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    Montana Camper Offered His Killer a Beer Before He Was Murdered, Police Say

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    DNA from a beer can helped lead the authorities to an arrest in the killing of Dustin Kjersem, whose death was originally reported as a possible bear attack, officials said.A Montana camper whose mutilated body was found in a forest last month was brutally killed by a stranger he welcomed to his campsite and offered a beer, the authorities said this week, a gesture they say ultimately led to the killer’s arrest.The stranger, Daren Christopher Abbey, 41, of Basin, Mont., who was working in construction in the Big Sky area of southern Montana, was arrested on Saturday after the authorities linked his DNA to that found on a beer can on the floor of a tent belonging to the victim, Dustin Kjersem, 35, according to court records.Mr. Abbey confessed on Tuesday to killing Mr. Kjersem, 35, and was later charged with deliberate homicide, Dan Springer, the sheriff of Gallatin County said at a news conference on Thursday.Mr. Abbey encountered Mr. Kjersem by chance, the authorities said, noting that they still didn’t know the motive for the killing and that the investigation could continue for months.“This appears to be a heinous crime committed by an individual who had no regard for the life of Dustin Kjersem,” Sheriff Springer said.On Oct. 10, Mr. Kjersem traveled to a forested area near Big Sky to camp, the authorities said. He had planned to pick up his girlfriend the next day, a Friday, so the two could spend the weekend camping.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Who Killed Hundreds of Eagles and Hawks Gets Nearly 4 Years in Prison

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      Travis John Branson was part of a conspiracy that killed 3,600 birds, prosecutors said. He also trafficked and sold bird parts on the black market.A Washington man who killed hundreds of eagles and hawks in Montana that he later helped traffic and sell on the black market was sentenced to nearly four years in prison on Thursday, prosecutors said.From 2015 to 2021, the man, Travis John Branson, 49, of Cusick, Wash., traveled to the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana to help kill hundreds of birds in a “killing spree,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana said. In addition to his sentence of three years and 10 months in federal prison, Mr. Branson was ordered to pay $777,250 in restitution, prosecutors said.“Branson went on self-described ‘killing sprees’ for thousands of eagles and hawks,” Jesse Laslovich, the U.S. attorney for the District of Montana, said in a statement. Mr. Laslovich added that Mr. Branson “butchered” the birds “and sold the parts and feathers for profit on the black market.”Mr. Branson, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and trafficking charges in March, killed at least 118 eagles and 107 hawks himself, according to investigators who traced the killings to Mr. Branson through text messages. In total, Mr. Branson worked with others to kill about 3,600 birds, prosecutors said.In December, prosecutors indicted Mr. Branson and a co-conspirator, Simon Paul, who at one point lived in St. Ignatius, Mont. The two worked together to shoot, traffic and sell hundreds of birds, according to court records. Mr. Paul was also charged with conspiracy and wildlife trafficking charges in December but was a fugitive as of Thursday, the U.S. attorney’s office said.Court records quoted text messages and cited PayPal transactions that showed that Mr. Branson had sent photos and received text messages and payment for a golden eagle tail feather set.“Got that thang from Simon,” a buyer texted Mr. Branson, referring to feathers Mr. Paul had sent. “And the mirror feathers. Tnks.”In March 2021, law enforcement officers stopped Mr. Branson and recovered from his vehicle a golden eagle’s severed feet connected to long, obsidian black talons and feathers. Mr. Branson and Mr. Paul also killed deer to lure eagles to the area, court records said.From 2009 until 2021, Mr. Branson made between $180,000 and $360,000 by selling eagles’ feathers and parts on the black market, prosecutors said. How much Mr. Branson sold between 2009 until 2015 was not immediately clear.Lawyers for Mr. Branson and Mr. Paul did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.Bald eagles, which were among the birds Mr. Branson and others killed, are revered in the United States as a national symbol.“We are going to feel the impacts of the Flathead Reservation’s raptor loss for years to come,” Mike Dolson, the chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said in a statement. “Eagles are not only a treasured and important part of the Reservation’s ecosystem, but they also have a profound place in C.S.K.T. cultural and spiritual practices.” More

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      Scrutiny of Republican Tim Sheehy’s business grows amid US Senate race

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      Scrutiny is growing about the Montana aerial firefighting company once led by Tim Sheehy, the former Navy Seal and Republican Senate candidate who could oust the Democrat incumbent Jon Tester in next month’s election.According to NBC News, Sheehy’s Bridger Aerospace, a company he founded in 2013, negotiated a deal with Gallatin county in eastern Montana to use its pristine credit rating to raise $160m in bonds. The county was meant to benefit from Bridger’s plans to hire more workers and build two new aircraft hangers.But the company used most of the money, or $134m, from the 2022 bond issue to pay back previous investment from Blackstone, a New York-based investment giant.Bridger’s finances have been complicated by the fact that there were fewer wildfires to fight this year and thus less revenue for Bridger. As of Tuesday, the National Interagency Fire Center reported 42,603 wildfires nationwide this year compared to the 10-year average of 48,689 for the same period.In financial filings for the quarterly period that ended 30 June 2024, Bridger said it had “a substantial amount of debt” and that failure to service that debt “could prolong the substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern”.A victory for Sheehy in November could hand Republicans control of the Senate, making his connections to Bridger a vital topic as voters head to the polls.Sheehy, 38, stepped down as the company’s CEO in July. He has run his campaign partly based on his business acumen.The questions around Gallatin county’s approval of Bridger’s bond deal revolve around whether the board was correctly informed of the company’s financial position – it has lost $150m since it was founded – and whether Gallatin’s credit rating could be affected.Marc Cohodes, a Wall Street investor who issued an early warning regarding FTX and its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, as well as calling the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, is among the signatories on a letter to Gallatin county and the US Small Business Administration asking for an investigation into Bridger’s use of capital.The letter questioned why Bridger presented itself to the federal government as a “socially and economically disadvantaged business”.“Gallatin County had their name on the bonds and when they default, and they will, lawyers and lawsuits will come after Gallatin County,” Cohodes told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. “‘Read the fine print’ will not be a good defense on this.”But Sheehy’s campaign pushed back, saying the deal’s critics were Democratic supporters of Tester.“It is clear Tester’s supporters wrote this letter with one goal: to hurt Tim’s campaign, tear down a Montana company, and help Jon Tester,” a campaign spokesperson told the Chronicle.“Bridger Aerospace is a good company that protects public lands by fighting wildfires, and it is our hope that the authors of this letter cease their efforts to destroy a Montana business, put Montanans out of a job, and wipe out their retirement savings.”Zach Brown, a Gallatin county commissioner, told NBC he was not worried that the bond money had gone to pay Blackstone.“It isn’t our role to monitor the construction and operational decisions of a private company or communicate to the community the status report of how they’re doing,” Brown told NBC.“Our role is not to monitor whether they added jobs – it is to endorse the public interest of their project.”While Gallatin county is not on the hook for the bond repayments, the county could see its credit rating affected if Bridger went out of business. Since January last year, when Bridger went public, its stock is down 64%.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBridger reported losses of $77m in 2023 and was at risk of failing to meet its financial obligations.“The Company has suffered recurring losses from operations, operating cash flow deficits, debt covenant violations, and insufficient liquidity to fund its operations that raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern,” Bridger’s auditor said, according to the Montana Free Press.The company said in the report that it began cutting costs and had reduced its workforce to 148, down from 166 in 2022.A spokesperson for Bridger told NBC that the company has continued to pay interest on the bonds, which are backed by “robust collateral which has appreciated significantly in value since the bond was issued” and is working to repair its cash flow problems.Separately, Sam Davis, Bridger’s CEO, told the outlet that the company had battled more than 160 Montana wildfires since the bond issue.The county’s support for the company, Davis added, had been “tremendous” and allowed the firefighting company to “contract with multiple local businesses as we expand and operate our business, and provide a strong customer base to local hotels, restaurants, and transportation providers”.Questions around Bridger come as Sheehy’s service record also has come under scrutiny. The Trump-backed candidate has claimed he was shot in the arm during a firefight in Afghanistan.But a Montana park ranger has claimed that the gunshot wound was self-inflicted in Glacier national park in 2015. Nor do Sheehy’s fellow soldiers recall him mentioning a gunshot wound or seeing a wound at the time during his service in central Asia.Sheehy has insisted that he was shot in Afghanistan and that claims to the contrary are “tantamount to falsely accusing him of stolen valor”.Sheehy has also come under attack for allegedly characterizing Crow Native Americans as “drunk Indians”. He told Fox News last month they were old recordings, and suggested they were edited, reports the Daily Montanan. More

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      Can Democrats still win in rural states? Montana’s Senate race offers high-stakes litmus test

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      He was a young and little-known underdog. So Max Baucus, candidate for Congress, decided to trek 630 miles across Montana and listen to people talk about their problems. “As luck would have it, on the first day, I walked into a blizzard,” he recalls, pointing to a photo of his young self caked in snow. “It was cold! But the blizzard didn’t last that long.”Baucus shed 12lbs during that two and a half month journey in 1974. He also made friends. The Democrat defeated a Republican incumbent and would soon go on to serve as a Montana senator for 36 years. He never lost an election but saw his beloved home state undergo many changes. Among them is the prospect that Democrats like him are now facing political extinction.Jon Tester, a moderate Democrat who is one of Montana’s current senators, is fighting for his political life in the 5 November election. Opinion polls suggest that he is trailing his Republican rival Tim Sheehy. Control of the closely divided Senate, and the ability to enable or stymie the ambitions of a President Kamala Harris or President Donald Trump, could hinge on the outcome.The Senate race in Montana is widely seen as a litmus test of whether Democrats can still win in largely rural states that have embraced Trump’s Republican party. It is also a study in whether the type of hyperlocal campaigning that Baucus practised half a century ago can outpace shifts in demographics, media and spending that have rendered all politics national.View image in fullscreen“Montana was not yet discovered,” recalled Baucus, 82, sitting near old campaign posters – “Democrat Max Baucus walks for Congress” – in the brick-and-wood institute that bears his name on Bozeman’s idyllic main street. “There was much more retail politics, knocking on doors, shaking hands, going all around the community, knowing people personally. There’s a saying that Montana is one big small town and that was very true back then. It’s not quite as true today.”Tester, 68, a likable, unpretentious dirt farmer who is Montana through and through, epitomises the old retail politics. His campaign ads emphasise his rural background, including three fingers missing on his left hand — lost to a meat grinder that he still owns. He has been in the Senate for 18 years and praised for his work on behalf of the agriculture industry, military veterans and Native American communities.For some voters, such authenticity still resonates. Nels Johnson, 62, who works for a conservation organisation in Bozeman, said: “I’m going to vote for Jon Tester because he’s a third-generation Montanan, knows Montana values and what Montana hopes to be. His opponent is not as in touch.”View image in fullscreenSheehy, 37, is an outsider by comparison. The former Navy Seal moved to Montana in 2014 to raise a family and start an aerial firefighting business. He is also cast in the Trump mould: he has no previous political experience, is hostile to the media – he has given few interviews – and has been dogged by a string of controversies over exaggerated or misleading claims about his past.Marc Racicot, 76, a former governor of Montana and ex-chairman of the Republican National Committee turned Trump critic, said: “Mr Sheehy is an acolyte of Donald Trump and so the shadow of Trump is going to influence his candidacy – what he’s willing to do and able to do and also his character and capacity to govern in a way that reflects democratic virtues and values.”Nowhere is the contrast between the candidates more palpable than in their relationship to this year’s presidential nominees. In August, Sheehy stood alongside Trump, who won Montana overwhelmingly in the 2020 election, at a rally in Bozeman. No one is expecting Tester to hold a campaign event with Harris anytime soon. Indeed, he has declined to endorse her.View image in fullscreenIt is pragmatic calculation that recognises how Montana, which is about the size of Japan and has more cows than people, has altered since Tester came into office. The state has witnessed an influx of newcomers from Arizona, Washington state, California and Texas. During the coronavirus pandemic, Montana had the third-highest rate of growth in the country.The state’s politics have veered to the right. When Tester entered the Senate in 2007, Democrats held almost every statewide elected office in Montana from governor, secretary of state and attorney general to two of the state’s three seats in the House of Representatives. But Republicans have steadily picked off one Democratic stronghold after another. Tester is now the last Democrat standing in statewide office.He has survived three close races before but this looks set to be his toughest yet: he has never run before when Trump was at the top of the ballot. By distancing himself from the White House race, he is asking voters to split their ticket – something that is increasingly rare in the era of political tribalism and declining local media.View image in fullscreenMike Dennison, a veteran political journalist and analyst, said: “Republicans have totally tried to nationalise this race. Every chance they get, whenever they say Tester they say Biden or Harris. They want to tie him to the national Democrats and that’s absolutely what Tester does not want to do.“The Republicans want to say this race is for control of the Senate. Tester doesn’t want to talk about that at all. He wants to talk about himself and his issues. That is what’s going on here: Democrats have had a tough time in rural America and Montana is certainly rural America.”Republican-aligned groups are duly pumping millions of dollars into the race. Dennison added: “The amount of money in this race by Montana standards is just stunning. The prior race six years ago, when Tester ran and Trump came out to the state four times to campaign against him, was a $100m race. This is going to be a $250m race.”View image in fullscreenYet for many of the voters whose screens are saturated with endless campaign ads, the number one issue is affordability. Cities such as Bozeman and Missoula have housing crises with many local people priced out.Brian Guyer, emergency and supportive housing director at the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC), a non-profit organisation in Bozeman that runs a shelter with capacity for a hundred unhoused people, said there has been a sharp rise in individuals turning up with everything they own because of rent increases or shifts from long- to short-term rentals.Guyer said: “They end up seeking out overnight shelter because there aren’t alternatives for them, which has turned into an odd dynamic here. We have your standard shelter guests – people who are dealing with addiction – but now we also have people who are actively participating in the Bozeman workforce but the cost of living is so expensive that the shelter is their only option in terms of places to stay. In a perverse way, this is workforce housing.”View image in fullscreenSheehy has, unsurprisingly, attempted to fit the problem into a national framework. Borrowing from Trump’s central campaign theme, he has argued with little evidence that immigrants are coming to the state and driving up the price of housing.Zooey Zephyr, a progressive Democrat who is the first transgender member of the Montana state legislature, says: “We have seen from the top of the ticket of the Republican party an effort to take the issues our country is facing right now and blame it on an ‘other’. So, hey, let’s ignore the fact the state of Montana had a multibillion dollar surplus in 2023 and the legislature controlled by a Republican supermajority did not address the housing crisis adequately.“No, instead they’re going to stoke fears that it has something to do with immigration being the main driver. We know the demographics of Montana are largely white, partially Native American, but they’re going to drum up fear about a small percentage of people in the state and try to vilify them. That’s a fear-based playbook that we’ve seen Sheehy using but it is a playbook we have seen in every election cycle.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenIn fact, many of the new arrivals are members of Sheehy’s own party, quitting liberal cities and drawn to Montana’s clear air, open spaces and good schools (the TV series Yellowstone has also boosted the state’s profile). Now nearly half of Montanas were not born in the state. They know or care little for Tester’s long service or Montana’s independent streak.Luke Huffines, 28, a forester, moved to Montana a month ago and will vote for Sheehy – if he can register in time. “I like Sheehy’s background,” he said. “He’s Navy Seal and he’s definitely got businesses going on. He’s got private firefighting planes and whatnot and I feel like he’s getting a lot of backlash because he’s got his shit together. What’s wrong with capitalism?”Huffines is also a supporter of Trump. He explained: “He just doesn’t give a shit. And he gets so much backlash and he just keeps moving forward.”View image in fullscreenFor their part, Democrats have branded Sheehy as exactly the type of rich out-of-stater who bought up multiple hones across Montana and helped drive up costs for locals. A recent report by the National Association of Realtors found that, in terms of wages versus prices, Montana now has the least affordable properties in the nation.Shane Doyle, 52, a Native American who lives in Bozeman, describes it as a “reverse gold rush”. He said: “They’re coming here to add to what has already been a white, gated, almost resort community. The town is filled with Republicans who have come here to feel comfortable around other white people and enjoy the amenities of the outdoors and the recreation of the waters and the skiing and the hiking.“The only place where you see minorities here in Bozeman is either on the college campus or on the outskirts of town. I’m one of the very few Indians who lives here and has managed to find a career path that allows me the money to live here.”Montana has seven Indian reservations and almost 70,000 Native Americans, representing about 7% of its total population, according to census data. The voting bloc has long leaned Democratic but Republicans have recently courted tribal leaders hoping to gain their support. Sheehy has faced demands to apologise over past remarks he made about Native Americans being “drunk at 8am” and throwing beer cans at him on the Crow Reservation.View image in fullscreenTester has warned that Sheehy wants to sell off public lands to rich people and make Montana his own personal playground. Doyle, a member of the Crow tribe and executive director of the nonprofit group Yellowstone Peoples, regards Tester as a “staunch supporter” and believes that, if Democrats ran the state, there would be scope to bring back animals such as bison, elk, wolves and bears.

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      Doyle said: “Tim Sheehy says he wants to protect public lands but we’re all sceptical of that because we know he’s very interested in privatisation. There’s a lot of money to be made on Montana’s public lands and I’m afraid that, if we go full red, they’ll be more emboldened to act on their agenda. That’s going to be a bad thing for all Montanans because the crown jewel of Montana is our public lands. We have a lot to lose.”Just as in other parts of the US, Doyle has seen the Montana Republican party lurch to the “Make America great again” (Maga) right and fan the flames of extremism. “Bozeman has become the epicentre of white supremacy,” he said. “All of our elected officials here are along those lines. Bozeman has now become the home base for the Republican candidates and we haven’t seen a lot of support from them for Indian Country.”Doyle has seen truckers drive aggressively through town, flying flags and blowing black smoke. “We have groups here that are white supremacist and they are fully armed and they make themselves visible. They’re intimidating, they’re threatening and it’s no fun to live around them. They didn’t used to be here before Trump won.”While affordability and immigration loom large, Democrats are pinning their hopes on reproductive freedom in the aftermath of the supreme court’s decision to overturn the Roe v Wade decision. Next month’s general election ballot will include an initiative to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, potentially galvanising many young, female and progressive voters.View image in fullscreenIf Tester is defeated by his less experienced but Trump-friendly opponent, one more blue dot will be extinguished. It will be a fresh data point in the great sorting between blue states and red states, between urban liberals and rural conservatives, between so-called coastal elites and flyover states.One factor in the polarisation is the decline of local newspapers and rise of talk radio and cable television, which offer national news through a partisan lens.Ken Toole, 69, a Democrat who served in the Montana state senate, said he and his neighours agree on identifying problems such as taxes, the concentration of wealth and monopolies in the meatpacking industry. “But they just have absolutely no faith that Democrats can deal with that and we’re talking about people who are sitting in their tractor all day listening to talk radio.“I work cattle with my neighbours and talk to them pretty regularly – it’s not like they’re foaming at the mouth. Over time, the brand of Democrats in areas like this has just been eroded. The difficult question for me is, how do you build it back?” More

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      Montana park ranger says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy lied about combat wound

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      A former Montana park ranger has now publicly accused Tim Sheehy – a Republican running for a US Senate seat in the state – of lying about getting shot while at war in Afghanistan.In an interview with the Washington Post published on Friday, 67-year-old Kim Peach went on the record about how Sheehy – a former US navy seal – actually shot himself on a family trip in 2015 at Glacier national park. Peach’s account explicitly contradicts Sheehy’s claim that he was shot in the arm during military combat, a story that the Republican candidate has shared throughout his US Senate campaign.Peach said that Sheehy’s allegedly self-inflicted wound left him with a bullet lodged in his right arm at Glacier national park in Montana’s Rocky Mountains. He told the Post that he first met Sheehy at a hospital in the area of the park during the aftermath of the 2015 episode.“I remember Sheehy obviously being embarrassed by the situation but at the same time thankful that it wasn’t worse,” Peach said to the Post. There, Sheehy also confirmed to Peach that he had mistakenly shot himself after his firearm discharged in his car.Peach said he then inspected Sheehy’s gun and observed a bullet casing, confirming the firearm had discharged. That same day, Peach issued Sheehy a $525 fine for discharging a firearm in the national park, according to government records.Peach also wrote about the case in a 2015 report about the gunshot, writing he was “grateful no other persons or property were damaged”, the Post reported.The Post first spoke with Peach – who initially came forward anonymously – in April to dispute Sheehy’s claim. But several Republican public figures quickly disclosed Peach’s identity, leading to harassment.Sheehy and others accused Peach of unduly attempting to discredit the candidate’s military service.In response to the Post’s reporting in April, Sheehy claimed that he actually lied to Peach in 2015 about accidentally shooting himself. Sheehy said that he fell and injured his arm during the hike in Glacier – but he lied about the self-inflicted shooting to conceal the fact that he may have obtained the bullet wound during friendly fire that he endured while fighting in Afghanistan.A spokesperson for Sheehy has said that Peach is a Democrat, and his most recent interview in an attempt to spread a “defamatory story”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNonetheless, Peach told the Post he was motivated to speak with his name on the public record because Sheehy has remained untruthful about having shot himself.“He said that questioning his military service was ‘disgusting’,” Peach said to the Post. “What is disgusting is saying a wound from a negligent, accidental firearm discharge is a wound received in combat.”Peach added: “I have no personal vendetta against Tim Sheehy. But when a person makes a statement that’s not true somebody has to call them on it.”Sheehy is challenging Democratic incumbent Jon Tester in a race that could determine which political party controls the Senate after the 5 November presidential election. More

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      Camper Was the Victim of a Brutal Homicide, Not a Bear, Sheriff Says

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      Dustin Kjersem, 35, was found dead in his tent with “chop wounds” on Saturday, the authorities said. No arrests have been made.A person who called the police near Bozeman, Mont., last Saturday reported that a man had been found dead in his tent from what appeared to have been a bear attack.But at a news conference on Wednesday, officials with the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said they believed that the camper, Dustin Kjersem, 35, a tradesman from Belgrade, Mont., had not been killed by a bear — but rather was the victim of a brutal homicide.“Someone was out there who killed someone in a very heinous way,” Dan Springer, the sheriff of Gallatin County, said at the news conference. “If you’re out in the woods, I need you to be paying attention.”Mr. Kjersem was last seen on the afternoon of Oct. 10 when he drove into a forested area about 35 miles south of Bozeman near Big Sky for a weekend of camping. He was supposed to pick up a friend on the afternoon of Oct 11.But Mr. Kjersem, who lived about 35 miles north of where he was found dead, did not show up. The friend then went looking for him and found Mr. Kjersem’s body on Oct. 12, Sheriff Springer said.“Autopsy has shown that he sustained ‘multiple chop wounds,’ which led to his death,” Capt. Nathan Kamerman, a detective with the sheriff’s office, said at the news conference. “We’re following up on leads but we have no arrests at this time.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rancher Gets 6 Months in Prison for Scheme to Create Giant Sheep Hybrid

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      Prosecutors said the Montanan illegally used tissue from a sheep from Central Asia and the testicles from a bighorn sheep to make large hybrids that he could sell at premium prices.An 81-year-old Montana rancher was sentenced to six months in federal prison on Monday for running a nearly decade-long scheme in which he used parts from protected wildlife to create a giant hybrid species of wild sheep to sell at premium prices, federal prosecutors said.The man, Arthur Schubarth, of Vaughn, Mont., illegally used tissue from a Marco Polo argali sheep from Central Asia and the testicles of a bighorn sheep native to the Rocky Mountains to make large hybrids of sheep that he could sell at high prices to shooting preserves, particularly in Texas, federal prosecutors said in a news release.Mr. Schubarth pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Montana in March to two felony wildlife crimes: conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and substantively violating the Lacey Act, which prohibits the trafficking of illegally taken wildlife.The Associated Press reported that Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana said that he had weighed Mr. Schubarth’s age and lack of criminal record to fashion a sentence that would discourage others from attempting to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures.”Mr. Schubarth’s sentence includes three years of supervised release, according to court documents. He was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine to the Lacey Act Reward Fund, a $4,000 payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and a $200 special assessment.Before sentencing, Mr. Schubarth told the judge, “I will have to work the rest of my life to repair everything I’ve done,” The A.P. reported.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Memoir contradicts Republican Senate candidate’s ‘below the poverty line’ tale

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      At a recent campaign event in Whitehall, Montana, the Republican US Senate candidate Tim Sheehy told voters that a decade ago, when he set up the aerial firefighting company through which he made his fortune, he and his wife were living “below the poverty line”.“My wife and I homeschool our kids,” Sheehy said. “We made that decision several years ago. She’s a Marine, naval academy graduate, she could have a great job and even when our company was tiny, and we … were below the poverty line and making no money, we said: ‘No … the most important job in the world is being a mother.’ And she’s doing that every day.”A little more than a month from election day, in a race that could decide control of the Senate, such hardscrabble tales are helping Sheehy lead the Democratic incumbent, Jon Tester, a longtime Montana farmer. The two men are due to debate in Missoula on Monday night.But Sheehy’s claim about living in poverty while building his company, Bridger Aerospace, is contradicted by his own memoir.In that book, Mudslingers, published last year, the former navy Seal writes that when he and his wife contemplated leaving the military, in 2013, they “weren’t wealthy, but … did have resources”.This, he writes, was in part thanks to having “lived quite frugally during our time in the military, spending a lot of time deployed, accumulating savings, taking advantage of base housing and meals, and of course spending almost nothing while on deployment.“So, we had amassed a nest egg of close to $300,000. I also had some money that my parents had been putting away for me since I was a kid. All told, we had roughly $400,000 to allocate toward building a business and establishing a new life.”In 2014, as Sheehy got his company going, the US health department defined the poverty guideline for a family of three in Montana as $19,790. The poverty threshold, as defined by the US Census Bureau, was $19,055.By his own account, Sheehy set out to build Bridger Aerospace with 20 times that – a sum he calls “not exactly chump change”.Sheehy has also regularly claimed to have “bootstrapped” his company, a term the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines as “to promote or develop by initiative and effort with little or no assistance”.Yet in his book, Sheehy describes both receiving the $100,000 his parents had saved for him and asking his father and brother to help him pay $500,000 to buy necessary planes. His father, he writes, “backed me, financially and emotionally, without expecting anything in return”, while his brother was given an “equity stake in the business”.Sheehy also describes how in 2017 his brother helped secure investment from Blackstone Group, the New York private equity behemoth led by Stephen Schwartzman, a top Republican donor, in order to pull off a $200m aircraft order.Sheehy grew up in Minnesota and attended the US Naval Academy in Maryland. Describing his early days in Montana, he has often told of how he, his wife and their first child started out living in a tent. That might boost his claim of living below the poverty line, but Sheehy has also described how living under canvas was a choice.Having purchased “60 undeveloped acres”, Sheehy writes in his book, “the simple and probably sane thing to do would have been to rent an apartment in town while we got the business off the ground”. But they chose to build a house, and to camp while the structure went up.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSheehy’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. News of Sheehy’s book contradicting his own claim about living in poverty, however, follows similar reporting regarding his claims about his background.The Montana Free Press was among outlets to report that though Sheehy has said he grew up in “rural Minnesota … surrounded by farmland”, he in fact “grew up in a multimillion-dollar lake house, learned to fly under the tutelage of a neighbour, [and] attended a private high school”.In May, the Daily Beast reported that Sheehy’s campaign trail claims about how he left the US military do not match those in his book. Sheehy’s campaign responded angrily, claiming an attack on his patriotism and service. Then, this month, the Guardian reported documents seemingly showing Sheehy did not follow Department of Defense protocol for clearing sections of Mudslingers that deal with military subjects, including deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. The campaign did not respond.Regardless, Sheehy seems well-placed to secure a Senate seat, holding seven- and eight-point leads over Tester, a three-term moderate Democrat.Federal figures regarding poverty in Montana in 2014 do back up one claim in Sheehy’s book. Describing how he hired his first employees, he says he paid just $1,500 a month, amounting to $18,000 a year, to his first chief pilot, Tim Cherwin.Cherwin brought with him “the chain-smoking desert rat Steve Taylor, who would become our director of maintenance”. Sheehy, who says he started the business with $400,000, says both men were “earning wages below the poverty line”. More

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      Where will abortion be on the ballot in the 2024 US election?

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      This November, abortion will be on the ballot in 10 states, including the states that could determine the next president.In the two years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, abortion has become the kind of issue that decides elections. Outrage over Roe’s demise led Republicans to flounder in the 2022 midterms, and abortion rights supporters have won every post-Roe abortion-related ballot measure, including in red states such as Ohio, Kentucky and Kansas.This year, most of the ballot measures are seeking to amend states’ constitutions to protect abortion rights up until fetal viability, or about 24 weeks of pregnancy. Because a number of the measures are in states that have outlawed abortion, they could become the first to overturn the post-Roe ban. Others are in states where abortion is legal, but activists say the measures are necessary to cement protections so they can’t be easily overturned if Republicans control the government.These are the states slated to vote on abortion this election day.ArizonaAbortion rights supporters in Arizona, a key battleground state in the presidential election, are vying to pass a measure that would enshrine the right to abortion up until viability in the state constitution. A provider could perform an abortion after viability if the procedure is necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of a patient.Arizona currently bans abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy. Earlier this year, the state supreme court reinstated a 19th-century near-total abortion ban, generating nationwide outrage that prompted the state legislature to quickly repeal it in favor of letting the 15-week ban stand.ColoradoColorado’s measure would amend the state constitution to block the state government from denying, impeding or discriminating against individuals’ “right to abortion”. This measure also includes a one-of-a-kind provision to bar Colorado from prohibiting healthcare coverage for abortion – which could very well pass in the deep-blue state.Because Colorado permits abortion throughout pregnancy and neighbors five states with bans – Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Utah and Nebraska – the state has become a haven for people fleeing abortion bans, especially those seeking abortions later in pregnancy.FloridaOnce the last stronghold of southern abortion access, Florida in May banned abortion past six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women know they’re pregnant. Its measure, which needs 60% of the vote to pass, would roll back that ban by adding the right to an abortion up until viability to the state’s constitution. Providers could perform an abortion after viability if one is needed to protect a patient’s health.Florida Republicans’ tactics in the fight against the measure has alarmed voting rights and civil rights groups. Law enforcement officials have investigated voters who signed petitions to get the measure onto the ballot, while a state health agency has created a webpage attacking the amendment.MarylandLegislators, rather than citizens, initiated Maryland’s measure, which would amend the state constitution to confirm individuals’ “right to reproductive freedom, including but not limited to the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue, or end the individual’s pregnancy”. Like Colorado, Maryland has become an abortion haven because it permits the procedure throughout pregnancy. It is also relatively close to the deep south, which is blanketed in bans. MissouriAbortion opponents went to court to stop Missouri’s measure from appearing on voters’ ballots, but the state supreme court rejected their arguments and agreed to let voters decide whether the Missouri constitution should guarantee the “fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which is the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive healthcare, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions”.Missouri, which was the first state to ban abortion after Roe fell, only permits the procedure in medical emergencies. If the measure passes, it is expected to roll back that ban and permit abortion until viability.MontanaIn the years since Roe fell, Montana courts and its Republican-dominated legislature have wrestled over abortion restrictions and whether the right to privacy embedded in Montana’s constitution includes the right to abortion. Abortion remains legal until viability in Montana, but the measure would amend the state constitution to explicitly include “a right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion” up until viability. Providers could perform an abortion after viability to protect a patient’s life or health.NebraskaNebraska, which bans abortion past 12 weeks of pregnancy, is the lone state with two competing ballot measures this November. One of the measures would enshrine the right to abortion up until viability into the state constitution, while the other would enshrine the current ban. If both measures pass, the measure that garners the most votes would take effect.NevadaAlongside Arizona, Nevada is one of the most closely watched states in the presidential election. Its measure would amend the state constitution to protect individuals’ right to abortion up until viability, or after viability in cases where a patient’s health or life may be threatened. Nevada already permits abortion up until 26 weeks of pregnancy.New YorkNew York state legislators added a measure to the ballot to broaden the state’s anti-discrimination laws by adding, among other things, protections against discrimination on the basis of “sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive health”.Although sky-blue New York passed a law protecting reproductive rights in 2019, advocates say this measure could be used to defend abortion rights against future challenges. However, the ballot language before voters will not include the word “abortion”, leading advocates to fear voters will not understand what they are voting on. Democrats pushed to add the word “abortion” to the description of the measure, but a judge rejected the request, ruling that the amendment poses “complex interpretive questions” and its exact impact on abortion rights is unclear.South DakotaSouth Dakota’s measure is less sweeping than other abortion rights measures, because it would only protect the right to abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. Under this measure, South Dakota could regulate access to abortion “only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman” in the second trimester of pregnancy. In the third trimester, the state could ban abortion except in medical emergencies. Right now, South Dakota only allows abortions in such emergencies.Although this measure will appear on the ballot, there will be a trial over the validity of the signatures that were collected for it. Depending out the outcome of the trial, the measure – and any votes cast for it – could be invalidated. More