News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 72
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...
BILLINGS (AP) — Attorneys for a Colorado man charged with killing an eastern Montana teacher filed court papers Friday saying his mental disabilities render him unfit to stand trial in a case that could carry the death penalty. Defense attorneys asked state district Judge Richard Simonton to commit 24-year-old Michael Keith Spell to the Montana State Hospital or another state facility for up to 60 days to undergo a mental examination. The Parachute, Colo., man faces a felony murder charge in the January 2012 death of S...
BILLINGS (AP) — Montana's Department of Corrections will offer boot camp for female prisoners and cancel a mandatory treatment program that was criticized as degrading under a settlement announced Tuesday in a discrimination lawsuit. The state also agreed to pay $50,000 in legal costs and a combined $12,000 to the seven current and former prisoners named in the case, according to settlement documents provided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana. The lawsuit began with a complaint filed in federal court last y...
BILLINGS (AP) - Gov. Steve Bullock on Friday declared an energy emergency that lifts work time restrictions on truck drivers in eastern Montana, where disrupted fuel supplies have caused hours-long waits at pipeline terminals ahead of a winter storm forecast for this weekend. The executive order comes after a recent mudslide shut down a CHS Inc. refined fuels pipeline serving eastern Montana and western North Dakota. The closure of that line for repairs put a further strain...
BILLINGS (AP) — A second case of the livestock disease brucellosis in just over a week has turned up in a Montana cattle herd, coinciding with new restrictions on animals exported to Texas because of worries that infections could spread beyond the region. Friday test results from a federal animal health laboratory confirmed the latest infection in a bull that came from a herd of about 550 cattle in southern Montana's Park County, state veterinarian Marty Zaluski said. Another case was confirmed in a Madison County cow S...
BILLINGS (AP) — Montana's Supreme Court has ordered a judge to cancel a Friday resentencing hearing for a former teacher who got 30 days in prison for raping a 14-year-old student. Justices say Judge G. Todd Baugh does not have authority to reconsider the sentence he gave to former Billings teacher Stacey Rambold. Baugh was widely criticized for the Aug. 26 sentencing and for saying the victim was "older than her chronological age." He has since sought to backtrack, apologizing for his comments and attempting to r...
BILLINGS — A Montana judge appeared intent on trying to undo his lenient sentence for a teacher who raped a student, even as prosecutors pressed the state Supreme Court on Friday to stop him until their appeal is resolved. A resentencing hearing was planned later in the day for Stacey Rambold, 54, who pleaded guilty to one count of rape in April. An emergency petition from the state attorney general's office to block the resentencing was pending before the state Supreme Court after being filed at close of business T...
BILLINGS (AP) — State prosecutors on Wednesday appealed as "illegal" a 30-day sentence handed down by a Montana judge to a former teacher for raping a student who later killed herself. The announcement came after District Judge G. Todd Baugh received widespread condemnation for the sentence and his comments that the victim was "older than her chronological age." Defendant Stacey Rambold, 54, last week received 15 years in prison with all but a month suspended for his months-long sexual relationship with Billings Senior H...
BILLINGS (AP) — A Montana judge under fire for his comments about a 14-year-old victim in a schoolhouse rape case has ordered a new sentencing hearing for the former teacher who received just 30 days in prison for the crime. In setting the hearing for Friday afternoon, District Judge G. Todd Baugh said Tuesday that state law appears to require that a two-year mandatory minimum prison term be imposed against Stacey Rambold, 54, of Billings. Rambold last week was sentenced to 15 years with all but 31 days suspended and a one-da...
BILLINGS (AP) — The mother of a 14-year-old rape victim said a Montana judge was "covering his butt" after he apologized for saying her daughter was "older than her chronological age," as prosecutors said Thursday that the judge may have erred in giving the rapist only 30 days in prison. The comments from District Judge G. Todd Baugh in a case involving a teacher raping a student have drawn widespread condemnation from across the country. The 71-year-old judge attempted to q...
BILLINGS (AP) — Montana prosecutors have asked a judge to keep the trial in the murder of a high school teacher in her hometown of Sidney, after defense attorneys sought to have the case moved because of fears of bias among potential jurors. In comments posted with newspaper articles about the 2012 murder of math teacher Sherry Arnold, some readers called for "Old West Justice" in the case and for the suspects to "hang from the nearest tree." But in court documents released Thursday, prosecutors argued to Judge Richard S...
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...
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...
BILLINGS (AP) — The Yellowstone County sheriff says a deputy shot and killed a man who escaped from Montana State Prison. Sheriff Mike Linder says an autopsy will be conducted to confirm that Dean Randolph Jess was the man killed. Linder says the man was stopped in a stolen Jeep Friday at an intersection near the Billings Walmart. Shots were fired when Jess refused to leave the vehicle and moved a handgun toward a deputy. Jess was working for the Deer Lodge prison's motor vehicle maintenance on a service call Monday when h...
COLSTRIP (AP) — After several years of taking a beating from the poor economy, new pollution rules and a flood of cheap natural gas, the coal industry was on the rebound this year as mining projects moved forward in the Western U.S. and demand for the fuel began to rise, especially in Asia. But almost overnight, coal is back on the defensive, scrambling to stave off a dark future amid President Barack Obama's renewed push to rein in climate change. The proposal, with its emphasis on cuts in carbon dioxide emissions from n...
BILLINGS (AP) — Defense attorneys for one of two men charged in the killing of a Montana high school teacher said Tuesday that they've asked a state judge to rule their client ineligible for the death penalty because he is mentally disabled and to relocate his trial. Twenty-four-year-old Michael Keith Spell faces charges including deliberate homicide in the January 2012 kidnapping and murder of Sherry Arnold, a popular teacher in the small Bakken oil patch town of Sidney. Spell and Lester Van Waters Jr., both of Colorado, hav...
BILLINGS — Defense attorneys for one of two men charged in the killing of a Montana high school teacher said Tuesday that their client should be ruled ineligible for the death penalty because he is mentally disabled. Twenty-four-year-old Michael Keith Spell faces charges including deliberate homicide in the January 2012 kidnapping and murder of Sherry Arnold, a popular teacher in the small Bakken oil patch town of Sidney. Spell and Lester Van Waters Jr., both of Colorado have pleaded not guilty to charges they grabbed A...
BILLINGS— The Obama administration on Friday proposed lifting most remaining federal protections for gray wolves across the Lower 48 states, a move that would end four decades of recovery efforts. State and federal agencies have spent more than $117 million restoring the predators since they were added to the endangered species list in 1974. Today more than 6,100 wolves roam portions of the Northern Rockies and western Great Lakes where protections already have been lifted. With Friday's announcement, the administration s...
BILLINGS — A group of wild bison was returned to Yellowstone National Park on Friday in a setback to a fledgling program that allowed the animals into parts of Montana where bison had long been prohibited. The roundup of the 13 animals came after they repeatedly left a 2,500-acre grazing area in the Gallatin National Forest, crossing the Yellowstone River and entering private property. After their capture, the animals were trucked just outside Yellowstone's northern border and released. Observers said the bison immediately m...
BILLINGS — Attorneys from Montana and Wyoming squared off before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday in a cross-border dispute over how they share the region's scarce water supplies. Montana has accused its southern neighbor of taking too much water from the Tongue and Powder rivers, breaking a 1950 agreement between the states. Justice skeptical of Bullock argument But justices Monday voiced skepticism when Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock said new irrigation practices had put Wyoming in violation of the agreement. "...
BILLINGS — Frayed, torn and maybe even a little bloodstained, the only U.S. flag not captured or lost during George Armstrong Custer's "Last Stand" at the Battle of Little Bighorn sold for $54 when it first surfaced in the 1890s. Today the swallow-tailed 7th U.S. Cavalry flag, known as a "guidon," is expected to bring up to $5 million at an auction at Sotheby's in New York. And while Custer's reputation has risen and fallen over the years — once considered a hero, he's regarded by some contemporary scholars as an inept lea...
BILLINGS — The Senate has approved major water rights settlements with American Indian tribes in Arizona, Montana and New Mexico that have been pending in some cases for decades. Calling the settlements historic, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Friday said they would deliver more than $1 billion combined to four tribes. Money would go toward safe drinking water systems and irrigation improvements that could boost reservation economies. Montana's Crow Tribe would receive the largest amount — $460 million. The other set...
Tribal court could resolve Little Shell dispute BILLINGS — Opposing factions within Montana's landless Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians have agreed in principle to tribal court proceedings aimed at resolving their differences. Representatives of the two sides said Monday that details still were being worked through an intermediary, James Steele Jr., chairman of the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council. The 4,300-member tribe last year split into two groups — each with an elected council — after disagreeing on the l...
A mother grizzly and two of her three cubs have been captured after killing one person and injuring two others during a late-night rampage through a campground near Yellowstone National Park. The mother, estimated to weigh 300 to 400 pounds, was lured into a trap fashioned from culvert pipe Wednesday evening, then left in place to attract the year-old offspring. By this morning, two of the younger bears had been caught and the third could be heard nearby, calling out to its mother. Fish, Wildlife and Parks Warden Capt. Sam...
U.N. scientists have recommended a moratorium on mining in Bri t ish Columbia's Flathead Valley and the creation of a conservation plan for the remote region spanning the United States-Canada border, a U.S. official said Thursday. Several companies have announced plans to extract coal, natural gas and gold within the Canadian stretch of the valley, whi ch i s near Albe r ta's Waterton Lakes National Park and Montana's Glacier National Park. But the call for curbs on mining is likely to increase international pressure on...
