As of Monday, August 31, 2020, Montana reports 7,421 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 82 new cases reported in the last day: 27 in Yellowstone County, 13 in Big Horn County, 11 in Flathead County, 8 in Roosevelt County, 6 in Rosebud County, 5 in Sweet Grass County, 4 in Cascade County, 2 in Missoula County, and 1 in each Carbon, Hill, Liberty, Phillips, Pondera, and Silver Bow Counties. Statewide, 436 people have been hospitalized, and 134 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. Yellowstone County has had 2,080 cases so far. Gallatin County has had 1,073. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 1,987. The most active cases are in Yellowstone County, with 976 active cases. Gallatin County has 56. 104 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Nationwide, more than 183,000 Americans have died. There have been 6,010,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

Schools around the world are worried about resuming in-person classes with a global coronavirus pandemic. German schools have been reopening at full capacity, worrying teachers, especially since at least 41 schools in the German capital, Berlin, have reported coronavirus cases among staff and students since they reopened earlier this month. In the U.S., school plans vary widely and most of the largest urban districts will start the year teaching remotely after a summer surge in cases. In the U.K., the government has focused on a strategy of locking down districts with high infection rates. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said students in those areas in England would be required to wear face coverings in school. In Scotland, all students over the age 12 are required to wear masks in communal areas when moving between classes. Elsewhere in Europe, France’s 12.9 million students will return to in-person classes Tuesday despite a sharp increase in infections in recent weeks. All teachers, middle school and high school students will have to wear masks all day, and schools will have one-way corridors and limited gatherings. Spain has changed its plans before schools start reopening Friday. An additional 11,000 teachers are being hired and makeshift classrooms built in schoolyards to create “bubbles” of smaller groups of students who are allowed to mix with each other but not with outsiders. In China, where the virus originated, 208 million Chinese students, or roughly 75 percent of the country’s total student population, have returned to class, many on some type of staggered class schedule. The rest are expected to return by Tuesday.

Thousands of Florida school students headed back to class Monday amid reports of more kids catching COVID-19. Coronavirus cases in children jumped by more than 23 percent in Florida, with about 9,200 new infections in the last two weeks. Most of Florida’s new cases were teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17. The recent August numbers represent a whopping 191% increase in children infected in Florida from only about six weeks earlier on July 9.

A Whitefish preschool student has tested positive for COVID-19. The child is a student at the Whitefish Community School. All staff and students that were in contact with the child are in quarantine. The school will be closed for 2 weeks.

After an outcry from educators, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is extending a school meal program that has provided free meals to millions of children since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered schools in the spring. The program allows families to pick up free food from any convenient school campus, regardless of whether their child is enrolled there and even if they do not qualify for free and reduced-price meals. It’s a form of meal delivery typically offered only during the summer months but due to the pandemic, the Agriculture Department — which oversees the nation’s school lunch program — launched the program ahead of schedule in March and has kept it running ever since. Federal officials had been planning to let certain key components of the meal program expire at the end of September. Most notably, starting in August, families would have had to pay for their food and to pick it up from the school their child attends. After an outcry against that, the school meal program will be extended to the end of the year.

An Oregon bow hunter was killed when an elk he had wounded charged at him and gored him in the neck with its antlers. 66-year-old Mark David of Hillsboro, Oregon, was archery hunting Saturday on private property in Tillamook when he wounded a bull elk, but wasn’t able to find it before dark. On Sunday morning, David and the landowner searched for the bull and wounded it with a bow when they found it. But then it charged David and gored him in the neck with its antlers. The landowner tried to help David but he died of his injuries. The elk was killed and the meat was donated to the Tillamook County Jail.