Your weekly newsletter from the reporters and editors of Montana Free Press in Helena, MT
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Differing perspectives on the meaning of ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ are competing for primacy as Montana struggles to implement public health measures and COVID-19 cases spike. By Montana Free Press, Yellowstone Public Radio and Montana Public Radio |
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One of the most aggravating challenges of Montana’s 2020 mail-in election cycle, several election officials said, is the voter misinformation that staffers are forced to intercept and correct. By Mara Silvers |
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While both Billings hospitals say they’re currently able to meet demand, stay supplied and take on new patients, medical staff are beginning to feel overwhelmed, a feeling exacerbated by high numbers of staff members testing positive themselves or having to quarantine because of exposure elsewhere. By Chris Aadland |
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After encouraging local governments to more aggressively enforce public health orders including a statewide mask mandate, Gov. Steve Bullock said Thursday that the state is pursuing enforcement measures against businesses in Flathead County that have repeatedly flouted health mandates. By Chris Aadland |
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During 35 years as executive director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, Jim Jensen fought — and won — some of the state’s most contentious battles. Now he’s retiring. By Ed Kemmick |
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According to Natural Start Alliance, an organization that promotes access to early-childhood environmental education, the number of nature-based preschools, so-called forest kindergartens and outdoor preschools (collectively known as nature preschools) in the U.S. has grown 25-fold over the past decade, and more than doubled over the past three years to approximately 585. By Amanda Eggert |
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While Montana’s media landscape has for years included left- and right-leaning political blogs authored by resident partisans, Big Sky Times and eight other Montana-focused sites affiliated with Metric Media represent a new trend: digital news outlets that present themselves as community news sites even though they operate without a local editorial staff and appear to promote a political agenda. By Zak Cassel and Eric Dietrich |
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A federal coal advisory council that frequently advocates expanding coal production has illegally operated in secret during the Trump administration, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week in Great Falls by the Western Organization of Resource Councils. By Johnathan Hettinger |
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Now that a Montana federal judge has ousted ‘acting’ BLM Director William Perry Pendley, a slew of consequential land use decisions across the American West are coming under renewed scrutiny. By Judy Fahys |
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As of Friday, October 23, Montana reports a cumulative total of 26,503 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 863 new cases since yesterday, 9,610 active cases, and 16,611 patients considered recovered. State officials also report that 1,170 of the cases have resulted in hospitalizations, with 351 patients currently hospitalized. There have been 282 Montana deaths attributed to the disease. |
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