Big Sky News

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is closing northcentral Montana hunting districts 413 and 432, which include portions of Cascade, Meagher and Judith Basin counties, to all mountain lion hunting, effective half an hour after sunset today.

BILLINGS - Federal and state officials are drafting new strategies to deal with bison coming out of Yellowstone National Park, but still don't have an alternative to periodic slaughters of the iconic Western animal.

MISSOULA - A former administrative assistant and bookkeeper for CTA Architects in Missoula has been charged with felony theft by embezzlement.

MILES CITY - The city judge in Miles City has been sentenced after pleading guilty to a drunken driving charge.

Even as the weather sporadically changes between light chilling rain and sunny blue skies, the Old Steel Bridge fishing access is a high traffic area for anglers and those looking for an accessible outdoor break.

HELENA - Authorities said a Helena man who was shot four times in the leg after an argument with a friend has been listed in stable condition at a local hospital.

HAVRE - The new Havre city judge is resigning less than two weeks after winning the post in an election.

BILLINGS - Nearly 500 kids in Billings are going home with meals tucked alongside the homework in their backpacks.

MISSOULA - The University of Montana is proposing a campuswide tobacco ban - including a ban on chewing tobacco - that would take effect in the fall of 2011.

Chase Reynolds ran for 241 yards and a touchdown on Saturday to lead Montana to a 31-10 victory over Weber State in a battle of the Big Sky Conferences top two teams.

BILLINGS - The Gallatin National Forest has reopened the Beattie Gulch area north of Gardiner that was closed last month because grizzly bears were feeding on gut piles left by elk hunters.

WEST YELLOWSTONE - The U.S. Forest Service has called off a logging and prescribed burning project near West Yellowstone to further analyze its effects on Yellowstone grizzly bears.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - John Sinclair, the leader of Montana's Little Shell Tribe, will visit Capitol Hill this week to testify about how to reform the federal government's process for recognizing Indian tribes.

BILLINGS - Members of the Montana National Guard's 143rd Military Police Company are back in Montana after a yearlong tour in Iraq.

From The K-B-L-G News Center... IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL THIS WEEKEND, MONTANA STATE HOSTS WINLESS IDAHO STATE, WHILE UNBEATEN MONTANA CONTINUES ITS QUEST FOR ANOTHER BIG SKY CONFERENCE TITLE AS THEY HOST 5-AND-1 WEBER STATE.

BILLINGS - Yellowstone County Attorney Dennis Paxinos says a bus driver accused of hitting a teenager in a crosswalk while driving drunk may have fled the state.

Martin Rinard , a professor of computer science at MIT, is unabashed about the ultimate goal of his group's research: "delivering an immortal, invulnerable program." In work presented this month at the ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in Big Sky, MT, his group has developed software that can find and fix certain types of software bugs ...

MISSOULA - A partially completed wildlife study has found that black bears enter yards in Missoula at night to feast on apples.

The Montana women's basketball team, which has won five of the last six regular-season Big Sky Conference championships, has been picked for a second-place finish in the 2009-10 preseason coaches' poll which the league announced on Thursday.

BILLINGS - Health officials confirmed that a 6-year-old Yellowstone County boy has died of complications related to swine flu.