News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 749 - 773 of 2820
HELENA (AP) — Another candidate Democrats were hoping to recruit for Montana's open Senate seat said Tuesday she won't be running for the office. Stephanie Schriock, who helped run U.S. Sen. Jon Tester's 2006 campaign and is currently president of the Washington, D.C.-based group Emily's List, said she considered the idea, but ultimately rejected it. Some Democrats had been touting her as a skilled fundraiser capable of taking on a big race and hoped she would step into fill a void. "Montana raised me, and it will always b... Full story
HELENA (AP) — A judge says a secretive group known for bucking campaign finance laws has to pay the state's attorney fees in one ongoing case. District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock said in an order issued last week that American Tradition Partnership must pay roughly $10,000. Sherlock says he suspects the attorney general's office could have asked for much more given the amount of time spent on the case. Sherlock ruled last year in that case that ATP acted as a political committee in the elections, and not as the educational o... Full story
HELENA (AP) — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has turned over its analysis on the effects of hazing bison back into Yellowstone National Parks on threatened grizzly bears after a conservation group sued for the information. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy dismissed the Alliance for the Wild Rockies' lawsuit on Monday and awarded the alliance $3,531 in attorney fees and costs. Attorney Rebecca Smith of the Public Interest Defense Center filed a complaint on behalf of the conservation group in May asking Molloy to rule t... Full story
HELENA (AP) — Betty Babcock, a backer of the 1972 push to modernize Montana's constitution and the wife of former Montana Gov. Tim Babcock, died in Helena on Sunday. She was 91. Babcock also served as a Republican in the Montana House. Montana Republican Party Chairman Will Deschamps confirmed her death in an email. Babcock was one of 19 female delegates to the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention where the document was written to replace the 1889 version. Concerns over the older Montana Constitution, including allowances f... Full story
HELENA — A federal investigation is underway into allegations of mismanagement and misspending by the managers of a now-defunct Blackfeet tribal program for troubled youth that received $9.6 million in federal grants over six years. The investigation was prompted by a Blackfeet Tribal Business Council resolution asking federal authorities to look into allegations of the misuse of federal grant money, credit cards, property procured for the program and the direct or in-kind contributions the tribe was supposed to make to t... Full story
BILLINGS (AP) — A former child psychiatrist sent to prison on a federal child pornography conviction wants his medical license back. The Billings Gazette (http://tinyurl.com/lnohyoq) reports Dr. James Peak petitioned the Montana Board of Medical Examiners for reinstatement of his medical license. A decision may come by September. The 51-year-old Peak served nearly 10 months in a federal prison in Washington state after pleading guilty in August 2011 to possessing child pornography. He had been a child and adolescent p... Full story
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Steve Bullock says he still believes it is important that Montana accept federal money to expand Medicaid for the working poor. The Democratic governor said Friday that "everything is on the table" as advocates consider ways to expand Medicaid. Possibilities include a 2014 ballot initiative or a special session of the Legislature. State lawmakers in April rejected plans to use federal money to expand Medicaid to those less than 138 percent of the poverty level. Opponents worried the state could e... Full story
HELENA (AP) — Strong thunderstorms that moved across Montana left a trail of damage to crops and buildings along with downed trees and power outages. The worst damage from Thursday's storm may have occurred in Gallatin County, where winds gusting up to 89 mph devastated wheat and barley crops that likely would have been harvested next week, Montana Grain Growers Vice President Matt Flikkema said. "I've never seen crop damage to the extent we have here in the valley," Flikkema said Friday. "There are very little crops that w...
MISSOULA (AP) — The police chief is turning over the handling of daily operations to his assistant chief so he can focus on Missoula's response to a federal investigation over how his department handled reports of rape and sexual violence. The U.S. Department of Justice DOJ investigation, released in May, found some investigative practices by Missoula police made it more difficult to uncover the truth and discouraged women from cooperating. A city agreement with federal agency requires the Police Department to better i... Full story
ANACONDA — A Washington state man pleaded not guilty Wednesday to beating and stabbing to death his 3-year-old son in a southwestern Montana field this month after taking him from their Lacey, Wash., home. Jeremy Brent Cramer, 38, was arraigned in District Court in Anaconda, about five miles from where Broderick Cramer's body was found July 9 next to a knife and two rocks covered with blood and hair. The 38-year-old Cramer, wearing a black-and-white striped jumpsuit and o... Full story
HELENA (AP) — A U.S. Senate subcommittee is again taking up bills from U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester that deal with federal land protections in Montana. Tester told the Public Lands, Forests, and Mining Subcommittee Tuesday that it is time to pass his bill that aims to both mandate more logging and expand wilderness area. The measure was first introduced in 2009 and is billed as a compromise between timber mills and environmentalists. It stalled last year amid partisan differences accentuated by his heated r... Full story
BILLINGS — A Richland County prosecutor is asking a judge to accept a confession from an illiterate man charged in the killing of a high school teacher. Defense attorneys have sought to suppress Michael Keith Spell's alleged confession to the 2012 murder of 43-year-old Sherry Arnold of Sidney. Deputy Richland County Attorney T.R. Halvorson said in court papers filed Friday that there was no evidence of police misconduct during interviews with Spell after his arrest. Halvorson says officers made sure Spell understood he did n... Full story
Gov. Steve Bullock made a surprise visit to Afghanistan Wednesday to meet with Montana troops in his first trip overseas since taking office in January. The Democratic governor was in Kabul as part of a delegation that included Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. The two-day trip to Afghanistan includes meeting members of the Montana National Guard's 495th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion operating in the country's southwestern sector. Tuesday, Bullock was in Kuwait to visit... Full story
BANNACK (AP) — Flash-flood damage at Bannack State Park will keep the southwestern Montana ghost town closed to tourists for at least a month, state officials said. Lt. Gov. John Walsh and State Parks Administrator Chas Van Genderen toured the site Monday to survey damage caused by the July 17 flooding. About 80 percent of the town's buildings were damaged by hail, mud and water. The Assay Office was destroyed, boardwalks were torn out, and last weekend's annual Bannack D... Full story
MISSOULA (AP) — The lightning-strike victims lay inert on a Glacier National Park trail late last Wednesday afternoon. "I was a little freaked out," Steven Keith recounted Monday of the scene on St. Mary Falls Trail. "I've never seen a dead body myself, other than in a casket." But while a woman he knows only as Beth began administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation to Travis Heitman of Kalispell, Keith mustered up recollections of his last CPR brush-up a couple of years ago and went to work on Kensey Leishman, a Missoula n... Full story
GREAT FALLS (AP) — The Cascade County health department and the owners of several casinos in Great Falls are in a battle over a workaround the casino owners believe allows their customers to gamble while smoking. Brothers Doug and K.C. Palagi and their attorney and business partner Gregory Smith filed a lawsuit against the Cascade City-County Board of Health after they were threatened with a misdemeanor citation alleging their smoking shelters violated Montana's Clean Indoor Air Act, the Great Falls Tribune reported Sunday. T... Full story
HELENA (AP) — Montana's pension funds have returned to their pre-recession market value. The state Board of Investments learned Thursday that the state's nine pension funds posted a net gain of just over 13 percent for the fiscal year ending June 30, and now have a total value of $8.54 billion. The funds were valued at $8.5 billion in October 2007, before losing a quarter of their value in the 2008 financial meltdown. Board of Investments Executive Director David Ewer tells Lee Newspapers of Montana that the funds b... Full story
HELENA (AP) — The Democratic Party can still win the Senate seat being vacated by Max Baucus, but it's going to take a lot more work now that former Gov. Brian Schweitzer isn't running, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester said Friday. Schweitzer was the Democrats' best chance of winning the 2014 election, but there are good potential candidates in the state Legislature, administration and the private sector who can the 2014 election if they're willing to do the work, Tester said. Losing Baucus' seat to a Republican candidate would make i... Full story
HELENA — A foundation run by a New York private equity firm pledged $2 million Friday to help pair young entrepreneurs at the University of Montana and Montana State University with businesses that can help get their ideas off the ground. Blackstone Group president Tony James announced Montana as the fifth state with a Blackstone LaunchPad program, a $50 million initiative that aims to encourage entrepreneurship across the nation. "I think entrepreneurship is absolutely the core of the American character," James told a p... Full story
BOZEMAN — The state Board of Regents has voted to broaden the university system's anti-discrimination policy to require campuses to ensure there's no discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Board members voted 4-0 in a conference call Monday to add the new wording. The policy previously prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, creed, political ideas, sex, age, marital status, physical or mental disability, national origin or ancestry. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports seven of the s... Full story
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 (... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
GREAT FALLS (AP) — State Sen. Shannon Augare has pleaded not guilty to DUI, reckless driving and obstructing an officer. The Browning Democrat and Blackfeet tribal leader appeared Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Great Falls. He is accused of fleeing a Glacier County sheriff's deputy who pulled him over for erratic driving May 26 on the Blackfeet reservation. Prosecutors say Augare told the deputy he had no jurisdiction to arrest him and then sped away when the deputy attempted to take his keys. The sheriff's office t... Full story
HELENA — Another top potential Democratic candidate is rejecting a run for Montana's open U.S. Senate seat. Insurance commissioner Monica Lindeen said in a release Tuesday that she doesn't want to leave Montana and will stay in her current job. Democrats are scrambling to find a candidate after former Gov. Brian Schweitzer announced Saturday that he would run and had no interest in serving in the Senate. Lindeen has twice won statewide elected office and was considered a top option for Democrats. Superintendent of Public I...
