With Medicaid expansion in Montana set to expire next year, policymakers are keeping close tabs on the future of a program that provides health-care coverage for nearly 1 in 10 in Montanans.
Highway safety
Six states get best ratings for highway safety laws, Montana ranks near the bottom
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Amid a resurgence in U.S. traffic fatalities now taking roughly 100 lives a day, an advocacy group recently issued a report card identifying states that do the most, and least, to improve highway safety. The ratings by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety credited six states — California, Oregon, Washington, Louisiana, Delaware and Rhode Island—with having the most protective road safety laws.
Health Care
Medical Board Revokes State Addiction Doctor’s License
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UPDATE: 2016-03-11, 12:35 p.m.: Anaconda-Deer Lodge Chief of Law Enforcement Tim Barkell confirmed Friday that Mark Jay Catalanello was arrested Thursday night following a hit-and-run incident east of Anaconda. According to law enforcement officials, Catalanello was found trying to hide in a culvert after he jumped from his truck at at Hwy 48 near the Warm Springs turn-off.
Crime and Justice
Embattled State Doctor Arrested on Drug Charges
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By John S. Adams, Editor-in-Chief
A former state doctor who is facing an indefinite suspension of his medical license for alleged illegal drug use was arrested in Butte Friday night on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and possession of dangerous drugs. Mark Jay Catalanello was a staff physician at the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs and served as the medical director at the Montana Chemical Dependency Center in Butte until October, when the Montana Board of Medical Examiners temporarily suspended his medical license amid accusations that he was using illegal drugs.
Environment
Yellowstone Club wastewater pouring into Gallatin River tributary
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By Joseph T. O’Connor and Amanda Eggert, Explore Big Sky
On Thursday afternoon, effluent began pouring down an embankment from a Yellowstone Club wastewater storage pond and into a tributary of the Gallatin River. A mechanical issue from a broken pipe is associated with the cause, according to Kristi Ponozzo, public policy director with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.
asbestos
Report renews concern about asbestos-like minerals across arid west, including in Montana
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Recent research is focusing new attention on an asbestos-like mineral, blamed for staggering rates of a deadly cancer in Turkey, that also is found in the rocks and soil of 13 Western states, including multiple sites in Montana. The U.S. Geological Survey has identified 95 sites where the mineral, erionite, exists.
Energy
Tribes resist proposed coal mine
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OTTER CREEK — Sitting just a few hundred feet from the banks of Otter Creek, on the fertile plains the Northern Cheyenne Indians have called home for thousands of years, Sundance Priest Kenneth Medicine Bull carefully packs tobacco into the bowl of a ceremonial pipe. About a hundred onlookers, many wearing red T-shirts with the words “Save Otter Creek” stamped on them, watch silently as Medicine Bull rhythmically recites a prayer in his native tongue.