Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/news/page/57/)
In Montana and 26 other states around the country, newborn screening samples are not processed on the weekends, creating unnecessary delays that put little lives at big risk. The Montana Public Health Laboratory is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with limited hours on Saturdays. The lab is closed on Sundays. (more…) Continue Reading →
September is newborn screening awareness month. And one of the key components of Montana’s newborn screening program is the state courier system connected to the Montana Public Health Laboratory in Helena. Medical Logistic Solutions, with locations in Billings and Bozeman, has the state contract that includes the majority of healthcare facilities with birthing centers in Montana. Drivers pick up the newborn screening blood samples from healthcare facilities and provide same-day delivery to the lab for testing, with coverage in more than 50 Montana cities. (more…) Continue Reading →
Using data released by the Department of Public Health and Human Services, MTCIR reviewed thousands of records for dozens of healthcare facilities in Montana. After analyzing all the data to determine the on-time performance for each facility as it pertains to newborn blood samples, we mapped them out. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Montana Center for Investigative Reporting analyzed information on the timeliness of nearly 50,000 newborn screening samples to produce the first-ever look at delays in newborn screening from Montana’s hospitals. (more…) Continue Reading →
Walking into two small rooms in the basement of an office building on the 700 block of Central Avenue in Billings, you’d never guess they house “the highest court in the land, on the earth.”
That’s how Cecil DeLabio described The Tacit Supreme In Law Court, of which he is The Chief Justice. He shares the office space with Ted Shinneman, who is the court’s Senior Chief Justice. (more…) Continue Reading →
First the television cameramen shuffle in. Then Gov. Steve Bullock, flanked by a couple of aides at the door, steps toward the stage. We’re in a conference room at Montana State University in Bozeman, and this is a moment that many at Wednesday’s Montana Wind Energy Forum have been waiting for, especially now that it’s the only thing between them and lunch. (more…) Continue Reading →
NORTH OF ASHLAND — A 22-foot-tall totem pole that traveled 1,300 miles in 10 days had very nearly completed its journey by Sunday afternoon. On a dry, dusty hill overlooking a big bend in the Tongue River near Ashland, representatives of the Lummi Nation officially turned the totem pole over to representatives of the Northern Cheyenne people. It will be displayed at a few other nearby locations before being placed on permanent display. (more…) Continue Reading →
We are pleased to announce that Last Best News has a new ad salesperson, Camilla McCullough. Just about a year ago, I introduced readers to Dan Berry, who retired as an ad rep for the Billings Gazette not long before I quit working for the paper in 2013. Dan wasn’t looking for work but came out of retirement to lend Last Best News a hand, for which we are forever grateful. Now he’s ready really to retire, and he helped persuade Camilla, who also worked for the Gazette, to join Last Best News. I knew Camilla as the exceedingly friendly ad rep with the beautiful accent, but I didn’t know her all that well, so I asked her to tell our readers something about herself. Continue Reading →
Stephen Aaberg had already done a fair amount of research at the First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park near Great Falls when he was hired to do a systematic survey of the area in 2008 for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. It was known from earlier research that it was an important place, one of the largest “bison mass procurement sites” in North America. But after just a couple of days of surveying, Aaberg, assisted by a crew of five or six workers and a few volunteers, realized the site was even more significant than anyone had previously suspected. (more…) Continue Reading →
ROUNDUP—The Roundup Volunteer Fire Department has come under criticism for allowing firefighters to drink alcohol in the city-owned fire station. The issue was made public by Roundup resident Mark Higgins, who said he was out riding his motorcycle a couple of weeks ago and saw the vehicle of a friend, who is with the local Disaster and Emergency Services, outside the fire station, across the street from City Hall at 33 Third Ave. W. (more…) Continue Reading →
