Recently added articles from The Billings Gazette:
Renewal amid theater's rubble
Feb 14, 2009; ... Former Yellowstone County Commissioner Mike Mathew has a new hobby in his semiretirement. "I get to go to the dump at least twice a day," he said. On those trips to the landfill, the box on his '81 Dodge pickup is packed with debris from the 102-year-old Babcock Building, at ...
Cooperative enjoys record gains
Feb 14, 2009; ... CHS Inc., chiefly a farmer and oil cooperative based in St. Paul, Minn., has shared a record $10.3 million in profits with 4,833 members, co-ops and individuals in Montana. The Montana distributions are part of $231 million being distributed in 48 states, the largest ever made by a ...
The Northern's long road back
Feb 13, 2009; ... The mothballed Northern Hotel in downtown Billings is full of cash-siphoning surprises for new owners Chris and Mile Nelson, who have promised to renovate the hotel. The brothers surprised the community last month when they paid $2,475,090, plus $262,604 mostly in back taxes, to buy the ...
Maintain analog, FCC tells TV stations
Feb 13, 2009; ... Your converter box is hooked up. You're ready to tune in to digital TV and receive the four Billings-area stations through your old analog set. Not so fast. The Federal Communications Commission pulled the plug Thursday on the early switch from analog to digital for 123 ...
Crow Tribe lays off 180 employees
Feb 13, 2009; ... A shortage of money forced the Crow Tribe to layoff 180 seasonal workers, a tribe official said Thursday. The employees were laid off Feb. 6, said Cornelius Little Light, personnel director for the Crow Tribe. On Thursday, the tribe plans to bring in representatives from job Service of ...
Building slowdown leads to city layoffs
Feb 12, 2009; ... Three people in the city's Building Division were notified Wednesday that their last day of work is May 29. In announcing the layoffs, city officials said revenues were significantly lower than expected, so a building plan reviewer and two permit clerks will lose their ...
CHS workers ratify 3-year pact
Feb 12, 2009; ... United Steel Workers Local 11-443 in Laurel has ratified a three-year contract reached with the managers of the CHS Inc. refinery. The contract offers 200 union workers at the Laurel refinery raises of 3 percent per year and a $2,500 bonus for ratifying the contract. The contract ...
Crisis center faces financial crisis of its own
Feb 12, 2009; ... Without a new source of funding, the state's only around-the-clock walk-in crisis center could close this summer after just three years in business. The Community Crisis Center will lose almost half of its $1.2 million annual operating budget at the end of July when St. Vincent ...
Landscape changing for farmers, railroads
Feb 11, 2009; ... In the monopoly game Bruce Wright and other grain farmers play, the money is real, there's no $200 for passing Go, and the railroad runs the board. Montana grain ships out of state east or west, and if it makes the trip by train, it almost always does so in a railcar pulled by the ...
Colstrip plaintiffs cash in
Feb 10, 2009; ... COLSTRIP - The $25 million settlement spoke loudly last spring, when it was awarded to 57 plaintiffs in Colstrip. But eight months later, the money has barely left its mark on this community of 2,350. "Will it make it easier for me to retire? Yes, because my house will be paid off," said ...
Much work, decisions remain on CHIP expansion
Feb 09, 2009; ... HELENA - Now that President Barack Obama has signed the bill expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program, Montana can roll out its own ambitious, voter-approved expansion and cover another 30,000 uninsured kids, right? Well, yes - but not so fast. The roll-out of the Healthy ...
BLAZING NEW HORIZONS
Feb 07, 2009; ... Standing at the far end of a white-walled, concrete room, with no more than an ice-blue cutting torch and a half-inch-thick plate of mild steel, 41-year-old Brent Sudduth is putting his career back together. He cuts the metal into thirds, grinds the edges flat, then welds the pieces back ...
Kwik Way hanging 'closed' sign
Feb 06, 2009; ... After 45 years of selling gas and convenience-store fare in the Billings area, all 11 Kwik Way stores will be closed by Saturday night. Some will reopen under other brand names. The store in Lockwood and the one at State Avenue and Jackson Street will become 3-G convenience ...
Census highlights big jump in farm income
Feb 05, 2009; ... Montana farmers saw sales jump $1 billion from 2002 to 2007 as commodities prices soared, according to a new agricultural census. The increase wasn't gradual. Prices for wheat and other small grains shot up to historic levels in a single year in 2007 as global demand for high-protein ...
Sick economy hits hospitals
Feb 04, 2009; ... To the list of industries reeling in an increasingly turbulent economy, add this unexpected entry: health care. Medical organizations across the country, and especially hospitals, are scrambling to recalibrate budgets as expenses climb and revenue falls. "We thought in the past ...
Prediction: Recession will reach its peak in December
Feb 04, 2009; ... Unlike the national recessions dating to 1991 that largely missed Montana, this one won't let us escape the ugly meltdown. "We thought the national recession was going to miss Montana and this would be the third time in a row it missed," said Paul Polzin, former director of the Bureau of ...
Competing bills to focus on CO2
Feb 03, 2009; ... HELENA -- The Schweitzer administration is supporting a new bill to create rules on storing carbon dioxide underground in Montana -- and legislative Republicans are preparing their own approach. The two bills, yet to be introduced, have emerged in the wake of Gov. Brian Schweitzer's call ...
Vet urges ranchers to adopt brucellosis plan
Feb 03, 2009; ... BRIDGER -- Montana's $1 billion livestock industry, hamstrung by brucellosis, will recover only if producers buy into a state Livestock Department plan to eradicate the disease, the state's veterinarian told ranchers Monday. Speaking to a skeptical crowd of about 80 people gathered at ...
Monster Lake property near Cody tied to bankruptcy
Feb 03, 2009; ... CODY, Wyo. -- The fate of a Park County property renowned for its trout fishing remains unclear amidst the continuing fallout of bankruptcy proceedings surrounding the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky and the failed Yellowstone Club World venture. Announced in 2005, Yellowstone Club World was ...
Some in GOP back kids' health plan in House
Feb 03, 2009; ... HELENA - Despite warnings of moving closer to "socialized medicine," the Montana House on Monday endorsed the bill that helps launch the voter-approved initiative to expand government health coverage for uninsured children. Montana voters last November approved Initiative 155, with 70 ...