As of Monday, March 15, 2021, Montana reports 101,933 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 151 new cases reported in the last day: 74 in Cascade County, 33 in Gallatin County, 14 in Flathead County, 9 in Yellowstone County, 8 in Missoula County, 5 in Lewis & Clark County, and more new cases in 6 more Montana counties. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 1,041. Currently, 56 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. The most active cases are in Gallatin, Missoula, Yellowstone and Flathead Counties. 1,393 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Nationwide, more than 534,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. There have been 29,500,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

Two men have been arrested and charged for assaulting US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after responding on January 6 to hundreds of rioters who stormed the Capitol. Julian Elie Khater, 32, of Pennsylvania, and George Pierre Tanios, 39, of West Virginia, are alleged to have worked together to spray police, including Sicknick, with a toxic chemical spray during the Capitol riot. Investigators had struggled for weeks to build a federal murder case in Sicknick’s death as they pored over video and photographs to try to determine the moment in which he suffered his fatal injuries. Investigators determined that initial reports suggesting Sicknick had been struck with a fire extinguisher weren’t true. “Officers Sicknick, Edwards and Chapman, who are standing within a few feet of KHATER, all react, one by one, to something striking them in the face. The officers immediately retreat from the line, bring their hands to their faces and rush to find water to wash out their eyes,” the FBI wrote in court papers. The two men are charged with nine counts, with several of them relating to violence and assaulting officers.

The US just administered nearly 3 million COVID-19 vaccine shots on March 12 — a world-record daily number of jabs, according to the White House. And cumulatively, the U.S. has given more than 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses as of March 12. Roughly 35 million people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and about 65 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the CDC. That means about 10.5 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated, and almost 20 percent have received at least one shot. The White House also said that almost 65 percent of people over age 65 have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

March 15 is the Ides of March, the 74th day in the Roman calendar. The date was marked by several religious observances and was notable for the Romans as a deadline for settling debts. In 44 BC, it became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar which made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history. The Ides of March is best known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate. As many as 60 conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, were involved. According to Plutarch, a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar no later than the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, “The Ides of March are come”, implying that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied “Aye, Caesar; but not gone.” This meeting is famously dramatised in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to “beware the Ides of March.”