Missoula Starbucks employees to vote on unionization
Maxine Speier | Montana Public Radio
Baristas at a Missoula Starbucks will be voting Friday on whether to unionize.
The Starbucks on Brooks Street will be closed all day with its windows and security cameras covered while the store’s roughly two dozen workers cast their ballots.
If the employees vote in favor, this would be the first Starbucks in Montana to unionize. Previous efforts at a Starbucks in Butte and another location in Missoula never made it as far as a unionization election.
More than 300 Starbucks nationwide have organized in the last two years.
Officials report first MT rabies case of 2023 and remind public of rabies risks
Edward F. O'Brien | Montana Public Radio
The state’s first report of rabies has led to a countywide quarantine for some pets in southeastern Montana. State health officials are reminding Montanans about the dangers associated with rabies exposure.
A striped skunk tested positive for rabies in Powder River County earlier this month, the first report of a rabid animal in Montana this year. The state livestock department issued a 60-day countywide quarantine for dogs, cats and ferrets that are not currently vaccinated for rabies.
Health department officials say potential encounters between humans and wild animals, and the risk of potential exposure to rabies, increase during spring and summer when most people are recreating outside.
Humans and animals exposed to bats and skunks are considered at high-risk for rabies infection.
Rabies is a potentially fatal disease carried in the saliva of infected warm-blooded mammals and is usually transmitted through a bite.
Preliminary data shows over 200 Montanans last year received or were urged to seek treatment to prevent rabies infection.
Exposure can be prevented by not feeding or handling wild animals, especially bats. Dogs and cats should be vaccinated against rabies, and homes and cabins should be bat-proofed so the animals can not access living quarters.
Officials ask Shelby residents to lookout for a newly detected noxious weed
Ellis Juhlin | Montana Public Radio
Montana’s Department of Agriculture is asking residents along the Rocky Mountain Front to lookout for a newly detected noxious weed. Palmer amaranth, also called Palmer pigweed, was first detected in Shelby.
The invasive, noxious weed is a fast-growing flowering plant that rapidly builds up herbicide resistant genes and outcompetes native plants or agricultural crops.
The Department of Agriculture believes the plant in Shelby came from contaminated birdseed.
The Montana Department of Agriculture is asking anyone who thinks they may have the weed to take pictures and GPS coordinates, leave the plant in the ground so it can be identified, and contact authorities for a site visit.
Suspected Palmer amaranth plants can be reported to local county weed districts, MSU Extension or directly to the Department of Agriculture.
