As of Wednesday, March 3, 2021, Montana reports 100,351 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 202 new cases reported in the last day: 34 in Gallatin County, 26 in Yellowstone County, 23 in Flathead County, 20 in Cascade County, 18 in Missoula County, and more new cases in 21 more Montana counties. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 1,651. Currently, 67 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. The most active cases are in Yellowstone, Flathead, and Gallatin Counties. 1,373 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Sixteen more deaths have been reported in the last two days. Nationwide, more than 517,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. There have been 28,800,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

Voting was interrupted for about three hours Tuesday when a pipe bomb was found outside an Iowa polling location, officials said. A couple walking their dog found the device just before 9:30 a.m. outside Lakeside Center, a multipurpose building in Ankeny, Iowa. Located about 15 miles north of downtown Des Moines, the center was one of the 14 sites in Ankeny where voters were casting their ballots on a local school spending measure. Voting at the Lakeside Center came to a halt while authorities worked to secure the explosive, which had a fuse and could not be detonated remotely.

Country music legend Dolly Parton got a taste of her own medicine on Tuesday when she received a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine whose research she helped fund. Parton, 75, documented the moment in a video posted to social media in which she encouraged eligible viewers to get the shot and broke into a modified rendition of “Jolene” to that effect. Last April, Parton announced a $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University that helped fund three pandemic-related research projects, including one related to the Moderna vaccine.

The Montana House of Representatives wrapped up its work Tuesday for the first half of the 2021 legislative session, tackling debate on a contentious right-to-work proposal and in a surprise move killing a bill aimed at increasing broadband access that had passed an initial vote by a large margin. In the waning hours of the first half of the Legislature on Tuesday, a freshman Democratic lawmaker was “shocked” to see his bill, which had soared out of committee less than a week ago and then resoundingly passed the first floor vote a day earlier, die on its final House floor vote. Rep. Kelly Kortum, D-Bozeman, had expected a tougher fight when his bill got to the floor. He felt the only reason House Bill 422, which would allow local municipalities to construct their own broadband networks, had made it out of committee on a bipartisan 16-1 vote was because of an amendment made by a Republican lawmaker. That amendment would have allowed the local municipality’s broadband build-out to be done in a public-private partnership with internet providers. The bill passed with more than two-thirds of the vote, 68-32, in its initial hearing on the House floor. “It felt pretty bipartisan and agreed upon right up until then,” Kortum said Tuesday. Then, on the bill’s third reading Tuesday, the vote almost flipped entirely, going down on a 35-64 vote. Thirty-one Republicans and two Democrats flipped. “If a third of the house can change overnight there’s some real power dynamics happening in the background,” Kortum said.