It’s Saturday, June 12, 2021. Counties are not reporting statistics on weekends now, but Coronavirus numbers as of Friday, June 11: Montana reports 112,761 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 77 new cases reported in the last day: 17 new cases in Flathead County, 11 new cases in Yellowstone County, 6 new cases in Mineral County, 6 new cases in Missoula County, and more new cases in 15 more Montana counties. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 628. Currently, 57 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. The most active cases are in Yellowstone, Flathead and Cascade Counties. 1,641 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Three more deaths have been reported in the last day. Nationwide, more than 600,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. There have been 33,400,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

News headlines for Saturday, June 12, 2021:
Virtually all hospitalized COVID patients have one thing in common: They’re unvaccinated. It’s a trend that appears to be occurring at hospitals nationwide.

On June 12, unemployed workers in Alaska, Iowa, Missouri and Mississippi will see their pandemic unemployment benefits shut off three months early, the first of 25 Republican-led states to slash federal benefits that would ordinarily expire in September. It’s the beginning of a bold, mass, social and economic experiment to see if turning off federal unemployment benefits early for half the country will prod people in those states back to work.

The Pulitzer Prizes recognize some of the year’s most important journalism. This year, someone who isn’t a professional journalist, but whose actions had as much impact as any, is among those being honored. Darnella Frazier, who filmed the death of George Floyd, received a special citation.

Yellowstone National Park set another record for visitation with May seeing an 11% increase in tourism. With the help of a record-setting Memorial Day weekend, May 2021 will enter the books as hosting almost half a million visitors. So far this year the park has seen more than 658,000 recreation visits, up 14% from 2019 and tracking well ahead of 2016’s record-setting visitation.