month where victims have lost significant amounts of money in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. “Most of the victims, it totally destroys them because they will refinance their house, take out their savings, their r...
HELENA — At last Thursday’s meeting of the State-Tribal Relations Committee, representatives from the Montana University System announced that the first students participating in Montana’s new Grow Your Own educator programs, in which participating schools include Montana State University-Northern and Stone Child College, will begin their first coursework Tuesday. During the legislative session last year, Rep. Tyson Running Wolf, D-Browning, sponsored successful legislation to invest state resources in Grow Your Own educa...
By: Patrick Johnston At a press conference today, Gov. Greg Gianforte announced that all Montanans 16 and older will be eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccinations beginning April 1, bypassing Phase 1C of the original distribution plan. Gianforte said increases in vaccine production nationwide have made this possible and this will move Montana further towards a sense of normalcy. "Hope is growing stronger," he said. During the conference he praised the accomplishments of...
At Gov. Greg Gianforte's first bill-signing ceremony Wednesday afternoon, for Senate Bill 65, he said he will announce the end to Montana's mask mandate this Friday morning. Passage of SB 65, which protects businesses from lawsuits resulting from COVID-19 transmission at their establishments provided they make good faith efforts to keep people safe, is something Gianforte has said would be required for him to rescind his predecessor's mandate. He said this, combined with the o...
At a press conference this afternoon Gov. Greg Gianforte announced a revision to the COVID-19 mandates of his predecessor that effectively eliminates any restrictions on gathering size, the operating hours of restaurants, bars, breweries and casinos or their in-dining-room capacity. This new directive will go into effect on Friday morning. Gianforte said his administration has consulted with public health experts, health care providers, and business leaders before making this...
U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said today he was one of the people who participated in a trial of the vaccine pharmaceutical company Pfizer says appears to be 95 percent effective in preventing COVID-19, and he encourages everyone to get the vaccination if it is approved and becomes available. Daines said part of the reason he wanted to be part of the test is to encourage all Montanans to get vaccinated once it is available. He said other than slight soreness in his arm,...
