News you can use
News you can use
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HELENA (AP) — The hot molten rock beneath Yellowstone National Park is 2 ½ times larger than previously estimated, meaning the park's supervolcano has the potential to erupt with a force about 2,000 times the size of Mount St. Helens, according to a new study. By measuring seismic waves from earthquakes, scientists were able to map the magma chamber underneath the Yellowstone caldera as 55 miles long, lead author Jamie Farrell of the University of Utah said Monday. The chamber is 18 miles wide and runs at depths from 3 to 9...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Two judges will be sworn in to the federal bench, easing a shortage on the U.S. District Court of Montana but leaving vacancies in the state's busiest and highest courts that will take at least three months to fill. Montana Supreme Court Justice Brian Morris is scheduled to be sworn in on Wednesday and District Judge Susan Watters of Billings on Thursday to the federal court system. U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen is currently the only active full-time federal judge in the state. Morris, 50, and W...
BELGRADE (AP) — An outside audit found the Manhattan High School football coach failed to deposit into school activity accounts more than $22,000 his players brought in through fundraisers over the past two years. The Belgrade News reports (http://bit.ly/1997LLZ ) a Bozeman accounting firm found Dale McQueary withheld just over $10,000 from the extracurricular account in 2012 and just over $12,000 this year. School officials say he spent the money on equipment and meals for football players, bypassing school approval r...
HELENA (AP) — A bill by U.S. Sen. Jon Tester to expand wilderness and mandate more logging on Montana federal lands will receive its first vote Thursday, more than four years after it was introduced. The vote scheduled by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is a first step in the passage of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. If the committee approves it, the measure will go to the full Senate. Tester introduced the bill during his first term in 2009, touting it as a compromise between environmentalists and l...
HELENA (AP) — A state judge has dismissed a complaint against the state Board of Medical Examiners over a position paper about assisted suicide that a group says implies the practice is legal in Montana. District Judge Mike Menahan said in his order Friday that the board withdrew all of its position papers in September, including the one about assisted suicide, so the complaint by Montanans Against Assisted Suicide is moot. A 2009 state Supreme Court ruling found that nothing in state law explicitly prohibits physician-assist...
BILLINGS (AP) — The U.S. Senate confirmed two nominees for federal judgeships in Montana, including the first woman in the state to hold such a post. The Senate voted late Thursday to confirm Montana Supreme Court Justice Brian Morris as a U.S. District Court judge for Great Falls, while state District Court Judge Susan Watters was confirmed as a federal judge in Billings, The Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/1h6CFEl) reported. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester praised the integrity, leadership and judgment of Watters and M...
BILLINGS (AP) — Advocates for women urged the Montana Supreme Court on Friday to strike down a one-month prison sentence for a former high school teacher convicted of raping a freshman student. In a friend of the court brief, six advocacy groups told justices they should send the case to a new judge for re-sentencing. Judge G. Todd Baugh in Billings said in August that the 14-year-old victim appeared "older than her chronological age." He sentenced former Billings teacher Stacey Rambold to 15 years in prison with all but one...
HELENA (AP) — Montana's lone congressman is one of 94 representatives who voted against a bipartisan deal to ease federal spending cuts and prevent future government shutdowns. The White House-backed measure passed the U.S. House Thursday 332-94 and is expected to pass the Senate. Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Daines said in a statement that he opposes the deal because it does not provide a solution to the debt crisis. Daines says the budget plan relies on spending cuts years from now to offset immediate spending increases, a...
MISSOULA (AP) — Cody Johnson was head over heels for his new wife, but Jordan Graham was having serious doubts that came to a head when Johnson fell to his death during an argument on a steep cliff in Glacier National Park, prosecutors said Monday. The murder trial of Graham, 22, began in U.S. District Court in Missoula. Federal prosecutors say the woman from Kalispell, Mont., intentionally pushed Johnson the night of July 7, just eight days after their marriage, then lied to family, friends and the police for days by s...
KALISPELL (AP) — A twin-engine airplane carrying five passengers made a hard landing at Glacier Park International Airport near Kalispell, injuring two people on board. Airport director Cindi Martin says the Beech Baron arrived shortly after 9 a.m. Monday, made a hard landing and veered off the side of the runway. One of the passengers was seriously injured and another suffered minor injuries. Both were taken to Kalispell Regional Medical Center. Martin said officials from the Federal Aviation Administration were expected t...
HELENA (AP) — The bride was having second thoughts eight days after the wedding, sparking an argument between the newlywed couple that carried from their Kalispell home to a popular trail in Glacier National Park. Only Jordan Graham left the park alive the night of July 7. Now it will be up to a jury to decide what happened and whether the 22-year-old woman should be convicted of murder in the death of Cody Johnson. Graham's trial begins Monday in U.S. District Court in Missoula with jury selection and is expected to last o...
HELENA (AP) — A federal judge has approved a plan to fix years of problems with how the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation's drinking water has been treated and monitored. U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen on Monday approved the agreement between Department of Justice and tribal officials. It requires the tribal utility company to increase staffing levels, pay in advance the cost of operating the water-treatment plant and follow strict reporting requirements. The tribal government was fined $1,500 for what the E...
HELENA (AP) — The Montana Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the state Revenue Department in a dispute over how Bresnan Communications property is assessed for tax purposes. The decision increases the company's taxes from $1.7 million in 2009 to $7.3 million in 2010, a 329 percent increase. Bresnan is now owned by Charter Communications LLC. Spokeswoman Anita Lamont tells Lee Newspapers of Montana that the company is extremely disappointed in the high court's decision. "This determination to retroactively raise Bresnan's t...
BILLINGS — A Montana judge under fire for commenting that a 14-year-old student rape victim appeared "older than her chronological age" said Tuesday that he deserves to be censured but not removed from the bench for the remarks. District Judge G. Todd Baugh told The Associated Press the comments violated judicial ethics rules by failing to promote public confidence in the courts. But he repeated his prior assertions that his comments did not factor into the 30-day sentence he handed down in the case, and said he has no p...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court that meets in San Francisco and other Western cities will soon stream some of its hearings live over the Internet, the court announced on Monday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it plans to broadcast its en banc proceedings starting with five cases scheduled for oral arguments between December 9 and 11. It is believed to be the first time a federal appellate court will broadcast live video of a proceeding, said court spokesman David Madden. An en banc court is used to r...
HELENA . (AP) — U.S. Sen. Max Baucus is forging ahead with his aggressive plan to rewrite the nation's tax code in the next year, confident he can find common ground amid the intense partisanship stalling budget debates in Washington, D.C. Last week, the Democrat unveiled two big portions of his proposal dealing with offshore taxation of corporations and revised rules for some tax accounting. In the coming months, he expects to release proposals for taxes on individuals and exemptions. Baucus pushed the plan forward d...
HELENA (AP) — Advocates for Medicaid expansion gave state officials proposed language Thursday for a ballot initiative to put the question to voters. Backers of the plan have been promising the measure since the Legislature earlier this year rejected expansion. The Healthy Montana Initiative organizers hope to get approval from the attorney general and start collecting signatures by early next year. Backers expect they will need more than 30,000 signatures to comfortably qualify the measure for the 2014 ballot. Under the p...
HELENA — Environmental regulators have asked a judge to approve an agreement with Fort Belknap Indian Reservation officials to fix years of "chronic violations" in how the reservation's water supply is treated and monitored. The U.S. Department of Justice filed the motion to approve the proposed consent decree Thursday with the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine tribes and the tribal-owned Prairie Mountain Utilities, which operates the central Montana reservation's five water-supply systems. The agreement, which has been in the w...
HAMILTON (AP) — A meeting between Ravalli County and tribal leaders over a plan to place a sacred site in a federal trust took a contentious turn when a county official repeated a slur derogatory toward American Indians. Confederated Salish and Kootenai officials met with county commissioners Wednesday in Hamilton to explain the value of the sacred site known as the Medicine Tree, located in the southern part of the Bitterroot Valley, the Ravalli Republic (http://bit.ly/18WZkNN) reported. Ravalli County commissioners o...
HELENA (AP) — Advocates are proposing language for a ballot initiative to bring the question of Medicaid expansion straight to the voters. Backers of the plan have been promising the measure ever since the Legislature earlier this year rejected Medicaid expansion. The Healthy Montana Initiative organizers gave state election officials proposed language Thursday. They hope to get approval to start collecting signatures by early next year. Backers expect they will need more than 30,000 signatures to safely qualify for the 2...
HELENA (AP) — The two factions of a divided Blackfeet Tribal Business Council have struck a deal to pay employees and vendors, the tribal chairman said, in the two sides' first agreement more than a month into an impasse that has crippled tribal operations. Chairman Willie Sharp Jr. announced the deal Wednesday on Browning radio station KBWG-FM, and the tribe posted audio of the announcement on its Facebook page. Checks are to be issued this week going back two pay periods, Sharp said. "To say the least, it was a hardship, a...
NEW YORK (AP) — Two fossilized dinosaur skeletons, dubbed the "Montana Dueling Dinosaurs" because they appear forever locked in mortal combat, failed to sell Tuesday at a New York City auction. A pre-sale estimate had predicted that the skeletons, offered as a single lot, could fetch between $7 million and $9 million — a price out of the reach of most museums. There were hopes that a wealthy buyer would donate the skeletons to a public institution but the price failed to meet the reserve at the Bonhams auction; the hig...
CODY, Wyo. (AP) — A Montana nature photographer was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to kidnapping and sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl in Wyoming who was later found wandering in the mountains outside Cody. Jesse Paul Speer, 40, of Manhattan, Mont., tricked the young victim into accompanying him in October 2012 by saying he needed help finding a lost puppy, according to court documents. When the girl had second thoughts, Speer pulled a gun, made her get into his vehicle and then drove her i...
MISSOULA (AP) — A federal judge on Friday rejected a Montana woman's request to dismiss her murder indictment for pushing her new husband off a cliff during an argument in Glacier National Park. Jordan Graham testified earlier in the hearing that she instinctively pushed Cody Johnson away when he grabbed her arm, causing the July 7 fall. She also alleged that an FBI agent improperly interviewed her and made her uncomfortable by touching her knee. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy rejected Graham's motion to dismiss the i...
HELENA — Montana's insurance commissioner criticized the president's move Thursday to allow insurance plans that had been slated to be canceled with the nation's health overhaul. Monica Lindeen said on a conference call that it "throws everything on its head" after three years of preparing for the new federal law. President Barack Obama reversed course Thursday and said individuals should be allowed to renew plans now ticketed for cancellation. Foes used the cancellations to pounce on campaign trail promises that Americans c...
