Are you kidding me? Just as I finish writing about a young, healthy 24-year-old young lady, Taylee Bornong, who was hit head on by a wrong way driver just outside of Livingston on July, 10th, another incident takes place.

In the case involving Taylee, 19 calls were made about seeing the person driving the wrong way, semi’s blasted their horns hoping to draw attention to the careless driver, and that didn’t stop the driver.

HELP TAYLEE’S FAMILY HERE

Just 9 days later, there is another incident involving a wrong way driver. This time, it was first reported outside of Three Forks, with a stop taking place by Logan.

During the early morning hours of July 18th (2 AM), reports came in about someone driving the wrong way down Interstate 90.

The man was driving a stolen vehicle when he was reported to police for driving eastbound in the westbound lane.

An officer was notified of the reckless driving incident and was able to set up another officer down the road with the appropriate stopping tools. At mile marker 284, stop strips were set up and the vehicle was stopped.

What if the officers were not able to stop this man? How many more lives would have been put in danger?

Wrong way driving has become increasingly common this year and one of the major factors in these incidents is alcohol. On more than one occasion, alcohol has been detected in the system of the driver.

The city has put up more signs near interstate on and off ramps to try and prevent people from heading down the interstate at 70+mph going the wrong way. It seems like it did help as we went a couple of months without an incident, but now in July, less than two weeks apart, we have two wrong way driving incidents.

What are the next steps we need to take to prevent this from happening?

HELENA — Tens of millions of dollars had already poured into Montana’s hotly contested U.S. Senate race even before the June primary election. This week, we got the latest update on how much has been raised and spent since.

The last campaign finance reports for congressional candidates in the state, covering April 1 to May 15, were due 12 days before the primary. In the six weeks after that report, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and Republican challenger Tim Sheehy brought in almost $10 million more.

Tester’s campaign reported raising $6.4 million between May 15 and July 1, bringing his total since the start of 2023 to $39.2 million. Tester spent another $7.3 million over that period and has spent a total of $31.2 million during this election cycle. His campaign still had more than $10.8 million in the bank.

Sheehy reported bringing in more than $3.1 million during the same period, including a $400,000 personal loan. He’s raised a total of $13.7 million since launching his campaign last summer, and he’s put in $2.6 million of his own money. Sheehy’s campaign has spent $2.1 million over the period and $10.4 million overall, and they had $3.2 million in cash on hand.

MTN News

While the two candidates have spent millions on their own, that’s only part of the picture in an election that could play a key role in which party controls the U.S. Senate.

As of this week, the Federal Election Commission’s website reported outside groups had already made at least $7 million in independent expenditures supporting Sheehy and $2.1 million in opposition to Tester. Independent groups spent another nearly $350,000 for Tester and $4.7 million against Sheehy. Much more outside spending hasn’t yet been added to that total.

Also on the ballot for Montana’s U.S. Senate will be Libertarian candidate Sid Daoud and Green Party candidate Michael Downey. Neither had a campaign finance report posted to the FEC website as of Thursday. Candidates do not have to file those reports until they raise or spend more than $5,000.

Imagination Library of Montana celebrated the statewide expansion earlier this summer of the program providing free books to children.

An initiative of First Lady Susan Gianforte, Imagination Library of Montana is a partner of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The Governor’s Office announced in June the growth of the nonprofit that boosts early childhood literacy.

“It is exciting to see how Imagination Library continues to spread across Montana and inspire a love of reading in our state’s youngest readers,” First Lady Gianforte said in a statement. “Our local partners have done a fantastic job helping families get enrolled and spreading the word that this program is available to all Montana children up to age 5.

“I look forward to seeing its continued growth and impact.”

The program provides a free book each month to any child up to 5 who registers for the program.

“Prior to launching the initiative, the program was only available in some Montana counties and approximately 9,500 Montana children were enrolled,” said a news release from the Governor’s Office. “Today, Imagination Library of Montana has 63 local program partners in all 56 counties serving nearly 24,000 of the state’s eligible children.”

It said Montana is the 16th state to take the program statewide. The news release said the program is part of the Dollywood Foundation, a nonprofit that has gifted more than 200 million free books in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland.

The Imagine Library mails more than 2 million “high-quality, age-appropriate books” each month, said the news release.

“Dolly envisioned creating a lifelong love of reading and inspiring children to Dream More, Learn More, Care More and Be More. The program has been widely researched, and results demonstrate its positive impact on early childhood development and literacy skills,” said the news release. “Boosting literacy to empower more Montana children and promoting and expanding access to STEM education, particularly for girls and students in our rural communities, are our First Lady’s chief initiatives.”

United Way of Missoula County announced this month it had delivered its 300,000th book through the Imagination Library program after opening in 2015. It operates in Missoula and Mineral counties and helped launch the program in Ravalli County.