Area Briefs
Avid Gardeners
meet Thursday
The Avid Gardeners will meet at 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 13, to discuss the coming growing season.
Gardeners may bring their seed catalogs to discuss choices, both good and bad.
A research assignment is finding a solution for why your compost pile seems slow decomposing.
This month, the Avid Gardeners will meet at home of Deanna Kehn, 196 Scenery Road, which is up by the golf course. For directions, call 293-6987.
For more information on the Avid Gardeners, contact Laura McGlasson at 293-2552.
Missoula police
search for escapee
MISSOULA — Authorities say they’re pursuing leads that a rape suspect who escaped from the Bozeman police station on Sunday might have contacts in the Missoula area.
The Missoulian reported Wednesday that 28-year-old Kevin Briggs hadn’t been spotted in Missoula, but local police and the University of Montana issued an alert because Bozeman police said he might have links to the area.
Briggs was arrested after a report that a woman in Bozeman was drugged and sexually assaulted last weekend, and that a man tried to stab and strangle her.
Authorities say he escaped after he was left alone in an unlocked room during a shift change at the Bozeman police station. Police say he was handcuffed and his legs were shackled.
Police also say an exterior station door was unlocked.
Late voter signup OK, high court says
HELENA — A legislative referendum to end Election-Day voter registration can go on the November ballot, but changes must be made to its wording so as not to confuse voters, the Montana Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
Montana has allowed voters to register or change their registrations on Election Day since 2005. Legislative Referendum 126, approved by the 2013 Legislature for this November’s ballot, would change the deadline to register to the Friday before an election.
The plaintiffs argued that reference wrongly suggests that ending same-day voter registration is required by federal law in an attempt to deceive voters to approve it.