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Head pounding and muscles aching from her 30-hour trip, Brooke Sample looked out the window of her Canadair regional jet as it approached the runway at Glacier Park International Airport in Kalispell the evening of March 31. She had never been so happy to be home. For nearly two weeks, the 21-year old from Columbia Falls, a communications major at Walla Walla University in Washington, had been stuck in Pucallpa, Peru, not knowing when she would see her home and family again. Since November, Sample had been working as a student missionary/journalist at a small nonprofit medical clinic in the

U.S. Senators Steve Daines and Jon Tester have announced that $12,181,409 will be directed to various health centers across Montana to help the state respond to the Coronavirus pandemic, including $616,070 to Marias Healthcare Services Inc. in Shelby, one of the hardest hit Coronavirus spots in Montana, and $536,690 to Sapphire Community Health, Inc. in Hamilton. “This is about getting our health care professionals on the front lines the resources they need to combat the Coronavirus pandemic,” Daines said. “I fought to ensure our health centers and providers received this critical funding needed to protect public health and help get Montanans

When the first cases of coronavirus appeared in Montana, Jolene Barrientes quit her job. A member of the Blackfeet Nation, Jolene had been working at Big Sky Foods since she moved to Cut Bank in January, but she couldn’t risk exposure to the virus. Her husband, Joseph, was shot when he was 15 years old. Now, at 37, he has one functioning lung and no spleen. Jolene said he nearly died two years ago when he contracted the flu, so she fears coronavirus could kill him. To keep Joseph safe, Jolene carries disinfectant everywhere she goes. She said she has “outside”

The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued an enforcement notice to all commercial airlines, ordering them to promptly refund the complete cost of all tickets sold to passengers whose flights have either been canceled or significantly delayed due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. “The department is receiving an increasing number of complaints and inquiries from ticketed passengers, including many with non-refundable tickets, who describe having been denied refunds for flights that were canceled or significantly delayed,” states a U.S. DOT news release issued April 3. “In many of these cases, the passengers stated that the carrier informed them that they

Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines sent a letter Monday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling for an investigation into China’s role in the coronavirus outbreak, as the deadly disease continues to spread throughout the U.S. “As you are well aware, China’s initial response to reports of an atypical pneumonia being detected by medical personnel in Hubei province in late 2019 were ham-fisted with government officials hiding cases, punishing doctors who dared to speak-up, and resulted in delays that worsened the impact of COVID-19 on public health and the economies of countries around the world,” Daines wrote in the letter. “The

Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines, in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday, pushed for a coordinated international investigation of China’s apparent systematic cover-up of COVID-19, writing it’s important to consider “appropriate punitive actions necessary to hold China accountable.” The source of the “real harm to our economy”, Daines wrote to Pompeo, needs to be made clear so that Americans can “truly understand why they are making the sacrifices that they are.” “As you are well aware, China’s initial response to reports of an atypical pneumonia being detected by medical personnel in Hubei province in late 2019 were ham-fisted with government