News you can use
News you can use
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WEST GLACIER, Mont. (AP) — Supporters of Glacier National Park and fans of its iconic red tour buses are upset that the park's new concessions contract calls for replacing half of the buses with alternative fuel vehicles by 2029. "I believe it would be an absolute tragedy to eliminate any of the red buses from the fleet," said Bruce Austin, who served on the Red Bus Team that worked to refurbish the fleet from 1999 to 2002. "They should all be kept and refurbished. The public's interest in these vehicles is huge." The t...
BILLINGS (AP) — State prosecutors have filed a negligent homicide charge against a 17-year-old Malta-area boy for the October 2010 shooting death of a 16-year-old hunting companion during a deer hunt northeast of Malta. The charge was filed in Phillips County Youth Court on Jan. 15 by Assistant Attorney General Brant Light, nearly a year after the death of Logan Wilson was ruled an accident. The charging documents allege the teen, who was 14 at the time of Wilson's death, acknowledged that he was looking through the rifle sco...
HELENA (AP) — The Montana House is endorsing a plan to start testing drivers to determine possible marijuana impairment. The chamber backed the bill Tuesday in a 68-31 vote before sending it to the appropriations committee to analyze a price tag of about $100,000 per year. Supporters say it will crack down on driving under the influence of marijuana. The bill establishes a legal standard of allowable amount of THC — an ingredient of marijuana — that can be in a person's blood. Republican sponsor Rep. Doc Moore of Misso...
HELENA (AP) — The Republican chairman of a special committee charged with fixing the beleaguered state pension systems said Tuesday that elements of his proposal to end the plan for new employees will be part of final negotiations on the complicated issue. Gov. Steve Bullock's office opposed the plan in favor of the Democrat's proposal to fix the current system — setting up protracted negotiations over a tough political issue that has seen lots of talk and little action in recent years. AP Photo/Matt Gouras Republican sta...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Steve Bullock has signed into law a measure that will allow judges to look back 10 years to add penalties for multiple drunken-driving offenders. Attorney General Tim Fox says his bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Christy Clark of Choteau will create a greater deterrent for drunken drivers and put more offenders into treatment programs. The attorney general's office says the previous law allowed a DUI conviction to be counted as a person's first offense if more than five years had passed since the last o...
HELENA (AP) — Columbia Falls police officers were justified in using a stun gun on a 77-year-old Alzheimer's patient who had wandered away from the Montana Veterans' Home and died a few weeks after the confrontation, an attorney for the city said in a court filing Tuesday. The filing by attorney William L. Crowley is in response to a wrongful death lawsuit by the family of Stanley Downen, who died three weeks after he fell and struck his head on the pavement in the encounter with two police officers on June 1, 2012. D...
BOZEMAN (AP) — Montana wildlife officials said Tuesday they have ruled out a disease transmitted by sheep as the cause of death of a bison found in the Yellowstone River. Fish, Wildlife and Parks veterinarians reached the conclusion while investigating whether the introduction of sheep on land north of Yellowstone National Park had resulted in the spread of catarrhal fever to three dead bison. Sheep can carry the fever without showing any symptoms, but it can be fatal if transmitted to bison. The Gallatin Wildlife A...
HELENA (AP) — The Montana Department of Transportation has more than $400 million to spend on highway and bridge repair projects this year — work that could create more than 12,000 jobs. The 2013 Legislature gave the department the authority to spend $438 million in federal and state money this year, agency director Mike Tooley said. About 85 percent of that, or $372 million, will be spent this spring, summer and fall, Lee Newspapers of Montana reported. "Business is booming in Montana," Tooley said. "The Legislature treated...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Steve Bullock has vetoed nine more bills and issued a line-item veto for a tenth from the recently ended legislative session. Bullock announced the vetoes Friday. One would have required Fish, Wildlife and Parks to dedicate up to 20 percent of the price of a land purchase to maintenance for that particular piece of land. Bullock says that denies the agency the flexibility to use that money for its biggest needs. Another would have required additional public scoping before FWP could make large land p...
HELENA (AP) — The Montana legislative session may be over, but Medicaid expansion advocates say the fight to get health insurance to the working poor will continue. Advocates and Gov. Steve Bullock are considering their options after the Legislature killed the governor's bill to expand Medicaid to up to 70,000 Montanans who cannot afford to purchase health insurance. Bullock hinted at calling the Legislature back into special session, but said Friday he'd first let the dust settle before deciding on a course of action. Montan...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Navajo Code Talkers are legendary. Then there was Cpl. Ira Hamilton Hayes, the Pima Indian who became a symbol of courage and patriotism when he and his fellow Marines raised the flag over Iwo Jima in 1945. Before World War II and in the decades since, tens of thousands of American Indians have enlisted in the Armed Forces to serve their country at a rate much greater than any other ethnicity. Yet, among all the monuments and statutes along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., not one stands i...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Steve Bullock's Inaugural Ball Committee raised a total of $315,000 for two events in February. The committee raised $275,275 from donations and $40,124 in ticket sales to the Feb. 9 inaugural ball. Lee Newspapers of Montana reports nearly 3,000 people attended. Admission was free for the separate Children's Ball, but parents were asked to donate a nonperishable food item at the door. The effort collected more than 900 pounds of food for the Montana Food Network. According to a recently released report, P...
HELENA — May is finishing with a flurry of rain — and even snow in places — that is giving drought watchers hope as the summer season looms. A dry start to the year turned less grim with rainfall in much of the state, but experts said it is still too early to tell the effects on the summer fire season, agriculture and recreation. The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation drought map before much of the recent rain showed dry conditions lingering in southern Montana. Parts of southwestern Montana are harde...
MISSOULA (AP) — A 72-year-old woman from northwestern Montana has died in a head-on collision on U.S. Highway 93. The Montana Highway Patrol tells the Missoulian (http://bit.ly/Z6Xvwq) that the woman from Arlee died Friday afternoon in the crash near the Schall Flats area. Trooper Terrance Rosenbaum says the woman was driving a Cadillac southbound when she drifted left into the turn lane before veering right and into oncoming traffic where she collided with a commercial truck. Rosenbaum says she might have had a medical c...
HELENA (AP) — State wildlife officials are setting up boat inspection checkpoints to try to prevent aquatic invasive species from entering Montana's waterways. Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials say state law requires vehicles hauling boats to stop at watercraft inspection stations, which are located at key border crossing sites, along major highways and near heavily used bodies of water. FWP aquatic invasive species coordinator Allison Begley says two boats were found to be carrying dead zebra mussels at a checkpoint near H...
POLSON (AP) — The board that sets employment and training standards for law enforcement officers is requiring the Polson police chief and one of his officers to attend ethics training. The Montana Public Safety Officer Standards and Training Council set the conditions that allow Police Chief Wade Nash and officer Cory Anderson to keep their certifications, the Missoulian (http://bit.ly/WKPQQc ) reported Wednesday. The council investigated Nash over allegations he intimidated a witness in a 2010 Fish, Wildlife and Parks i...
HELENA — Montana Republican leaders pitched their plans Wednesday to cut business equipment taxes and argued that the state's clean energy tax break should be expanded to include fossil fuels. AP Photo/Matt Gouras Senate Taxation Committee chairman Bruce Tutvedt on Wednesday talks about GOP plans to cut the business equipment tax, in Helena. Republican leaders are pitching their plans to cut business equipment taxes and to include fossil fuels in the clean energy tax break. The business equipment tax cut proposal will c...
House endorses plan to criminalize killing fetus Reps. Wendy Warburton, R-Chinook, and Kris Hansen, R-Havre, voted for the legislation. Rep. Clarena Brockie, D-Harlem, voted no. HELENA (AP) — The House is backing a proposal sought by abortion foes to criminalize the killing of a fetus. The measure is steeped in abortion politics even though it exempts legal procedures, like abortion, and miscarriage from prosecution. The House endorsed the bill Wednesday in a 60-40 initial vote. The measure adds "unborn child" to homicide o...
HELENA (AP) — The family of a 77-year-old Korean War veteran with Alzheimer's disease who the family says died from injuries sustained when shocked by a police stun gun after wondering away from the Montana Veterans Home has filed a lawsuit. The Independent Record reports (http://bit.ly/158fzcZ) the lawsuit filed April 5 in Helena District Court names the veterans home, Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, and the Columbia Falls Police Department. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, including punitive d...
HELENA — The Montana Legislature's failure to ratify a water-rights compact has left the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes no choice but to take legal action, a tribal spokesman said. The Legislature's inaction on bills that would have given the state's approval on the compact in the works since 1979 "sends a chilling message" to the tribes, said communications director Rob McDonald. "I am personally concerned with the future of community," McDonald said. "It's bad for business. It's bad for the sense of community." A...
HELENA — As Montanans scrambled to meet this week's tax deadline, their elected officials buckled down with goals of simplifying the state tax code and sending money back to taxpayers. A number of proposals remain alive, but with less than two weeks left this session, there's no telling which bills will reach the governor's desk. Community News Service/Amy R. Sisk Sen. Bruce Tutvedt, R-Kalispell, addresses the House Taxation Committee. He is proposing legislation to change Montana's income, property and business equipment t...
BILLINGS— Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer told a gathering of union leaders Friday that he has not decided on a possible run for U.S. Senate in 2014, but indicated he would need their support if he does. The two-term governor is considering a bid to replace fellow Democrat U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, who is stepping down after six terms. AP Photo/Matthew Brown Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, left, speaks with union representatives at the Montana AFL-CIO annual convention in Billings on Friday. Schweitzer, who was e...
BILLINGS (AP) — A Billings woman has denied drunken driving for an arrest that happened shortly after police escorted her home when they found her riding a horse while intoxicated. The Billings Gazette reports 43-year-old Dawnalee Ellis-Peterson was arraigned on the felony DUI charge Friday before District Judge Mary Jane Knisley. She also pleaded not guilty to driving without a license or insurance. Prosecutors say Ellis-Peterson was "extremely intoxicated" on the morning of April 29 as she rode a horse on a Billings s...
HELENA (AP) — Wildlife officials have given tentative approval to a proposal to lengthen the hunting season for wolves and increase the limit from one to five animals. After making the decision on Thursday, Fish, Wildlife and Parks commissioners will take public comment before finalizing the changes. FWP is proposing a rifle season from Sept 15 to March 31, compared to the current season that runs from Oct. 15 to Feb. 15. Last season, hunters and trappers could take only one wolf, but a new law allowed the agency to i...
HELENA (AP) — Gov. Steve Bullock's proposed $500 million spending increase in his state budget plan could be a key issue for Republican legislative leaders. AP Photo Gov,. Steve Bullock at his innaugural ceremonies Monday. The Legislature's budget committees heard a presentation Wednesday on the budget. Bullock's plan modifies the original proposal from former Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Republican Sen. Dave Lewis of Helena says he thinks the requested spending increases over the two-year budget period are the largest in recent d...
