News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 771 - 795 of 2820
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Steve Bullock said Tuesday that he would like to work on improving schools in a number of ways. The governor discussed a laundry list of broad ideas at a meeting of the Board of Education, which includes leaders of both the college and K-12 systems. Bullock says his administration helped increase education funding, backed a college tuition freeze, and made other improvements during his first legislative session. He plans other ways to improve schools. "From my perspective, public education is one of the g...
KALISPELL (AP) — Blackfeet authorities have arrested a tribal member who has been critical of the tribe's governing council, accusing him of violating a law that protects council members from threats, slanderous material or misleading information. Relatives of Bryon Scott Farmer say the Great Falls man was arrested Friday while attending a family gathering in Browning for doing nothing more than expressing himself. "I felt violated by what the police did," Farmer's aunt, Carol Grant, told the Flathead Beacon (...
HELENA (AP) — A civil-rights organization filed a new lawsuit against the state Monday on behalf of seven gay couples in an attempt to win for them the same benefits that married couples receive in Montana. The American Civil Liberties Union of Montana filed its amended complaint after the state Supreme Court rejected its first lawsuit in December for being too broad and not identifying specific laws that are discriminatory. In the amended lawsuit, attorney James Goetz identifies numerous statutes, including laws he says p...
GREAT FALLS (AP) — Six members of a northern Montana Hutterite colony have pleaded not guilty to possessing two illegally killed grizzly bears. Pondera colony minister Leonard Kleinsasser and five other members entered their pleas Tuesday during an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Great Falls. Federal prosecutors charged the colony members in June after investigators found the bears buried on the Hutterites' land. Kleinsasser told a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent that colony members were chasing the p...
HELENA (AP) — Brian Schweitzer's surprise announcement that he won't run for the U.S. Senate dealt a big setback to Democratic plans to retain Max Baucus' seat. However, party officials said Monday they still believe they are in a strong position to hold the seat even without the former governor. Attention shifted to Insurance Commissioner Monica Lindeen and Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau and others. Lindeen said Monday that she would like to make a decision before Labor Day. Other names being c...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana prison officials revised lethal-injection procedures after a judge ruled the previous methods were unconstitutional, but a civil rights organization and attorneys for a death row inmate say the changes still put condemned prisoners at risk of unnecessary suffering. The ACLU, which filed its lawsuit in 2008 on behalf of inmate Ronald Allen Smith, said Monday the changes still fall short of protecting the rights of people sentenced to death. "This new policy, written by Department of Corrections' s...
GREAT FALLS (AP) — Federal wildlife officials say a bear mauled a woman who was hiking north of Duck Lake on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen says that the woman told Blackfeet tribal wildlife authorities that the bear was a grizzly, but that hasn't been confirmed. Servheen says tribal officials told him the woman was hiking with dogs late last week when they came upon a horse carcass that the bear was likely defending. The Great Falls Tribune r...
EKALAKA (AP) — One of the 19 firefighters killed by a wildfire in Arizona has been buried in a cemetery in the tiny eastern Montana town where he spent most of his childhood. The Billings Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/1aEZ4ZI) that more than 1,800 mourners attended the funeral Saturday of 24-year-old Dustin DeFord. He was one of the members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots killed when a windblown wildfire overcame them in Yarnell, about 60 miles north of Phoenix, on June 30. DeFord was remembered for his desire to join an e...
HELENA (AP) — The ousted president of Montana's Northern Cheyenne tribe says he will show up at a tribal council hearing Monday to challenge its decision to remove him from office while he was in a Billings hospital having surgery. John Robinson was released from the Billings Clinic on Thursday after an emergency appendectomy, only to find that he had been voted out over his move to fire the head of a center for neglected and abused children who had been accused of child abuse. Robinson was taken to the hospital by ambulance...
BILLINGS (AP) — A 28-year-old Billings man faces two DUI charges for two incidents that damaged two vehicles in less than three hours. The Montana Highway Patrol says Christopher Iron was booked into the Yellowstone County jail Wednesday morning on two counts of DUI and felony theft. Investigators believe Iron was intoxicated when the car he was driving crashed into a light pole in front of Lockwood School shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday. The driver left before officers arrived. Officers believe Iron was still intoxicated at a...
HELENA — A state senator and Blackfeet tribal leader accused of drunken driving and obstructing a peace officer is being excused from committee work. Democratic Sen. Shannon Augare of Browning is scheduled to appear in court next week on the on three misdemeanor charges. He allegedly fled a traffic stop on U.S. Highway 2 within the Blackfeet reservation's boundaries after telling a sheriff's deputy he had no jurisdiction. Augare was not at a Thursday meeting of the Law and Justice Interim Committee, his second missed m...
HELENA (AP) — A survey of Montana students released Tuesday suggests that distracted driving risks and bullying problems persist, while some other common teen perils are on the decline. The Montana Office of Public Instruction said that the 2013 survey found some positive results in traditional risk areas. The number of students who reported smoking, drinking or using drugs continues to decline. For instance, the number of students who reported recently trying alcohol was at 37 percent this year, down from 58 percent in 1...
HELENA (AP) — U.S. Sen. Max Baucus is asking President Barack Obama to consider Montana as the administration develops its policy to deal with climate change. The president has said rules are needed to curb greenhouse gases. Baucus sent a letter to Obama on Tuesday asking him to reach out to individual states and avoid a one-size-fits-all solution. He outlined 15 priorities for Montana. The senator says the president should approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline that runs through Montana, upgrade electric transmission lines t...
HELENA (AP) — Police charged a Washington state man in the slaying of his 3-year-old son Tuesday, a day after he was arrested while washing blood off his clothes in a southwestern Montana convenience store restroom, authorities said. Jeremy Brent Cramer, 38, of Lacey, has been charged with deliberate homicide, Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Attorney Ben Krakowka said. He made an initial court appearance Tuesday, where he asked to be represented by a public defender. His bond was set at $250,000. The boy's mother told police on Mo...
DICKINSON, N.D. (AP) — Next to wedding gowns waiting for alterations, seamstress Virginia Wock has 10 bags of oilfield clothing in need of repairs. The owner of alterations business The Perfect Fit in Dickinson is in demand to alter and repair fire-resistant clothing for workers who come to North Dakota from all over the country. "I'm close to 40 states just off the top of my head," Wock, 66, told The Forum newspaper.The fire-resistant coveralls that are required for oilfield...
BILLINGS — A proposal to relax gray wolf hunting and trapping rules in Montana got a cool reception from Yellowstone National Park administrators who said Monday the move appears to be aimed at substantially reducing the park's population of the animals. Wolves regularly cross from the hunting-free safe haven of Yellowstone into Montana, where wildlife officials want to drive down pack numbers in response to complaints about the predators from ranchers and big game hunters. Montana wildlife commissioners are scheduled on W...
BUTTE (AP) — Officials with NorthWestern Energy say they aren't abandoning the use of coal-fired power even as the Obama administration seeks to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. NorthWestern CEO Bob Rowe tells Lee Newspapers of Montana that the company does plan to bring on more renewable power and continue programs that encourage energy conservation, but he says coal still generates about half of the power the company sells its 340,000 Montana electricity customers. About 15 percent of the c...
KALISPELL (AP) — A Bigfork pastor recuperating from a torn Achilles tendon was in the right place at the right time last Monday to resuscitate and save the life of a Boston terrier named Dozer. Randy Passons, the associate pastor at Crossroads Christian Fellowship, was lounging on the dock at Yenne Point on Flathead Lake near Woods Bay while his 7-year-old daughter, Avery, and other neighborhood children swam during the heat of a near 100-degree day. Passons, still using a w...
BOZEMAN (AP) — Montana State University says one of its professors will ring the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. The school says Myles Watts, a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, will ring the bell with Tim Buzby, president and CEO of Farmer Mac. The bell ringing is in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, also known as Farmer Mac....
KALISPELL (AP) — The Montana Supreme Court has denied the appeal of a northwestern Montana couple's conviction of aggravated cruelty to animals after 116 cats were found living in filthy, snowbound trailers. The Daily Inter Lake reports (http://bit.ly/11pSxhu) the court announced the decision July 2 involving Edwin and Cheryl Criswell. The cats were found in December 2010 and a jury the following year found the couple guilty. In October 2011 Cheryl Criswell received a two-year sentence deferred over six years. Edwin C...
HELENA (AP) — A Helena police official says authorities are trying to track down the anonymous sender of a package that caused the evacuation of the state Capitol. State workers were told to go home for the day Wednesday while officials checked the package sent to Gov. Steve Bullock's office for hazardous materials. Helena Fire Department officials say the tests came up negative. But Helena Police Capt. Curt Stinson said Friday a culture test is being conducted to ensure the package did not contain substance that could d...
HELENA (AP) — A Helena police official says authorities are trying to track down the anonymous sender of a package that caused the evacuation of the state Capitol. State workers were told to go home for the day Wednesday while officials checked the package sent to Gov. Steve Bullock's office for hazardous materials. Helena Fire Department officials say the tests came up negative. But Helena Police Capt. Curt Stinson said Friday a culture test is being conducted to ensure the package did not contain substance that could d...
HELENA — Appointees of former Gov. Brian Schweitzer shared the governor's campaign address and received contributions from an organization that Schweitzer was involved in, even as the governor was bashing other such nonprofits for hiding from state disclosure laws. The same post office box address is listed on Schweitzer's website as he considers a run for the U.S. Senate in 2014. If he gets in the race, Schweitzer would be considered the Democrats' best chance of keeping the seat being vacated by the retiring Sen. Max B...
HELENA (AP) — An appeals court panel overseeing the misconduct investigation into former U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull says it has issued a new order in the Montana jurist's case. But the Judicial Council of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will wait 63 days after its June 28 filing to release the order, allowing time for a petition for review to be submitted. The 9th Circuit announced the council's order on its website Tuesday in a brief statement by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski. Cebull retired May 3, after the j...
As soon as he turned 18, Dustin DeFord volunteered for the Carter County Rural Fire Department in Ekalaka, embarking on a career that ended Sunday in an Arizona inferno. DeFord, 24, was a member of a Hotshot fire crew killed battling the Yarnell fire about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix. Eighteen other firefighters died at his side in one of the deadliest wildfires in U.S. history. "He was one of the good ones who ever walked on this earth," Carter County Sheriff Neil Kittelman...
