
Madelyn Beck
Madelyn Beck is a regional Illinois reporter, based in Galesburg. On top of her work for Harvest Public Media, she also contributes to WVIK, Tri-States Public Radio and the Illinois Newsroom collaborative.
Beck grew up on a small cattle ranch in Manhattan, Montana. Her previous work was mostly based in the western U.S., but she has covered agriculture, environment and health issues from Alaska to Washington, D.C.
Before joining Harvest and the Illinois Newsroom, she was as an energy reporter based in Wyoming for the public radio collaborative Inside Energy. Other publications include the Idaho Mountain Express, E&E News/EnergyWire, KRBD Rainbird Radio, the Montana Broadcasters Association, Montana Public Radio and the Tioga Tribune.
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The Mountain West News Bureau researched two possibilities for why certain hunting spots on public lands are getting crowded while the number of hunters remains fairly stable.
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Last September, a woman found what is likely the first DNA-confirmed death cap mushroom in our region. The extremely toxic fungus is a concern for parents and pet owners, alike.
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People have always feared the unknown. And that fear transforms some animals into monsters in our minds — like sharks in the ocean, or rattlesnakes in the West.
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State-run psychiatric hospitals have dozens of people coming in and then leaving days, weeks or months later. Surprisingly, most of these facilities in the Mountain West reported having far fewer COVID outbreaks and deaths than other group facilities.
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If air tanker resources fall short, a specialized team of military personnel can help. This year is shaping up to be another extreme fire season, so having this backup may be especially helpful.
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The Mountain West is as divided on abortion as the nation itself.
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A housing crunch in the West has some looking to public lands as a solution…and a place to live.
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Deadly overdoses from the synthetic opioid fentanyl are a growing problem. The drug is useful for doctors, but now it’s showing up all over. There are ways to test for it, but in some cases, that’s illegal, too.
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The holiday fruitcake has been the butt of jokes for decades. But one professor in the Mountain West wants to clear its name.
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The pandemic slowed food supply lines across the country as workers at major meat processing plants got sick. That meant more ranchers were turning to local butchers for processing, and consumers were turning to them for meat. But more business at local meat shops means less room to process wild game for hunters.
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The lawyers for Adree Edmo, the first incarcerated person to receive federally court-ordered gender confirmation surgery, are asking Idaho to pay back $2.82 million in attorneys fees.
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Wildfire season is winding down across much of the Mountain West as cold weather moves in. But it’s the perfect time to set controlled, or prescribed, fires to burn unwanted dead trees and underbrush that fuel larger wildfires.