Norovirus sometimes known as the “winter vomiting bug” is making a big comeback it’s hitting Montana hard. The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services warns the virus thrives in crowded places like schools daycares and family gatherings. Norovirus is also the leading cause of outbreaks from contaminated food in the US with about 50% of all outbreaks of food-related illness being caused by norovirus.
Reining in illegal immigration ranks as a top priority for Montana’s now entirely Republican federal delegation in the 119th Congress. 2024 ended with a flurry of national attention paid to visas for professional workers or H-1B work permits. The number of foreign workers sought by employers in Montana has nearly doubled since 2016. In 2024 Montana employers applied for about 3,000 visa positions.
The Montana Supreme Court has ruled that state regulators failed to conduct an adequate environmental review of NorthWestern Energy’s 175-megawatt natural gas plant near the Yellowstone River south of Laurel and now the state must move forward with a lower court’s required review of the Yellowstone County Generating Station’s impacts. It reversed a part of the 2023 decision though by Yellowstone County District Court Judge Michael Moses’ to revoke the plant’s permit.
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the January 6th 2021 attack on the United States Capitol where a crowd of rioters supporting then President Donald Trump sought to protest or to prevent the certification of the 2020 election results where Trump lost to President Biden. Of the nine individuals with direct Montana ties who have faced charges connected to it six have served time in prison and one case is outstanding.
For five years Brazilians have lived under no changing of the clocks twice a year that was banned by presidential decree. It is unlikely Daylight Saving Time will be addressed in Montana’s 2025 Legislative session because federal law currently prevents states from adopting it full-time. Although President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to end daylight saving time but the law says Congress would need to act before the states could make any changes.
When the state Legislature convenes in Helena today Senator Mike Cuffe of Eureka will introduce a bill to rename the Montana 37 bridge over the Kootenai River as it exits Libby in memory of former resident Arthur J. Rambo. Rambo who was killed in action in 1969 during the Vietnam War graduated in the top 10 of his class from Libby High School in 1963.
A report by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in December found people in Native American-majority communities being nearly twice as likely to have medical debt in collections compared with the national average. Chairman of the Crow Tribe in Montana Frank White Clay had testified about the impact of wrongful billing during a U.S. House committee hearing last April.
Logan Health will close its Kalispell inpatient rehabilitation facility February 3rd with plans to make it into a surgical unit. The goal is to turn the 10 rehab beds into surgical beds and add three more to cater to the area of increased demand. In recent years Logan Health has had to turn away medical and surgical patients or place them in the emergency room.
The Montana Department of Revenue is reminding business owners with a business equipment reporting requirement as of January 1st to do it by March 1st to avoid a 20% penalty. Businesses with a statewide market value of equipment of $1 million or less are exempt from the business equipment tax.
Great Falls city inspectors will be going door to door this month checking water service lines to complete an Environmental Protection Agency mandated lead-copper water service line inventory. They are following up on residents who did not respond to a letter mailed in November to about 6,000 addresses to identify the material type of their water service lines.
