Birth Control / National Parks

Missoulian: Tester, Baucus help defeat measure aimed to overturn order on birth control coverage
S.1813 MAP-21
S.AMDT.1520 To amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to protect rights of conscience with regard to requirements for coverage of specific items and services.

Missoulian: Visitors to national parks in Rockies spend $1 billion
Economic Benefits to Local Communities from National Park Visitation and Payroll, 2010
“This study provides updated estimates of NPS visitor spending for 2010 and extends the analysis to include impacts of the NPS payroll on local economies.”

Four Loko

Missoulian: Government eyes popular malt liquor Four Loko
FTC Requires Packaging Changes for Fruit-Flavored Four Loko Malt Beverage
“The FTC alleges that Phusion Projects, LLC and its principals falsely claimed that a 23.5-ounce, 11 or 12 percent alcohol by volume can of Four Loko contains alcohol equivalent to one or two regular 12-ounce beers, and that a consumer could drink one can safely in its entirety on a single occasion. In fact, according to the FTC, one can of Four Loko contains as much alcohol as four to five 12-ounce cans of regular beer and is not safe to drink on a single occasion.”

Bonner Mill / Back-Over Deaths

Missoulian: State orders more PCB cleanup at Bonner mill site
Stimson Lumber Company Cooling Pond

Missoulian: Rules to prevent car back-over deaths delayed
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, Rearview Mirrors; Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, Low-Speed Vehicles Phase-In Reporting Requirements
“Specifically, NHTSA is proposing to specify an area immediately behind each vehicle that the driver must be able to see when the vehicle's transmission is in reverse. It appears that, in the near term, the only technology available with the ability to comply with this proposal would be a rear visibility system that includes a rear-mounted video camera and an in-vehicle visual display. Adoption of this proposal would significantly reduce fatalities and injuries caused by backover crashes involving children, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and other pedestrians.”

Glacier National Park/ Snowpack

Missoulian: Glacier Park seeks comment on fish barrier to keep invasive species out of lake Quartz

Creek Fish Barrier Modification and Improvement
“Glacier National Park is proposing to modify and improve the Quartz Creek fish barrier to support lake trout suppression efforts in Quartz Lake, reduce the potential for additional lake trout to enter the lake, and reduce the likelihood of invasion from other non-native species.”

Helena Independent Record: Montana snowpack numbers rebound, at 95 percent of average

Recent Snowfall and Snow Depth Maps
“Snowfall maps are available for the most recent 1, 2, 3 and 7-day period by state or for the entire Contiguous U.S. Current snow depth maps are also available.”

Mars / Alien Tort Statute

Missoulian: Scientists see red on NASA cuts of Mars missions

Mars Exploration Program
“"Curiosity is riding to Mars in the belly of a spacecraft, where an astronaut would be," explains Don Hassler of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "This means the rover experiences deep-space radiation storms in the same way that a real astronaut would."

Indeed, on Jan. 27th, 2012, Curiosity's spacecraft was hit by the most intense solar radiation storm since 2005. The event began when sunspot AR1402 produced an X2-class solar flare. (On the "Richter Scale of Solar Flares," X-flares are the most powerful kind.) The explosion accelerated a fusillade of protons and electrons to nearly light speed; these subatomic bullets were guided by the sun's magnetic field almost directly toward Curiosity.”

Missoulian: Justices weigh foreigners' suits vs. companies
KIOBEL V. ROYAL DUTCH PETROLEUM
“Whether the issue of corporate civil tort liability under the Alien Tort Statute ("ATS"), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, is a merits question, as it has been treated by all courts prior to the decision below, or an issue of subject matter jurisdiction, as the court of appeals held for the first time.”
Alien Tort Statute