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HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A governor's council recommends Montana restrict new development in sage grouse habitat to avoid federal protections that would lead to tighter rules. The Greater Sage Grouse Advisory Council outlined its recommendations in a 73-page report given to the governor on Wednesday. "It's essential in Montana that we find a way that we are monitoring and reducing impacts," to grouse habitat, said Glenn Marx of Helena, council member and executive director of the Montana Association of Land Trusts. "We're not j...
HELENA (AP) — A judge has sentenced a California man to 30 years in prison and ordered him to repay the victims of an investment scheme into non-existent oil-and-gas projects in eastern Montana. U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon told Yorba Linda resident Mike Campa Thursday he was imposing the lengthy sentence because Campa had spent a lifetime defrauding others and would do so again if back on the street. Campa pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit fraud, investment fraud by mail and investment fraud by wire. P...
GREAT FALLS (AP) — Cascade County commissioners have voted to re-zone property on the northwestern edge of Great Falls to allow seed and herbicide maker Monsanto Co. to locate a wheat breeding testing site there. The Great Falls Tribune reports (http://gftrib.com/1d7VfHK) the county is taking public comment for 30 days on Tuesday's decision to change the zoning from commercial to light industrial, which would allow the inside storage of chemicals. Last spring, Monsanto announced a new Wheat Technology Center near Twin F...
HAMILTON (AP) — Ravalli County employees working to reconcile the books in the treasurer's office told commissioners they found more than $800,000 in checks that hadn't been deposited. Last week, county commissioners placed Treasurer Valerie Stamey on paid leave after months of complaints about overdue disbursements and as well as complaints by residents that property tax checks hadn't been cashed. Commissioners placed Clerk and Recorder Regina Plattenberg and treasurer's deputy Dan Whitesitt temporarily in charge of daily o...
MISSOULA (AP) — Missoula County commissioners on Tuesday approved spending $50,000 to hire an outside attorney to challenge the authority of the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the way the county attorney's office handles sexual assault cases. The Justice Department announced in May 2012 that it was investigating the way the city of Missoula, University of Montana campus police, and the county attorney's office handle reported rape cases. County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg refused to cooperate, saying the federal agen...
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's choice to become U.S. ambassador to China embraced several criticisms of that country Tuesday, agreeing that China wants to dominate Asia and is a regular violator of human rights. Speaking at his Senate confirmation hearing, Sen. Max Baucus said he wants to help the U.S. build a more equitable economic relationship with China while encouraging the Asian giant to act responsibly as it emerges as a global power. "I have become a firm believer that a strong geopolitical relationship can b...
BILLINGS (AP) — Republican state Sen. Elsie Arntzen on Saturday announced she's running for Montana's open U.S. House seat. The conservative lawmaker from Billings in a statement says she wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, balance the nation's budget, and restore a better America for future generations. The 57-year-old Arntzen has worked as a public school teacher for 21 years. She made her announcement at Burlington Elementary after being introduced by a 5th grader, one of her former students. Arntzen and her h...
MISSOULA (AP) - Former Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger says he may end his campaign for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate if current Lt. Gov. John Walsh is appointed to serve the rest of Max Baucus' term. If Baucus resigns from the Senate to become the next U.S. ambassador to China, it will be up to Gov. Steve Bullock to pick an interim replacement until January 2015. Walsh has asked Bullock to appoint him, but the Democratic governor has kept quiet on a possible selection....
HELENA (AP) — A long execution in Ohio that left the condemned inmate gasping and snorting illustrates the dangers of using untested drug combinations in lethal injections, said a civil-rights group suing Montana over its execution method. Montana last year changed its lethal-injection method from a combination of three drugs to two, but there hasn't been an execution in the state since the change and the combination of those two drugs is untested in the U.S., said American Civil Liberties Union of Montana attorney Anna Conle...
BUTTE (AP) — A crackdown involving a 1977 law prohibiting the selling of mice and rats has taken a bite out of the bottom line of a Butte pet shop that sells rodents as snacks for snakes. Fish Bowl pet store owner Mark Dawson said he's sold rodents for 17 years and they account for about a third of his sales. He tells the Montana Standard (http://bit.ly/LBX1va) in a story on Sunday that he's not selling snakes now either because he's no longer allowed to sell their best meals. "My shop has gone dead," said Dawson, a Butte n...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Steve Bullock is reasserting his opposition to stringent federal driver's license rules, saying Montana already has increased the security of its licenses and identification cards. The Democratic governor said in a letter Friday to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson that the Legislature voted unanimously against implementing the REAL ID Act. Bullock says he has full confidence in the security measures the state has taken outside the 2005 anti-terrorism law. Bullock is responding to a D...
BILLINGS (AP) — An FBI spokesman says the agency is considering permanent agents in the Bakken oil patch of Montana and North Dakota as the drilling boom drives crime rates higher. That's sparked a dispute between the states' U.S. senators over where the agents should be located. Crime on both sides of the border has spiked as thousands of new workers arrive with drug traffickers following in their wake. Since July, two agents and an intelligence specialist have been stationed in Sidney, Mont. North Dakota Sens. Heidi H...
HELENA (AP) - Montana Rail Link says gusty winds caused a container train to derail on the Continental Divide west of Helena. The Helena Independent Record reports the derailment occurred at shortly before 5 a.m. Monday. The speed of the gust wasn't immediately available. The railroad says there were no hazardous materials in the containers and no one was injured. NorthWestern Energy reported numerous power failures blamed on the wind and said extra crews were called in to...
HELENA — The number of Montanans who signed up for health coverage through the online marketplace that is a key part of President Barack Obama's health overhaul increased nearly tenfold in December, according to new federal health data released Monday. From Oct. 1 through Dec. 28, a total of 13,151 Montana residents chose health plans through the federal exchange, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That is compared to the 1,382 people who had signed up in October and November, the period when p...
KALISPELL (AP) — Flathead County authorities say a Sunday morning shooting in Marion left one man dead and that another has been taken into custody. The Flathead County Sheriff's Office tells the Flathead Beacon reports (http://bit.ly/1eNDqAo) that Mark Ames has been taken into custody and is being held at the Flathead County Detention Center on suspicion of deliberate homicide. Police say the shooting took place about 1:45 a.m. outside a duplex owned by one of the men. Police say Ames' wife rented one of the apartments a...
HELENA (AP) — Prosecutors are recommending no prison time for a Blackfeet woman who pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to defraud and embezzle from a federally funded program for troubled youth on the northwestern Montana Indian reservation. Charlotte New Breast is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Brian Morris on a charge of aiding and abetting theft from an organization receiving federal grant funds. New Breast, 53, was the administrative assistant for the now-defunct Po'Ka Project, which c...
HELENA nt. (AP) — The state Supreme Court has reversed an earlier ruling that made it difficult for individuals to file legal challenges against government agencies that ignore Montana's open meetings and open records laws. The 6-0 ruling Thursday says a person can sue an agency for violating the state constitution's right-to-know and right-to-participate provisions, even if that person doesn't have a direct personal interest in the matter. That undoes a 2006 Supreme Court ruling that required a person to first prove he w...
HELENA (AP) — The U.S. Attorney's Office in Montana collected $28.3 million in civil and criminal actions in Fiscal Year 2013. That includes $4.45 million from a Belgrade man for failing to report that a pharmaceutical company he previously owned was importing and distributing a fake cancer drug. Across the country, U.S. attorney's offices collected $8.1 billion from criminal and civil actions. U.S. Attorney Michael W. Cotter says Montana's collections included $20.5 million in civil actions, $5.8 million in criminal and c...
BILLINGS — The chancellor of Montana State University-Billings — and former interim chancellor at Montana State University-Northern — is retiring at the end of the school year. Sixty-seven-year-old Rolf Groseth said in a Thursday letter to students and faculty that he was retiring from the post for unspecified personal reasons. The Chicago native spent four years overseeing the 5,000-student school and more than three decades involved in the Montana university system. Before that, he was acting chancellor at Northern for 1...
MISSOULA (AP) — The Missoula County attorney is proposing a settlement in the U.S. Department of Justice's effort to investigate the way his office handles sexual assault and rape cases. In December, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Montana said the issue could be settled if the office added three people to his staff to better address rape and sexual assault referrals from the police department. The Missoulian reports (http://bit.ly/1lIDFSi ) Fred Van Valkenburg responded Thursday saying he is willing to negotiate an a...
HELENA (AP) — If Gov. Steve Bullock is any closer to deciding who to appoint to the U.S. Senate if Max Baucus is confirmed as the next ambassador to China, he isn't saying. Bullock told reporters Thursday the possibility of Baucus vacating the seat is still hypothetical and he will not discuss his intentions until there is an opening. President Barack Obama formally nominated Baucus for the ambassadorship Tuesday, and the Montana Democrat must be confirmed by the Senate. Montana law gives the governor the power to appoint a...
LINCOLN CITY, Ore. (AP) — A patrol car hit and injured a man and a woman later fatally shot herself during a police standoff as Oregon authorities closed in on the two accused of robbing a Montana coin shop. Sarah Jo Johnson died shortly before 9 p.m. Friday, Lincoln City Police Chief Keith Kilian said. She had been holed up in a vehicle with a handgun for hours, surrounded by the Oregon State Police SWAT team and officers from multiple agencies. The chief said Dale Edward Wallace, the man hit by a police car earlier F...
MISSOULA (AP) — Ryan Burke spent most of New Year's Eve on the couch feeling sore and fatigued. But the Montana Griz wide receiver wants to make one thing perfectly clear about his heroic and exceptionally thoughtful gesture on Monday: You don't have to be a college football player to help save a life by donating bone marrow. "I'd rather do that than take a shot from Brock or Jordan," joked the gregarious redshirt freshman from Billings, referring to Griz linebackers Brock Coyle and Jordan Tripp. "I just hope this is an infor...
HELENA (AP) — Senatorial candidate John Walsh misused his position as Montana's adjutant general by soliciting National Guard troops to become members of a private association for which he was seeking a leadership role, a 2010 investigation by the U.S. Army's inspector general concluded. The Aug. 25, 2010 report said Walsh, now the state's lieutenant governor, improperly used his government position for private gain, improperly endorsed a non-federal entity and improperly used government resources. He was not disciplined f...
CASSELTON, N.D. - Many residents evacuated a southeastern North Dakota town overnight after a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded, and officials warned that acrid smoke could blow into the area. No one was hurt in Monday's derailment of the mile-long train that sent a great fireball and plumes of black smoke skyward about a mile from the small town of Casselton. The fire had been so intense as darkness fell that investigators couldn't even get close enough to count...
