Weekly News Roundup
Week ending March 10, 2024
Montana’s U.S. Senators Vote to Pass RECA Extension, Expansion to Include Montana
By: Blair Miller for the Daily Montanan Just months before the program is set to expire, both of Montana’s U.S. senators voted Thursday to pass a standalone bill that would extend and expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to include Montanans affected by nuclear testing in Nevada decades ago.
Researcher Promotes Subsidies to Bring Cardiac Care Closer to Home in Rural Areas
By: Liz Carey for the Daily Yonder Luring cardiologists to rural parts of Iowa may mean subsidizing their salaries, a new study has found. Tom Gruca, a marketing professor at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, looked at data from more than 40 years of public health in his state. His study,
The ‘Paradise Paradox’: The Resort Town of Whitefish Seems Perfect, Yet Its Citizens Still Suffer
By: Ella Hall for the Daily Montanan Despite the seemingly idyllic nature of life in a mountain resort town like Whitefish, these communities often experience higher rates of mental health challenges and suicide than the national average. This phenomenon, referred to as the “paradise paradox,” is due to a complex interplay of factors such as isolation, difficulty accessing mental health care, unique social and financial stressors, high levels of substance use and transient support systems.
Operating in the Red: Half of Rural Hospitals Lose Money, as Many Cut Services
By Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez for KFF Health News In a little more than two years as CEO of a small hospital in Wyoming, Dave Ryerse has witnessed firsthand the worsening financial problems eroding rural hospitals nationwide. In 2022, Ryerse’s South Lincoln Medical Center was forced to shutter its operating room because it didn’t have the staff to run it 24 hours a day. Soon after, the obstetrics unit closed.
DPHHS Launches $7.5M Program to Address Court-Ordered Forensic Fitness Evaluation Backlog
By Denise Rivette The Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) put out a press release today announcing the launch of a new process to compensate local providers for community-based court-ordered forensic fitness evaluations (COEs) and related stabilization and restoration services.
Daines and Tester Split Vote on Budget Bill
By Denise Rivette After Montana Representatives Matt Rosendale and Ryan Zinke split their votes on the budget bill in the House earlier this week, this evening Senators Steve Daines and Jon Tester did the same in the Senate. The final 75-22 Senate vote had Daines voting against the bill and Tester voting for it. The vote came just a few hours before the midnight deadline, after which, had a bill not passed, the government would have started shutting down for lack of funding.
Weekly Health Numbers
By Denise Rivette Level of Respiratory Illness Activity Across the Country for Week Ended March 2, 2024 Montana Respiratory Illness Statistics
Montana Delegation Responds to State of the Union Address
By: Keila Szpaller for the Daily Montanan Members of Montana’s congressional delegation sent out remarks Thursday about President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. Democrat and U.S. Sen. Jon Tester said he’d stand up to Biden whenever necessary even though they’re in the same party, and Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines said the president owes America an apology.
Wearing a Seat Belt Saved a Driver's Life
By Denise Rivette Earlier this month on a Montana highway in a rural county, a Toyota 4Runner in wet and slushy conditions lost control of his vehicle due to road conditions. The driver overcorrected causing the vehicle to go off the right side of the highway where the tires sunk in the mud leading the vehicle to roll. The 50-year-old male driver was wearing a seat belt and uninjured. His 56-year-old male passenger was not wearing a seat belt and was pronounced dead at the scene. Montana Highway Patrol is the investigating agency.
Watch Out For Common Scams During National Consumer Protection Week
By Denise Rivette In a press release, Attorney General Austin Knudsen is warning Montanans of frequently reported website-based scams – particularly law enforcement, bitcoin investment, and tech support scams during National Consumer Protection Week which runs from March 3rd through 9th.
Secretary of State Attempted to Influence Elections Administrator Selection in Cascade County
By Nicole Girten for the Daily Montana Montana’s Secretary of State told Cascade County Commissioners not to choose former election administrator Rina Moore or her former staff as their new administrator in a February email. “Please do not hire Ms. Moore or a member of her administration as Cascade County’s Election Administrator,” Secretary Christi Jacobsen wrote in a letter to commissioners. “Doing so would directly undermine the voters of Cascade County, among other reasons.”
Poll Shows Close Race Between Tester, Sheehy; Neutral Approval Rating for Gianforte
By Blair Miller for the Daily Montanan New polling results released Wednesday show Democratic Senator Jon Tester with a narrow, but statistically insignificant, lead over Republican Tim Sheehy in a theoretical matchup eight months before Election Day, and also that Governor Greg Gianforte has a neutral approval rating as he starts his re-election bid.
Montana Supreme Court considers parental consent case for minors seeking abortion
by Mara Silvers for Montana Free Press The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments in a winding, years-long case about whether minors must receive parental consent for an abortion, revisiting a fraught legal question that Montana voters, lawmakers and residents have grappled with for more than a decade.
RECALL: FDA Takes Steps to Ensure Safety of Cinnamon Products Sold in the United States
PRESS RELEASE FROM U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION For Immediate Release: March 06, 2024 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking several additional steps to address concerns about elevated lead levels in cinnamon following the recent incident associated with certain cinnamon applesauce pouches that resulted in lead poisoning in young children. Today, the agency sent a
U.S. House Passes $468 Billion Spending Package That Would Stave Off Shutdown
By: Jennifer Shutt for States Newsroom WASHINGTON — U.S. House lawmakers cast a broadly bipartisan vote Wednesday to approve a six-bill government funding package, marking one of the few consequential votes on major legislation that chamber has taken since Republicans took the majority more than a year ago.
Judge Says Gianforte ‘Advocates For a Troubling Precedent’
By: Blair Miller and Keila Szpaller for the Daily Montanan The Montana Legislature needs an opportunity — “without further delay” — to override Governor Greg Gianforte’s veto of a 2023 bill that redistributed marijuana funds, a judge said Tuesday in response to the governor’s request to stop the court’s earlier order.
Republicans Shoot Down Interim Proposal to Write Comprehensive Childcare Bill Package
By Blair Miller for the Daily Montanan After hearing for months about widespread issues facing Montana parents and businesses surrounding childcare, and listening to presentations about what other states have been doing successfully to solve their issues, Republicans on the Economic Affairs Interim Committee on Tuesday shot down a proposal to craft a package of bills that would have tried to mirror some of those other states’ policies.
Garland, Tribal Officials Meet to Discuss Crime, Drugs and Missing People in Indian Country
By: Darrell Ehrlick for the Daily Montanan On the day that the U.S. Departments of Justice and Interior released their response to violence and missing persons in Indian Country, the Attorney General of the United States visited the Crow reservation and met with law enforcement officials in Billings to announce more resources for tribal justice as well as to talk about drug trafficking.
Carbon County Law Enforcement Blotter
TOTAL CALLS FOR SERVICE = 216 MEDICALS = 20 ACTIVE ALARMS = 5 TRAFFIC COMPLAINT = 3 CRASH = 5 FISH, WILDLIFE & PARKS ISSUES = 5 ARRESTS = 3 INCARCERATIONS = 1 WARNINGS = 54 CITATIONS = 7 February 26 Deputies kept coming across tree branches that were in the middle of roads after the heavy wind storm that occurred overnight.
Glacier National Park announces $1.9M for ecosystem restoration, climate resilience projects
By: Daily Montanan Staff Glacier National Park will receive more than $1.9 million in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to continue work on advancing bison reintroduction; inventory cultural resources impacted by climate change; and protect and restore whitebark pine, the park announced this week in a news release.
School Leaders Attribute Budget Crises to Pandemic Funding Cliff, State Funding Frustrations
by Alex Sakariassen for Montana Free Press A wave of major budget cuts is hitting public schools across the state — a situation officials from four of Montana’s largest districts attribute to declining enrollment, inflexibilities in the state’s school funding formula, and a funding cliff facing schools as pandemic-era federal relief money runs out.
Montana Proponents for Public Access, Landowners, Await Implications of Wyoming Lawsuit
by Amanda Eggert for Montana Free Press When four hunters used a specially constructed ladder to step from one corner of public land in southern Wyoming to another, the ripples from that decision were initially small but have since ignited an impassioned debate that could open — or unequivocally restrict — access to more than eight million acres of public land across the West. In a three-part series, Montana Free Press will explore “corner-crossing” and what it might mean for public access in Montana. This is the first installment of that series.
2022 Census of Agriculture Shows Significant Shift in U.S. Ag Industry
By Denise Rivette According to the recently released 2022 Census of Agriculture, the number of farms and agricultural land area in the United States have declined, falling below 2 million for the first time since before the Civil War. A farm is defined as “an establishment that produced or sold or would have sold in normal conditions at least $1,000 in agricultural production in a year.”
League of Women Voters to Host Online Seminar on Navigating Misinformation and Not Getting Duped
By: Darrell Ehrlick for the Daily Montanan The problem with Google is that it is trying to please you. When most people search for information, they use a search engine, often Google, and through its algorithm, it presents the information it thinks you may be looking for.
Are Americans Really Committed to Democracy in the 2024 Election?
By: Zachary Roth by States Newsroom With former President Donald Trump having all but wrapped up the GOP presidential nomination, one issue looks set to be at the center of the general election campaign– the threat to democracy. In a major campaign speech
Finding their own remedy: Veterans navigate a lack of mental health resources
By: Maura Lynch for the Daily Montanan Whenever Army, National Guard veteran Dean Murray steps into a restaurant, he immediately scans the room to profile people, looking for potential danger. After making sure there isn’t an immediate threat, he attempts to locate a back door to the restaurant that could serve as an entry point for dangerous people or an escape route in the case of trouble. Murray always tries to get seated at a table facing the front door to continue observing everything in the room as he dines.
Commentary: Instead of Acting Like Children, Our Leaders Should Act Like Our Founders Wanted
Jim Elliott for the Daily Montanan I am reading a history of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin and their role together in the creation of America. It depresses me greatly. It depresses me because of the stark contrast with the caliber of people we now elect to office.
Medicare Advantage patients get less home health care: study
Axios reports this morning that Medicare Advantage patients received less home health care and worse outcomes than those with traditional Medicare in a study published in JAMA Health Forum. They report among other findings that Medicare Advantage patients received “fewer home health visits from nurses, therapists and other classes of providers except social workers — and nearly two fewer days of service between admission and discharge — based on a review of about 285,000 patients who had care between 2019 and 2022.” Their odds of improved mobility after treatment were 3% less than those in traditional Medicare and their higher rates of being discharged “could limit their independence and increase the burden on caregivers.”
America Worries About Health Costs — And Voters Want to Hear From Biden and Republicans
By Julie Appleby and Phil Galewitz for KFF Health News President Joe Biden is counting on outrage over abortion restrictions to help drive turnout for his reelection. Former President Donald Trump is promising to take another swing at repealing Obamacare.