Category: News Article

The COVID crisis should transcend politics. After all, more than 60,000 Americans have died and more than 1.1 million of us have been sickened. Astonishingly, most people agree those numbers are conservative. But of course it is political. The infighting has been intense and greatly counterproductive. On every level, too, we’ve seen examples of dubious policy decisions. Across the country, we citizens have witnessed far less reliance on public health experts and sound science than we’d like as politicians make decisions that could mean life or death. We’ve also seen our economy, so sturdy and vibrant just a couple of

HELENA – The Office of Senator Steve Daines announced Daines obtained an extra $310 billion dollars for the Paycheck Protection Program accessible to small businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic Monday. According to a release from the Office of Senator Steve Daines, more than 13,000 small businesses in the state have collected a total of more than $1.4 billion in PPP funding all together as of April 16.

BIG SKY – The fifth installment of the weekly EBS virtual Town Hall meetings featured a diverse panel of speakers that touched on a number of topics ranging from vaccines to live and virtual musical performances. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, who is originally from Bozeman, brought a Capitol Hill perspective recapping the series of aid packages and legislation that have been passing through the federal government to support those struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. Daines said he’s been fighting on behalf of Montana in the midst of these nationally scaled decisions, making sure state businesses like taverns are included within

BILLINGS — The Montana Stockgrowers Association (MSGA) and 22 other state cattlemen’s associations signed a letter requesting an investigation of beef pricing margins by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) which resulted from two recent extreme market shifts due to a packing plant fire in Holcomb, Kansas, in August 2019, and more recently due to COVID-19. Fred Wacker is the MSGA president from Miles City and says they believe determining evidence of any fraudulent business practices within the meatpacking industry is vital to our producer’s continuity of business and needs to be identified quickly and rectified immediately. “Montana Stockgrowers feels

New York (CNN Business)United States Senators have a new idea to boost struggling local news outlets in their home states: Ads from the federal government. Nearly three-quarters of the US Senate have signed a letter to the Trump administration encouraging various agencies to “increase advertising in local newspapers and on broadcast stations in order to help ensure they are able to continue to operate throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.” More than half of the members of the US House of Representatives have lent their names to a letter endorsing the same idea earlier this week. It remains to be seen whether federal agencies will

U.S. Senator Steve Daines today announced that USDA will be providing $19 billion in assistance for farmers and ranchers hurting from challenging market conditions due to the Coronavirus pandemic through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). Part of the funding will go to help Montana’s cattle producers who have seen a drastic decline in cattle markets during the pandemic. This follows Daines’ request earlier this month to USDA Secretary Perdue urging immediate action for Montana’s ranchers. “Montana farmers and ranchers drive our economy and feed not only America, but the world,” Daines said. “During this Coronavirus pandemic, the hardworking folks

U.S. Senator Steve Daines, Senator Jon Tester and U.S. Representative Greg Gianforte, all of Montana, announced Friday all bars in the state may now qualify for the Paycheck Protection Program. “Montana’s 2,400 taverns and bars have been hit hard by the Coronavirus pandemic which has impacted over 40,000 Montana jobs,” Daines said in a release. “I fought hard to ensure Montana’s taverns and bars are eligible for the same relief as other small businesses across the state to keep their workers employed. I’m glad the Small Business Administration acted on my request to help Montana workers.”  “Small businesses across Montana have been shut down

MISSOULA – The University of Montana’s Center for Translational Medicine is working on a possible vaccine for COVID-19 right now. To fund the fight against COVID-19, the National Institute of Health awarded UM’s department $2.5 million dollars. The principal investigator on the two-year award is Dr. Jay Evans, the center director and a research professor in UM’s Division of Biological Sciences. “When the call came from NIH in February to shift focus and develop a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, we quickly adjusted lower priority vaccine projects to focus our efforts on this urgent need,” Evans said. “Our dedicated team of experienced researchers stepped up

U.S. Senator Steve Daines announced that Montana veterans and their beneficiaries who receive VA benefits will be receiving their direct checks automatically without having to do anything extra from the Department of Treasury. This follows Daines urging both Treasury and Veterans Affairs Departments to work together to get the direct checks to Montana veterans the fastest and most effective way possible. “This is great news for our Montana veterans and their families who have given so much in defense of this country,” Daines said. “Ensuring our veterans get these direct checks as quickly and easily as possible will help give

Researchers at the University of Montana are working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine with the help of a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The University of Montana has become a leader in vaccine development, ever since a team led by Jay Evans joined UM in 2016, after pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline downsized its operations in Hamilton, and the research team moved to Missoula. Evans and his team at UM’s Center for Translational Medicine began working on the vaccine after being contacted by the NIH in February, prompting them to get to work on COVID-19 research while the federal grant