Cowboy State Daily's The Roundup

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, July 28th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – Just hours after news broke Monday that a Uinta County brand inspector had pleaded guilty to helping torture a moose, the state livestock director fired him. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Gov. Gordon had strong words about the situation. "Governor Gordon said this is absolutely irresponsible behavior unbefitting a brand inspector, and he said that Martin is no longer working for the state, and you know hours earlier, the Wyoming Livestock Board director Steve True had said that Martin was a brand inspector. So I called True back, and he said, "Yeah, in the couple hours since this story broke, I fired him. True said that it was his decision to fire Martin. The governor didn't influence that decision." Martin has not been sentenced and he reserves the right to appeal how law enforcement pulled evidence from his phone. At the preliminary hearing, Evanston Circuit Court Michael Greer said, "this was done for the sheer joy of dominating a wild animal who appeared to be already in poor health and possibly blind."  Read the full story HERE. – Retired Wyoming employees of Peabody Energy say they feel betrayed by its decision to end a medical retirement benefits program. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the company says the program no longer fits "market competitive practices." "Letters from Peabody Energy started showing up in mailboxes of retirees a couple weeks ago, announcing the termination of their retired medical program, and Peabody Energy is saying that they're doing this because they're terminating this program. Peabody Energy is saying that they're terminating this program because it no longer aligns with the market and the competition. They did not give any more specifics, nor did they answer our questions about how many retired employees does this affect?"  In 2020, the company cut health benefits and terminated life insurance for retirees older than 65 as part of a cost-cutting strategy. Retirees younger than 65 could maintain their coverage. Read the full story HERE. – Charges on a stolen credit card tracked a Wyoming man wanted on 72 child sex abuse charges to Colorado last week. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that his former landlord reported to the Converse County Sheriff's Office on July 20 that John Smallbone was using his credit card without permission.  "When a charge came through from Expedia for hotel rooms down in Colorado. The first thing that hit his mind is he running? Is he running from these charges? And he texted the guy and said, 'Hey, are you running?' And he says that the guy texted back to him and says, 'No, I'm I'm here in town.' This is what put Wyoming law enforcement on the radar that he wasn't in the state anymore, which is not allowed according to the $250,000 bond that he posted." The $250,000 question now is will John Smallbone show up for his arraignment in Converse County District Court on Tuesday afternoon? A call to a phone number linked to Smallbone in his court file went to voicemail. His former landlord isn't holding his breath. Read the full story HERE. – Scenic boat tours on Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park have shut down two months early due to low water levels as southern Idaho agricultural users draw from the lake. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that according to park authorities, large boats are unable to get out of Colter Bay Marina onto the main lake. "They're going to feel it this year because you know they had to quit two months early, and then the Bureau of Rec guys said for folks with like average size motorboats and smaller motorboats, you should be okay kind of until that September timeframe, and then after that, it's going to be pretty much canoes and kayaks. Pretty much by then, the water will have dropped far enough. You're not going to be able to use boat ramps. So, long story short, the boating season on Lake Jackson is coming to an end." The natural lake, fed by the Snake River, was already one of the largest in the West when it was enlarged by a dam in 1911. That dam was enlarged in 1916 and rebuilt in 1989.  Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – In reflecting on Wyoming's U.S. house race, departed candidate Frank Chapman on Monday said both Chuck Gray and Steve Friess haven't had significant careers. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Chapman says, "We're being given choices of people that haven't really achieved anything in life." "He said that the candidate that peels votes away from Gray is Beau Biteman, a conservative legislator currently president of the Senate. He casts Friess' and Gray's professional legacies as unimpressive. He said that Jillian Baylow is doing well, and he also waited on the governor's race, which he said he took pull in for earlier in his own race, and said Eric Barlow is doing well." Chapman announced Thursday he's bowing out of the race, leaving nine Republican candidates still vying for the GOP nomination to the U.S. House seat Rep. Harriet Hageman is leaving to run for U.S. Senate. Read the full story HERE. – A man accused of triggering an hourslong standoff outside the Casper Police Department refused to appear in court Monday. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the judge set William Randall Patricelli's bond high at $50,000 because his "effect and danger to the community is significant." "This was near the police department, just adjacent to it, in David Street in downtown Casper, on Monday he refused to appear before the judge for his first hearing. The sheriff's deputy from the jail said that Patrice Celly was being uncooperative. The judge said she would see him on Tuesday, and declined to tell reporters what his two misdemeanor charges are until he has been formally charged." Patricelli was arrested Saturday evening after Casper police responded to what they described as an active incident involving a barricaded subject in the 200 block of North David Street. The response closed multiple streets and intersections for several hours as officers worked to resolve the situation. Police ultimately took Patricelli into custody. Read the full story HERE. –  A Wyoming eagle called Aurum was barely a year old and suffering from lead poisoning when she was hit by a car near Meeteetse. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that she somehow survived both and is now beating the odds by raising her young in the Bighorn Basin. "So I went to Ironside Bird Rescue in Cody and that lady Susan who runs that place she's been for over three decades The bird was in pretty bad shape but fortunately as it been hit by a car but it was bruised nothing was broken so that was a huge plus and then yes it had a serious lead poisoning infection. Like it was, it needed to be treated. But it wasn't so bad that they had to take it all the way to injections. Like the counter, the counter agent. They were able to treat this eagle with pills in the way she did. He said, "I just took a dead rat, cut the belly open, tossed a pill in there, and then fed that to the eagle." That's how you get pills to an eagle."  Wyoming is prime golden eagle habitat, both for resident eagles and those that migrate in from the north during the fall to spend winters here. Golden eagles prefer small game such as prairie dogs and rabbits, so they're drawn to open prairies or vast sagebrush steppes.  Read the full story HERE. – How do you get vehicles stuck up to their axles in mud on the bottom of a lake bed? You call a tow company that has remote-controlled winches, a custom-built winch foot, and hundreds of feet of tow straps. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the owner of Alpine Redneck Rescue says, "This is a normal situation for us." "What they did was they set up their truck pretty far away and used these long 1000, like 30,000 pound capacity tow straps to get the Jeep out using one of the other stuck vehicles as an anchor because you need an anchor in these things, they haul the Jeep out, and then with a custom rig that they have that distributes the energy, they use a 1994 F250 to get those much larger, heavier pickup trucks out of the mud. So I spoke to Jim Cummings, who's the owner of Redneck Rescue, and he said that on every call you have to get creative." Redneck Rescue has "yet to be unsuccessful" with any of its calls, Cummings tells Cowboy State Daily. He chalks a lot of that up to being over-prepared with the right equipment but anticipates the inevitable call that won't go according to plan. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, July 27th.  I'm Reece Cowan, filling in for Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – A patient attacked a Rock Springs emergency nurse, breaking his nose and chasing him through Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County this past week. Cowboy State Daily's Zakary Sonntag reports that the nurse said "He was fully focused on trying to get me." Health care leaders say this is not unique. "A 26-year-old emergency room nurse named Christian was doing a routine medical check on a patient, and within moments of asking the patient if he had taken his medication, he was punched in the face with a closed fist. His nose was broken. The patient chased him to the hospital multiple times. He caught up to him. He threw more punches. He threw knees. It's a pretty extreme example of what is actually not a uncommon phenomenon of violence against healthcare workers. They are statistically a lot more likely to see violence in the workplace than are other workers." Wyoming lawmakers have tried to address violence against health care workers.Bills introduced in 2023, 2024 and 2025 would have strengthened reporting requirements, created workplace-safety standards and increased penalties for assaults against health care workers. None became law. Read the full story HERE – A Douglas man wanted on 72 felony charges alleging sex abuse of minors was released on his own accord by a Colorado court Thursday instead of being held for Wyoming authorities. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that the Converse County undersheriff says "We're out looking for him again." "Officials in Converse County were a little surprised when a a a man wanted on 72 child sex and pornography charges was arrested in Colorado near Fort Collins in Laramie County, and when he hit the court, the the judge had to basically let him go. She gave him a $50,000 PR bond. But he already was violating a $250,000 bond he had posted in Wyoming and that was a little unusual too, because someone on his behalf walked into the Converse County Detention Center with $250,000 cash. So people are are upset saying, you know, how does this happen?" If convicted with maximum concurrent sentences, John Smallbone could face up to 791 years in prison and fines of up to $710,000. The most serious is the sexual abuse of a minor charge, which calls for a sentence of between 25 and 50 years. Read the full story HERE – A 12-foot-long dinosaur nicknamed Dino that usually stands outside a Sinclair gas station near Gardiner, Montana, was stolen Sunday night. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports it reappeared bolted to a 100-foot cliff face overlooking the Yellowstone River. "The Sinclair dinosaur was bolted to a concrete pad in front of the Sinclair gas station outside Gardner, they not only unbolted it from the concrete pad and transported it away to a large rock overlooking the Yellowstone River in the Jim Yankee Canyon. They bolted it into the rock so it wouldn't go anywhere. So that's pretty elaborate. So the employees at the Gardner Sinclair assumed that this had to have been planned, and they're actually not planning to pursue any charges or anything like that. They don't know who did it, but clearly someone went through a lot of effort and planning to do what they did, and they said they were just laughing about it the whole time." Stealing Sinclair dinosaurs has become a common Western prank. In November 2025, "DINO," a 300-pound dinosaur standing outside Sloanes General Store in Alcova, was stolen overnight. For Brian Black, it wasn't a victimless crime. Read the full story HERE – A Colorado "rain maker" company claims it has used electricity to boost water supplies in two western states by 10-15% and can do it for Wyoming if lawmakers don't conflate their methods with cloud seeding. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinze reports that Two legislators say they want proof first. "There's this there's this company called Rain Enhancement Technologies. They say this isn't cloud seeding where like where they fly planes and and use silver iodide to try to you know enhance the precipitation on the clouds. What they're saying what we do is we actually try to ionize clouds. We we put up these, they just look like gigantic football goal posts, and it's just a really high output antenna that can ionize aerosol droplets in the air and thereby encourage them to converge and form big enough droplets to actually fall as rain. They claim they can guarantee a 10% increase in precipitation at one of their sites.  They think they've cracked the code to generate more precipitation, particularly if we can get more water in the Colorado River Basin." Using ground-based electricity to generate more precipitation isn't a new idea, said Rain Enhancement Technology's CEO Randy Seidl, but his company is a pioneer in attempting to deploy it on a large scale.   Read the full story HERE – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this. Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. – By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside Casper into a gearhead's paradise. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the oilfield worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods and vintage trucks. Now they are all finding new homes. "A Casper man spent his life collecting more than 220 cars, including Chevelles, race car engines, Corvettes, lifted pickup trucks, and speedboats. When Rick Knigge passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last fall, his widow Stephanie took on the task of finding new homes for all these vehicles. They had 20 acres where most of them were parked in Evansville, Wyoming, and after he died, she decided it was time to find new owners for his collection. And so they had an auction earlier this month. Stephanie said that it was bittersweet. But all of the more precious items and sentimental things did go to family members." Stephanie Knigge said her husband was a successful businessman, a devoted husband of 36 years, a father, grandfather and great-grandfather who loved fishing almost as much as fast cars. Read the full story HERE – One of the most difficult rivers to gain access to float is the pristine Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The odds are 1 in 55, with 20,000 applicants vying for 350 slots each year. After trying for 40 years, Cowboy State Daily's Jeff Welsch won the lottery. "I really fulfilled a dream that I've had for 40 years, and that is to run the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in central Idaho. By just about anybody's measure, it is the crown jewel of wilderness rivers in the lower 48 states. But it is so difficult to get a permit. Only seven launches are allowed per day. Middle Fork of the Salmon is renowned because it is 104 miles with 100 rapids, almost continuous, and man barely touches this river. There are no dams. There's no diversions, no pumps for agriculture. Everything. Mother Nature is purely in charge of the flow of the Middle Fork." The Middle Fork of the Salmon is born at the confluence of gin-clear Marsh and Bear Valley creeks on the eastern edge of the Sawtooth Mountains. The river carves a serpentine chasm through the craggy Idaho Batholith and, climactically, Impassable Canyon, the third deepest gorge in North America. Read the full story HERE – U.S. House candidate Steve Friess concluded the Thursday-night debate by saying polling shows the Wyoming GOP race is really between two people — himself and Chuck Gray. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that a campaign spokesperson says "[Gray's] unfavorable ratings are astronomically high." "There was a House debate Thursday evening, and at the end, Steve Freeze, who's one of the nine Republican candidates, said that he believed one candidate was not there. Frank Chapman had dropped out that morning. He believed that candidate was not there because he'd probably seen the polling he'd seen, and he said this is a two-man race now. Friess' team later told me that they believe that Freese and Secretary of State Chuck Gray are neck and neck. A super PAC that is helping Gray disputes that, showing the secretary with a much higher lead." Teton County-based attorney Frank Chapman dropped out of the race that morning, casting it as a waste of multiple people's money for him to continue in a race with so much "clutter." Read the full story HERE – In an attempt to connect Cody and Cooke City, the Wyoming Department of Transportation built 8 miles of road in 1969 and then stopped. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports the "Road To Nowhere" became known as "The Road of Death" after a car with 5 people drove through the road's end. "In the 1960 s, Cody and the state of Wyoming wanted a route between Cody and Cook City, Montana, to give them access to the northeast entrance of Yellowstone. The debate was where they were going to put it, and the initial effort spearheaded by a Cody resident was to build it through the bottom of the Clark's Fork Canyon, and then use that as a natural route to connect to a road that was being built near Cook City. Ultimately, that didn't happen, but they started and paved the first nine miles of it. So if you go out there today, you can still ride this really nice paved scenic nine-mile route that ends abruptly in a dirt parking lot" On May 5, 2002, five teenagers were driving the Canyon Road when the pavement ended and the vehicle went off the road and through a barbed wire fence. The vehicle was airborne for 90 feet before landing, rolling several times, and stopping in a boulder field. There were only two survivors. Read the full story HERE — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Reece Cowan, in for Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, July 24th.  I'm Reece Cowan, filling in for Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – Moments after lightning struck, Casper missionaries watched the Fish Creek Fire explode to life and rushed 20 teen campers to safety. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that residents stayed behind to look after neighbors and livestock. "As they were driving away, they said that they saw the mountain burning. The owner of Fish Creek Ranch nearby says"Ranchers, if you know them, won't leave until they have to leave. So while most people were evacuating, he decided to stay to make sure everyone was okay. Check on neighbors, check on people's livestock, and luckily, no injuries have been reported yet. As of Thursday afternoon, the Albany County Sheriff's Department said that the fire is now 50% contained. The area is still in a go evacuation mode, which means people need to be ready to leave at a moment's notice." As firefighters continue working to fully contain the Fish Creek Fire, officials are asking the public to avoid the area so emergency crews can safely continue their work.  Read the full story HERE – Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Thursday that he'll intervene in the Colorado River crisis — if he has to. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports Burgum tells Cowboy State Daily "We have one-fourth the water and four times the people." "The the Colorado River crisis is just getting worse. It's been going on for decades with feuding between the seven states that share the water from the Colorado River, and they they've kind of come to a head headwaters, so to speak, especially this year when they've had a record warm winter, record low snowpack in the upper basin states like us here in Wyoming. It really is a complicated dilemma on how all these seven states can work it out because each state wants what they want, and the interesting thing here is, there's a deadline for these states to kind of come up with a solution on their own." Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said 'When the water was divided up in 1922, there were 16 million acre-feet of water available from the Colorado River. This year there's only 3.5 million available, which increases pressure from lower basin states for the upper basin — which includes Wyoming — to release more water. Read the full story HERE – Teton County rancher Frank Chapman dropped out of the 10-candidate race for the Republican nomination in Wyoming's U.S. House race on Thursday. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Chapman told Cowboy State Daily that "There's too much clutter" in that crowded race. "There are 10 Republican candidates in this primary race. One of them will move on to the general, meaning a person with just a sliver over 10% could have won the primary, and arguably the general in this red state, and so on Thursday morning, Frank Chapman announced that he's dropping out of the race. He has loaned himself about a million dollars in the race, had spent closer to around $600,000 as of July 1st, and he said, 'This is cluttered. It's hard to get your message across in this field, and this doesn't seem like a good use of anyone's money.'" Chapman told Cowboy State Daily he may run for office again, if the people wish it. Read the full story HERE – Skeletal human remains found in an abandoned building west of Cheyenne on Wednesday could take months to identify, investigators say. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the discovery has renewed hope and fear among families of Wyoming's missing. "So far, investigators say there are no signs of foul play, according to Desiree Tanoco, who founded Missing Persons of Wyoming. This news brings both shock and hope to families of missing people across the state and even across the nation. Tanoko as well as Stacy Kester, the president of Wyo Find Search Rescue and Recovery, both emphasize that it's important not to speculate, but both both said the location immediately reminded them of Quinn Nash, a Laramie resident who went missing in 2024. He was known to ride his bicycle in the Happy Jack Road area." Tinoco said cases like this also remind people how many Wyoming disappearances remain unsolved, some dating back decades. She noted that many of those investigations are so old the original investigators have retired or died. Read the full story HERE – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – For the first time since it was homesteaded 138 years ago, the Hoback River Homestead has hit the market for $59.5 million. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports it's a legacy Sublette County ranch that brokers say has the largest privately owned stretch of the Hoback River. "It's not that there's a $20 million mansion sitting on this property. It's the the size and the exclusivity that you're getting here. You have two miles of the Hoback River. Nobody owns that much frontage of the Hoback River in a single ranch. You're right on the edge of Jackson Hole, you've got these mountains all around you. There's national forests on three sides of you. You've got the Hoback River, two miles of this world-class fishery. This is this is quite the property as far as the land value goes, and that's really really what the price is all about. This is the first time this property has been for sale in 138 years." Hall and Hall real estate broker Pete Widener said the family selling the ranch has chosen not to be identified, but said they are well-known locally and have decided to go in a different direction after the passing of the family's patriarch a few years ago.  Read the full story HERE – When a state lawmaker asked why Campbell County parade floats couldn't hand out Bibles but a Lander float could hand out condoms, the Lander float organizers said they did no such thing. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Campbell County's Bible saga is much more complicated. "John Bear wrote a July 15 column published in Cowboy State Daily, noting that people had been barred from handing out Bibles and constitutions at Campbell County's July 4th parade. As I unpacked the saga, it got a little trickier because I found that there is a wholesale ban on paper products in the parade because they've had trash problems in the past. Bear said, 'Why can the Lander LGBTQ advocates hand out condoms at that parade?' Well, I talked to the Alliance Group out of Lander, and they said 'we absolutely did not hand out condoms. It would be expensive and inappropriate.'" Parks and Recreation staffer, Darla Cotton, said staffers have had recurring conversations with city officials about the trash problem, and main discussion driving that rule happened in 2021. Read the full story HERE – The famed Mollie's Pack was just "looking for food" when it left Yellowstone to den on the Shoshone National Forest, a biologist says. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that in doing so, the wolves kicked off a tempest of controversy over whether they should be hunted. "This bit of a controversy has has broken out over that because they've usually abided in Yellowstone National Park, where there's no hunting allowed. They have moved east out of the park and onto the Shoshone National Forest, in a section of land where the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has proposed wolf hunting seasons for 2026. Game and Fish, their claim is 'look we base we we base our management decisions on science what is good for the species and the conservation of the species not necessarily concern over one particular wolf or one particular pack of wolves.' I also talked to one of the wolf advocates and his claim is it doesn't serve any function because wolves once they get to a certain population, the competition between packs becomes so fierce they're going to start fighting and killing each other and naturally regulating the population anyway." Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce said the supposed location has been circulating on social media, adding that revealing such information is strictly against Game and Fish policy. Read the full story HERE – The owner of a gas station in Wapiti is frustrated that for the fourth time this summer, a driver pulled away from the gas pump with the nozzle and hose still connected to the car. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the owner says "they fill up, forget they were filling up, and drive off." "I spoke to the owners of Wapiti's Red Barn, which is the only gas station between Cody and the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. They say that people drive off with the gas nozzle and hose still in their car about once or twice a year. But there have already been four incidents in this summer alone. Their big thing is that the people in this most recent incident just weren't honest about it. They put the nozzle back in its case, and they drove off. They didn't acknowledge what they had done. They didn't tell them, and they might not even have been fined for causing any damage." "Please be honest," said Manda Siebert, owner of the Red Barn gas station. "Come back in, own up to your damage, and let us know so we can fix it. Don't drive off and expect others to clean up your negligence." Read the full story HERE — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Reece Cowan, in for Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, July 23rd.  I'm Reece Cowan, filling in for Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – Sgt. Zach Burns — shot three times by a gunman in Baggs last month — got a hero's welcome in Rawlins after a 230-mile escort from a Colorado hospital Wednesday. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that the Rawlins police chief said "On the scale of heroism, that's pretty far up there." "Six weeks after Sergeant Zach Burns was shot three times by a gunman in bags, he returned home on Wednesday, and and the people in Rollins just gave him a real hero's welcome. They were out on the streets. They had signs for him, and and his his brothers in blue law enforcement, other first responders. They followed him all the way from Colorado, about 230 miles. A long procession of police cars, sheriff's vehicles, ambulances, all with lights and sirens going, gave him a long procession all the way across Wyoming and home into Rollins. So it was really impressive, and and it was a true hero's welcome." For Chief Ward and other law enforcement officers, the risk is always there, he said. While running toward danger while others run from it is what they sign up for, the hope is that they won't have to.  Read the full story HERE – U.S. House candidate Bo Biteman is one of many criticizing the Republican Party's decision to endorse candidates. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports he called Chuck Gray, who sought and received the endorsement, the establishment. "Well Chuckie-boy you're the insider, buddy," he said. "Technically, it's illegal for the party to financially back one Republican over another in the primary. That has been interpreted by some as been also on endorsements since that's indirect funding. One of many critics, was Senate President Beau Beitman, who is running in the U.S. House race? He did not seek the party's endorsement at all. He did not turn in its threshold questionnaire. Secretary Gray has repeatedly derided an unspecified group of insiders in his statements. And Senate President Beau Beitman, who did not put in for the Republican Party endorsement, was reflecting on it. He said that it is galvanizing a group of insiders, and he said, "Well, Chucky boy, you're the insider, buddy." State Party Chair Bryan Miller has countered in both a press release and an email interview, saying the party respects the "fiercely independent, discerning" voter base. Read the full story HERE – Officials concluded Tuesday that a 33-year-old man likely surprised a grizzly in the dark before he was killed in Glacier National Park in May. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that running into a bear in the dark is a "nightmare scenario," said an outdoorsman who was in the park at the time. "They try to use the trails when they know people typically aren't going to be there. If it's dark and you're by yourself, even if you're trying to make noise, you might not make enough noise, and there's just that chance where you're going to come up on a grizzly. Boom, you know, instant encounter, close range. Evidently the guy did use his bear spray, but the investigators say it probably happened so fast at such close range, they're not even sure he was able to hit the bear with the spray at that point. It was just kind of a confluence of everything going wrong, all at the same time and very quickly, and it ended up costing this guy his life." The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee's report on the investigation of the site indicates that the attack, by an adult male grizzly, was brief and intense. His body was found about 69 feet below the trail and about 2.5 miles from the trailhead. Read the full story HERE – Wyoming ranchers are struggling with an existential problem out of their control. Hay has become harder to find, harder to grow, and more expensive to buy. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that some say this will hasten the end of family farms and ranches that can't afford to feed their animals. "With the lack of rain in the spring and the lack of snowpack in the winter, Wyoming can't grow enough hay to meet its own demand. So, ranchers who are in the routine of growing enough hay to feed their livestock might be struggling this year, and a lot of them are. In order to feed their livestock, they're having to pay a lot of money for hay. A year ago you could get a bale of hay for $150 per ton. Now you're lucky if you can find it for $300 per ton, and are selling for a lot more than that. And ranchers are already having to make the decision, it's either they find the money somehow or they start selling their livestock." Right now, the hay feeding Wyoming's livestock is probably from out-of-state. Jason Watts, co-owner of HayWerks in Buffalo said importing hay from neighboring states "might" be enough to stabilize Wyoming, if only temporarily. Read the full story HERE – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – A police sergeant urged the Green River City Council Tuesday to reconsider license plate reader cameras, two weeks after vocal residents blocked the project. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that he says they are a valuable tool in helping find missing and vulnerable people. "A group of vocal opponents to license plate reader cameras opposed the city getting $112,000 federal grant to put them in at city entrances two weeks ago, and they were so vocal that they got the project shut down. Rhere was a little bit of a counterpoint where Council Member Gary, who had been the lone nay vote in favor of the the grant for the cameras two weeks ago, said seems like the people opposing these don't understand this issue fully, and Dennis Laughlin, vice chair of the Libertarian Party, countered saying, 'I would say Killpack doesn't understand what the people of Green River obviously want.'" Green River Police Chief Shawn Sturlaugson had noted the grant was characterized as an anti-terrorism effort, but he said the cameras would also be a tool in helping find missing and vulnerable people, as well as answering other real-time investigations. Read the full story HERE – Ornery Yellowstone bull bison have now tossed a grandpa 8 feet in the air, chased a man around cabins and popped a car tire, because they're in their annual rut, says one bison biologist. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that a bison rancher says one solution is a face full of bear spray. "Sometimes a bison will display displacement behavior, which is he kind of likened it like if if somebody's driving in a car and they get cut off and the other driver makes them mad, but they can't take it out directly on that person, so they turn around and yell at their kids. Bison will do that sometimes. The bison rancher said he goes through cases of bear spray, and generally he only has to use it once. Like if if an animal's having really bad attitude, he'll hit it with bear spray once, and that's it. They learn their lesson. Bear spray isn't just good for bears; it's good for anything with with an olfactory system." Ken Klemm past president and a lifelong member of the National Bison Association said that when bison display those sorts of behaviors, there should be consequences, such as getting hit with bear spray. "If those bulls knew that there was a risk associated with going after people, they would find something else to take their frustration out on." Read the full story HERE – A Bar Nunn woman has agreed to plead guilty to six felonies for embezzling $206,000 from Special Olympics Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that her attorney told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday that she is "very remorseful for her actions and deeply regrets them. "According to court records made available this week in Natrona County, 50-seven-year-old Christine Marie Rodriguez has accepted a plea deal for felony theft charges after being accused of embezzling more than $200,000 from the Special Olympics Wyoming nonprofit organization. Investigators are calling the scheme sophisticated. It took place over years while Rodriguez worked at the organization, falsifying financial records, forging checks, and concealing missing cash. Rodriguez was initially charged with nine felonies as part of the plea agreement. The courts have decided to drop three, and she will plead guilty to six. She could still face up to 20 years in prison, and as part of the plea agreement, she is expected to fully repay restitution." Special Olympics Wyoming CEO Jen Haines declined to comment on the specifics of the plea agreement, saying the organization does not want to jeopardize the proceedings and plans to speak more openly once the case is resolved. Read the full story HERE – Soft seats, catered food, and a commanding view — Cheyenne Frontier Days' premium skybox experience already has fans. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that your eyes stretch from one end of Cheyenne's historic outdoor arena to the other, with no obstructions. "I gotta say, it's it's better than even I expected. You are like on top of the world up there, looking down on creation. They've got the sound wired directly into the box. You know, it's so clear and loud. I thought it might be really hot up there, but the way they've designed it, the wind is like constantly kind of breezing through there. It feels almost like air conditioning. Before they had like 20 to 20-five people, sponsors who could fit in the box that they had above shoot nine, and they maybe had a rooftop that would allow 70 people. This has room for 450 people." Until now Cheyenne Frontier Days has lacked a true, modern skybox experience. While the grounds previously offered limited, basic, upper-level VIP areas, the new complex marks a much bigger leap into premium hospitality.  Read the full story HERE — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Reece Cowan, in for Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, July 22nd.  I'm Reece Cowan, filling in for Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – State Sen. Eric Barlow released poll results Tuesday showing him with a sizable lead over other Republican candidates in the race for Wyoming governor. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the polling showed him at 42% support, followed by Degenfelder at 19% and Bien at 14% — with 22% undecided. "This is internal campaign polling, so it's not done by a neutral third party. It's permissioned by a candidate, and the candidate can be involved in the process. So, with that in mind, Degenfelder and Bien's campaigns both cast significant doubt on it. Bien's campaign associate associate Cheryl Aggie are saying, 'Yeah, we're doing our own thing.' And there's speculation. Will Degenfelder and Bien split a conservative vote? How will Barlow do it? Picking up moderates and conservatives? So there's a lot of speculation around that trio effect. So for Barlow to release poll figures, showing him at more than the other two candidates combined, it is noteworthy, though his opponents are saying 'this is internal polling, so don't forget that.'" Curt Blake tells Cowboy State Daily "I think a poll can say whatever you want it to say. With that being said, it wouldn't surprise me if Eric is in the lead. He's a damn good guy." Read the full story HERE – A 14-year-old ranch kid from Big Timber, Montana, had a rope in his hand when cries for help erupted from the Yellowstone River. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports he sprinted into the water, threw one loop and caught a struggling man around the arm and neck, pulling him safely to shore. "14-year-old Jory Thompson was visiting his grandparents along the Yellowstone River in Big Timber, Montana, when he heard cries for help coming from the river. Three people had fallen in after their boat struck a rock. Two of the people were able to swim to shore safely. A third man was clinging to a cooler when Thompson waded into the water, rope in hand. He was able to lasso the man and pull him to shore. A search and rescue sergeant said that without a doubt, he would not have made it had Thompson not been able to act quickly." The Thomas family lives on a ranch about a dozen miles outside Big Timber, directly across from a campground where Jory's grandparents had been staying for the week. To his family, the rescue wasn't entirely surprising. Jase Thomas said his son has always been the first person to help someone else. Read the full story HERE – Dr. Eric Cubin whom Gov. Gordon sought to remove from the Wyoming Board of Medicine for advocating a ban on child sex changes has won his appeal – halfway. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that a Tuesday ruling sent the case back to federal court, reviving First Amendment claims against Gordon. "He had lobbied in favor of a bill to ban child sex change treatments across the medical spectrum, including surgeries, including puberty blockers, and he had also emailed lawmakers saying that a medical private association that was lobbying in favor of the bill had gone woke, had been taken over by leftist interests. And so when Gordon pushed him off the board, the governor was saying, 'Look, the doctors that you are governing, adjudicating, have to know that you're not biased and you're out here saying these things.' So Cuban sued, alleging the governor had violated his First Amendment rights." Though Cubin showed a strong enough case for retaliation to revive his official-capacity claims, he didn't prove that Gordon was violating a clearly-established right, the appeals court ruled.  Read the full story HERE – A Jackson man is accused of blasting another driver twice with bear spray during a Sunday road rage showdown, leaving the victim struggling to breathe. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports he admitted using bear spray on the other driver, but told police it was self-defense. "Investigators say that 30-nine-year-old Leonard Dominguez on Sunday admitted to spraying another motorist on the road with bear spray, not once but twice. Both drivers said that one person cut the other person off. They ended up pulled over on the side of the road, and when the man approached Dominguez's driver's side window, Dominguez sprayed him with bear spray. The man kind of stumbled back to his car, and that's when Dominguez sprayed him again. He made a first appearance in court on Monday, and he was charged with felony assault." The investigating officer wrote that bear spray is intended to stop bears — not people — and can cause severe eye injuries, swelling, airway constriction and potentially life-threatening respiratory complications when used at close range. Read the full story HERE –   I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Days after a religious clash exploded on the Wind River Indian Reservation, the Northern Arapaho Tribe's government says it has adopted a new policy. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports it requires ministry and charitable groups to get tribal authorization for their work on the reservation.  "Tribal government asked the church to leave the reservation. The Church is saying no, we're on private land. Here on Monday, the tribal government released a statement saying it has crafted a policy so that outside groups conducting recurring ministries, outreach stuff like that have to talk to the tribe and get its authorization to do that. Now the church didn't respond for my story Tuesday, but this is a very complex area of law where lots of questions come into play. There is a federal law on the books that subjects tribal governments to First Amendment like restrictions. There's also other uncertainties about where the property divisions impact this case." It may be a point of debate whether private land surrounded by tribal trust lands falls within tribal jurisdiction, and if so, for what purposes. It's unclear if the tribe's new policy is constitutional.    Read the full story HERE – Aggressive elk attack far more people than grizzlies, black bears, coyotes and mule deer — especially in tourist areas, according to an extensive study. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that a wildlife specialist says elk can "inflict serious damage with those stomps and kicks." "Elk are are the number one animal that people are having negative interactions with, up to and including being attacked and injured in national parks. It does not mean that. Oh my gosh, elk are that much more fearsome even than a grizzly. The the folks I talked to said that the best that they can surmise it probably boils down to just a game of odds. There are just more places across more locations across greater time frames when you have a lot of people and a lot of elk in close quarters with each other and they don't really see people as a threat." Any animals that are raised around people such as town deer in some Wyoming communities, can be more aggressive than those that live out in the wild where they're hunted. Read the full story HERE – Attorneys for a former Cheyenne woman accused of murdering her newborn boy 38 years ago say there's not enough evidence for a trial and want a judge to order a new preliminary hearing. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that she's also out of jail on a lower bond granted last week. "Her defense team want a new preliminary hearing. They're asking the court, 'Hey, send it back. We want to redo the preliminary hearing because we don't think the judge ruled correctly in the first one. The prosecution didn't show that the the elements of the crime are there to move it forward to trial.' It's fairly unusual, but it does happen sometimes. And of course, the prosecution may say, 'Look, there's nothing wrong with the preliminary hearing. Everything was fine, and besides, you don't just get a do-over because you don't like what the judge said.'" While Martinez was granted a lower bond — and posted it, it was required to have been posted by a bondsman, not personally, and she has to wear an ankle monitor. If convicted of first-degree murder, Martinez could face life in prison or the death penalty. Read the full story HERE – A tourist was caught on video climbing one of the famous Mormon Row buildings in Grand Teton Park. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the grandson of T.A. Moulton says the tourist broke the law and disrespected his family's heritage. "It's easy to forget that the Bolton family is still living in Wyoming, and when they saw the video of someone climbing over the roof of one of the historic structures on Mormon Road, they were understandably upset. Those barns belong to the American people, they're part of the National Park Service. They gave that land so that everybody could enjoy it. So for somebody to not only approach those barns and touch them, let alone climb on them when they're fragile and need to be preserved, it's incredibly disrespectful to people who gave this gift to the people of Wyoming, the nation, and the world." As visitation to national parks increases, one commonly heard concern is that they're "being loved to death." Higher densities of tourists are causing more destruction and disturbance to the natural vistas that drew people there in the first place. Read the full story HERE — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Reece Cowan, in for Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, July 21st.  I'm Reece Cowan, filling in for Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – Wyoming Republican Party State Central Committee met Monday, running late into the evening. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports they made the controversial move to endorse candidates for statewide and federal offices.  "Technically, under state law, the major parties aren't allowed to financially back one candidate over another in the primary election, that has been interpreted as a ban on endorsing candidates. So they passed a bylaw here back in April, flouting the state law, saying we will endorse whom we will endorse. In the meantime, their state central committee meeting Monday evening, unfolded, and they chose to endorse Brent Bean for governor, Harriet Hageman for U.S. Senate and Chuck Gray for U.S. House." Delegate Richard George expressed disagreement with the process, saying "If there's anybody in this state that needs to vet the candidates, it's the people. The people are going to do a fine job at it." Read the full story HERE – Two tourists got dangerously and illegally close to Grand Prismatic Spring on Sunday in Yellowstone. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that Montana resident Tanya Saueressig, who filmed them taking selfies right next to the scalding water, said she "was so furious" she had tears in her eyes.  "Grand Prismatic Spring is 160 degrees, and it's just over a year ago, that we witnessed a bison fall into the pool and essentially get poached to death. So, it's something to take seriously as a entity. But that wasn't enough to deter two unknown women from strolling straight out there. They were seen walking along the edge of the pool, taking selfies, and really not considering the damage that they were doing with every step." Several people have been seriously injured or killed after getting too close to Yellowstone's thermal features. One would think a high risk of death might be enough to dissuade tourists from tempting their luck. Read the full story HERE – A Rock Springs man accused of holding his girlfriend captive for days while torturing her has pleaded not guilty. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that court records allege he warned her: "I will murder your cat. I will murder your family if you get the cops involved."  "20-four-year-old Jake Canestrini pled not guilty on Thursday to holding his ex-girlfriend captive for several days in Rock Springs, beginning on May 30th until she escaped on June 2nd. Canestrini is being held at the Sweetwater County Detention Center. A jury trial has been scheduled for November. According to investigators, Canestrini held her down, yank her by the hair. He strangled her multiple times and threatened to kill her. Canestrini didn't sleep much. So when he finally fell asleep she was able to run and go get help from one of the neighbors." Under Wyoming law, kidnapping is punishable by 20 years to life in prison if the victim is not voluntarily released substantially unharmed in a safe place before trial.  Read the full story HERE – Rep. Daniel Singh, is an incumbent Republican from Cheyenne and was once a member of the Freedom Caucus. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports he says he's changed since identifying as a pro-choice, progressive atheist in a recently surfaced 2021 podcast interview saying "People change their minds." "That features Singh talking to a former friend and podcaster, describing himself as a progressive, as extremely pro-choice, as wanting to legalize hard drugs, he described himself as a stoic and an atheist. And that's contrary to Singh's current presentation of himself frequently quoting scripture on Facebook and voting for pro-life bills every single year, as well as other hot button Republican conservative topics. I asked him 'what is the story with this contrast?' And he said that he has changed. His friend and podcaster doubted that, casting him as an opportunist." Singh first won the GOP nomination for House District 61 on Aug. 16, 2022, over two other candidates. He went on to win the general election and was sworn into office in early 2023. He started identifying as a member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus during his freshman term. Read the full story HERE –   I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – A semitrailer caused extensive damage to a bridge over I-80 near Rawlins on Monday morning when it drifted off the pavement, into the median, and took out a concrete support. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the Westbound lanes of I-80 near the bridge are closed and traffic is being diverted.  "The semi was traveling westbound, then drifted off the pavement, went through a cable, went through a guardrail, and then the trailer itself embedded on the three concrete pillars supporting this bridge over I 80, and then the semi truck itself got detached and continued going a little bit further. There were two people inside the truck at the time. Neither was seriously injured, or at least they had non life threatening injuries. Somebody who was on the scene said that was more due to luck than anything else." A preliminary inspection by WYDOT's bridge engineers revealed that the damage compromised the integrity of the bridge, but it reopened shortly afterward, and traffic resumed without incident.  Read the full story HERE – The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities didn't inform the public earlier that Cheyenne's wastewater system was contaminated by a Meta data center because they deemed it a "low risk to public health." Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports the agency released a timeline and Q&A on Monday.  "The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities has finally responded with answers to a lot of questions that people have been asking for the last couple of weeks. They actually released two pretty extensive documents. One was a timeline detailing everything that happened. And then also a Q&A, which they say addresses a lot of questions they have been getting from the community. Probably the thing that's been asked most is about transparency. If there was some kind of contamination in the wastewater system, which is not the city's drinking water, why just let us know at the end of it? Why not let us know when it happened?" According to the Q&A the answer is simple "BOPU determined there was a low risk to public health, which did not justify a public notification that could result in public panic." Read the full story HERE – Fans still pack Buffalo for Longmire Days even nine years after the last "Longmire" TV episode aired. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that Author Craig Johnson created Sheriff Walt Longmire, and said fans "expect Walt Longmire to come walking down the sidewalk and see them at any time." "These actors who portray the characters in the Longmire universe, they are super accessible during this event. I walked into the Occidental, and there was Robert Taylor sitting at the end of the bar just like a regular guy having a beer, chatting with people who passed by, a lot of people wanted selfies, and he was so gracious about that. I thought it was really cool to see that, and it is part of what attracts people here, is that these guys are accessible. They're willing to talk about Longmire Days all day long." In a world where the real-life headlines often feel upside-down, Longmire is offering a universe where decency, fairness and hard work still count. Where justice might be messy, but is never meaningless.  Read the full story HERE –  There are plenty of theories about just how a $5 bill seemed to appear "out of thin air" and float onto the bar at Cheyenne VFW Post 1881. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that a video from surveillance cameras inside captured the scene. "People say that there's a ghost at the VFW post here in Cheyenn and they got it on video. Two members of the VFW are standing there at the bar, and seemingly out of nowhere, this $5 bill floats floats out of the air and drops right on the bar, right next to these guys. And the look on these guys' face in the in the video is prices. They look stunned. They turn around, they're looking for for whoever did it, and there's nobody there. I talked to the guys at the bar and they said 'yeah, a lot of people are trying to explain what happened.'" If you ask post member Dan Dial, it was the ghost of Darrel Anderson, a longtime VFW member who died about 10 years ago. He said Anderson was just buying Dial another beer for old time's sake. Read the full story HERE — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Reece Cowan, in for Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, July 20th.  I'm Reece Cowan, filling in for Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – Triple-murderer Gerald Uden says he put the bodies of his 1980 murder victims in barrels and sunk them in Fremont Lake, Wyoming's deepest. Cowboy State Daily's Zakary Sonntag reports that Officials were skeptical — until they found a barrel 388-feet deep last week.  "It is pitch black down there. So it is the perfect place to stash something that you don't want people to find. They searched and they searched and they searched and they found nothing. Then years later, a citizen connects with this man and they determine that they may have previously searched in the wrong spot. So this independent search and rescue organization known as OSAR said we're going to go see if we can find this. People spent months looking for anything before, and these guys go out there, and within the first day, within the first handful of hours, they find exactly what people have been looking for. They were stunned, and now comes the extraction phase." Stacy Koester, founder and president of WyoFind Search, Rescue and Recovery contacted Uden in prison through letters and asked for his help finding Virginia and the two boys. Uden initially denied having a role in their killing or disappearance. But Koester kept pressing, and eventually he admitted to killing them. Read the full story HERE – After an agitated bison flipped a 65-year-old man in Yellowstone last weekend, it charged after another group of campers. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports the first incident was "only the beginning of the bison's rage," according to a Colorado man who said the bison targeted a 12-year-old.  "As far as the world knew, the bison that tossed Carl McDaniel just ran off after that encounter. But according to an eyewitness that I spoke to, the bison rampage continued at the same campground. There were four people in the E loop of the Bridge Bay campground. Two of those people were from Switzerland, a mother and her 12-year-old son. And at one point, the bison was targeting both of them. It was highly agitated. Thankfully, they managed to find safety in a bathroom that was on site." As everyone's adrenaline started to come down, they were trying to process what had just happened. Joshua Lewis spoke to the two men who successfully distracted the bison, and they were going over every detail in exasperation. They seemed to be experienced backcountry hikers, which added to their dismay in the moment.    Read the full story HERE – The Wyoming Supreme Court on Friday rejected all the appeals a former award-winning Casper foster dad made to overturn his 128-to-178-year sentence for sexually abusing children. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that multiple former foster and adopted children testified against him at trial.  "Steve Marler was convicted last April for sexually abusing and physically abusing children who had been his foster kids. He was a formerly award-winning foster dad, and he had adopted kids. The testimony ranged fairly graphic, explicit, and severe. Now Marler on appeal had contested many portions of his trial. One of those was that the judge didn't properly hedge and control the offerings of these these 'other acts' evidence. The decision the Supreme Court handed on Friday was not to let him have a new trial or a second chance." Steven Marler, 51, was not deprived of a fair trial in April 2025, says a unanimous majority opinion by Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Robert Jarosh issued Friday. Read the full story HERE – A routine drive over Teton Pass turned into a white-knuckle spectacle Wednesday when an RV appeared to lose its brakes and barreled downhill. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports it was weaving through traffic before somehow reaching the bottom without crashing.  "Last Wednesday, a Jackson videographer named Jeff Bernhard captured a terrifying video of a motorhome that apparently had lost its brakes. So as it careened around the pass, you could see smoke. Bernhard said it was especially concerning because there had just been a fatal wreck about one week earlier on July 7 that resulted in two fatalities with four people injured. Luckily, this did not result in a crash. Bill Sniffen, who's had over 50,000 miles pulling a motorhome, says that often you'll smell something or hear something before you know something is wrong, and it is terrifying." For commuters who travel Teton Pass every day, Wednesday's close call serves as another reminder of how quickly a routine drive can become an emergency. Bernhard tells Cowboy State Daily "it demands more respect than what most people give it." Read the full story HERE –   I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Second-quarter campaign finance reports for Wyoming's GOP primary House race are in. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Steve Friess has amassed the most with $2.5 million, which includes a $2 million self-loan. Reid Rasner is second, loaning himself $1.7 million out of $2 million.  "We had been watching for the July reports. They surfaced this week in that U.S. House race. Steve Freeze a clear leader as far as total fundraisings, loans, earnings. Reed Raisner has spent the most at nearly 2 million, and Rasner, Freese, Chuck Gray, and Teton County Rancher Frank Chapman have all loaned themselves at least a million dollars. These candidate campaign earnings and spendings aren't the whole story. There are also independent PACs that can process significant wealth, that can level significant speech at their candidate or candidates that they don't believe in." Steve Friess, Reid Rasner, Secretary of State Chuck Gray and Frank Chapman will face off against six other Republican contenders for the GOP nomination in Wyoming's Aug. 18 primary election in the hopes of winning the state's lone U.S. House race soon being vacated by Rep. Harriet Hageman.     Read the full story HERE – From burgers and ice cream in Atlantic City to showers in Lander to Thai food in Rawlins, Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that hikers on the Continental Divide Trail are giving small Wyoming towns a big economic boost. "It's put Atlantic City on the map," said one local business owner. "The Continental Divide Trail really is giving some of these really tiny towns along the trail a big boost. The hikers they spend about $9,000 on this trip. They're also looking for places like the laundromat in Lander, which is a little bit like a lounge. They sell boba, coffee, beer, cocktails. You can play a game of pool while you're waiting on your laundry. They offer showers, and it's like a little bit of food, finger food. So it's everything a hiker might want in one place. And I don't think she started the business for that, but it's turned out really great for the hikers." Gateway communities that have embraced the trail are seeing more benefits than those keeping it at arm's length. Even relatively modest investments, like Lander allowing free camping in the park, can pay dividends to a community's businesses.  Read the full story HERE – A Dubois woman who specializes in cleaning up hoarder houses says every cleanup begins with the same plea from clients not to judge them. April Jo Jones tells Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore that growing up in a similar situation gave her the empathy to help people living in homes buried beneath clutter. "What started as a routine cleaning business for a Dubois woman has turned into a specialized service offering help to hoarder houses. April Joe Jones says that it's about helping someone safely reclaim their home and their dignity.  Joan says that the hardest part isn't actually the cleaning; it's the emotional toll that it takes on the homeowners. Sometimes they'll say they want everything gone, but then when she starts removing things from the home, they begin to panic. In these situations, Jones says that cleaning a house is one thing, but keeping it clean is another." For firefighters, the danger extends far beyond having to climb over piles of belongings. Casper Fire-EMS Battalion Chief Bradley Adles tells Cowboy State Daily that firefighters regularly encounter homes where excessive piles of clothing, paper, trash and other belongings complicate emergency calls. Read the full story HERE –  When no one showed up for a Cody girl's 7th birthday party, her mom went to Facebook to see if anyone would swing by. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the town of Cody rallied. More than 150 people stopped by the local pizza place to wish Chloe a happy birthday.  "Chloe wanted a nice seventh birthday party, and everybody who RSVP'd canceled at pretty much the last minute. So her mom, in desperation, just put the word out on Facebook saying, 'If anybody in Cody is available to come to her birthday, just so we're not alone, it would be greatly appreciated,' and over 100 people responded. I'm still getting emails from people who heard the story and want to give something to Chloe for her birthday weeks after the fact. So it's just incredible how the community stepped up because nobody wants to see a kid be sad and alone on their birthday." Chloe's mother said "She started making friends really fast. It was a beautiful moment of a small town supporting each other. They are amazing, and we love this town."  Read the full story HERE — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Reece Cowan, in for Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, July 17th.  I'm Reece Cowan, filling in for Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. –   A wall of water surged through East Thermopoli s late Wednesday, stranding people and breaking a gas main after 4.5 inches of rain fell in an hour near the town. Cowboy State Daily's Jackie Dorothy reports that one resident said he heard a roaring coming in his direction. "It was a really intense two hours Wednesday night. It was clear skies. When at 10 o'clock a flash flood hit. One resident described it as a wall. He called 911, by the time he got a hold of dispatch, the wall of water had already hit his house. Another resident, she was actually trapped in her house. Morgan talked about going outside to rescue her dog. Once she got back in her house, Morgan said that she could feel it moving, and she really thought she was going to die. Chief Cornwall said that this is the worst flooding he has ever seen." Meteorologist Straub said that the thunderstorm that caused all the damage developed about 10 miles east of Thermopolis and just kind of sat there for about an hour and a half.  Read the full story HERE –   Megan Degenfelder's campaign for Wyoming governor released a video early Thursday of President Donald Trump doubling down on his endorsement of her. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the push comes with a month to go before Wyoming's hotly contested Republican Primary election.  "We've got a month before the primary election, which in Wyoming generally involves a huge standoff between Republicans of all stripes, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder garnered the Trump endorsement back in January. Well the president doubled down on Thursday, reiterating his endorsement. Trump varies on when he gives endorsements, Dagenfelder's is among the earliest that we've ever seen. Seven months before the primary election. She said that she was deeply honored to have the president's support and grateful that he took the time to speak directly to the people of Wyoming." Trump has not endorsed anyone in the hotly-contested U.S. House race, where 10 Republicans vie for the nomination. He also hasn't endorsed in Wyoming's Secretary of State race or for other top state executive-branch seats.  Read the full story HERE –   Seven teens were arrested Wednesday in a sweeping western Nebraska raid over illegal machine guns and drugs. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that investigators say they found Instagram posts of the teens posing with and firing Glock-style guns equipped with illegal switches.  "Federal authorities say that illegal Glock switches have become one of the fastest growing criminal trends that they're seeing in America, with a near 800% spike in the last few years, and that is reflected in a recent criminal case where seven teenagers in Western Nebraska were arrested on Wednesday for possessing these illegal machine guns as well as cocaine. All of the teenagers appeared for their initial hearing on Wednesday afternoon in Scottsbluff County Circuit Court. This criminal case came to light when investigators flagged suspicious activity on social media where they saw the stolen guns posted in videos and a series of pictures online. One of the defendants was even seen pointing it at another defendant." According to ATF, recoveries of suspected machine gun conversion devices traced by ATF increased from 658 in 2019 to 5,816 in 2023. Agency spokesperson Ashlee Sherrill tells Cowboy State Daily "they present a significant public safety concern."  Read the full story HERE –   More than 23,000 birds and bats were killed by wind turbines in Wyoming in 2025, according to a report presented Wednesday to the state Game and Fish Commission. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that according to an official "They're flying around and they're not paying attention to those blades."  "Game and Fish, they don't set the policy. It's the Industrial Siting Commission that really says yes or no. They're the ones that have the power over the licenses for these operations. What Game and Fish does is before the project is built, they come in and they work with the developer to kind of give them advice on how to mitigate or avoid conflicts with wildlife, and then after the fact, they will do some monitoring as well and maybe suggest some solutions. I also talked to an eagle advocate in Laramie, and she said, although she appreciates what the game and fish is doing or trying to do, she doesn't think it's enough." Wyoming Game and Fish habitat protection program supervisor Will Schultz tells Cowboy State Daily that, in some cases, painting one blade of a wind turbine black helps birds see it before it's too late, adding that hundreds of hours of work and research have gone into wind farm risk mitigation.  Read the full story HERE –   I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Park County officials say a Wednesday flash flood nearly destroyed a bridge over the Shoshone River and cut off access for some county residents. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that one witness said "We watched a wall of debris build up and surging muddy water begin to overflow the banks." "Monsoonal moisture is moving into western Wyoming. That manifested as several short-lived but intense thunderstorms on Wednesday afternoon, and a mudslide and just an intense amount of flash flooding that came out of the mountains along the South Fork of the Shoshone River took out a bridge that serves a number of people and residences on a county road that's pretty far removed from Cody. Without that bridge, they have no access to the rest of the world. I spoke to the Cowboys State Daily meteorologist Don Day, and he said that the risk of monsoonal moisture and flash flooding is going to extend into the next week at least." The Park County Public Works Department hoped to have a temporary bridge installed across Boulder Creek by the end of Thursday. Park County engineer Brian Edwards told Cowboy State Daily that the compromised wooden bridge had already been "high on our priority list for replacement."     Read the full story HERE – Although manufacturers of AI software that uses surveillance cameras to search for guns say it makes people safer, gun rights activists are alarmed. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Buffalo's Mark Jones, of Gun Owners of America, says it violates the Second and Fourth Amendments. "There's software that's it's been around for a few years. It's been used in schools. It's software that helps camera surveillance cameras, pick up guns, firearms that that have been drawn or the out of a holster. The the idea being at least in the school it can help maybe catch a school shooting earlier. Hobbs, New Mexico, has expanded this to a municipal application. They've got about 70 cameras at different points around the city that have this software. I reached out to some some Second Amendment advocates and also a gun control advocate, and none of them are really fans of it." The technology has potential to do good, but only within narrow parameters that protect gun owners' rights, said George Mocsary, University of Wyoming law professor and co-founder of the UW Firearms Research Center.  Read the full story HERE – A magnitude 3.3 earthquake in Yellowstone on Thursday was felt by people as far as 30 miles away. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that it's the largest earthquake of the year so far in the national park. "A magnitude 3.3 earthquake was detected in Yellowstone National Park around 720 a.m. this morning. So Yellowstone, on average, experiences between 15 120 500 earthquakes every year. This is the largest earthquake detected in 2026 so far, but that's not even that big of an earthquake by Yellowstone standards. The largest earthquake last year was a 3.9 and even that wasn't very big. So while a lot of people get apocalyptic, while a lot of people get apocalyptic any time they hear something about something shaking in Yellowstone, earthquakes are an almost everyday occurrence, and a 3.3 is indicative of nothing to be alarmed about." What the earthquake doesn't indicate is any significant change in Yellowstone's volcanic systems. Even at a depth of 4 miles, Thursday morning's quake was too shallow to indicate anything volcanic, which is true for most of Yellowstone's earthquakes.  Read the full story HERE –  The Galloping Horse is galloping again — or at least it will be when someone at The Wrangler turns the power on. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that after years of being inoperable, the iconic 400-pound folk art cowboy was fixed, refurbished and put back in place Thursday morning.  "The iconic galloping horse that for decades has sat over the entrance to the Wrangler Western Wire store in downtown Cheyenne hadn't been galloping for the last few years. A Cheyenne man who whose office is just across the road, finally decided, you know what, it needs to gallop again. So him and his brother and son got together and spent about 90 hours each, about almost 300 hours between them to restore this thing. They got a pretty prominent Cheyenne artist to paint it again to look pretty much original. And on Thursday morning, they put it up again, so they would be ready for Frontier Days." Thursday was a proud moment for Dennis, who explained he had the idea to get the Galloping Horse galloping again because he saw it every day and "every day I wished it was moving again." Read the full story HERE — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Reece Cowan, in for Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, July 16th.  I'm Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – Wyoming state Rep. Bill Allemand pleaded guilty to DUI in court Wednesday and was given one year probation and fined $500. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the lawmaker faces 88 days in jail if he fails probation.  "On Wednesday Allemand walked into court and pleaded guilty. That hearing had been set for his attorney to face a contempt charge, but it served a double purpose on Wednesday, in which Alamod also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation, 88 days in jail if he fails probation and a $500 fine. he's got to stay out of bars and liquor stores and not violate the law and has got some chemical testing and that's for a year." Rep. Allemand was arrested Dec. 28th in Buffalo.  Read the full story HERE. – The Department of the Interior stopped short of delisting grizzly bears from Endangered Species Act protection Tuesday when it moved to hand management of the bears over to states. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that one Wyoming outdoorsman says, "That's "the way it should be." "It's the 4D rule that's within the Endangered Species Act. The Biden administration moved to strengthen that rule, and now the Trump administration has come through and they're kind of revise that rule to effectively what people are saying: hand management over to the states. It's a bit murky because this does not mean that they're not going to get delisted. It's just handing more of the direct control of the bears right over to the states." A full delisting of grizzlies was attempted in 2007, and again in 2017. The latter led to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department issuing hunting tags for a grizzly season. However, both the 2017 and 2007 delisting efforts were overturned in court. Read the full story HERE. – A blown tire on a semitrailer sent it into the opposite lane, sideswiping an SUV and closing U.S. 20/26 near Shoshoni for more than four hours Wednesday. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that motorists were stranded in near 100-degree heat.  "Wyoming Highway Patrol says an eastbound semi had a blown tire and it crossed into the westbound lane, striking a GMC Yukon. No fatalities were reported, and the extent of injuries at this time is unknown. Even though only two vehicles were involved in the crash, there was a heavy response from law enforcement with several police and fire vehicles, as well as two helicopters and three wreckers. One witness who was stuck at the scene for nearly four hours said it was about 100 degrees outside. He was mostly concerned about horses that were confined to a trailer that were also there." Wyoming Highway Patrol Public Information Officer Aaron Brown said an eastbound semi truck east of Shoshoni traveling toward Casper suffered a tire failure at about 10:30 a.m., causing it to drift into the westbound lane and sideswipe a GMC Yukon. Brown added there were no fatalities.  Read the full story HERE. – Meta says it is appealing a violation notice issued by Cheyenne's Board of Public Utilities. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the company's corporate entity, Goat Systems, LLC is arguing the city has not provided evidence that the company's construction project contaminated the city's sewer reuse system.  "Meta is claiming that they have not received any of the underlying testing or data from the contamination from the tests that the city did and that they sent to the state lab. They're kind of taking issue with the fact that we don't have any data. The permit is wrong. Meta is arguing that the city cannot prove that the contamination actually came from the Meta project. I talked to Dr. Mark Rinnie on the Cheyenne City Council. He represents the Board of Public Utilities on the council. He was not aware of this appeal until we reached out to him." Meta said it is seeking review "so the facts and cause can be fully and accurately evaluated through the appropriate process." The appeal comes more than four months after the bacteria was first detected in Cheyenne's wastewater reuse system. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – As people across Wyoming raise concerns over license plate reader cameras, they're mapping cameras that might not actually be license plate readers. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that a new Deflock.org entry saying Lusk has them is right, but it's wrong about Cody and Gillette. "DeFlock.org is a mapping site where it's voluntary, right? And so the idea is the citizens that are concerned about these cameras are going to build us a map as they encounter them, but as the publicity around this has grown in Wyoming and across the nation, and also litigation and problems with that, we're seeing what look like false reports. So somebody reported a license plate reader in Cody. I called the business where it was mounted is a Quick Lube-style shop, and the guy said, 'No, it's a vehicle counter because if I ever want to sell this place, I want to tell the buyer just how much traffic we have here.' And then in Gillette, the PD and the sheriff's office were both emphatic, like, 'No, we're not doing license plate readers.'" Outspoken Green River residents earlier this month halted their police chief's bid to install license plate readers at town entrances. Besides Lusk, the Wyoming communities of Cheyenne, Jackson, Glenrock, and the Wind River Indian Reservation all have license plate reader cameras in place. Read the full story HERE. – Yellowstone National Park will spare the life of the bison that seriously hurt a 65-year-old grandpa from Washington. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that park officials said "no management action" will be taken against the bison which means it won't be relocated or euthanized. "The park rarely takes any management action because identifying that specific animal is difficult, and it's usually the animals are just doing what they would naturally do, whether it's because bison are in the rut or bears are defending their cubs or a food source. I spoke to bison biologist George Werthner. He reviewed the footage of the incident at Bridge Bay Campground over the weekend, and he said there really wasn't anything that Carl McDaniel could have done differently to prevent that attack."  Even grizzlies that attack and seriously injure park guests usually get off the hook, so long as the attack was determined to be a natural behavior, like defending cubs or a food source. Read the full story HERE. –  A family hurt in a crash west of Casper that killed two people when a semitruck plowed into a construction zone is suing the trucking company and the as-yet unidentified truck driver. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that no criminal charges have yet been filed as an investigation continues. "Nearly a month after a commercial tanker drove into six cars, killing two people and injuring eight, a family has filed a lawsuit. Representing the injured family is Casper attorney Dallas Laird. He said simply that they're hoping for a settlement. The exact number remains unknown, as the family is still receiving medical care for long-term injuries. This civil lawsuit stems from a June 26th crash that happened west of Casper, between Casper and Manita. The complaint alleges that the tanker failed to stop in a construction zone." The negligence lawsuit, filed Friday in Natrona County District Court, names Ryan Brothers Trucking Inc. and a John Doe defendant, identified as the tanker driver whose identity was not yet known to the plaintiffs when the complaint was filed. Read the full story HERE. – It was 47 years ago today that Cheyenne was hit by the most powerful tornado in Wyoming history. The powerful F3 tornado destroyed hundreds of homes,  caused tens of millions of dollars in damages, and killed one. Cowboy State Daily's Kerry Drake was a reporter for the Wyoming Tribune and covered the story. "It was obviously a terrible time for Cheyenne; most destructive tornado in the history of Wyoming. I was a photographer for the Wyoming State Tribune at the time. I was out covering a meeting, and I found out after I looked and we saw the tornado that I didn't have my camera with me. And fortunately, a good friend of mine who was at the meeting with me did. So we first saw the tornado looked like a big fire, and then we saw it move and realized what it was, so I kept telling my friend Jerry Johnson to shoot, shoot, shoot, and he did. And we got some photos that eventually we brought them down to the AP and UPI, and they were the first things that they had on the tornado." After the dust settled, there were 400 buildings that were damaged, including about 140 that were just totaled, 25 million dollars worth of damage, after the tornado traveled about almost 9 miles. For more on the tornado, read Kerry Drake's two stories that Cowboy State Daily published today. There is also an interview with the former mayor of Cheyenne who recounts his experiences. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, July 14th.  I'm Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – The man who made international headlines after being attacked by a bison in Yellowstone on Friday is in a hospital recovering with several broken bones. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that Carl Ison-McDaniel of Washington state is thanking well-wishers and says he's "OK." "As of Monday, Carl McDaniel is hospitalized in serious condition. And before you panic, he was admitted to the hospital in critical condition after being tossed by the bison at the Bridge Bay campground in Yellowstone. He has several broken bones that are going to take a lot of time to mend. Carl never lost consciousness during this whole ordeal. He was even joking about it before Yellowstone EMS came to take control of the situation." Ison-McDaniel, of Kendall, Washington, broke his femur in four places after being tossed airborne by a bull bison Friday. The 65-year old is expected to make a full recovery after being tossed 8-feet in the air by a bison. Read the full story HERE. –  Northern Arapaho Tribal leaders have told a Christian church to leave their reservation after the pastor preached "a pipe cannot hear your prayers." Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the pastor said she's staying, and won't apologize. "This could end up in court, but it's not very straightforward because the church is within the exterior boundaries of the reservation, but it's on private land, so it's a little tricky, or arguably impossible to kick someone off of private land. On the other hand, the tribe has some history of sovereignty and retains some sovereignty. So, it may be a question for the courts. In the meantime, the pastor, Sarah Lucas, said that she's sorry it came off as an attack, but she's not sorry for preaching that quote 'Jesus is the only way.'" Protests unfolded at the Riverton City Hall and at the Foundations for Nations church site in the town of Arapahoe. Protestors joined in a traditional chant as honks and whoops sounded from passing vehicles. Read the full story HERE. – A company called Site Layer 4 wants to rezone 5,344 acres of ranchland near Wheatland for a data center and power plant. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the project, the developer says, adds 300 jobs and substantial tax revenue, but neighbors worry about water, wildlife, and their viewshed. "There's some big figures to throw around here with this. I think $26 billion in capital investment, 5,000-plus acres, 250 to 300 employees. The rancher I talked to said he's not against the project, but he really hopes that they're taking appropriate steps to protect the wildlife in the area. The economic developer. Her take on this is: if you've driven through Wheatland, you've seen the vacant buildings. This is a place that could use some commercial development, some economic development, to help create opportunities to keep their kids home." The property is roughly 13 miles east of Interstate 25, in an area now used for grazing and agriculture. Public hearings about the data center are scheduled to begin in August. Read the full story HERE. – The body of Tory Raether was found in the Snake River a week after leaping into the swift currents without a lifejacket. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that  family and friends remember Raether as a devoted husband, father and mentor.  "After a week of searching and waiting, the body of 55-year-old, North Carolina man Tory Raither was discovered on Saturday, july 11, by campers. After discovering the body the campers paddleboarded out and then called the authorities. Search and rescue was already in the water, and so they were able to respond quickly. Raither's wife, daughters, and friends were in the area helping search and rescue when the body was found. They are planning to take the body back to North Carolina for a burial." The 55-year-old Raether disappeared July 4th after jumping into the river at Jump Rock, a popular recreation area about 3½ miles east of Alpine. Members of his group tried unsuccessfully to rescue him after he began struggling against the swift current. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – GOP congressional candidate Chuck Gray derided primary opponent Reid Rasner after he brought Gray's father into the campaign by saying "Chuck Gray's Dad Supports Reid." Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Gray called it "more unhinged nonsense from Reid Rasner."  "He's been trolling Chuck Gray, but this is a true troll in that he's saying Chuck Gray's dad supports Reed, and he showed screenshots that appear to depict Jan Charles Gray, the Secretary of State's father, casting heart face and fire emojis on Reed Raisner posts. And so I asked Jan Charles Gray about this. He didn't deny or confirm leaving those reactions. He did reiterate, though, that he emphatically supports his son." Rasner's team did not respond to a text message request for an interview, for the original screenshots, or for confirmation of a different claim Rasner made Monday. Read the full story HERE. – For many northern Wyoming communities, Sunday was the hottest day in recorded history. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi ticks off the list of towns that broke records.  "There's no way to do justice for how hot it was on Sunday without just listing the all time temperature records broken on Sunday, and these are the hottest temperatures ever recorded in these communities: 110 degrees in Worland, 104 degrees in Sheridan, 104 degrees in Buffalo. I asked Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day if there's a likelihood that it could get this hot again during the summer. The short answer is it could get that hot again on Tuesday. It's not likely to be as hot as Sunday, but it could be just as hot." At Lake Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park, Sunday's high was 88 degrees. The previous record was 86, set on July 19, 2021. Read the full story HERE. – After an outcry, Game and Fish has decided to back off its proposal to prevent veterans with PTSD and other non-apparent disabilities from hunting during special early seasons. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Bill Brinegar of Hunting With Heroes says, the public's reaction was "loud and clear." "After a huge pushback from the public, they decided to go ahead and reverse that, and so the Game and Fish Department tomorrow on Tuesday will recommend to the Game and Fish Commission that that rule just stay in place. 100% If the VA says you're 100% disabled, that works for us. You can have access to these special early hunts. The proposal was to basically to narrow it down to extreme physical disabilities only. They got massive pushback against that, including from a lot of veterans groups." The department will recommend against removing a provision for counting a "100% service-related disability," based on a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs, in Wyoming's disabled-hunter regulations.  The final decision is up to the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, which is scheduled to vote on it during its meeting Tuesday in Sheridan. Read the full story HERE. – The galloping horse and rider at Wrangler's Western-wear store has been a fixture in downtown Cheyenne since the 1950s, but it broke down four years ago and efforts to fix it failed. Cowboy State Daily's Executive Editor Jimmy Orr reports that now, a Cheyenne family rebuilt the horse in time for Cheyenne Frontier Days. "Patrick Graham was talking to a city councilman and said that his office was right across the street from the Wrangler, and 'I sure wish they would fix that thing.' And so Pete told him, 'We'll fix it.' They were told yes, you can take it down if you have it up in time for Frontier Days. So they took it down. They spent more than 300 hours in just recreating this horse and rider, and it's amazing what they did."  The pony and rider have been featured outside The Wrangler's western-wear store at Capitol Avenue and 16th Street since the late 1950s or early 1960s. It's now owned by Boot Barn. No one knows precisely when the sign made its first appearance, and there's no record of its creator. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, July 10th.  I'm Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – A tourist was seriously injured Friday evening after being thrown 8 feet into the air by a bull bison in Yellowstone National Park. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that professional photographer Mike Macleod filmed the incident and said the bison was "angry, agitated and charging anything and everything." "The victim did nothing wrong. The narrative that's been circulating across social media is that this was another quote-unquote Touron or idiot doing something wrong in the park, and that can and does happen. But looking at the video evidence, the victim did nothing to provoke the bison. They were a safe distance away, at least in theory. This bison had been causing trouble in the Bridge Bay campground for a while before he showed up.  The victim and his grandson tried to put something between themselves and the bison when it ran towards them, and that just wasn't enough. The bison in this case was the instigator." MacLeod was camping at the Bridge Bay Campground when his wife pointed out the bull bison entering the area. He grabbed his camera and started shooting from a safe distance. Meanwhile, footage of the incident has become an international sensation with news organizations all over the U.S. and the world referencing Cowboy State Daily's article. Reporter Andrew Rossi was the first to cover the story and to get an interview with the photographer. The video has been viewed millions of times. Read the full story HERE. – A Mexican national who faces eight felonies is attempting to stay in the country after he allegedly tried to ram travelers off the road in Snake River Canyon in June of 2024. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that one victim says that 46-year-old Ramon Gabriel Chavez Cruz, "deliberately crossed the centerline and targeted our vehicle." "His Teton County case just concluded with what they call a split sentence. He spends 180 days in jail, tries probation for three years. If he fails probation, he goes to prison for like two and a half to four and a half years. But he already has enough time served that that initial 180-day stint is eclipsed. The trooper recounted that he was basically trying to head-on collide with multiple people. Most of that happened in Lincoln County, one of the alleged victims from Lincoln County, was flabbergasted at the 180-day sentence in Teton County, but it's just not over yet. And as for the visa, his defense attorney was describing it as if he's been the victim of a crime and is working to stay in the country in relation to that somehow." Chavez Cruz faces potentially much harsher consequences in Lincoln County, where County Attorney Spencer Allred has filed eight counts of aggravated assault against him – one for each person he allegedly charged with his truck.  Read the full story HERE. – A Gillette woman's plans for one last summer road trip with her dying daughter have been derailed by a failed transmission in their 26-year-old SUV. But Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that London Tabor says she's not giving up hope to take this trip with her daughter. "Her daughter has Huntington's disease, and it's quickly sapping her life, and so they plan to go to the East Coast, plan to go rock hunting in Wyoming, and to a Huntington disease event that's in Utah, and all of that was on hold because she didn't have a vehicle. So, she's trying to rent a camper that would be able to facilitate taking her daughter, who now can't do anything except sit in a seat and watch. So she was hoping that she can get this trip accomplished, and have great memories with her this summer." Autumn was diagnosed with the disease in 2018 at age 12, which also is the same year that her father, Justin Fender, died from the same condition at age 36.  Read the full story HERE. – Green River's Bradlee Skinner was homeless, delivering pizzas, and wondering how his life had unraveled. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that now he performs before sold-out crowds with the Savannah Bananas, baseball's wildly popular entertainment phenomenon. And it all started with a selfie. "In 2024, Bradley Skinner, he's a high school teacher at Green River, teaches theater in English, and he took a group of theater students to Salt Lake City to see the Savannah Bananas. And while they were all getting their pictures taken with the players in the parking lot before the game, Skinner heard a DJ. He knew there was a DJ nearby, and he himself is a DJ. So he went and sought out that guy and took a picture with him. And the guy noticed, and they started up a conversation about DJing. And so fast forward a year, and that DJ reached out and said, "Hey, I think you should try out. They're doing auditions because they're growing their teams. They're adding new teams, and they need a few more DJs in their back pocket. So that's really how it all got started with a selfie." The job has taken him from Wyoming classrooms to iconic ballparks such as Coors Field in Denver and soon Wrigley Field in Chicago, where he rubs shoulders with performers and entertainers he once showed his students as examples of creative excellence. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – So many dead trees are piling up on Wyoming's remote wilderness trails, some outfitters say they should be allowed to use chainsaws to clear them rather than working for days with hand tools. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that chainsaws have been banned from those areas for 62 years. "The Forest Service kind of created a little loophole and allowed some outfitters in this spring in Idaho, in the Frank Church wilderness, and so now some people are saying, "Hey, we need to start doing this kind of all over the West, just letting a few people get in, because we just, we can't keep ahead of this timber otherwise, because under the strict rules of wilderness, you have to go in there like the old-fashioned push-pull saws or an ax or whatever, and some people are saying that with the sheer volume, what we got there, which we're never going to get ahead of it, and of course, opponents are saying no." Pine beetle epidemics have torn through forests across the West, leaving dead trees everywhere. They frequently fall over on trails, or blow over in huge piles. The Forest Service and volunteer trail associations across Wyoming can hardly keep up with the work. Read the full story HERE. –  A trespasser trying illegally to make a copy of rare dinosaur footprints on the "Paleo Park" Zerbst Ranch near Newcastle ended up vandalizing the site. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that owner Kristen Stauffer says she was "shell-shocked." "Apparently, someone trespassed onto their property, poured blue silicone into one of the tracks in the attempt to make a copy of it, and then just abandoned the scene with the silicone still in the track, now they have been able to remove most of it. But setting aside the fact that there could be permanent damage from that, it's the fact that somebody violated their trust. That if this person had asked them if they could make a copy of their dinosaur footprint, they would have been all for it." Setting aside the enormous scientific value of the fossil, Stauffer was "heartbroken" by the blatant disregard for her family's history. The Zerbst Trackway was found by her father, Leonard, and has enormous personal significance to her and her family. Read the full story HERE. – Laramie 9-year-old elk caller Axl Anton is set to compete against teens nearly twice his age in the world elk calling championship this month. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Axl's already "in the top five best callers in the country, if not the best," said a hunting industry insider. "His dad said he took an interest in it when he was about two, called in his first bull when he was six, and he's been in several contests now. He's going to the world elk calling contest that's held at Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's headquarters in Missoula, Montana. The kid is young enough to compete in the Peewee division, but he said he doesn't want to do that, he wants to step up and compete with the big kids, so he's going to be competing with kids that are about high school age. He already is almost considered world class at the ripe old age of nine, so just kind of a cool story" Archery elk hunters use tube-shaped calls to imitate the grunts, screams and bugles of bull elk during the rut, or mating season. The idea is to sound as much like a bull elk as possible. So, the real bulls, thinking a challenger is in their territory, will move in to investigate. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, July 10th.  I'm Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – A Big Horn County grandfather and mother have been charged after a baby died Monday. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the infant was found in a 95-degree trailer filled with feces, garbage, and a 5-gallon bucket of human waste.  "Destiny's duty said she woke up sometime after 1am to feed the baby and put the baby back to bed, and in the morning around 9am she found the baby in the crib unresponsive. She was on her way to Three Rivers Hospital when she called 911 and when she got to the hospital, investigators saw that she herself was covered in dirt. She had what appeared to be head lice and a strong odor coming from her and the baby. When they looked at the baby's body, there was dirt under its fingernails, as well as an insect that was crawling inside the diaper. Investigators obtained a search warrant, and when they went into the camper where the family lived, they found horrific conditions. There was a bucket of human feces in the bathroom, no running water, no air conditioning, and the temperature was 95 degrees inside their home."  56-year-old Travis Study is charged with felony child endangerment alleging exposure to meth, along with misdemeanor counts of reckless endangering, child endangerment, possession of methamphetamine and possession of marijuana. 22-year-old Destynie Study is charged with misdemeanor reckless endangering of a child and child endangerment. She pleaded not guilty Wednesday. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman is demanding answers from Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg about how its Cheyenne data center contaminated the city's wastewater system. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that in a Thursday letter, Rep. Hageman writes she's "deeply concerned." "Hageman issued a letter Thursday to Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, which is a Facebook giant that also is that also has data centers in Wyoming and Cheyenne, demanding to know things like how could a rare bacteria leak from a closed loop data center cooling system into Cheyenne's wastewater system, and now the company fired back, saying, you know, we haven't found the bacterium in our system, whereas the Board of Public Utilities announced the data center as the source of the bacterium. She really focused her questioning on how could something leak from this, in, you know, how could a rare bacteria leak from this." That public announcement about the contamination came more than four months after the Meta contractor — which is building an $800 million data center in south Cheyenne — disrupted the city's reclaimed wastewater system with the rare bacterial contaminant. Read the full story HERE. – With Pathfinder Reservoir less than 24% full, some farmers and ranchers in eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska are being warned they could be out of irrigation water by the first week of August. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that there is a backup plan, but it's not foolproof. "The snow pack has been historically low, it was the worst on record this year, and the reservoir where this irrigation, where this irrigation channel originates, is called the Pathfinder Reservoir, and it is at just about 23% right now. So the levels were already low, and it caused the irrigation canals to open up later in the year than they normally would have, and so farmers and ranchers are already hurting for water, and just weeks after the canals open, they're being told we may run out of water first part of August. the Pathfinder Irrigation District has previously said that they are against pulling water from other sources because they have to rent it, they basically pay to use it, and then they're required to return it somehow before the end of the irrigation season, so it's really a lose-lose as far as that goes." The district operates a vast canal network that diverts water from the North Platte River at Whalen Dam, delivering irrigation to more than 100,000 acres of farmland. The water originates in Pathfinder Reservoir southwest of Casper. Read the full story HERE. – A Cheyenne boy who was 14 when he allegedly shot his mom in the head and charged as an adult with first-degree murder should be in juvenile court, his attorney argues in a Tuesday court motion. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports public defender Emily Williams claims Havoc Leone's mother "verbally and physically abused" him. "The motion does lay out some of the arguments the defense plans to make, like the mother is was allegedly abusive to this teen, verbally and physically, they, he was homeschooled for like six years and was kept isolated and didn't have any friends, and just wasn't as mature as other teens his age would have been, so and they mean there's several, they mentioned several times in the motion that society is not kept safer by trying him as an adult, that the extra help that he'll get in the juvenile court actually will make society safer, whether that's that, whether that's really the case or not, that's up to a judge to decide." Despite the arguments of abuse and his age — 14 is the cutoff in Wyoming to be charged as an adult — Laramie County District Attorney Sylvia Hackl says her office believes the adult charge is appropriate and will oppose Williams' motion. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Two months after a Casper woman was killed during a child custody exchange with her ex-boyfriend, her mother, Shannon Clark, says she wants people to know who her daughter was. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that mom says she misses her daughter everyday and "The quiet moments are the hardest." "Jackson's mother, Shannon Clark, talked to Cowboy State Daily on Thursday. She wants people to remember her daughter as more than just a victim. She says that her daughter, Ashley, loved her son more than anything. The couple's three-year-old son witnessed the shooting and is now living with his grandparents. Clark said that is now her mission in life to raise Ashley's son the way she would have wanted." Friends have also established the GoFundMe campaign to help provide long-term financial support for Will as he grows up without his parents. For Clark, though, her daughter's legacy isn't measured by memorials or fundraisers. It's measured every morning when a little boy wakes up in his grandparents' home. Read the full story HERE. – A Uinta County rancher charged with videotaping two others torturing a sickly moose by roping, riding, and spurring it is continuing toward a trial date next month. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that two other men in the case have entered plea deals with a special prosecutor. "Two of three people charged in Uinta County for abusing a moose have entered a plea deal with a special prosecutor, and that deal says that they'll have three years of probation, and they also had to tell the court about the third defendant, who's charged with videotaping both of their abuse, one riding the mute, the moose, spurring it, and the other one lassoing the moose, and call and pulling it with a horse, those were separate incidents back in May 2021 So now the third defendant is still headed to a trial that's going to be in August, August 11th, in Uinta County." Court records show 54-year-old Justin Martin of Evanston, faces trial on charges of two counts of accessory before the fact to felony cruelty to animals, and two counts of accessory before or after the fact to wanton taking of a big-game animal, both misdemeanors. His son, Range Martin of Evanston, 23, pleaded guilty June 22 to a felony cruelty to animals charge in return for the dropping of two misdemeanor charges. Kylan Platte, 22, of Malad City, Idaho, took a similar deal and plead guilty to felony cruelty to animals June 30. Read the full story HERE. –  Wyoming local government leaders in data center-heavy areas who spoke with Cowboy State Daily on Thursday say they've never signed nondisclosure agreements with data center companies. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the agreements can be legal if built correctly, however. "We've been hearing for a long time that local public officials signed non-disclosure agreements with data centers while being courted by those companies. I contacted the leaders of communities that have known data centers or have been implicated as having them. I called county chairs and mayors, and everyone that talked to me on Thursday said no, I've never signed any such NDA." Tom Lubnau, a Gillette-based attorney who's worked at length with Wyoming's public-records law, tells Cowboy State Daily that state law allows for local governments to sign NDAs with data center companies, but it's complicated. Read the full story HERE. – The National Weather Service is predicting a record-breaking weekend for many locations in Wyoming with "dangerously hot conditions" in the forecast. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that temperatures will be hottest in the Big Horn Basin with Worland and Greybull expected to top 110 degrees. "This isn't a one-and-done. We're not going to get relief out of this. Between at least Saturday night and Monday evening, we're going to have record breaking or potentially record breaking temperatures, and it's going to continue to be hot going into Tuesday, Wednesday, and possibly beyond that. So, people need to be aware and be prepared, because this is going to get worse before it gets better. Those aren't my words. That's from Cowboy State Daily, the meteorologist Don Day." If there is a bit of good news with the upcoming heat, it won't feel quite as hot as the thermometer says. Because the atmosphere will be mostly dry, the heat shouldn't be amplified by humidity. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, July 9th.  I'm Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. – Count Wyoming as one of the states that is now infected with a parasite that is causing long-lasting explosive diarrhea and other distressing symptoms. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore spoke to the state epidemiologist late Wednesday who gave her the news. "The Wyoming Department of Health has confirmed three cases of the parasite that's giving people explosive diarrhea around the country.  It is called cyclosporiasis. According to Wyoming epidemiologist Matt Peterson, right now the investigation is ongoing, and they're not exactly sure what has caused it. Past outbreaks were linked to lettuce and other foods." Peterson tells Cowboy State Daily that two Wyoming patients likely contracted the parasite while traveling to countries where Cyclospora is endemic, The third patient, however, had no history of international travel. Health officials did not identify the locations of the affected individuals. Read the full story HERE. – The 2.7-gigawatt data center once called Project Jade 8 miles south of Cheyenne has been unmasked as a massive Google campus. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that Google's project, according to planning documents, will be a 716-acre campus in the Switchgrass Industrial Park. "It's going to start at 2.7 gigawatts, but it can scale to 10 gigawatts. I was able to verify, I had suspected for a while that it was Google for a couple of different reasons, but I was able to finally verify that with some recent filings with Laramie County Planning and Development.Google has finally been revealed they are they are the entity behind this massive data center, which is Wyoming's largest and really one of the largest in the world, especially if they scale to 10 gigawatts." Google's new facility likely isn't the last large tech company to show up in Cheyenne. In addition to its 10 existing locations, Cheyenne has five more under construction and another nine in advanced stages of discussion, according to data from Cheyenne LEADS.  Read the full story HERE. – A Jackson driver who watched Tuesday's deadly Teton Pass crash unfold says he nearly passed the dump truck moments before its brakes failed and crashed into six vehicles, killing two people. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the eyewitness said, the dump truck was "driving way too fast." "Jackson Airport taxi owner Dumitru Cebotari was just one vehicle behind the dump truck that caused a cataclysmic crash, resulting in two fatalities on Tuesday afternoon in the Teton Pass. He said several people started passing the dump truck, including a motorcyclist. Then, as they started going down the hill, the truck picked up speed, and he knew that something was wrong. As someone who's driven a truck before, he said that he instantly could tell that something was very wrong. He thought maybe the brakes had gone out. Later, the highway patrol was able to determine that that did in fact happen." Cowboy State Daily also spoke to the motorcyclist who survived being hit from behind by the out of control dump truck. Caleb Batista tells Cowboy State Daily that he's lucky to be alive, only suffering a dislocated shoulder, a fractured foot, and lacerations to his face.  Read the full story HERE. – Several Northern Arapaho Tribe members are outraged at a Christian pastor who spoke against their religious customs and encouraged worship of Jesus instead. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that one Arapaho member told Cowboy State Daily that the church is "not welcome here anymore." "Sarah Lucas has been preaching on the Wind River Indian Reservation for about a decade, and at a recent service following the Sundance tribal ceremony, she said, but we know that Jesus is enough, it's not Jesus plus, it's Jesus everything. And controversy just exploded. Some tribal members are saying that she needs to leave the reservation." Christian Wassana, an enrolled Cheyenne Arapaho of Oklahoma who played Martin Kills Many on "Yellowstone," described Foundations for Nations pastor Sarah Lucas' message as, "it feels like history repeating itself, with attempts to erase and discredit our traditional way of life." Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – The Jane Doe found dead on Interstate 25 near Cheyenne in April has been identified as Brittany Smith, a Wyoming woman. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that Smith was struck on the on-ramp from Missile Drive on April 20th. "Brittany Smith, 37, she was identified today by the Wyoming Highway Patrol as the Jane Doe who was killed on April 20. She was a pedestrian on the on-ramp near Mild marker one off Interstate I-25 and she was hit by Ikea Sportage. From my understanding, at this point there are no charges pending." According to senior public relations specialist with the Wyoming Highway Patrol, Aaron Brown, Smith was struck by a northbound Kia Sportage on the on-ramp from Missile Drive on April 20th. Smith had been a pedestrian standing in the roadway. Read the full story HERE. – A vocal crowd converged Tuesday on the Green River City Council meeting and opposed a $112,000 federal grant for the police department to install license plate reader cameras. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the City Council and mayor ultimately voted 6-1 against finalizing the grant. "We reported that the police department was pushing for a grant to install license plate readers, at least four of them, around the city, and then there was a city council meeting to finalize that. The people showed up, 10 of them spoke, all in opposition, and in the end, the mayor and council voted six to one not to finalize the grant. The police chief defended the cameras at the city council meeting, but he also voiced empathy for the people's passion and concern." Green River Police Chief Shawn Sturlaugson had planned to install around four Motorola brand license-plate readers, largely at city entrances, to respond quickly to criminal getaway or vulnerable-person situations, he told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday. Read the full story HERE. – Two experienced Wyoming outdoorswomen said a large black bear aggressively entered their camp in the Bighorns late Sunday and turned it into "total chaos." Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that when they returned the next day after escaping to a cabin, their camp was completely torn apart. "Finally, the one lady fired two shots at it. The second shot convinced it to leave, and so they went and hung out in their jeeps for a while, and kind of got themselves settled back down, and decided, okay, let's, let's just go. My family has a cabin, so let's go stay at the cabin. So they grabbed their sleeping bags, went to the cabin, came back the next day, and apparently the bear had come back and just completely destroyed the camp." In a statement emailed to Cowboy State Daily, Game and Fish confirmed that four traps were set in the area and Game and Fish agents who spoke to other campers in the area didn't report any bear conflicts.   Read the full story HERE. –  It was an alleged kick to the groin of a Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper that could get a Laramie man up to 10 years in prison after running from the law in a pickup towing a camper. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that the trooper says, the "intense pain was causing me to be nauseous." "The lottery patrol knows he's coming, they set up the stop sticks, flatten his tires, he's still driving around, drives into Curt Gowdy State Park, and then ditches the car, runs, and he was hiding into his vegetation at night in the park. They finally find the guy, and he didn't want to go. He fought him the entire way, and at one point, when he got the opportunity, according to the affidavit, kicked the trooper in the groin as hard as he could, and you know that act right there is a felony." 47-year-old Nicholas J. Blocker is scheduled for a Friday appearance in Albany County Circuit Court to face at least three criminal charges and 12 other traffic citations related to the chase and arrest. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, July 8th.  I'm Mac Watson   This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas! Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism. –  A North Carolina man is still missing after jumping into the Snake River without a life jacket on Saturday.  Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that authorities have changed the mission from search and rescue to recovery. "55- year-old Tory Rather of Charlotte, North Carolina, went missing near Alpine in Wyoming when he jumped into the Snake River on Saturday without a life jacket. Authorities say that he was swept up by the current, and they have been searching for days to try and recover his body. On Tuesday, Lincoln County Sheriff Shane Johnson confirmed that this is now being looked at as a recovery and no longer a rescue. Johnson said, as time goes by, the likelihood of having a positive outcome goes down significantly. He is positive at this point. It is a recovery mission and not a rescue." Raether's family sent Cowboy State Daily photos of the man and his wife taken just hours before the incident. Rafts, jet skis, a jet boat, drones, and search dogs have combed the Snake River below a popular cliff-jumping spot for days, all with one goal: bring Tory home. Read the full story HERE. – At least 13 portable toilets were blown up in Billings over the July 4th holiday and the company is blaming Wyoming fireworks for the destruction. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports the owners say the fireworks were likely purchased in Wyoming because Montana's fireworks aren't powerful enough. "This is going to come straight out of the company's pocket. They're estimating at least $12,000 in damages, and while they have insurance, their deductible is $1,000 and if their deductible is $1,000 and each portable toilet is treated as a separate incident. So, if they tried to file a claim to get the cost for the destroyed toilet, then they would get maybe $100- $150 each after their deductible. So, it's not even worth filing the claim. They don't know who did it. They have no way of identifying them, and there's not a viable path to collect on insurance." Co-owner Kris Vogele tells Cowboy State Daily that these aren't the type of fireworks you can "buy at a fireworks stand in Montana. It had to have been a large explosive." Vogele said he believes the fireworks came from Wyoming or the Crow Indian Reservation near Billings. Read the full story HERE. – Matthew Lynch lost most of his right hand in a fireworks explosion on July 4th. But Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the Gillette carpenter isn't giving up on his electric-guitar dreams.  "Matthew Raymond Lynch says the incident was horrifying. He said when he lit a firecracker that he'd been carrying in his back pocket for years, trying to be adventurous, it blew up almost instantly. He looked down and his hand was the craziest, most mangled thing he says he's ever seen. the damage was so extensive that his friend took off his belt and used it as a tourniquet to save Lynch from losing his life. Lynch is an artist, he's a musician, a potter, and a carpenter by trade. He says the road to recovery will be long, but he's already been talking to doctors and hopeful that he will be able to get a prosthetic, and vows that one day he'll be able to play guitar again." The blast severed most of Lynch's right hand, shattered bones throughout his left hand, peppered his face, neck and chest with shrapnel and burns, and sent him by Life Flight to Billings, Montana. In the days since, Lynch has publicly apologized, saying he feels terrible for the people who were injured alongside him. Read the full story HERE. – The Green River City Council is considering finalizing a $112,000 grant it's been awarded to install license-plate readers in the city. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the mayor says the cameras could curb terrorism while former Libertarian lawmaker Marshall Burt says it's all "bullshit." "The police chief said, 'Yeah, we're not looking to nitpick with these. We want to really amplify our response to things like missing and vulnerable persons cases or serious criminal flight cases.' Marshall Burt, who is the first Libertarian ever that Wyoming ever sent to the legislature, said, 'This is a slippery slope, because this grant is based on fighting terrorism, but these things can track people's movements and compile data on people's movements and patterns.'" Green River applied last year for two Wyoming Office of Homeland Security grants and in January was awarded one for $111,956 to buy and install license plate readers for the police department, says the agenda item description. Mayor Pete Rust tells Cowboy State Daily the police department spearheaded the grant application. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – A Casper man says he felt fortunate to rescue a baby pronghorn who got stuck in a cattle guard on Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that Dylan Heide says by posting the video, he hopes he can reduce the stigma around hunting and hunters.  "It was a very young fawn, so he just gently lifted and twisted it out of the cattle grate and let it successfully reunited with what he assumed was a few does, and one of which was probably its mother. Dylan goes out a lot during the summer, scouting for pronghorn. He hopes to hunt in the fall, and he'd never seen one with its body stuck in a cattle grate before, but if this fawn was young, he estimated it was probably only a month old, if that, and it's just probably the first time I'd ever seen a cattle guard before." Heide shares his stories and perspectives on hunting and fishing in Wyoming on his FishHuntWyo social media pages. He has a particular outlook on Wyomingites' relationship with pronghorn and tells Cowboy State Daily, "The majority of us really care about wildlife." Read the full story HERE. – Allegedly outraged by a dirt bike zipping around his Albany County campsite, a man is accused of pulling two guns and brawling with three other campers over the weekend. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that investigators say, at one point, Tyler James McGill "stepped back and racked the slide, and pointed." "What it boils down to is somebody riding a motorbike past somebody else's campground got that guy mad, and so he went looking for him down this camp. There were three men in the camp, and all four of them brawled. This guy took all three of them on, and at times during the brawl, it kind of the affidavit reads kind of like a movie script. he gets a gun from the waistband of one of the one of the other campers he's fighting, pointed at him, the guy wrestles the gun away from him, so he goes back to his campsite and gets another gun, it's just kind of a wild, wild tale at this Albany County campground over the Fourth of July weekend." McGill, born in 1996, could get more than 15 years in prison if convicted of felony aggravated assault and battery and possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent. Read the full story HERE. –  A Washington, D.C., super-PAC is attacking U.S. Senate candidate Sam Mead for a $27 donation Mead made in 2019 to then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Mead is defending the move, saying it was about solving health care policy problems. "Sam Mead has political credentials and is waging a really staunch Keep Public Land in Public Hands campaign, and this, you know, conservative super PAC found that in 2019 he had donated $27 to Bernie Sanders campaign. The election filings show that, and Meade told me that at the time he saw a lot of harm from Obamacare, the Obama insurance policies that Wyoming pushed back against hard at the time, and he said that he liked a lot of Sanders' ideas on health care, and decided to back that." The attack ad surfaced Monday via an X.com post by Club For Growth president David McIntosh. The group calls itself the leading free-enterprise advocacy group in the nation and has endorsed Rep. Harriet Hageman. Read the full story HERE. – Cheyenne's Board of Public Utilities is not commenting further on the city's data center sewer contamination. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that residents still don't know where contaminated wastewater was taken, why the public wasn't notified for months, or what safeguards are now in place. "Residents in Cheyenne have a lot of questions still with the sewer reuse contamination that was announced last week by the Board of Public Utilities. Cowboy State Daily reached out to Mayor Patrick Collins and asked, should the public be worried about this being a public health crisis, and is there a chance that it could happen again. The mayor candidly told us that we should be worried, because there's always a chance that it can happen, and there's always something to worry about when you're dealing with, you know, public utilities and big corporations, that's juxtaposed to the Board of Public Utilities that told us they are not commenting any further on anything until they deliver this press conference in about a week." Last Thursday, the board announced that Goat Systems LLC, the corporate entity Meta uses during construction of its nearly 800,000-square-foot data center campus, was in "significant noncompliance" with the city's industrial pretreatment regulations.  Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

  It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, July 7th.  I'm Mac Watson – A man blew the fingers off his hand and injured four other people outside a Gillette bar around midnight Saturday. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the man has made a public apology. "Just before midnight, Matthew Raymond Lynch headed outside to the Other Side Bar and Grill. He made it as far as the entrance, the outside part, when he decided to light a firecracker. Lynch said that when he tried to light the firework, it blew up immediately. He also said that he lost all of the fingers on his right hand. He said he had partial blindness and a loss of hearing. He was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital and then airlifted to Billings." The bar was hosting a Fourth of July fundraiser concert and the music ended, patrons were beginning to head home. That's when Lynch lit a firework which exploded outside the entrance, blowing all the fingers off his hand and injuring four other people. He apologized on social media. Read the full story HERE. – After decades of chasing diversification, Wyoming is finally landing on data centers. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the boom is forcing the state to confront a familiar boom-and-bust tension. "Talking with Tyler Lindholm. He's a Crook County rancher, former state legislator, and he works for American Prosperity. And so he kind of sees both ends of the spectrum, right? He wants to see the opportunity come with data centers, but the questions about water and power use are absolutely fair. Talking with Senator Kail Case, he wonders 'Does this represent an overbuild?' Analysts are estimating upwards of 3000 facilities on top of an existing 4000 but those 3000 new facilities, they aren't anywhere near the size of the old ones. They are gargantuan, they are exponentially bigger, and so is it over building?"  Now that data centers are finally racing toward the state's wide-open prairies and cheap power, the rush is forcing a choice. How much growth is Wyoming willing to accept, and at what cost to power bills, water supplies, and its wide-open spaces?  Read the full story HERE. –  Wyoming's most famous diesel "delete" mechanic Troy Lake, who was pardoned by Trump after a prison stint, advocated for the president to pardon at least six more. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports on Friday, Trump pardoned those six, plus three others. "What Troy Lake has done is actually looked for people that are like him, and he's building a coalition, the Diesel Freedom Coalition. The Diesel Freedom Coalition has been working on the science and the policy and the pardon lobby side, so they're pushing for pardons for people they feel are good candidates. They are also, Troy Lake especially, and his son TJ, you're trying to build the science to show better means of reducing emissions without putting people out of business and sending them into limp mode on the interstate, and they're also talking to lawmakers about those better ways forward." Besides pardon-related advocacy, Lake said his group is working to provide sound emissions evidence and mechanical strategies to policymakers, to persuade them to pivot toward emissions regulations that don't crush small-time trucking businesses and other fleets. Read the full story HERE. – A Casper man accused of holding a toddler "like a shield" in front of him during an armed standoff said Monday he intends to change his plea. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that police say that Brayden Randolph "told officers he had a gun and officers had guns and challenged officers to get him." "The call to police said that there had been a gunshot fired, and after they got there, he appeared at a door at one point, had a toddler in his arm and a gun in his belt with his hand on the gun, challenging police to come get him, so that standoff ended with the child being rescued by police, and then breaking through a door, arresting him, and he since then has been out of court on $7,000 bond, was in court today at what's called a 'docket appearance' and his attorney said he's going to change his plea." Charges against Randolph include reckless endangerment, child endangerment, being a minor in possession of alcohol and interference with a peace officer.  Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – After spending about $200,000 in goat grazing for flood mitigation since 2025, the town of Rock Springs is putting an end to it for now. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that one council member said residents say it's too expensive. "The goats provided an efficient way to mitigate this risk, so you're not having to bring in all this heavy equipment or have you know manpower down there in the really thick, thick vegetation, the goats just did it all. The problem, or the controversy with it, is that it came at what people thought was a pretty high price tag. So, it went from $50,000 the first go around, to $58K the second go around, to $92K the third go around." According to Mayor Max Mickelson, during the latest grazing session, which began April 1st and ended June 30th, the goats removed roughly 35 tons of vegetation. Read the full story HERE. – Conservationist Rich Guenzel understands why many people, including Wyoming Game and Fish, wrongly call one of the state's signature animals "antelope." But Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that it bugs Guenzel so much, he's started a "pronghorn swear jar" and makes people pay $1. "It irritates him when they get their called antelope, because this is that same discussion as buffalo or bison, you know that sort of thing, moose or elk. Well, you know what is what the animal is actually called? Because just, as an aside, in Europe,  some people call what we call moose, they call an elk. According to the research he's looked into, especially with the latest technology, genetic mapping, they've been able to determine that the nearest, the only very distant living relative of the pronghorn is, and a lot of people will be surprised by this, actually giraffes." Guenzel tells Cowboy State Daily that all the money he collects from his swear jar goes to pronghorn conservation groups. Read the full story HERE. – It's been fourteen months after a man was found shot in the head in an abandoned truck on the Wind River Indian Reservation. But, Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports prosecutors have no ongoing, public murder case in the December 2024 death of Riverton man Rex Lofts, even though Jose A. Gonzales was arrested. "Gonzales was charged in Fremont County on the state level in last October, and he is the only one that the prosecutor had jurisdiction over the other suspects, the way Fremont County Chief Deputy Attorney Tim Hancock put it to me. The Feds have jurisdiction over those other suspects. Well, this all is alleged to have happened in the same remote place on the reservation. So, what that says to me is okay, probably Gonzalez is not a tribal member, and the others are, because the feds take jurisdiction for tribal members implicated in crimes on the reservation, whereas your local elected prosecutor would handle crimes just involving non-tribal members." The 72-year-old Lofts died of what the autopsy report called a homicide with two gunshots in his head around Dec. 2, 2024. According to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, his body wasn't found until April 21, 2025. Read the full story HERE. –  Everyone has a dream. A Powell man has built a "Dumb And Dumber" Mutt Cutts van replica with his best friend. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that so far, the two haven't been able to recreate one of the more memorable scenes from the 1994 film starring Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey.  "20-year-old Parker Williams wanted to make a YouTube video that would gain attention from his peers, and so he decided to draw inspiration from one of his favorite movies, Dumb and Dumber, and recreate the Mutt Cuts van. Williams, with the help of his friend Seth Siebert, found an old van and decided to fix it up. It took him about three or four days. A lot of people want to stop and take pictures with him. He said he has not been pulled over yet, but he is looking forward to that. One of the movie's most iconic scenes is when Lloyd and Harry are pulled over by a trooper who thinks that they're drinking alcohol, and Lloyd hands him a bottle of his own urine." Williams tells Cowboy State Daily that building the van was more complicated than he expected. He and his buddy spent hours wiring custom headlights and blinkers so it could legally travel Wyoming roads. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, July 6th.  I'm Mac Watson – Instead of selling the century-old 140-acre Flat Creek Ranch for millions, a Jackson couple gave the property to its longtime managers. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports owners Joe Albright and Marcia Kunstel say they didn't want it to fall in the hands of someone "who would destroy the land, the wildlife or the buildings." "Ray Sharp told me that they are going to keep up with the infrastructure, and that there's always maintenance that needs to be done. This is 100-plus-year-old property, and keeping the cabins in good shape, while still having that sort of historic feel, is kind of a nonstop job. So that's really their focus now, and just continuing to offer bespoke experiences for their visitors, so whatever their visitors want to do when they come and visit, the owners will do their best to curate that experience for them." For Albright and Kunstel, both retired foreign correspondents, the decision was about conservation as much as succession. The couple spent 27 years restoring and preserving the ranch after buying it back from the Jackson Hole Land Trust in 1998. Read the full story HERE. – Military tanks spent an hour crushing cars Friday as an enthusiastic crowd cheered to celebrate America's 250th at the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that owner Dan Starks says, "What's more American than machine guns and tanks crushing cars?" "It's a huge museum, world-class museum, world's largest private collection of military vehicles in DuBois, of all places. And then, after lunch, right after lunch, when everybody's there at the canteen, anyway, they had some little lectures, told us some, you know, history stories and things like that too. I would say applause, people were applauding, so you know they're happily listening to these lectures after they've watched some tanks crush some cars. It was a great day." Starks didn't get any disagreement from the huge crowds turning out for the daylong event devoted to America. More than 500 people showed up in the first hour, which offered two chances to see the tanks in action.  Read the full story HERE. –  With no veterinary clinics or animal shelters, roaming dogs are a problem on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Cowboy State Daily's Kerry Drake reports that a Cheyenne clinic 300 miles away has rescued thousands of stray pets from the reservation since 2017. "The reservation had a huge problem with feral and prairie dogs, so she kind of switched the focus of the foundation, or the program that she runs, and just working, beginning with the reservation, she's kind   of expanded to spay and neuter clinics. Basically, she has captured 3,000 dogs and cats from the reservation since 2017 largely through donations, it's all volunteer." JM Marschner, who opened the clinic in 2017, tells Cowboy State Daily she and her volunteers have worked with other rescue groups to find more than 3,000 dogs and cats on the reservation. Read the full story HERE. – The Haitian truck driver who killed one Rawlins EMT and severely injured another in a catastrophic I-80 crash more than three years ago is asking the Wyoming Supreme Court to overturn his convictions. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the driver claims prosecutors never proved he was "reckless." "Savoie St. Jean's attorney contends that there wasn't enough evidence to convict him of aggravated homicide and aggravated assault and battery. The crash occurred on December 1 of 2022 when Saint Jean's semi truck slammed into an EMT and killed the driver on Interstate-80 near Green River. Last fall. He was sentenced to 12-to-14 years in prison. He's now asking the Wyoming Supreme Court to erase the convictions." For the Wyoming Supreme Court, the question is whether the evidence presented to jurors was legally sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Saint Jean acted recklessly.  Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – It's been 44 years since a young Casper woman was found dead in the North Platte River with a rock tied around her neck. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports the murder has never stopped haunting her older sister Rebecca.  "She had been 20 years old, and she was found two to six days later dead in the North Platte River, with a rock tied around her neck, and she had been strangled. It has never been solved to date. In fact, there has been no news coverage of it since 1982 that I could find. So it was a case that got kind of lost in the decades, but not for law enforcement. Law enforcement and the investigators are taking it seriously. They said they really want somebody to come forward." Belynda May Grantham was a 20-year-old single mother when her partially clothed body was recovered from the bottom of the North Platte River outside of Glenrock, in August 1982. It would take nearly a month and a newspaper sketch before anyone could identify her. Her murder has never been solved. Read the full story HERE. – A Montana rancher who lives more than 100 miles from grizzly territory says a bear mauled her quarter horse. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that grizzlies aren't deliberately being reintroduced to prairie country. Instead, they're moving back into those areas on their own. "She surmises that it probably got attacked by a grizzly bear, and she says that because this is an area where they've been seeing an increasing amount of bears, and also to her knowledge, one of her, I think it's she said one of her neighbors spotted a bear crossing the road toward her ranch just a couple of days prior, so she went ahead and called out, she called out an inspector from the USDA Wildlife Services. He said, 'There's no bite up on the withers or right on the top of the back of the horse,' and typically when bears do attack a larger animal, they do try to get up on the back and bite it, and then the bear will use its just its weight and its, overwhelming strength to just pull the animal down that it's trying to kill for prey." Danny Kinka, senior wildlife restoration manager for American Prairie, tells Cowboy State Daily there are ways to balance ranchers' concerns with bear conservation. One effective way is to "put a human presence on the landscape." Read the full story HERE. – The Wyoming Board of Equalization was set for a July 6 hearing to fight against having to enforce a 4% cap on annual property tax increases, which it calls unconstitutional. But Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the board has  agreed to honor the cap during its lawsuit challenging it. "They were set for a July 6 hearing to determine whether the board would have to enforce that cap pretty much against its will and wishes throughout the lawsuit, and while that hearing was on track to unfold, and the judge on track to consider that argument. The board went ahead and agreed. Okay, we'll follow the law until there's a further order of this court, or until the case is over." Gov. Mark Gordon, through the Wyoming Attorney General's Office, filed a court challenge June 16 in Laramie County District Court, urging the court to make the board follow the law and to declare the law constitutional. Read the full story HERE. –  The only way to get to the rest of Wyoming (outside of riding a horse or hiking over the mountain) is a 20-mile drive through Idaho and over Teton Pass. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that residents of remote Alta, Wyoming, say they don't feel disconnected. "It's a farm country, they grow alfalfa and hay and things like that, there, but all kinds of other people live there. I talked to a man that works in Jackson, and so there's commuters for Jackson that actually drive from there into Jackson. It's about 40 miles to do that, or maybe a little more, but over the past in the winter, they told me that that gentleman told me that doing it in the wintertime now is not as bad as it used to be when he was a kid. It's got all the great beauty without all the people that are on the national park side of things, of the mountains, and they just say, hey, this is all we've ever known. But you get up in the morning, and there's the Grand Tetons." The 429-resident community sits in the Teton Valley along the road to Grand Targhee Resort ski area. There are no bumper-to-bumper traffic lines that back up as tourists vie for views of a bison in Grand Teton National Park or the mountain scenes around Jackson Hole. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, July 3rd.  I'm Mac Watson – The City of Cheyenne announced Thursday it's suspending taking wastewater associated with data center systems after a contractor for Meta contaminated the city's wastewater system. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the process took months of cleanup.  "The city announced on Thursday that it is suspending taking wastewater associated with data center systems after this bacterium was found back in February. Once the bacterium was found, the company, or the contractor, which is Goat Systems LLC, was effectively banned from using the city's sewage system. It took at least a week to 10 days for the state lab to determine what the actual bacterium was. It was something that the city of Cheyenne had never seen before, and there was speculation that it could be linked back to a data center, and that was confirmed with the announcement Thursday that it is connected to the Meta project called Project Cosmos." The announcement was made by the Board of Public Utilities on Thursday in conjunction with naming the Meta company as the source of the initial contamination. Read the full story HERE. – Recreationists celebrated Wednesday evening as the 18,800-acre Belvoir Ranch west of Cheyenne was opened to the public. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the new recreation area provides 13 miles of trails, giving hikers and cyclists a long-promised playground in the city's backyard. "This was the late Councilman Scott Roy Bulls Pet Project. Here, he was its champion for 20-plus years, the 23 years it took for this project to become a reality. He was always the one saying, "We have to open this to the public. It's an amazing recreational opportunity, you know, it belongs to the public. We have to open this to the public, and so, you know, after 23 years, finally it's come to fruition." The new trailhead and roughly 13 miles of singletrack and shared-use paths give hikers and cyclists a long-promised playground in the city's backyard, turning what was once mainly an insurance policy for future water and landfill needs into a full-fledged outdoor destination. Read the full story HERE. –  The Wyoming Business Council's biggest critic in the Legislature, Rep. Ken Pendergraft, was mostly relieved at a Wednesday audit report showing the Wyoming Business Council isn't hiding any bank accounts. But Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports he says he still has questions. "That was scuttlebutt during the appropriations committees meeting, that lawmakers were wondering things like, do we even know what all the business council has going on, and so as part of the budget the business council was required to submit to a department of audit probe, and the department concluded, 'Yeah, there's not these outside accounts, pretty much everything's on the up and up, some negligible and documenting errors.'" Rep. Ken Pendergraft, from Sheridan, made headlines in 2025 when he announced a goal to eliminate the WBC. That's a government-funded entity that gives grants and loans to communities and businesses. Read the full story HERE. – Scattered human bones found in Wyoming's rugged Wind River Mountains nearly a year ago have been identified as a Scottish man. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that an investigator from Wyoming Game and Fish found the remains in a remote section of the Wind River Mountains near the Sweetwater Gap Guard Station. "The remains of John Gillies were found near the Sweet Water Muddy Gap Station, and over the course of a 10 month investigation, detectives were able to piece together who he was based on those remains within a 20 mile radius. They were able to find about 85% of the skeleton and some personal belongings that then helped them link him to Gillies and his family in Scotland, and they were able to confirm on June 30 that he was in fact the person who had been found." Deputies found disarticulated skeletal remains, a tent, and personal belongings. Authorities have not announced the cause or manner of death. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – The Wyoming Board of Equalization is suing Gov. Mark Gordon back after he rejected its claims that the state's property tax caps are unconstitutional. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the board is asking Laramie County District Court Judge Nathaniel Hibben to declare that a state law capping residential property tax increases as unconstitutional, and to block its enforcement.   "Governor Gordon had sued the Board of Equalization, trying to get the court to make it honor a 4% cap on property tax increases from year to year, and a judge last month said, 'Yeah, for now we're going to go ahead and make the board do that while we consider whether this law is constitutional.' The board fired back Monday with its own counter suit, urging the judge to declare the cap unconstitutional and to free the board from having to enforce it." This cap violates the Wyoming Constitution's requirement that property taxes be assessed at their full value and uniformly within property classes, the board alleges in its filing, through Davis and Cannon attorneys Amanda Esch and Cat Young.  Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming ranchers say a $99 million John Deere right-to-repair settlement doesn't go far enough. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports they'll get small payouts while John Deere keeps control over repair software and one rancher calls that an unfair settlement."  "Farmers and ranchers are objecting to a $99 million settlement by John Deere in a right to repair lawsuit. farmers and ranchers say the settlement doesn't even come close to compensating them for losses they endured because of John Deere's proprietary software and diagnostic system. The window to formally object to the settlement opens July 14 and runs through September 14. During that time, any farmer or rancher who is part of this class action lawsuit can formally object to the settlement and seek fairer compensation. After September, then there will be a final hearing on the settlement in October in Rockville, Illinois." The class-action lawsuit claimed the tractor giant was monopolizing the repair market. Right-to-repair advocates say farmers should be able to fix tractors themselves or go to an independent repair shop. Read the full story HERE. – An immigration advocacy firm is suing the Laramie County Sheriff's Office claiming the agency is withholding important evidence in a deportation case. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the Cheyenne Police Department confirmed Wednesday that the sheriff's office had issued an inaccurate report. "Kevin Lewis of Cheyenne is working for an immigration firm, and he alleges that the sheriff's office had a flawed report, had to reissue the report, and that the there were there was all sorts of back and forth about the body cam or the camera footage, the sheriff in turn told me on on Thursday, the deputy made some errors and we had him reissue the report, and there's also a specific set of lies, laws about how we can release camera footage." Colorado-based immigration firm Lichter and Associates, and its Cheyenne-based investigator Kevin Lewis, filed the lawsuit complaint Tuesday in the Laramie County District Court.  Read the full story HERE. –  Clyde "The Buffalo" arrived in Cody for the Cody Stampede Rodeo and Parades, and his first stop Thursday was for a drink. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports the tame buffalo went into Buffalo Bill's Bar in the historic Irma Hotel.  "He's been invited to lead off the Cody Stampede parades on July 3rd and 4th, and when he first got the Cody, his first stop was to the Buffalo Historic Buffalo Bill Irma Hotel, where he might be the first Buffalo ever invited inside and served inside. He's made a reputation for just being a very tame, affable bison, and he's going to be the biggest celebrity in town for Cody's Independence Day celebrations." Clyde's owner, Clint Mortenson, tells Cowboy State Daily, "He drinks what I drink. He likes bourbon and margaritas." No word on whether Clyde or his owner was carded by the servers. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, July 2nd.  I'm Mac Watson – The cause of last week's double fatal crash in remote Natrona County has been released by the Wyoming Highway Patrol. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the WHP says the tanker truck plowed into seven vehicles, killing two. "New details released by the Wyoming Highway Patrol on Wednesday morning show that a tanker truck driver failed to slow down or stop when traffic was queued in a construction zone on US Highway 26 This is about 45 miles northwest of Casper on Friday afternoon. The driver so far has not been identified as of Wednesday afternoon. The Wyoming Highway Patrol says this is still a very active investigation." The crash happened at 1:50 p.m. Friday on U.S. Highway 20/26 near mile marker 58.3, with the WHP having identified driver inattention as a possible contributing factor in the crash. As of Wednesday, no criminal charges had been announced. Read the full story HERE. – Already at critically low levels, Lake Powell is close to being "dead pool," which means water won't flow downriver anymore. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that Wyoming cities and industries are worried that will mean more demand for water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir. "I did connect with a couple people from the municipalities of Cheyenne and Rock Springs, of course. Rock Springs is directly in the Colorado River drainage because of the Green River. Cheyenne is indirectly because of water rights trades. Some of the water that goes into Cheyenne is actually traded for water that comes off the Colorado River. And they both said, 'Yeah, I mean, this is not like an immediate emergency. Oh my god, we're going to run out of water this year,' but they are saying, 'Longer term, we've got to think of some better things, some better solutions, maybe some other sources we can go to for water, because this situation is getting dicey.'" Wyoming state Sen. Larry Hicks, who served on the Legislature's Select Water Committee says Wyoming may have to make some stark choices in the near future because "power generation is subservient" to irrigation water rights, he tells Cowboy State Daily. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming voters are being inundated with attack fliers about political candidates. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that one flier targeting Lander incumbents claim they "endangered children" and "exposed women to their radical transgender agenda." "Make Liberty Win is generally the flyer factory in Wyoming, that's an out-of-state PAC that spends a lot of money backing Freedom Caucus aligned candidates, they've started sending out flyers showing like Senator Kail Case and Representative Lloyd Larson in sheep's clothing, and you know, claiming that they had a radical trans agenda, and both Case and Larson said no, we had nuanced, careful close-up reasons for these votes that you can't, that they're not putting on a flyer, and then on the other side, Americans for Prosperity, which is a PAC that in Wyoming takes some pride in not resorting to cartoon tactics like that. They have gone out hard against House Speaker Chip Nyman because they've endorsed Senator Ogden Driscoll, and they have a bone to pick with some of Nyman's votes." Make Liberty Win backs Wyoming Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates, while Americans For Prosperity backs a variety of GOP hopefuls, generally on libertarian-leaning or business-friendly credentials. Read the full story HERE. –  A 17-year-old Lander homeschooler who beat out 8,000 other students in what was billed as the "Ultimate Civics Showdown" stood beside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on national TV on Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that Miriam Washut says she had one week to prepare. "She is one of four sent to regionals in Dallas at the George Bush Library, and then is one of the top four that comes out of that, and then she goes to the Nationals in Washington, DC, where there were 20 kids she was competing against, and she came out on top with $150,000 scholarship, and got to go into the Oval Office and shake hands with President Trump. He presented her with a coin, and she said it was a great experience. She just said she never thought she'd be able to do something like that." Washut had to plow through more than 5,000 pages of books, foundational documents and biographies, as well as know the facts on 10 Revolutionary War battles. She then was tested at state and regional levels before the national finals competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – After a rocky, two-year run for Gillette's Hoskinson Health & Wellness Clinic, Monument Health has struck a deal to keep the facility open. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the state-of-the-art facility will be plugged into the Mayo Clinic Care Network.  "So Monument Health is going to be taking over the Hoskinson Health and Wellness Clinic, and it's kind of interesting because the Hoskinson family, when they built their clinic in Gillette, had promised they wanted this to be the Mayo Clinic of the West. Well, it's interesting to know that Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic's network, and so, in a way, even though it's not the Hoskinson family that will be operating it anymore, they feel like they've fulfilled their promise." Monument Health, which operates five hospitals and more than 40 clinics and specialty centers in 14 communities across western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming, has direct access to Mayo Clinic expertise and resources, a connection that has now been extended to Gillette. Read the full story HERE. – Fresh after socialist-backed candidates' success in New York's U.S. House primaries, Colorado Democrats nominated their own socialist House candidate Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that having a socialist neighbor could galvanize Wyoming's independence even more, so says one politico. "Liz Brimmer, who's a longtime Wyoming politico, said, look, we already say don't Colorado my Wyoming, we're already pretty galvanized in like this independence that this will probably just harden that if anything, and it's it's just a different voice in the giant, the giant US House." Democratic socialist 29-year-old Melat Kiros, defeated 15-term incumbent U.S. House Rep. Diana DeGette in Tuesday evening's primary election. Read the full story HERE. – An 18-year-old Cheyenne man is accused of using a root beer bottle Molotov cocktail to firebomb the truck of another teen dating his ex-girlfriend. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that police say "he often left things on (her) vehicle, including a pile of ashes and a black rose." "Investigators say that the fire bomb, also known as a homemade Molotov cocktail, was made out of a Sprecher root beer bottle that was filled with a rag soaked in gasoline. During the investigation, detectives were able to find out that Seth Hayes had walked into a Menards earlier and bought a four pack of Spreckers root beer. They also learned that just hours before the arson occurred, he had posted Shabbosies, 'Let It Burn' onto his social media." Hayes is set for a Thursday preliminary hearing on a felony charge of third-degree arson. During his initial appearance in Laramie County Circuit Court late last week, a judge set his bond at $10,000 cash only. Read the full story HERE. –  A gun-friendly U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to overturn "assault weapon" bans in Connecticut and the Chicago area — and Wyoming gun dealers are all in favor. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that dealers say that could make it easier to sell to customers in Colorado and other states. "They told me that, well, this would be good for us, insofar as we do get a lot of people coming from Colorado, which doesn't necessarily have a statewide ban, but does have some local bands as well as other states that might have statewide bans, we get customers coming to us. That's how Wyoming firearms dealers could benefit if the Supreme Court decides to do away with these bans on the national level, because it would open up a much wider market for them, and plus, you know, these guys just said on principle they just support the freedom for everybody." Colorado doesn't have a statewide assault-weapons ban, although there are some local bans, such as in Denver. There's a statewide prohibition on "high-capacity magazines" capable of carrying more than 15 rounds. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, July 1st.  I'm Mac Watson –  In an about-face, Gov. Mark Gordon lauded a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Tuesday upholding states' bans on trans participation in girls' sports. But, Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that in 2023 he called Wyoming's first trans sports ban "draconian." "Three years later, you have West Virginia and Idaho defending actually more expansive bands in many cases, and they went to the Supreme Court. They argued in defense that their transports bans were constitutional in January. At that time, Governor Gordon urged the High Court to rule in the state's favor. And then on Tuesday, the Supreme Court finally came out and said, 'Yes, these transports bans are constitutional. These states are fine.' The governor applauded that again, so this has been a bit of an about-face for Wyoming's top executive. Governor Gordon's office didn't give a direct response to the question about his change of heart." Idaho passed its Fairness in Women's Sports Act in 2020. It was the nation's first law preventing biological male students from competing on public school and club female sports teams. Read the full story HERE. – Montana rancher Neal Collins said a camera on his barn captured a "herd" of seven grizzlies on his property Monday night. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that agents from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hazed 10 grizzlies out of brush across the road from his place. "A rancher up there, he had a surveillance camera mounted on the back of his, his barn, and he said one of his dogs was freaking out, so he went outside and caught a flash of a bear, so, of course, he scrambled back inside. Check the footage later. There's like a whole group. Well, one of his friends kind of jokingly called it a herd, a whole group of like six grizzlies walking, you know, just kind of casually strolling down, you know, down his lane." Collins said no people or livestock were attacked by the bears, and Montana's FWP used non-lethal "cracker" shotgun shells to scare off the bears. Read the full story HERE. –  A Lincoln County man lost control of his truck, crashed through a guardrail, rolled several times and plunged 20 feet into the Snake River. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the man walked away with minor injuries, but was ticketed by the Wyoming Highway Patrol. "According to the chronology of events, the driver was driving along the Snake River Canyon, lost control of his vehicle, sideswiped a car hauler, and then once he cleared that, he drove through the guard rail and tumbled three or two or three times into the Snake River, and was pretty far out there in pretty deep water, but because he was wearing his seatbelt, at least presumed to be wearing his seatbelt, otherwise, how the heck did he survive that? He walked away with minor injuries and was treated at the hospital in Alpine and released later that same day." The incident occurred near a notorious spot in the Snake River Canyon called the Big Kahuna, the area's largest and most famous rapid. Read the full story HERE. – Prominent Wyoming Democrats say they are not calling for a split in their party due to the growing socialist movement nationally. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that state Sen. Chris Rothfuss says, "Wyoming is not New York City," so the issues are different. "I asked Wyoming prominent Democrats on Tuesday, 'Hey, is Wyoming seeing this divide?' and they said no. Their reasons were various. There's very few Democrats here. They tend to discuss things and debate things and tolerate dissent, and they, the landscape in Wyoming is different. So, if you're a party focused on meeting people's needs, what Wyoming people need is very different from what New York City people need." The Wyoming Democratic Party is a big collaborative tent, the party's communications person, Mandy Weaver, told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday phone interview. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Speculation is growing over whether a data center could be linked to pollution discovered in Cheyenne's reuse wastewater system earlier this year. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that city officials haven't reported the identity of the industrial user responsible for the discharge. "The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities announced last week that it had found a biohazard in its reusable wastewater system. The bacterium that they found is naturally occurring in soil and groundwater environments. However, it was not recognized immediately by water treatment specialists. Jonathan Brandt is a water treatment specialist at the University of Wyoming, and he told me that it would be likely that a newer industry would be responsible for this. He said data centers, data center discharges would be the first place I would look." The mystery bacterium was found to be cupriavidus gilardii, a naturally occurring organism commonly found in soil and groundwater environments, known for its high resistance to metals. Read the full story HERE. – Police say a Gillette man first denied hitting his ex-girlfriend with his pickup, running over her and speeding away. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that after detectives showed him surveillance video, police say he told them it "could have been a moment of black-out rage." "Police say that Christopher Paxton allegedly ran over his girlfriend intentionally before driving away. When police arrived at the scene, they saw his girlfriend writhing in pain. She was screaming and yelling, 'My knee, my knee!' When investigators took Paxton in for questioning, he initially denied running over his girlfriend, but then they showed him surveillance video from a neighbor, neighbor's ring camera, and then he said he still said he couldn't remember what happened, but explained that it might have been blackout rage. Paxton has been charged with aggravated assault and battery, that is a felony that is punishable by up to 10 years in prison."  Investigators say the victim suffered seizures as a result of the accident and was taken to the hospital. No word on her condition. Read the full story HERE. – Gov. Mark Gordon has designated Wyoming's famous "Path of the Pronghorn," one of the longest land migration routes in North America, as protected — mostly.  Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that while conservationists hailed the move, an energy landman said he hopes it doesn't impede drilling. "Governor Gordon, on Friday did go ahead and dedicate it as an officially protected migration route, but then there's some caveats that applies only on public land. It does not affect private land in any way whatsoever. And then even on public land, it doesn't mean you get to shut everything down or a bunch of new regulations. It just, it kind of sets some parameters to help protect these lands from things that might impede the passage of the antelope back and forth." The 200-mile Path of the Pronghorn is the common name for the Sublette Antelope Migration Corridor, and it's one of the longest land migrations in the Lower 48 states. Read the full story HERE. – Yellowstone visitors near the popular Grand Prismatic Spring were outraged Sunday watching a man carry a child on dangerous thermals pools. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that people online have asked, could someone be charged with child endangerment for doing such a foolish and dangerous thing? "They said it was Grand Prismatic Spring, and those sort of incidents aren't unusual in Yellowstone National Park, especially during the busiest time of year, which we're in. But they've raised a question: Can someone be charged with child endangerment by doing something like that? And it's a difficult question to answer, because while a lot of people would say that there was a very obvious, and very, there was an obvious present danger in doing that. Someone could be genuinely unaware of what they're doing if it's not explicitly marked right in front of them." Greg Jackson is a former deputy chief for the U.S. Park Service's Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services in Washington, D.C. During his career, he was presented with several situations where a child endangerment charge was merited. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, June 30th.  I'm Mac Watson – Winter is back in Wyoming as a late June snowstorm closed the Beartooth Highway and Yellowstone's Dunraven Pass. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that at 9,400 feet, the Top of the World store recorded three inches of snow.  "Several inches of snow was reported on the Bear Tooth Highway and in the interior of Yellowstone National Park. It's a significant amount of snowfall, but that's not unusual, especially at high elevations, people forget how high Yellowstone is, let alone the Bear Tooth Pass, which is getting close to 11,000 feet up there. So, when you get a cold front moving in with moisture that manifests as snow, and you're hard pressed to pick any month of the year where there isn't at least a possibility of snow in Yellowstone and on the Bear Tooth Highway." Lance VandenBoogart with the National Weather Service office in Riverton said that's not unusual for northwest Wyoming or Yellowstone, even in the last days of June. Read the full story HERE. –  A 75-year-old Goshen County man told investigators he shot a pair of Rottweilers and dumped them in the North Platte River because he feared for his livestock. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that a neighbor told authorities why they disposed of the dogs in the river. "The guy claims that they were threatening his livestock, they're threatening his neighbor's livestock, and he said that he shot one of the dogs, and then another dog, he said, came after him, so he shot it as well. However, the officer in charge of the investigation wrote his affidavit saying that the facts don't really support that, and what was interesting is that there was an accomplice who told police that they put the dogs in the river because they were quote 'too lazy' to bury them." David Cronk made his first court appearance Friday on two charges each of felony animal cruelty and misdemeanor unlawful disposal of a dead animal so as to pollute. Read the full story HERE. – An older Colorado couple have been identified as the two people killed in a Friday multi-vehicle crash west of Casper. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that a Jackson woman who was among those who stopped to help the couple and others hurt in the crash, telling Cowboy State Daily, "We made sure she wasn't alone." "74-year-old James Cox and 69-year-old Susan Cox were coming from Golden, Colorado, on their way to their house in Ennis, Montana, when they got into a crash about 45 miles northwest of Casper on Friday afternoon.  The Natrona County Coroner, James Whipps, confirmed that they were dead on Monday afternoon. Krista Nethercott from Jackson is a funeral director and a mortician. She arrived at the crash site just moments after the collision happened. She said that James Cox was behind the wheel. He was dead immediately. Susan Cox was still alive, and Nether Cot said all she could do was offer some comfort, and made sure she was not alone for her final moments."  By the time emergency crews reached U.S. Highway 20/26 near mile marker 58 Friday afternoon, two people were dead, seven others had been injured, and strangers were comforting survivors, checking on children, searching for fire extinguishers and handing out bottled water. Read the full story HERE. –  A new political group called the 'Common Sense Republicans' have erected six billboards urging voters to "STOP The Freedom Caucus Agenda." Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Rep. John Bear, a well-known member of the Freedom Caucus, says he "loves" the billboards. "The Freedom Caucus fired back with them being against a lot of the popular things, you know, like protecting women's sports and an election integrity and keeping illegal aliens out of the country, and the pack came back and said no, we're focused on really local stuff like funding EMS. one of the members of the PAC said that, you know, indicated that the Freedom Caucus doesn't like the billboards, and Bear came back and said, 'No, we love this, we love talking about our agenda, and so you've got this, it's a very direct political battle." Casper-based attorneys Emily Madden and Scott Ortiz co-founded the Common Sense Republicans for Wyoming political action committee (PAC) in March. The PAC has raised six billboards across larger Wyoming towns urging people to "STOP The Freedom Caucus Agenda" and vote in the Aug. 18 primary election. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Abe Yoder moved his Amish family from Wyoming to Iowa after he says Crook County officials threatened him with stiff fines and removing his children over outhouse permits. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that county officials deny those claims and say they only sought wastewater compliance. "Abe Yoder is really at the center of this. There was one other family who left, and they went to Wisconsin. The rest of the community, the people whose outhouses were found to be not in compliance, did end up complying and following regulations, doing what the county asked them to do.  Yoder told Cowboy State Daily that he's more disappointed in the community itself not taking a stand and not fighting back than he is in the county being persistent with its regulations." Yoder recently moved to Iowa, selling off much of his Hulett-area estate and taking his wife and nine of his 11 children with him. Read the full story HERE. – It has already been a busy year for human-bear conflicts in Wyoming, Montana, and across the West. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that bear observers say it could get worse thanks to drought and other factors. "One of the people I spoke with was our friend Ken Fisher up in Alberta, she's a human bear conflict specialist, and in monitors things not only in Canada, but you know, kind of all through bear territory, even down here in the lower 48 and she said, 'Yeah, it could be, you know, that because of dry conditions and more people going out, just there's more potential for conflict, we could be seeing a little bit more.'" Large carnivore specialist Dan Thompson tells Cowboy State Daily, that from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's perspective, it's essentially been a normal year. Read the full story HERE. – Sweetwater County School District No. 1 apologized Saturday for what it called the error of a staff member.  Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the staffer released a campaign message for gubernatorial candidate Eric Barlow through the ParentSquare messaging app.  "It was addressed to a group of students that are involved in studying public services, and so the my understanding is that they, that it was presented, or it was understood as a volunteer public civic engagement opportunity, and then when it hit, there was this reflection, like, oh, maybe that was political, since it singled out one candidate." Former state House Speaker and now-Sen. Eric Barlow is running for the Republican primary nomination for governor against Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, retired Marine Col. Brent Bien, and Curt Blake of Centennial.  Read the full story HERE. – Greta, a German shepherd with a platform of "more belly rubs for all," is getting huge support in Park County since a "Vote For Greta" sign went up in Cody. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that one voter says, "She certainly can't be worse than, like, half the people running." "I did talk to the Park County clerk, who said that, despite being a dog, and Greta actually is deceased now, he missed the deadline to register as a candidate doesn't say what office she's running from, but it doesn't matter to some, some of the people I talked to, they said it doesn't matter what office I'll vote for her, because she's better." Greta was the beloved pet of Elizabeth Jenkins' parents, who said she made up the campaign sign as a joke. She put it out near the Cody Post Office along Stampede Avenue in Cody late last week with a host of other signs from political candidates. Then she posted a photo of the sign to a local Facebook page. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, June 29th.  I'm Mac Watson – "A huge tanker plowed into what I thought was about 6 cars," is how one witness described the scene of a devastating double-fatal crash Friday on Highway 20/26 in Natrona County. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that it was a very chaotic scene with many damaged vehicles, a large debris field, multiple victims, and a large bystander presence. "The deceased haven't been identified yet, so we don't really know much about this crash, whether there's any criminal charges that could possibly come from it, or anything like that. All we know is it was a pretty bad scene. The highway was closed for a good 12 hours. It didn't open up again until after 2am on Saturday." Krista Nethercott, who witnessed the crash and is a funeral director, tells Cowboy State Daily, "I'm used to seeing stuff like this, but it was one of the worst accidents I've witnessed in person."  Read the full story HERE. – The Johnson County Sheriff's Office on Friday released body camera video of state Rep. Bill Allemand's December DUI arrest. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Allemand grew more adversarial toward the deputy throughout his arrest, ultimately calling him an "asshole." "In the video you can see Allemand speaking with the officer, and a lot of people are going to be tempted to make judgment calls based upon his speech, whether the DUI charge is justified. He does speak loudly and with a unique cadence. Normally, he sounds less articulate than usual during the video. The deputy reported that his speech was slurred, so that's going to be a major question that now the public has access to the evidence involved in answering that question." Allemand's attorney Mike Vang tells Cowboy State Daily that Allemand was likely growing frustrated with the deputy because he thought he was being falsely arrested. Read the full story HERE. –  When Gillette's Kimberly Fry got a phone call at 8:15 a.m. that someone had found their 14-year-old corgi in Wisconsin, she started crying. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that an hour later, her family was on the road and drove more than 1,000 miles straight to get their rescued dog. "Apparently, a couple that was moving from Wyoming to Wisconsin found the Corgi, they said they tried to figure out who it belonged to, and then took it with them, and then once they realized that she was 14-years old and deaf and needed a special diet, they put her on Facebook, classified for free to anyone who take her, so they, the owner, told me she believes that they potentially stole her dog, and then once they realized it was more trouble than it was worth, they just tried to get rid of it any way that they could." Fry is still trying to figure out what happened. She believes her corgi was stolen and abandoned by the people who stole her, making their reunion a miracle. Read the full story HERE. –  Wyoming was once a top apple producer in the United States. Cowboy State Renee Jean reports that now those forgotten apple trees are being rediscovered by John Magney, who is mapping out all the varieties that can be grown in the Cowboy State. "At one time Wyoming was at the top of the charts when it comes to apples. It wasn't always all about Washington, right? We once were big in apples too. We were held up as the example. 'Look, if they can grow apples in Wyoming, you can grow apples anywhere.' Jonathan Magney has this little project where he's going around, kind of mapping out all the different varieties of apples that grow in Wyoming, which ones grow the best. Part of his thinking there is, it could be a little industry for Wyoming, another kind of value-added agriculture industry that the state could look into, because apples grow really well here in Wyoming." That history is being rediscovered thanks to a project called the Wyoming Apple Project. Through it, researchers have been cataloguing a hidden network of heritage and volunteer trees that have somehow survived a century or so of drought and neglect. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   Authorities are working to unravel the mysterious deaths of a man and woman who were found in Laramie County earlier this year within three months of one another in unrelated incidents. However, Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that distinctive tattoos on the individuals have caught the attention of sisters who are genealogists who are working on the case. "On the John Doe, there's a distinctive pool ball, an eight ball, and what looks to be like a bird, and also the. Letter C, but very, very distinguishable, and the Jane Doe has what appears to be a sun and moon. It looks like rain clouds. So, in any case, something that would be identifiable by those who knew those two people. The two sisters started a company called Genetics Uncovered. In fact, they have a project called Not Forgotten, which is a national project, and they're looking for people all over the country." The first person, a woman thought to be between 30 and 50 years old, was struck by a vehicle and killed on the side of Interstate 25 outside Cheyenne in late April, according to Wyoming Highway Patrol. The second is an unknown man found near a commercial building on South Greeley Avenue earlier this month, according to the Laramie County Sheriff's Department. Read the full story HERE. – The Common Sense Republicans for Wyoming group says they will alter their billboards after the Wyoming Republican Party warned it could be a violation to use the official GOP elephant logo. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that other candidates and groups are doing the same. "The RNC, the Republican National Committee, has been cracking down, reportedly on unauthorized use of its little elephant logo, and that has filtered down to Wyoming through the Wyoming GOP, which is contacting candidates like, hey, that elephant is too close to the. Will go. Hey, do you have a license to use that elephant? And so you see some candidates are putting stickers over their signs, some are just close enough to pass the smell test. Wyoming Republican Party Chair Brian Miller said, 'Look, we've done crackdowns before, but yeah, the RNC is being very protective of its logo.'" The Common Sense Republicans for Wyoming started a political action committee (PAC) in March to combat the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which is a controversial and populist-leaning group of state House Republicans. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming hunters who didn't draw antelope tags this year aren't alone. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that hunters are blaming the winter of 2022-23. "I talked to Larry Hicks, who's really knowledgeable about antelope, both as a hunter, and then also as he's a senator in the Wyoming legislature, and so he's dealt with a lot of wildlife policy issues. So he has a pretty good overview, and he said really, we still, we had that horrific winter, you know, 2223 where 10s of 1000s of antelope died. He said the population is still trying to recover from that, so game and fish, just out of good practice, had to cut a lot of the tags in some of these areas." Hicks tells Cowboy State Daily it could take up to eight years for antelope herds to recover from the devastating winterkill losses, "and we're about three years in."  Read the full story HERE. – The Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana's Glacier National Park, which opened for the summer Monday, is considered by many to be the most beautiful road in America. Cowboy State Daily's Anna-Louise Jackson reports that visitors should prepare to have plenty of company, human and otherwise, on the way to Logan Pass. "It takes you above onto the Continental Divide, over a pass, you can see the glaciers, you can see waterfalls, you can see wildlife. It's considered this engineering marvel because it is cut right into the side of the mountain. This road has just one major switchback, and you are hugging the side of the cliff and just getting this perspective of this park that you wouldn't have any other way, so it's really popular. If you go to Glacier Park, it's kind of like if you don't go on this road, you may not have fully seen the park." Ranked the third most-scenic drive in the U.S. by Tripadvisor reviewers, people tend to throw around superlatives like "stunning," "spectacular," or "unforgettable" to describe it. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, June 26th.  I'm Mac Watson – Idaho is switching from lethal injections to firing squad executions on July 1st. Wyoming almost added firing squad executions as an alternate method in 2014 because lethal injection drugs were scarce. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Wyoming won't be changing its execution methods any time soon.  "This does not affect Wyoming right now, because we don't have anyone on death row, and we rarely execute anyone. We haven't executed anyone since 1992 but it came up in 2014 when Dale Wayne Eaton was on death row before he had, before his death sentence had basically fizzled on appeal. We didn't have a gas chamber, which is our fail-safe method if lethal injection is unconstitutional, and the lethal injection drugs were scarce nationwide, and so Bruce Burns, who was a state senator at the time, was like, What are we going to do here if we can't get the drugs and we don't know the gas chamber, and so he made a bill that would have if the lethal injection wasn't available, that would have allowed for firing squad. That bill tried twice to get into the legislature and failed both times." Idaho is spending $1.2 million to retrofit an execution chamber for its new firing squad method, the Idaho Statesman reported. Read the full story HERE. – A sex solicitation sting in Cheyenne led to the arrest of two men last weekend. Cowboy State Daily's Kerry Drake reports that Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak says it's the beginning of a new effort to stop human trafficking that has been ignored for too long by law enforcement. "Sheriff Kozak says that for too long, Laramie County, and particularly Cheyenne, have been a safe haven for sex trafficking, and he said it's going to stop now. This is the first operation that they've had in many years with the Laramie County Sheriff when he was the chief of police in Cheyenne about 10 years ago. He said he wanted to train everybody, at 240 people on the staff, including civilians, and he wanted everybody training, and so they've brought in experts from around the country to do that, and they had one here yesterday." Sheriff Kozak tells Cowboy State Daily that the department has noticed an increase in trafficking, particularly in Cheyenne, because of Cheyenne Frontier Days, and the amount of interstates that run through Laramie County. Read the full story HERE. –  President Trump announced Thursday he will attend the July 3 fireworks celebration at Mount Rushmore, commemorating America's 250th. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the event also marks the return of fireworks over Mount Rushmore for the first time in six years. "Trump coming to Mount Rushmore is a big deal in South Dakota. There will be tight security, a lot of security. Roads will be closed, and the last time he came in 2020 there was quite a protest by the Native American community who contend that Mount Rushmore was never there by permission, and the Black Hills belong to them. President Trump was personally invited to Mount Rushmore for this Fourth of July holiday by South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden. Trump will also be at the opening for the Theodore Roosevelt National Library in North Dakota a few days prior." The announcement was made on the Freedom 250 website and confirmed in a statement released by South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden. Read the full story HERE. –  Wyoming lawmakers met in Lander on Thursday to address School Finance Recalibration. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that they repeatedly  promised a crowded room that they would fix a $3.9 million decrease in public school sports and activities funding. "The school districts as a whole are facing like nearly $4 million in activity shortfalls. The brunt of that is actually on the high school side, whereas middle school and elementary are actually gaining money. And so the high schools are bearing this huge activity shortfalls, and that affects different schools and districts differently. So, lawmakers of the recalibration committee faced a crowded room Thursday in Lander of people who were lamenting these losses, and they promised, 'Look, we're going to fix it, but we don't know how yet.'" Committee members and staffers floated multiple different strategies for fixing the problem. The committee meets again Aug. 25 in Cheyenne. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   A Texas man is accused of exposing his penis in the parking lot of a busy Mexican restaurant in Jackson on Tuesday evening before driving away intoxicated. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that if convicted on all four counts he could face up to 3½ years in jail. "Police were dispatched to a Mexican restaurant in Jackson called El Abuelito just before 8pm after a Texas man had allegedly exposed himself to the public. One witness at the scene recorded part of the incident with her cell phone, she gave that over to police, so that they could review the video. Police could see him kissing a woman, and then he unbuttoned his pants and exposed himself. They arrested him under suspicion of driving under the influence when they took him into custody and took an inventory of his truck. They also found psilocybin mushrooms, along with a little bit of marijuana and a grinder." Durkas appeared Wednesday in Teton County Circuit Court, where he was arraigned on one count each of public indecency and driving under the influence, along with two misdemeanor counts of possessing controlled substances. Read the full story HERE. – Facing extreme drought in the wake of an exceptionally mild winter, officials in Colorado and Oregon have told anglers at some reservoirs: Catch all the fish you want, because they're going to die anyway. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that here in Wyoming, emergency measures are on hold. "I reached out to a couple people in Wyoming. Well, two of our biggest reservoirs here, Boysen and Flaming Gorge, they said, 'Our water's down, but we're not, we're nowhere near that level.' The guy at Boysen told me that Boysen is still 73% full. But our picture is far from rosy. There's a million acre feet that are still scheduled to be pulled out of Boysen, or pardon me, Flaming Gorge Reservoir to replenish the really hard shortage of water they're having down at Lake Powell." Fisheries management coordinator Mark Smith tells Cowboy State Daily that some of Wyoming's larger reservoirs have conservation pools, or "dead pools," to act as buffers for fisheries when water is running low. He also added that Game and Fish is watching closely for a "tipping point" that might warrant a change in fishing regulations. Read the full story HERE. – Rep. Harriet Hageman is vowing to continue the fight for her bill which mandates country-of-origin labeling for beef. But Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that's despite the Senate Ag Committee's failure to include it in the Farm Bill.  "Hageman pushed for this amendment in order to allow American consumers to understand where their beef comes from, and she saw it as a way to give ranchers fair competition. Other people, including ranchers and others in the beef producing industry, do not support this because they say it just adds too much bureaucracy, and there is no clear direction as to who would pay to monitor for this, and it's just one extra step with government that we don't need." Had the bill become law, it would require meat labels to clearly state where an animal was born, raised and slaughtered.  Read the full story HERE. – Police say two Cheyenne men looking for "more privacy" wound up in the Crown Bar's employee-only basement. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that's  where one "donkey kicked" a locked liquor room door and then stuffed three bottles of tequila in his pants before they were caught. "23-year-old Casey Fox and 18-year-old Carlos Glaub were making out in a bathroom stall when they decided to go find some privacy, so that's how they ended up in the basement when Glaub reportedly donkey kicked the door open so that they could get into the liquor shed, where he was reportedly putting the tequila in his pants." Fox pleaded guilty on Monday to criminal entry, which is a misdemeanor. Glaub is facing a felony count of burglary, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, June 25th.  I'm Mac Watson – Wyoming congressional candidate Reid Rasner, who works as a financial advisor, was "discharged" from his broker clearinghouse company in late April. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the dismissal was based on allegations that Rasner "engaged in unapproved outside business activity," federal filings say. "Rasner had been with LPL Financial for like nine years, and he, he did run for Senate in 2024 not not successfully against Barrasso, and then in 2025 was being very public about a hope to purchase TikTok, that didn't pan out, but then this year he's been running for US House, the seat that Representative Hageman is vacating.  So, the LPL discharged him in late April, that would have been several months after he, that would have been months after he declared for office, a few weeks after his campaign finance reports came out, and several months after the TikTok deal kind of fizzled." The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) profile of Rasner says he was registered previously as a broker "and is currently registered as an investment advisor." The profile also states that he's held state registrations in New York and Wyoming. Read the full story HERE. – An armed female suspect surrendered to law enforcement after a multi-hour standoff on Cody's south side Wednesday afternoon. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the woman was arrested and charged with criminal trespass, property destruction, and interference with a police officer. "So, the Cody Police Department responded to a call of an unauthorized entry in an unoccupied Cody home around noon on Wednesday, and they found a female suspect who barricaded herself inside that home with a firearm. The standoff lasted around five hours, and then the suspect was arrested. The suspect surrendered and was arrested without incidents, and there were no reported injuries. 41-year-old Dawn Blaycock has been charged with multiple offenses." Blaylock is currently being held in the Park County Detention Center. Read the full story HERE. – A Sheridan rancher says an "asinine, stupid" outhouse crackdown is pushing Amish families out of the Hulett area. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that rancher Pepper Fipps says landowners were threatened with fines of up to $30,000 per day if they failed to comply with outhouse regulations. "This controversy goes back to 2024 when a wastewater specialist with Crook County discovered what he considered to be an illegal outhouse on an Amish owned property, Pepper Thips is calling it government overreach and saying they're after money, and it's all about making a buck. County commissioners are saying it's about environmental quality and making sure that our groundwater is not polluted by illegally made out houses that have no, you know, no protections from the wider world, so to speak." Fipps tells Cowboy State Daily that about 40 Amish families live in the Hulett area. Founded in 2011, the Hulett Amish settlement is one of five in Wyoming. Read the full story HERE. – A Johnson County judge ruled that anything Wyoming state Rep. Bill Allemand said while handcuffed for 12 minutes during a DUI traffic stop can't be used as direct evidence against him. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that's because his arresting deputy failed to give Allemand his Miranda rights. "He was not free to leave, he was handcuffed for 12 minutes. Originally, it was for a good idea, they saw a gun on the seat, they were worried about officer safety, they detained him so they could take care of the gun, but he stayed handcuffed, and the deputy was asking him questions, and so the judge was like, look, you can't, you can't keep for your main case any potentially incriminating stuff that he said while you're questioning him while he was in custody and hadn't been warned against incriminating himself. It benefits Aleman by whittling the main evidence that the state can bring against him." Allemand, a Republican state representative of the Mills area, was charged Dec. 29, 2025, on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol in Johnson County – one day after a Buffalo traffic stop just off Interstate 25. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   Five young Arapaho braves snuck off from Fort Robinson 150 years ago this week and fought the 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn, where General Custer met his demise. Cowboy State Daily's Jackie Dorothy reports that two of the braves later told their story to actor and adopted member of the Arapaho tribe, Tim McCoy. "These five Arapaho men were not supposed to be where they were, and they were actually captured by the Sioux, and one thing led to another, and next thing you know, the Arapahoes, these five young men are part of the battle against Custer. The two bucks, as they refer to themselves, actually saw Custer during this battle. Left Hand saw him standing and shooting into the Indians with his pistols. Waterman, when he saw Custer, Custer was on all fours on the ground, bleeding out of his mouth with a wound in his side, and Waterman must have been impacted by it, because what he said he saw was Custer watching the Indians – silent, just watching them. This battle took place 150 years ago today, and there were no prisoners taken, because the philosophy of the Indians was that  you had two choices: you either fight or you die. There was no such thing as surrender." They have been dubbed by historians as the Arapaho Five, warriors who found themselves fighting against General Custer 150 years ago. Their names were Left Hand, Yellow Eagle, Yellow Fly, Water Man, and Sage. Read the full story HERE. –  Colorado wildlife agents are trying to determine why a black bear attacked a woman on a hiking trail in Denver and then followed her for 30 minutes despite her shouting and throwing rocks at it. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that the woman who took video of the encounter said it was "circling her." "At one point, a couple other hikers joined her because they heard the ruckus, and also started yelling at the bear, and it still wouldn't leave. Eventually the bear wandered off down another leg of the trail, and apparently started following other hikers. So I reached out to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and they said they don't think that this would qualify as what they would call a predatory incident with the bear." The consensus among bear biologists is that while grizzlies are more likely to attack humans, black bears are more likely to attack in a purely predatory manner. Read the full story HERE. – A Casper teen accused of attacking his mother led police to a hidden cache of stolen firearms and credit cards tucked behind a secret wall in his bedroom. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that court documents paint a picture of a family dispute that escalated into a foot chase through Casper neighborhoods . "They went into his room, where they found about four stolen pistols. There is a fifth pistol they found that they also believe was stolen, but that's not confirmed yet. So, he is facing at least four felonies for these stolen guns. His mother said that earlier she had seen a credit card skimmer or a scanner. They did not find it that day, however, they did find several credit cards, so there may be further charges in the future. I spoke to the Natrona County Prosecutor, Dan Itson, and he said this 17-year old will be charged as an adult." Honor Jason Wickert, 17, appeared Tuesday afternoon in Natrona County Circuit Court, where he was formally charged with four felonies and several misdemeanors, including interference, domestic battery, carrying a concealed weapon, and being a minor in possession of tobacco products.  Read the full story HERE. –  The owner of a Wyoming sanitation company said it's not worth it to jump in a vault toilet to retrieve sunglasses like a man in California did last week. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that Adma Fink, owner of Laird Sanitation says nothing besides a family heirloom is worth diving into a vault toilet.  "Vault toilets can be anywhere from three to 10 feet deep, and a lot of them, they don't use water, but they might be filled with the chemicals that you find in Port-a-johns, so if you go in there, you might be floating once you're in there, because it might be so deep you won't be able to touch the ground." The incident occurred June 20th at Camp Edison on the Sierra National Forest, northeast of Fresno and according to media reports, the unidentified man trying to recover his sunglasses was stuck inside for about 15 minutes before being rescued. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, June 24th.  I'm Mac Watson – During a lengthy meeting that grew contentious, the Kemmerer City Council on Monday approved an ordinance establishing regulations for a possible man camp inside city limits. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that despite resident's objections, Mayor Robert Bowen says, "The groundwork's been laid. "The Kemmerer City Council was adamant at the meeting on Monday that there is no man camp guaranteed. The ordinance just lays this groundwork. One place that has gotten interest from potential developers for a possible man camp is an area near this Antelope Ridge subdivision. Multiple people were at this meeting who live in that subdivision saying we don't want this in our backyard. the main concerns are safety, one woman brought up, you know, when you have people in groups, strange things happen." Developers are proposing a temporary hub to house workers who will build the TerraPower nuclear power plant near Kemmerer. Read the full story HERE. – The Wyoming Supreme Court denied a Cheyenne-based attorney's request for an order appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Secretary of State Chuck Gray for handing sensitive voter data to the federal government on Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the high court also denied the attorney, George Powers' second request. "George Powers had asked the Wyoming Supreme Court to make the Attorney General's office recuse itself from Fowler's requested investigation of Chuck Gray, and for the High Court to appoint a special prosecutor for that investigation itself. And now, while the Attorney General fired back last week, like we already got special prosecutors to look into this. The high court officially ended the case on Tuesday, saying, 'George Powers, you didn't show that the Attorney General's office had shirked a clear duty here,' so we're not going to make the Attorney General do certain things." The U.S. Department of Justice last year urged Gray to hand over unredacted voter rolls bearing driver's licenses or partial social security numbers. Gray did so, public records indicate. He's since said repeatedly that Kautz's office advised him in this, and approved the release. Read the full story HERE. – At a meeting in Denver on Tuesday, Wyoming's state engineer said 2026 is "one of the worst, if not the worst, hydrologic years on record." Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports the engineer added it's due to the dire water situation in the Colorado River's Upper Basin states.  "There's a representative from each of the four states, which are Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico. Our representative is our state engineer, Brendan Gebhart. Bottom line is looking really grim. I think Gebhart said, from a hydrological standpoint, it's one of the worst, if not the worst years we have on record for the Colorado River.  The commissioner from Utah mentioned that there's already towns there that have run out of water and are having to truck it in little towns in Utah." Members of the Upper Colorado River Commission expressed frustration during the meeting, saying water-management policy needs to shift away from legal wrangling and toward the realities of water availability.  Read the full story HERE. –  The Wyoming group that launched a civility movement after the killing of Charlie Kirk has gotten candidates to sign a peacemaker pledge to love their enemies. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that includes gubernatorial candidates Eric Barlow and Megan Degenfelder. "They launched in September after the killing of Charlie Kirk, calling for civility in politics. They, this candidate, see this election season, they released a pledge for candidates to sign if they wish, where they're basically promising to love their enemies, stand on their principles, but not resort to cruelty. And as of Monday, 35 candidates had signed it, including two running for governor." Three of the 10 Republican U.S. House candidates have also signed the pledge: Senate President Bo Biteman, former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, and Casper-based veteran Kevin Christensen.  Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   Cheyenne's City Council moved a massive 3,500-acre data center annexation closer to approval Monday night, rejecting an effort to secure a $50 million community benefits agreement. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that Mayor Patrick Collins recently described as "extortion." "What are the impacts of that? Councilman Wolf felt that the city should be looking to get more out of the deal, so that it could handle or deal with those impacts, but the council did not agree. There were three votes for such seeking an agreement and the rest were against. It's a nine-member council. The mayor was absent, and so you know that went down to defeat. Some of the councilmen pointed out that they can still seek annexation agreements." The tract, roughly one-fifth the size of Cheyenne and adjacent to Microsoft's existing data centers, is envisioned as a long-term expansion site where it would build its facilities out over the next 10 to 20 years.  Read the full story HERE. – The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory confirmed Tuesday that a hydrothermal explosion occurred in Yellowstone's Biscuit Basin. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that Yellowstone authorities say they observed water spouting 30 feet into the air. "When geologists went out there the next day, they found a 21-foot-wide crater filled with boiling water, a 60 foot long fissure, and several vents that were draining water into the nearby Fire Hole River.  I spoke with Mike Poland, the scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, and he said that this is evidence that these incidents are very shallow and they're very localized, that they only occur in individual thermal features rather than affecting an entire basin." Biscuit Basin has been closed since a similar explosion occurred at nearby Black Diamond Pool in July 2024. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming lawmakers started work on Tuesday to lift the upper limit on county prosecutors' salaries, topping out at $180,000. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the bill would raise Wyoming Supreme Court Justices' salaries and district court judge salaries as well. "A lot of these salaries for prosecutors, judges were set like 18 years ago in state law, so that's a hard figure that remains rigid in state law, even as inflation and other factors take off, and so they're having a look at raising those, those amounts, and also maybe tying them to some kind of an escalator that hinges on economic factors like inflation and cost of living." If it becomes law, the bill now being drafted would raise Wyoming Supreme Court Justices' salaries from $187,250 to nearly $225,000, district court judge salaries from $171,200 to almost $202,000, and circuit court judges from $153,700 to $180,000. Those figures would change over time based on economic metrics, as they'd be tethered to federal judge salaries, which have built-in escalators. Read the full story HERE. –  A Colorado woman, accused of stealing $2,000 worth of pyrotechnics from Artillery World along Interstate 25 in Cheyenne, is headed to district court. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the woman allegedly drove toward store employees at high speed to avoid being detained. "61-year-old Sandra Bafia loaded up her cart at a fireworks stand at Cheyenne, and then left without paying. As she was putting the fireworks into her car, two employees tried to stop her. Bafia scratched one employee, and then she pushed off the other one, got into her car, and then turned the car around and drove toward the employees as if to hit them. She missed them. If convicted, Bafia faces up to 10 years in prison. Anything over $1,000 in the state of Wyoming is considered a felony." Sandra May Bafia waived her preliminary hearing on Monday in Laramie County Circuit Court, sending the case to district court more than a year after the alleged theft. If convicted, Bafia faces up to 10 years in prison.  Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, June 23rd.  I'm Mac Watson – Black Hills Energy says it's ready for data centers that draw as much power as small states. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that Vice President Wes Ashton says its large-load tariff makes cost-causers pay their full cost, even as AI demand has jumped from megawatts to gigawatts. "The question is, how well is it going to scale when we go from megawatt to orders of magnitude greater gigawatt scale? Black Hills tells me they're very confident that this large load tariff is going to scale, they're not worried about that at all. In fact, they think that folks might see that their rates are continuing to be held back, because as these large companies are building this infrastructure there's economy of scale there, and it's resulting in less cost for regular rate payers, because these guys are paying for ginormous upgrades to the right reliability and efficiency and overall capacity of the grid that serves everyone, and so they, they only see benefits from this down the line as we continue to build this out." Project Jade, as just one example, will come into Wyoming with a "bring-your-own-power" mentality for an initial 2.7 gigawatts of power, which is nearly three times what industry analysts have said Wyoming uses now.  Read the full story HERE. – Demand for nuclear fuel, a ban on imports from Russia and booming data center-driven electricity needs are sending uranium producers back into Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that mining association chief Travis Deti says, "We need the fuel, and the fuel starts with Wyoming uranium. "There's a renewed interest in this mineral nationwide, and the need globally is huge, and Wyoming has a lot of uranium and a lot of exploration to be done, so companies are at work in the Powder River Basin. I talked to the CEO of a smaller company, he is from Australia, but owns American Uranium Limited, and they have an operation in Wyoming that is ongoing and expects to be producing in the next few years. Uranium is key for energy development and could also play a role in data center build out in the future." Nuclear energy still supplies about 20% of the nation's electricity, and the United States operates more nuclear reactors than any other country in the world, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association. Read the full story HERE. – Almost a week after a semitruck carrying millions of bees flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming on trees in the area. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that one Wyoming beekeeper calls it " a swarming mechanism."  "Bee trees are kind of like staging stations for bees, as they're trying to find new homes. So, when you see a tree covered with bees, it's most likely that there's a queen there, and the other bees are swarming around her, while scouts go out to find a suitable location to build a new hive. If you see those trees, beekeepers know that they can still collect that colony and relocate it to an apiary or another beehive safely, but if you stop seeing those trees, it means the bees have moved on." The fact that bee trees can still be seen along U.S. Highway 191 six days after the June 16 crash might indicate the bees are having trouble finding an ideal place for a new home. But it definitely means the colonies can be safely recovered. Read the full story HERE. – Data from the National Weather Service revealed the last three months have been the driest spring on record for most of Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that's following one of the driest winters on record, which doesn't bode well for the summer months ahead. "After one of the driest winters in Wyoming's recorded history, it makes sad sense that it was one of the driest springs in recorded history. Many Wyoming communities got less than half, in some places barely more than a quarter of the moisture they typically receive between March 20-first and June 20, but there could be some potential salvation on the horizon. It's been a very active weather week in Wyoming, and there could be more moisture moving in. The downside to that is if we get that moisture, it's going to most likely come in the form of thunderstorms, and with the thunder comes the lightning, and if we get a thunderstorm that doesn't produce much rain but does produce some lightning, then we're talking about a heightened risk of wildfires on a landscape that's already deep in the drought." Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day tells Cowboy State Daily, "March was so bad, April was not great, May was really bad in places, and June has been a bust. Those months are so critical, and they didn't come through for us." Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –  When a bull moose wandered into Wheatland on Sunday, wildlife agents drugged it, then rolled the massive animal onto a tarp to move it into a waiting horse trailer. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that one fire-rescue responder said, "Once he woke back up, he was not too pleased." "The moose was getting spookily close to I-25 and a lieutenant from the Wheatland Fire and Rescue told me that they've had a lot of deer get hit in that same area, so they really don't want that moose hanging out there. So Game and Fish came in and tranquilized the moose, and they called in Wheatland Fire Rescue to assist. Then they managed to get it rolled onto a tarp, and they just had like eight or 10 guys getting a circle around the tarp, he lifted up and carried into a horse trailer, and then once it got in the horse trailer, they took it up to the Snowy Range Mountains and released it back out into the wild." Jeff Herb of Wheatland Fire-Rescue tells Cowboy State Daily that no one is sure where the moose came from. He speculates that the moose might have wandered out of the Laramie Range because it's been so dry lately in those mountains. Read the full story HERE. –   The Natrona County Commissioners approved an agreement to keep the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper for the next 10 years. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the CEO of Visit Casper says the economic boost to Natrona county is huge. "It's become a tradition. Annette Pitts with Visit Casper said that this brings about $3 million in economic impact to the Casper community. Casper College's head rodeo coach, Faith Anders, said that Casper is a great place for the CNFR because people in Central Wyoming really understand rodeo culture. In other states, there are some misconceptions about animal cruelty, whereas in Wyoming, there are ranchers, farmers, veterinarians, people who care about animals and really understand livestock production, so it's a great place to celebrate Western culture." The CNFR has been a fixture in Casper for more than a quarter-century, bringing hundreds of the nation's top college cowboys and cowgirls to Wyoming every June. Read the full story HERE. –  Terlingua, Texas, crowns the world's chili champions, but many say their favorite contest is in Chugwater, Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that for 40 years, the Chugwater Chili Cook-off has been a Father's Day bucket-list contest for the best chili cooks on the planet. "Many of them are former Terlingua winners. Terlingua is the competition that crowns the world's chili champion every year, and talking with some of these guys who came up here from Texas, this is a bucket list competition for them right here in Little Old Chuck Water, Wyoming. A lot of these folks who do this, who are from Wyoming, do it as a family activity. They get together kind of like families do over the holidays for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Well, they get together over chili, and there's some fantastic chilis here. If you don't find something that you like at this festival, well, then you just don't like chili, because there's some really good chili at this event." Many contestants pair their chili fest trip with subsequent Yellowstone and Devils Tower adventures. Read the full story HERE. – Mount Rushmore expects a huge turnout for the nation's 250th Independence Day celebration that will feature fireworks returning for the first time in six years. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that you'd better have a lottery ticket to get in. "The idea of celebrating Fourth of July at Mount Rushmore for America's 250th birthday was so popular that the National Park Service had to implement a lottery system for tickets. Nearly 103,000 people vied for 4800 tickets, and the lottery closed in April. So there will be 4800 people at Mount Rushmore, and many more people who would love to be there. They are showing up all over the Black Hills and Keystone, which is the community nearest Mount Rushmore, has reported an increase of 127% in visitors over last year." There is also speculation that President Trump will attend this event, but the White House has not confirmed. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, June 22nd.  I'm Mac Watson –  Wyoming needs tens of thousands of new homes, but only a fraction of the need is under construction because builders say the math doesn't work. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that even middle-class wages aren't high enough to afford to buy houses while home-building costs just continue to rise. "They're building homes that are 400,000 and up, and so why not any affordable units for regular working class people who have a median income of 75,500. When I went to developers about why aren't people building homes in this range, that would be the affordable range for Americans, and they basically can't pencil out below $400,000. So we have this huge gap, between $300,000 and $400,000. They can't make the numbers work." Scott Hoversland, who heads up the Wyoming Community Development Authority, puts the number of homes the state needs somewhere between 28,000 to 38,000 by 2030 — roughly 2,070 to 3,680 homes annually to keep up with population growth and aging infrastructure. Read the full story HERE. – A Cheyenne judge Friday ordered the Wyoming Board of Equalization to apply a law capping residential property tax increases at 4% annually, for now, despite the board's claim the cap violates the Wyoming Constitution. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Gov. Gordon sued the board last week. "Gordon's office, through the Attorney General's personnel, asked Judge Hibben, 'Hey, make the tax board follow the law real quick while we sort through these tax values.' And Judge Hibben granted that request. The judge basically said, 'Look, we're going to sift through the constitutional issues. The court's going to look at those and decide, but for now you just follow the law.' So, this is what we call a temporary restraining order. It's generally a very quick court order telling people what they're supposed to do while the controversy is going on in court." The Wyoming Constitution calls for equal and uniform property taxes within each tax category, and this tax cap creates stark disparities in how some homes, despite being nearly identical, are taxed in different regions, the report says. Read the full story HERE. –   A tornado made a rare appearance in Sublette County on Saturday, bringing with it more than 700 power outages. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that Meteorologist Don Day calls it a "landspout" tornado. "It's not a true tornado in the sense that it comes down from the clouds, rather it's a spinning closer to the surface that winds its way up to the clouds, and it lasted probably no more than 30 minutes, and even that's really long. They tend not to be long-lived, and they're not as destructive as tornadoes. So it was literally just a perfect storm of circumstances as thunderstorms and a cluster of thunderstorms was moving through Wyoming on Saturday that brought rain to some places and thunderstorms to others." Meteorologist Don Day tells Cowboy State Daily that landspouts tend to be more common in the spring and summer, especially when Wyoming's area gets humid. When summer thunderstorms carry moisture into Wyoming, the likelihood of landspouts increases. Read the full story HERE. – A Casper man says his wife is making him sell his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the car is a lifted, 1984 AMC Eagle wagon with 150,000 miles that owner Austin Griess says attracts too much female attention.  "Griess posted the car online last week, and it got a lot of attention, especially from males who commented that maybe he should keep the car and get rid of something else. According to gearhead Ron Gordon in Sublette County, who spent a lifetime admiring station wagons, this AMC Eagle would have been the perfect family car. It is all-wheel drive, so it was made to go camping, especially lifted." Griess found the 1984 AMC Eagle 4X4 Wagon on Facebook Marketplace during the dead of winter. During the cold months he worked on it, installing a lift kit, tuning it up and making it reliable enough to serve as a daily driver. Then he said he turned it into a true "chick magnet" by adding a modern stereo. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –  Laramie's Erika Babbitt-Rogers considers herself to be a professional "worm wrangler." Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that she says anglers and pet owners are regular customers, but the real demand is for worm poop.  "She has discovered that really worm castings, which is just a fancy way of saying worm poop, is a huge seller, and the reason is that it makes really good, highly nutritious, slow release fertilizer for plants or lawns and whatnot. She says sells mass amounts of worm poop to people, and she said some people turn it into tea, and don't get the wrong idea, it's not tea you drink. What they do is they make like a tea mixture that they can spray on their plants or spray on their lawn, so it's tea for plants, not for people." Erika Babbitt-Rogers grew up in agriculture and always figured livestock would be part of her life, but she didn't expect that "livestock" would be worms. Around 2009, she got the idea to raise worms on a larger scale and sell them for fishing bait and food for people's pet reptiles and, of course, worm poop for gardening.  Read the full story HERE. – The American Dream in Powell is Wyoming's last operating drive-in theater and has survived since 1949 as a retro experience for movie-goers. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the current owner, Kathleen Heny, bought it in 2004 just to save it.  "One day her husband came home from the hardware store, and, 'Oh, honey, our drive-in theater is for sale.' They kind of had a soft spot for this theater, and they just decided that they were afraid that somebody's going to buy this and, you know, knock it down and build something else, and they didn't want that, and so they bought it themselves. They operated themselves.There are 370 drive-in theaters left in America. These guys are the Iron Man of an era that is long gone, the 1950s and 60s. These were fueled by the post-war boom. Everybody had their automobiles with their flashy chrome fenders. They needed places to show it off. The drive-in theater was perfect." Some of the locals go so far as to bring full-size couches in their pickup beds and camp stoves to make s'mores and other snacks as the overhead sky darkens and a sweep of stars begins to shine. Read the full story HERE. –  Wyoming's prisons have 109 vacant positions, despite years of recruiting. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that now, the Wyoming Department of Corrections is turning to a certain group of people because of their training.  "Former retired director of the WDOC, Bob Lambert, said that these positions are incredibly hard to fill. It's a demanding job. There are a lot of safety concerns. Inmates, as he puts it, are not usually there for singing too loud in church. Prison officials are currently recruiting active duty military members to serve as correctional officers in these prisons, so it's a pipeline that would help members who are nearing the end of their contract with the military to quickly start a new career with the Wyoming Department of Corrections." Through a new partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense's SkillBridge program, transitioning service members can train with the Wyoming Department of Corrections before separating from active duty, creating what officials hope will become a new pipeline into correctional careers. Read the full story HERE. – Yellowstone rangers resorted to using a front-end loader and a bit of creativity to get a 2,000-pound bison carcass away from a busy road near Canyon Village on Friday. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that a wildlife photographer said a grizzly was circling the area determined to have the roadkill for breakfast. "First they tied a chain around the bison's neck and lifted it, but then they couldn't get it up high enough to get in the dump truck, so they had to tie up one of its legs and lower it in that way, and this was all within public view. Most things that die in the park stay in the park. So when there's a bison carcass that people see near the road and the parks move it, they take it to a secret location where it can be dumped, and then it's free for all the animals in the park to utilize, because that's a big source of food for a bunch of animals."  Photographer April Mead has seen and shared images of Yellowstone's carcass removal process before, but this one was notably different. It seemed as if the park's experienced staff were improvising the best way to get the job done quickly and safely. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, June 19th.  I'm Mac Watson –  Data centers with huge power needs are lining up to plug into Wyoming's power grid. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that regulators, utilities and lawmakers are wrestling with how to serve massive electric loads without spiking rates for regular consumers. "As Senator Case put it to me, it's like comparing Earth to Jupiter, the kind of loads that we used to deal with versus what we're looking at, it's Earth to Jupiter, orders of magnitude different. so into all that matrix comes Senator Lummis. She is pushing a federal fix to, you know, ensure that data centers can connect in a reasonable timeframe to the grid and get the transmission that they need. Does this kind of federalize the grid when it comes to data centers, so is that bypassing local control? Senator Case told me, well, that has implications, you know." Wyoming exports roughly 12 times more power than it uses, a fact regularly touted by data centers planning to build in the Cowboy State, who suggest their projects will help keep more of that power at home. Read the full story HERE. – The Drug Enforcement Administration has installed license plate cameras on or around the Wind River Reservation, authorities confirmed Thursday. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Sen. Cale Case calls it "somewhat '1984'-ish."  "The BIA finally confirms, 'Look, it wasn't us.' The DA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, has an agreement with the tribes, and so my efforts over the past several months to get the tribes to comment have been futile, but Senator Cale Case, at a committee meeting on Tuesday, said this is the growing surveillance state. In an interview Thursday, he said, 'This is 1984 ish.' that doesn't mean everyone within the tribe agrees, but the statements, the public statements, have been that the tribal governments entered into an agreement with the DEA to put these up." Sen. Case added that the installation of the camera is "a big step in our surveillance society." Read the full story HERE. –   John Bear, one of the most powerful members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, has a GOP challenger for his Gillette House district. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports challenger Doug Moore says the difference between him and his opponent is he doesn't see himself "being a career politician."  "So you got Doug Moore, who works in the coal sector, who's a business owner, longtime resident of Gillette, and you've got John Baer, who also has has backed the coal industry and has been a budget hawk in the legislature. So, looking at these two men, I asked Doug, like, 'What's the differences? Are you going to join the Freedom Caucus?' Because John Baer is a big Freedom Caucus, a big voice for the Freedom Caucus, and Doug Moore said, 'No.' He feels that the Freedom Caucus derives too much direction from its national umbrella entity, and he said he wants to represent the people." Bear countered Moore's statement with "I am the only conservative in this race." Read the full story HERE. – A man in Yellowstone who was caught stepping illegally onto a fragile hot spring could get jail time and a hefty fine when park rangers catch up to him. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that a visitor who posted a photo of the trespasser said, "Don't be this guy." "When Yellowstone catches someone in the act of thermal trespass, they impose fines and even jail time as a way to deter people from repeating the behavior, from straying off the boardwalk, from stepping on the fragile thermal features, because it protects themselves from serious injury or even potentially death, and it protects the fragile landscape, so everyone can enjoy it, but apparently all the fines and jail time and signs and boardwalks aren't enough to stop people, as was evidenced by this person who was caught stepping onto the very fragile terraces at Mammoth Hot Spring, looking for what I can only assume to be a better selfie." Earlier this year, 50-year-old Eric Bedient was sentenced to five days in jail for walking directly across Canary Spring, Mound Terrace, Palette Hot Spring, and Jupiter Terrace at Mammoth Hot Springs in November 2025. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –  A long-awaited speed test to see whether Wyoming pronghorn are faster than Africa's cheetahs was a bust. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that a buck and a doe antelope were captured this spring near Pinedale by Wyoming Game and Fish researchers, with the animals outfitted with high-tech speed tracking collars and set loose. "They went through all this and everybody was excited, and the darned antelope never got the, I think, the buck that his fastest speed was 27 miles an hour, and it's, it is because what they were hoping for is after they were captured and messed with and set free, they take off running really fast, they didn't, I mean, they went like 20 miles an hour, which, you know, it's probably like a trot for an antelope. for the rest of the two or three hour testing period, they were just wandering around." Officials are hoping to do another test in the winter with the challenge being how to nudge the pronghorn into an all-out sprint, without unnecessarily harassing or stressing them.   Read the full story HERE. – George Mocsary, a firearms law expert, says the U.S. Supreme Court's Thursday opinion upholding a marijuana user's right to keep a gun is important for Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Mocsary says "the case is ultimately about whether government can take away a constitutional right." "I was asking him about this law, and he's like, this is bigger than marijuana, or I was asking him about this case, you know, and he said, this is bigger than marijuana. Firstly, guns are part of our everyday life here in Wyoming, but secondly, if the government can just kind of create a broad category untethered from specific showings of danger for that person in that category, then who's next? I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but that's kind of the indication he gave." A federal law bars habitual users of unlawful drugs from knowingly possessing guns. People convicted under that law can face 15 years in prison and lose their carry rights for life. Read the full story HERE. –  Wyoming's congressional delegation says they don't support a Democrat bill that bans the sale of large swaths of federal lands. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Rep. Harriet Hageman says she opposes any effort that threatens our Western way of life.  "Senator Cynthia Lummis, Senator John Barrasso, and Representative Harriet Hagman, all oppose this. They say it's, it's kind of a devil in disguise bill that they see it just causing more problems and causing more federal control and less public access to Wyoming's public lands. I also talked to some Wyoming conservationists who are at least from what they can tell kind of like what they know of the bill so far." The lead bill is H.R. 9176, the Public Lands Integrity Act, introduced to the House earlier this month by Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-New Mexico. A mirror bill was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado. Read the full story HERE. – For 15 years, Steve Braithwaite has driven a 23-foot banana across the country. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that on Wednesday, just like hundreds of times before, he was pulled over by law enforcement.  "Steve Braithwaite was pulled over in Billings, Montana by a highway patrol trooper. The trooper said that his luggage on the back was covering up his license plate, but Braithwaite claims this happens all the time. He says he is one of the most pulled over men in America. He believes that law enforcement officers are just, just trying to get a closer look at his banana car. He's been driving this car for over 12 years. He got started because he was an antique car collector, and he says that he got bored going to the old car shows. When he was standing in the gas station line, he noticed a banana, and it wasn't curved like a regular banana, it was straight, and that got the wheels turning, and he began to think about how he would make an automobile out of a piece of fruit." Braithwaite tells Cowboy State Daily that he's driving from his native Michigan to Seattle, Washington with his goal to reach all 50 states in his banana car. Read the full story HERE. —   And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, June 17th.  I'm Mac Watson – A federal judge in Montana has thrown out more than 1.5 million acres of Wyoming oil and gas leases sold under the Trump administration. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that's forced the state to return $50 million in payments.  "Why is this case involving one and a half million acres of Wyoming oil and gas leases being heard in Montana and the and the answer, according to the oil and gas industry here in Wyoming, that I talked to, is these environmentalists have discovered a friendly judge in Montana who has ruled against oil and gas now three times on this issue, and so they're venue shopping. So, this group waited like years before bringing this suit, and finally they bring this suit. Well, some of these oil and gas leases have already been developed and are producing oil. They waited that long that some of these are already producing oil. It's enormously destructive to the industry."  The decision, issued by Chief Judge Brian Morris out of the U.S. District Court of Montana on June 12th, is sparking outrage in the oil and gas community. It's the third time the Obama appointee has ruled against the U.S. Department of the Interior over the protection of sage-grouse habitat. Read the full story HERE. –  Gov. Mark Gordon on Tuesday sued his tax board for refusing to recognize a 4% limit on property tax increases. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the governor says the board exceeded its law-given authority, and the executive branch's job is just to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." "The Wyoming Board of Equalization last week told they issued a public report that was also kind of notice to assessors, like, hey, this 4% cap on property tax increases from year to year looks unconstitutional. It's got these crazy results, and we're not going to certify your tax values if that's in the calculation. and so assessors were scrambling last week, like, how do we deal with this? Whom do we obey, state law or the board that has the duty to certify the taxes? And so Governor Gordon on Tuesday was like, let's just ask a court to settle this, so he filed a motion in court for the court to block the board's non-certification, and for the court to settle the issue. The constitutional dispute." Gov. Gordon also asked the court to block the actions of the State Board of Equalization. Read the full story HERE. – With its stark white feathers and red eyes, what Audubon Rockies says looks like a rare 1-in-30,000 albino robin has been hanging out in the yard of a Cheyenne-area couple. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the homeowner says "It's following its mother around and begging for food." "Heather Wiseman lives outside of Cheyenne. She says by day she's an X-ray technician, and at night she's become something of an amateur bird watcher, so she was really excited when she came home and she found a white robin, which has since been confirmed to be an albino bird. According to Zach Hutchinson, the community science director with Audubon of the Rockies, when albinism shows up in birds like robins, they will be all white or partially white, but the key is that you'll notice they have pink eyes, and in this Robins case, it does have those signs." Heather and Eric Wiseman tell Cowboy State Daily that they've been keeping tabs on a snow-white fledgling robin with pink-red eyes since it first appeared in their yard June 6th. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming's attorney general on Tuesday said he appointed two prosecutors to investigate whether Secretary of State Chuck Gray violated any laws by releasing sensitive voter data to the federal government. But Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that neither decided to charge Gray with a crime. "George Powers filed a writ of mandamus, telling the court, hey, I don't think the AG is doing what he's supposed to be doing here. Can you make him, can you get a special prosecutor, High Court, and get this investigation going? Well, the AG fired back Tuesday, saying we already got two special prosecutors, and neither of them wants to charge Chuck Gray. So the high court now can decide whether George Power's writ of mandamus petition is moot, meaning irrelevant, and I suppose George Powers can look at his options." In April, George Powers, a semi-retired attorney based in Cheyenne, filed an official complaint with the AG's office accusing Gray of violating a state election law. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   Rail Tie, one of Wyoming's most controversial wind projects, got a new five-year extension from Albany County on Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the lone commissioner who voted against the extension says the company is "fishing to keep the project alive."  "The Albany County commissioners voted two to one today to extend a permit for work on the Rail Tie wind project south of Laramie. The project has been controversial, it's on 26,000 acres and would generate 504 megawatts of wind energy. However, it's another big wind project. There are opponents arguing that it would play into this wind wall that we've been hearing about, the Wyoming wind wall, where all these big wind projects are connecting to each other in southeastern Wyoming, and kind of creating this massive wind farm." The vote allows developers to continue work on the 504-megawatt facility proposed on roughly 26,000 acres about 15 miles south of Laramie.  Read the full story HERE. –  Hundreds of swallows are swarming and nesting in Angie Pitts' lean-to in Mountain View. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that she didn't mind until she saw the bird droppings covering her vehicles, which she describes as "gross." "In two weeks, it looks like all of her vehicles have been painted with white polka dots, and she's not particularly happy about it. Unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do. One thing she has been told to do, but has refused to – which is wise – because it's illegal, is to pull out the .22 and deal with the swallows that way. And while that's a very Wyoming solution to the problem, it is illegal to shoot swallows or do anything to disturb them while they're nesting, both by state and federal law." When Pitts pulled out her GMC pickup, she was "disgusted" by the number of bird droppings. Her red truck was so thoroughly covered, from hood to tailgate, that it looked as if she had painted it with white polka dots, but was quickly cleaned up with soap, water, and a pressure washer. Read the full story HERE. –  After years of watching lawn chairs and coolers appear earlier and earlier along the Rodeo parade route, the Sheridan City Council on Monday banned people claiming spots too early. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports the police chief says this has been a problem for years. "Police Chief Travis Kultiska has been asking residents for years to please set up just one day before the parade, rather than, you know, three or four days before, and he said rather than people complying, the problem seemed to get worse, where people were showing up earlier to claim their spots, and more people were showing up, so he felt like he had no choice but to approach the city council and ask for a resolution." The new rule prohibits anyone from placing personal property on public sidewalks, streets or alleyways along the parade route before 5 p.m. the day before the parade unless they receive authorization from the city. Read the full story HERE. – A nonprofit in Mills is training dogs to interrupt military veterans' PTSD attacks. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that veteran Carol Salveson says after she lost her Green Beret son to suicide, she poured herself into a new mission.  "She's a former Air Force, a veteran Air Force weather person, but when her son, a Green Beret, committed suicide, she decided she was going to train dogs. She just felt like I'm going to do this, and she started doing it on her own to help veterans. And then she found this organization, Project Kenny, which was started on the West Coast, and now it's centered in Casper, and she is their dog trainer, certified dog trainer." Salveson, who has always been a dog person, said her son also loved dogs and even when deployed to Afghanistan would find a feral dog to adopt.  Read the full story HERE. —   And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, June 16th.  I'm Mac Watson –  Wyoming's coal sector is startled at Republican candidates who oppose data centers. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that industry leaders say the revival of coal is largely due to projected demand for energy from data centers.  "It's an interesting issue in Republican politics, because you have a lot of Republicans in Wyoming that are saying, 'Whoa, slow down or stop the data centers, particularly on agricultural land.' So, we're an energy state and we're an ag state, so that's I think we find a little the divergence, because you have people, Republicans in ranch country in particular, who have concerns about water pollution, other things, and yeah, that's that's the divide is usually Republicans are pro energy, but if it's an issue for ranch owners, then all of a sudden you're going to see those fractures." President Donald Trump has touted the sector's expansion as part of a coal industry revival, and part of beating China in a technology advancement race. Read the full story HERE. – A Wyoming man named Aron Snyder confirms he's the person seen tossing, kicking and stabbing a coyote in a video. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Snyder admits the video is "a very bad optic," and apologized  in a weekend social media post. "He said, as he recalls, somewhere around 2019-2020 they were hunting coyotes on a Texas ranch, or somewhere thereabouts, and and that's when the when the events in that video transpired, and you know, in a video statement that he put up on social media, he said he understood that it was a bad optic, and he also said he found no fault or had no quarrel with the company that he'd worked for, which is a primitive outdoors, it's a clothing and gear company, but they, they announced that they had terminated him." Cowboy State Daily reached out to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, asking if the department is investigating the incident depicted in the coyote-killing video. TPWD law enforcement spokeswoman Maggie Berger promptly responded with an email saying the department would check into it. Read the full story HERE. –   Despite calls to delay or deny a 3,500-acre annexation for Microsoft data centers, Cheyenne's Public Services Committee narrowly recommended approval Monday. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that a councilman urged them to postpone to give the city time to negotiate a $50 million agreement. "The most notable thing today was Councilman Larry Wolf's proposal to create a community benefit agreement. He called for the public service committee to postpone or even recommend denial of the annexation of Microsoft until the city has a chance to negotiate a $50 million community benefit agreement, his idea would be that money would be used for permanent improvements to Cheyenne, the city would consult with Microsoft, but would ultimately be the sole decider of what to do with that money." Despite Wolfe's push, the PSC voted 2-1 to recommend annexation of the 3,500-acre property to the full council, along with zoning changes and future land-use map changes. Councilman Pete Laybourn cast the lone "no" vote on these measures, which will be before the Cheyenne City Council at its next meeting June 22. Read the full story HERE. –  A group of young men is suing the Wyoming Boys' School claiming they were attacked, confined in a chair, and made to wear a mask. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports one security guard is alleged to have said,  "The best part of the chair is watching the kids cry and scream." "What you have right now are two very different accounts of what's going on. You have the logs from the Wyoming Boys School, where staffers are saying these boys were attacking people, destroying property, being threatening, causing this problem. That's why he was restrained. That's why he was placed in detainment. That's why he was placed under a special status. And you have the boys coming back and saying here are areas where this restraint or detainment was completely excessive. Here's where the cameras don't support the video, doesn't support what the state is saying, and so where what you have is kind of a factual clash, and the federal judge needs to decide whether it's enough of a factual clash to send this case to trial." Three men — Blaise Chivers-King, Charles "Rees" Karn, and Dylan Tolar — sued the Wyoming Department of Family Services, the Wyoming Boys' School in Worland, and 10 former and current employees in 2024. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. – A Minnesota man says a stranger spent years building a life in Wyoming using his identity, earning more than $500,000, fathering a child and leaving Martin Almendarez owing child support. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that Almendarez says "I don't even know him nor have I ever been to Wyoming."  "For years Martin Almendarez has been struggling with someone using his identity to earn income that they don't pay taxes on, and last week he learned from the IRS that they were going to start garnishing his wages for income that he didn't receive. Also, he learned that he owes child support for a child that he never had. Almendarez was finally able to get a hold of police in Gillette, and they were able to make an arrest, which gave him great relief last week when 45-year-old Jose Reyes was taken into custody." According to Gillette PD, Reyes faces four counts of unauthorized use of someone's personal identity. He's currently being held at the Campbell County Detention Center on a $500,000 cash-only bond.  Read the full story HERE. –  A pair of young bighorn sheep rams that wandered into Cheyenne were killed by Wyoming wildlife officials. However, one biologist and wildlife researcher says it's not necessary. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that Jack States says they should be quarantined instead. "Game and Fish made the decision to go ahead and euthanize those rams, and they donated the meat. I think it went to the First Lady's kind of food pantry program, but the reason those sheep were killed was because of disease risk. Anytime sheep wander into a settled area like that, there's the chance they might interact with domestic sheep or goats, and they can pick up a lot of pathogens, the chief of which is pneumonia, which can be really hard on wild sheep herds." While bighorn sheep are hardy enough to survive Wyoming's worst weather in its roughest terrain, they are highly susceptible to disease. Pneumonia outbreaks, sometimes transmitted from domestic sheep, can be bighorn conservationists' worst nightmare. In some cases, entire herds are nearly wiped out. Read the full story HERE. – A first-of-its-kind renewable natural gas facility under construction in central Nebraska will convert cattle manure into pipeline-quality natural gas from the cow waste produced by a huge feedlot. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that leaders are saying this project could benefit Wyoming ranchers and farmers. "There's a lot of excitement over this agricultural renewable energy project in Nebraska with Neogenics and the partner with this feed lot. It's a newer project for them. Jim Magagna with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association said a project like this will probably be more beneficial for the ranchers and farmers who use the land, who have the land for this, than the actual production of energy. We have lots of natural gas, but this could create an additional revenue source for ranchers and farmers who are struggling in a very tight cattle market." The project will capture methane produced by decomposing livestock manure and convert it into renewable natural gas, or RNG, that can be injected directly into existing natural gas pipelines. Read the full story HERE. – So far, nobody's claimed a renegade Russian tortoise found wandering around in Thermopolis's Riverside Cemetery. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the cemetery worker who found it says "I'm hoping someone didn't abandon it, because that's not cool." "Tortoises are common pets in Wyoming, even though there are no tortoises native to Wyoming. So, in this instance, it seems a Russian tortoise was found in Riverside Cemetery in Thermopolis. Nobody knows how it got there, and more intriguingly, nobody's claimed it. There are a lot of people who want to claim it, who want to take care of it, and it has found a good foster home that could become its forever home." The last native Wyoming tortoise died millions of years ago, so the cemetery worker who found the tortoise knew he was dealing with a tortoise on the lam. He picked up the tiny tortoise, which was less than six inches long, and gave it a safe space to munch on some lettuce. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, June 15th.  I'm Mac Watson –  Wyoming lawmakers Friday vowed to rework the Food Freedom Act after months of controversy at small-time food producers and family-owned shops. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that business owner Mark Nelson who owns the Hippy Cow Creamery says he was ordered to stop selling raw milk lattes. "He was describing these Catch-22's, where he could get a commercial food license, but then he'd still have to pasteurize milk, and he can create raw milk lattes in his home kitchen, which is a few feet away from what they consider his commercial kitchen, because it's a professional grade latte machine, and so he was talking about all these just weird little catches in the law were with some inconvenience and some trouble, you could sell these lattes under very similar circumstances. Several lawmakers talked about wanting to perfect and discuss and develop bills that Representative Steve Johnson brought to expand the Food Freedom Act." Nelson tells Cowboy State Daily that to survive the huge setback in business from losing the latte sales include installing a $20,000 ADA-compliant bathroom at the shop even though there's another ADA-complaint bathroom "literally 65 feet away." Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming business owners say they are leaving a lot of money on the table because they can't fill open jobs, forcing them to turn away customers and reduce hours. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that one owner says he keeps banging his head against the wall, trying to come up with a solution. "The labor crunch is so tight in Wyoming, people are doing things that are unheard of, you know. This guy with Ranch Eats, he's not only got health insurance for his employees, that's 100% employer paid, but he's also offering a 401 k plan with a 4% match on top of that, and then you know he has an employee of the quarter program, you get a $250 bonus, plus a limousine trip. Wyoming loses 70% of its of the people who are in their 30s. They've lost 70% of those by then. By the time people reach 30, 70% will leave the state and go somewhere else. That's the highest, pretty much in the country." With too few workers to go around, businesses have been quietly curtailing their hours on what seem like odd days — Tuesday and Wednesday — and billing that as "new summer hours." Read the full story HERE. – The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is investigating a graphic video where an alleged Wyoming man tortures a seemingly wounded coyote. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that the video was sent to Cowboy State Daily by a private investigator who says he also sent it to Game and Fish. "There's allegations that a person who is reportedly from Wyoming was videoed grabbing what appears to be a wounded coyote by a tail, pulling it out from underneath a bush, throwing it, the thing tries to run, but can't really run, because apparently it's been wounded. Guy runs up to it, kicks it in the head, pulls out a knife, stabs it. A private investigator sent this information out to Cowboy State Daily, to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, to agencies and animal rights groups. Game and Fish did confirm that they are investigating something in connection to that incident, because it's an active investigation, they can't offer any information." Game and Fish Spokeswoman Amanda Fry confirms that the department is investigating the alleged incident. Read the full story HERE. –  A detective was about to fly to Wisconsin to arrest the lead suspect in the 32-year cold case of a woman whose nude body was dumped along I-80 when he got the news the suspect was dead. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that authorities zeroed in on Roger L. Dirkey as the alleged killer, but they were too late. "Investigators believe that Roger L Durkee is responsible for murdering the former Jane Doe Shafter Jane Doe, who has since been ID as Marion Alexander. so the investigators from the Elko County, Nevada Sheriff's Office were a week or so away from flying out to Milwaukee to actually arrest Dirkey. While they're making their travel plans to go out there, they learned that he had died. For all practical purposes, they thought he was alive because he wasn't showing up dead in the databases, so there was some glitch between when he died and his getting entered in the Wisconsin Vital Services, so as they're making these plans, they learned that he actually had died, and they got it confirmed. His DNA was the likely match of DNA found on her body. And then they had other evidence too." Authorities say during the investigation, they found that he had searched nearly 90 Google searches for Shafter Jane Doe, that was one strong piece of evidence in the investigators' minds. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   Steer wrestlers raised money last week for the Montana woman who lost her hand in a rodeo accident. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the woman's husband, who is the Montana State rodeo coach, says,  "It's pretty neat that a college kid could organize something like that." "Jaden Whitman and his older brother were driving home from a rodeo in Washington state when they started talking about what they could possibly do to help the Whitaker family. So he texted his coach to see if that would be okay, and Coach Kyle Whitaker responded and said yes. He told Cowboy State Daily that he was just almost choked up that he couldn't believe that a college student would come up with an idea like that." The Presley Whitaker Benefit Steer Wrestling Jackpot happened last weekend in Whitehall, Montana, raising nearly $40,000, mostly to help cover Presley's mounting medical bills. Read the full story HERE. –  Sgt. Zach Burns remains in critical condition after being shot multiple times by a gunman in Baggs on Monday. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that the mayor says people reacted immediately and like heroes.  "This deputy was already around town, so as soon as the call came in. He was there and got shot several times, and it seems that he probably owes his life to a couple of local business owners who have businesses right close. They rushed over, and from what the mayor was telling me, there was a lot of blood, and that they acted quickly to try to stop that, to slow that down until EMS got there, and EMS also got there very, very quickly." A deputy being shot, coupled with a high-speed chase and shootout with the suspect, is enough to make Monday one of the darkest days in the 116-year history of the tiny town of 411 people. Read the full story HERE. – Divers who plunge the depths of the Colorado River and Flaming Gorge Reservoir find all kinds of treasure, from antique six-shooters to cellphones. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that one woman burst into tears when given her phone back that had her grandchild's birth video on it. "He found this part of a two-mile stretch on the Colorado River below the Hoover Dam. He said that he just happened to dive one time, and he started finding wallets and different things, and so he said, 'Hey, this is great, you know? It makes diving exciting.' So he started talking it up with others, and now every Saturday, pretty much they go and dive that stretch of the river. And like three years ago, he found a six shooter that was in its holster, rusted, and he believes it was down there for at least 10 years." Tony "Gunner" Pierce of Provo, Utah and his diving partner, Ken Wige, who is from Las Vegas, are advocates for diving in the West and enjoy rallying people to different spots from Wyoming to Utah and Idaho year-round to explore what is going on underneath the surface of reservoirs, rivers, and lakes. Read the full story HERE. – Longtime Yellowstone RV travelers David and Jennifer Sinclair were leaving a gas station in Canada when the front bumper of their truck tore off while being towed. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that a video of them dragging the bumper down the road has been viewed millions of times.  "They were driving the RV when the incident happened. No one was in the pickup truck, but someone else spotted them going down the highway, and it went viral based on that, because they were dragging a bumper down the highway and nothing else. But they said that they were aware of what happened. Within a minute, someone flagged them. I think the same person who took the video flagged them, they pulled off, they recognized what happened, they recovered their pickup truck, and nobody was harmed, and thankfully they were at a stoplight when the whole thing happened." Fortunately for the couple, the motorhome was stopped at an intersection when the tow base broke off. Sinclair said it "could have been much worse if it failed in motion." Unfortunately, they didn't notice and kept driving, leaving their front bumper-less truck sitting in the middle of the road. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, June 12th.  I'm Mac Watson –  A Denver man was found dead near a capsized kayak on Yellowstone Lake, park officials announced Thursday. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that a former park ranger, who patrolled the lake, says certain factors make the lake dangerous year round. "Former Yellowstone park ranger Tara Ross said that what makes this lake extremely dangerous is very cold temperatures and wild winds. Ross said the water hovers between 40 and 50 degrees, even in the summertime, so if someone does go in the water, and they're unable to self-rescue, as in get back into the kayak and out of the water. They may only have 10 minutes, generously up to 20 minutes, before rescuers will be recovering a body. Park officials say that the man recovered was from Denver, and he was 41 years old." According to Yellowstone National Park officials, occupants of another vessel on the lake discovered the body of Brandon Rhea on Monday floating near Rock Point on the lake's northwest shore near Bridge Bay.  Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming's state-level property tax board told counties on Thursday that a 4% cap on yearly increases in residential property taxes is unconstitutional. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports it will also refuse to certify this year's property tax assessment figures if the cap remains. "So, they're saying, 'Whoa, we've got homes in sluggish market areas that are being taxed way less of a rate than homes that look exactly the same that are in faster growing areas.' And so, according to the board, this violates the women constitutions call for equal and uniform taxation, and so they're saying, 'Hey, if you county assessors keep allowing this 4% cap, we're gonna not certify the tax values this year,' which would mean you couldn't collect on property taxes. Dixie Huxtable, who's the Converse County Assessor, and speaks out for the Assessors Association often said, 'I don't think anyone's getting a tax holiday. We're gonna figure out what our legal options here are and decide what to do.'" The board's two-person majority — Chair Jayne Mockler and Vice-Chair Marty Hardscog — wrote in the Thursday report that the 4% increase cap for residential property taxes has arbitrary impacts across the state.  Read the full story HERE. – The Clinton-era Roadless Rule on U.S. Forest Service lands will be erased if Wyoming Republicans U.S. Sen. John Barrasso and Rep. Harriet Hageman get their way. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports Rep. Harriet Hageman says, "I have been fighting the Roadless Rule since the day it was handed down." "The Trump administration has already been pushing for this. Now Congress has stepped in. Senator Mike Lee of Utah added an amendment to a wildfire prevention bill that Senator Barrasso was already sponsoring, and that that amendment would just nullify the roadless rule, like Trump is trying to rescind it now. Congress is essentially trying to nullify it, and Congresswoman Hagman has a mirror bill to nullify it coming out of the House, so, so basically the roadless rule is facing a double threat from both the the the administration and the legislative branch, which, if you're if you're against it and you want to see it gone, that's good news. If you want to see it preserved, that's bad news." The Roadless Rule has forbidden new road construction on national forests across Wyoming's high country. It also similarly prevented new road construction on 45 million acres of national forest lands across the West, and up to 60 million acres nationwide. Read the full story HERE. –  A letter to Republican candidates for Park County partisan offices, has a warning for candidates. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the letter states that if a potential candidate won't commit to back at least 80% of the state GOP platform, they won't receive an endorsement or support from the party. "People have been saying that the party is developing a purity test. The proponents of this questionnaire, which basically asks if you agree with each party platform playing, the proponents are saying this is not a purity test, you know, organizations have standards, and the opponents are saying it absolutely is a purity test, and it's just the organization trying to perpetuate its ideals onto the next leaders of it. But, like, Sandy Newsom said, they can't take me off the ballot, she's running for precinct committee woman there in the Park County Republican Party, just like they can't take us off the ballot, so the people in my precinct are going to be the judge of how Republican I am." The state GOP passed a set of new bylaws in April which requires county and state committee iterations of the party to vet candidates for office on their commitment to the platform and "demonstrated loyalty to the Party's principles." Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   The first job for Union Pacific's new Trump-themed locomotive No. 4547 took it through Wyoming carrying the Artemis III rocket. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that nobody except railroad watchers noticed.  "Stan Blake, who is a retired railroad guy, tells me what they're doing there is they're buffering the rail, the rocket pieces by separating them with a car that will have been loaded with inert material. So, those weren't empty, they were loaded with something, and then they are there to kind of buffer in between each of those rocket cars, and the rings around the first car, those are the size of the rocket cars, the tanks, you know, the pieces of the rocket, so that you know it's clear that I guess to make sure that the clearances are all in order. Wyoming is a particularly good state for crossing because there's plenty of Wyoming with the wide open spaces." In late 2027, four members of the crew for Artemis III will launch aboard an Orion spacecraft. It's a demonstration flight in a low Earth orbit that will test rendezvous and docking operations between Orion and test versions of the Human Landing System being developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX. Read the full story HERE. –  Public backlash against a reported kill order may have saved a bison that killed a woman in Custer State Park last month. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that advocates for the Bison say he was acting within his wild nature on his home turf when he killed the 70-year-old Canadian tourist. "The Bison who killed a 70 year old woman last month got a stay of execution this week after public backlash. People were acting on rumors that the state had planned to put this bison down or euthanize it because of the of the bison's actions with this woman and a lot of people were saying, you know, this this animal, he's it's wild and it acted, you know, appropriately given that it was really roaming on its own turf.  But the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Game Fish and Parks confirmed that they are taking custody of this bison and that the bison will live out the rest of his days on the Rosebud Reservation, which is outside of Custer State Park." The South Dakota Governor's Office did not confirm whether a kill order had been placed on the bison, nor did the South Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks Department. Read the full story HERE. – Crusoe, a founding partner in the huge 2.7-gigawatt Project Jade data center near Cheyenne, quietly pulled out months ago. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that hasn't slowed the project, which is going "full steam ahead," according to  remaining partner Tallgrass Energy. "Project Jade never missed a beat, they didn't pause for a minute, they just kept right on going. They're now working directly with the data center client, which it hasn't been officially announced yet, and so there's been no pause, there's no lost time, they're still on track for what they're planning to do there, and you know it's a massive, massive project. 2.7 gigawatts, that's almost three times the energy that Wyoming, as a state, uses." Crusoe, the company that was constructing the buildings for the massive data center, packed up its stuff and left. The exit happened quickly and quietly, without the fanfare of press releases and company statements that had preceded the project. Read the full story HERE. – Canada's favorite grizzly, called The Boss, has lived a storied life, brawling with other males and surviving getting hit by a train. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that his latest stunt was removing an electronic tracking collar that wildlife agents had just put on him. "We've reported previously on that huge grizzly bear, 700 pound grizzly bear that lives up in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. They call him 'The Boss.' His latest antic is they collared him on May 13th, and he ditched that collar within a week, and I talked to a photographer that follows the boss very closely, and said, 'Yeah, he did that in true boss fashion. That sounds like that bear.'" The Boss is formally known to researchers as Grizzly 122. His chief rival in Banff is Grizzly 136, called Split Lip. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, June 11th.  I'm Mac Watson –  Sgt. Zach Burns has been identified as the Carbon County deputy who took multiple bullets in a shootout with a suspect in Baggs on Monday. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that the sheriff says Burns is in critical condition but improving. "We still don't know who the suspect is. He died in a shootout with officers. We still don't know how many officers were involved in that, and we don't know, obviously, his identity, whether he was a local guy or whether you know he worked somewhere else and lived in Baggs. When I was in Baggs on Monday and Tuesday, everybody I talked to, nobody seemed to know who he was, so a lot of them were speculating it's probably not someone who grew up here. Otherwise, we would know." According to the sheriff's report, Burns was shot in the neck, arm, and hip. The report also says the suspect died later after another car chase. Read the full story HERE. –  Seven of the 10 Republican candidates running to become Wyoming's next U.S. House candidates courted a largely Christian audience with statements on their faith, and their different approaches to education, family rights, and abortion policy. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the debate was vigorous, but polite. "It's tough to stand out in a crowd that big. So you have Kevin Christensen talking about saying a prayer with his soldiers moments before invading Iraq. You have Jillian Balow talking about the sacrifices that she's so grateful for that women made so she could be an adoptive mom. You have Bo Biteman harkening to the founding fathers, reiterating the the role of the Congress from the Constitution, you have Chuck Gray talking about the media and insiders, and so there were some bolder overtures that the candidates undertook, possibly in their effort to distinguish themselves from this crowded field." The Wyoming Family Alliance is an advocacy group that strives to advance biblical, generally faith-based policy objectives. The group's president posed a series of questions at a packed event Tuesday evening in The Metropolitan in downtown Cheyenne, to these seven GOP candidates. Read the full story HERE. – A Pinedale rancher told U.S. Senators on Wednesday that he and other Upper Basin farmers are tired of Wyoming giving up Colorado River water. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that rancher Mike Vickrey told the Senate committee that as he sees it, he and other Upper Basin farmers and ranchers have gone above and beyond to conserve water. "That rancher said basically, in a nutshell, we're doing all we can to conserve water up here on the upper basin. There's only so much to go around. Maybe we need to rethink the allocations, because this all flows back - no pun intended - this all this all flows back to the Colorado River Compact, which was drawn up in 1922 and a lot of people have said there were a lot, there was a lot more water in the river, and a lot fewer people demanding it back in 1922 Maybe we need to change the way we do things." Gov. Gordon, along with Senators Barrasso and Lummis met Tuesday with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as well as Utah Senators Mike Lee and John Curtis. Read the full story HERE. –  A 57-year-old woman who was arrested Tuesday and charged with first-degree murder in the death of a newborn boy in early 1988 repeatedly claimed the baby wasn't hers. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that investigators say DNA testing shows it's 1.97 million times more likely Eva Martinez is the baby's mother than anyone else. "The sheriff's office sent the case and sent DNA samples. and what that lab was able to do was narrow this baby's DNA down to two potential relatives, not direct relatives, but one who could be a grandfather-type. They tracked back to finding the actual biological father of this baby. Apparently he was living with this woman at that time, back in Cheyenne, almost 40 years ago, telling them, okay, this is who I was with, and they were able to get a DNA sample from her tested, and it came up that it's the probability that she's the mother is extremely high."  Cheyenne resident Eva Martinez was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of first-degree murder in the death of who has become known over the past 38 years as "Baby John Doe," whose body was gruesomely discovered on Feb. 28, 1988, near a culvert off a county road, according to court documents. She faces a first degree murder charge. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. – A rural neighborhood north of Cheyenne told Black Hills Energy it doesn't want a planned natural gas power plant during "a very contentious" local-only meeting this week. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that one resident says "The only reason you'd do that is to put a data center there." "It's a 935 acre parcel, and so you're going to put power generation on that. What kind of noise is that going to make? How is that going to look? You know, it's a pretty scenic area. It's a historic ranching community, pretty residential. It's like I'm told that the roads out there, like a two-lane dirt road, and so you know people are worried about traffic, they're worried about noise, they're worried about quality of life, how that's going to affect their property values, and kind of all the things you would expect." The project will trigger a multi-year Wyoming Industrial Siting Division review process, even as Black Hills Energy pursues a multibillion-dollar merger with Northwestern Energy.  Read the full story HERE. – U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis says she still backs renaming U.S. Highway 287 as I-47 — aka "The Trump Interstate."  Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that's despite the fact that the main sponsor said it may not be a priority after he lost a primary race.  "The four lane interstate that John Cornyn, a Republican of Texas, proposed to zip through the state of Wyoming, is now in limbo after Cornyn lost his primary election to Attorney General Ken Paxton. Senator Cynthia Lummis is a co-sponsor of the bill. On Wednesday afternoon, she told reporters that she still supports the bill. Right now, it is in limbo. She declined to comment further on what will happen." The I-47 Future Interstate Act proposed designating the roughly 1,800-mile U.S. 287 corridor from the Gulf Coast of Texas to Montana as a future interstate route. The route runs through Wyoming communities including Laramie, Rawlins, Jeffrey City, Lander, Dubois and Moran before continuing north into Montana. Read the full story HERE. – The state found widespread failures with Sweetwater County School District 1's special ed program, giving the district a year to correct them. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that one former school board member says, "This wasn't a failure by just one person. This is a systemic failure." "The report came out this week, and it shows the school district to be in violation of providing special education services through properly credentialed professionals. It also shows that the school district failed to deliver services in accordance with students' IEPs, or individualized education programs, and it also shows that parents were not given meaningful opportunities to participate in their students' individual education processes. Former board member Cole Ceppi said that they had seen some of these same problems with their own child in the district when he was a member and their child was in the special department, so he said to realize this is a more systemic problem makes me incredibly disappointed." The WDE conducted a five-day special monitoring review in February after receiving complaints and reports of possible noncompliance from parents, current and former staff members, and media accounts.  Read the full story HERE. –   More than 69 miles of the Beartooth Highway are still closed because of a late spring snowstorm in southern Montana. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that officials are warning motorists not to use "map apps" as people have become stranded like a German couple who got lost in Wyoming.  "The Bear Tooth Highway closed at 7:45am Wednesday morning, and it was closed all day due to snow. There is more snow incoming. There's a winter weather advisory for southern Montana, including the Montana portion of the Beartooth Highway until Thursday morning, and Cowboy and Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day said it's entirely possible that the Beartooth Highway and several roads in Yellowstone could close again this weekend, because we've got another cold weather system moving in that'll bring more rain and snow that could easily freeze in the ice on the roads overnight." The Beartooth Highway sits at the northern edge of the Yellowstone Plateau, a massive landform that covers northwest Wyoming and southern Montana. A rugged area that is its own environment. Drivers ascend from 5,200 feet to 10,947 feet in just 12 miles. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, June 10th.  I'm Mac Watson –  The day after a gunfight that left a deputy shot and the suspect dead in Baggs, many questions still remain, especially the status of the officer. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that the former mayor says Baggs is still a good town where residents know and help each other.  "They're pretty shocked, but they're also pretty grounded. Yeah, but we still got to go to work. and as the former mayor told me so, she grew up in bags, was a career teacher, was a former mayor back in the 80s, and she said when she was mayor in the 80's, she said there was a lot of drugs around, and there's a lot of crime that revolved around it. However, she said nothing ever rose to the level of the deputy being shot." Inquiries to the Carbon County Sheriff's and coroner's offices for more information about Monday's shooting were not returned by the time this story was published; that includes the condition of the deputy and the identification and cause of death of the suspected shooter. Read the full story HERE. – A Russian-speaking truck driver faces criminal charges after allegedly hitting a disabled car on I-80 and then leaving the scene. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that court documents say he failed an English proficiency test and simply nodded when shown the damaged vehicle. "Anvarjon Ganiyevich Muminov was initially charged on Monday in Sweetwater County Circuit Court for a hit and run, as well as failing an English proficiency test, which is required by the federal government for all commercial truck drivers. The Russian-speaking man was arrested after witnesses said they saw him swerve and hit a vehicle that was parked on the side of the road, this was just outside of Rock Springs on I-80. When investigators picked up Muminov, they tried to ask him questions about what happened. They showed him a picture of the accident, and he simply nodded. That's when they administered the English proficiency test, which he failed. He is currently out on a $1,000 personal recognizance bond." What might have been an obscure traffic citation a year ago has become part of a national debate. Wyoming lawmakers, the Wyoming Highway Patrol, and U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, have all spent the past year pushing for stricter enforcement of English-language requirements for commercial truck drivers operating on Wyoming highways.  Read the full story HERE. –  After a string of 90+ degree days, snow is heading for Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that Meteorologist Don Day says all of Wyoming should expect cooler-than-usual weather in the next two weeks.  "The National Weather Service is calling for up to two inches of snow at the highest points of Yellowstone on Wednesday, and there's going to be a cold surge, or cold trough, as meteorologists call it. It's going to be moving across the state this week, so temperatures are going to drop to below average for the month of June.Everyone expects expects it to warm up by the end of the month, but this is kind of unusual, but adds on to the string of unusual months we've had going back to November." Over the next two weeks, temperatures could drop between 15 and 20 degrees below average, or even lower. Day called it "an interesting pattern" that'll put a dent in the sunny start of summer. Read the full story HERE. –  I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   A 21-year-old Casper man pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to grabbing and repeatedly pulling on a police officer's testicles, biting his groin, and biting another officer. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that the three felony charges each carry a potential of 10 years in prison. "The 21-year old from Casper that is charged with grabbing the testicles of a police officer and biting his groin, as well as biting the shin of a second police officer, was in district court on charges related to police interference. Three of those are felonies, one's a misdemeanor, and he told the judge that he was going to plead not guilty." Sylvester Jakeson Seaton appeared before Judge Kerri Johnson for his arraignment with defense attorney Marty Scott. He told the judge that he had dyslexia but had read the affidavit containing the charges against him "only about 20 times." Read the full story HERE. – It was yet another data-center dominated night for the Cheyenne City Council on Monday, with intense, sometimes emotional public testimony on what would be the largest annexation in Cheyenne history. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the annexation will support expansion of data centers. "Councilman Larry Wolf asked that a proposed annexation of 3500 acres come out of the consent agenda, so that they could talk about it. His feeling is it shouldn't be treated as just any other old annexation. It's a very large annexation. Those who were kind of criticizing are their feeling is, it shouldn't be done without a plan already in place. Microsoft has said in public meetings that won't develop that property anytime soon. Councilman Wolf has publicly said, 'why would we lock out that land for 10 years with no plan attached to it?'" City staff and Microsoft representatives who were present confirmed the annexation is being advanced to support future expansion of data centers. No annexation vote was taken.  Read the full story HERE. –  Police say a drunken, shirtless, barefoot Michigan man threatened two women, smashed storefront windows and led authorities on a foot chase in downtown Jackson last week before getting tased. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that court documents say he threatened to shoot people and himself. "24-year-old Kadin Decker was drinking at the million dollar cowboy bar with two women. When they left the bar, eyewitnesses say that he was visibly upset. He was shouting at the women as they walked to their car, yelling profanities. At one point, he said he was going to kill them and then kill himself. One of the women says that she knew there was a gun in the vehicle, so she positioned herself between the car and Decker. When police arrived, Decker took off on foot. He then smashed a glass door at the old-time photo booth. Eventually, police had to tase Decker. They said he continued to put up a fight until he was arrested." Kadin James Decker made his initial appearance in Teton County Circuit Court on Monday afternoon after being charged with two counts of property destruction and one count of interference with a peace officer. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, June 9th.  I'm Mac Watson – Before the Carbon County emergency services scanner went dark on Monday afternoon, law enforcement personnel described an active shooter incident and manhunt in Baggs. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports at least one law enforcement officer was injured and a trooper's car was "shot up." "The man had emerged from a home in Baggs had fired a shot, and was trying to get into another apartment room in an apartment complex, and then he left that scene in a black truck. A trooper, a deputy, other law enforcement potentially started to converge. One officer reported that he was doing a traffic stop on the truck, and then we hear 'Shots fired, shots fired!' One deputy was taken to care after residents performed first aid, and then Trooper 132 as he was called on scanner traffic, said that his truck had been shot up." The public learned of the incident when Carbon County emergency services called for a shelter in place due to an active shooter situation.  As of Monday night, the status of the shooter was unconfirmed. Read the full story HERE. –  A downed power line is believed responsible for the Raven Creek Fire which has burned 3,900 acres of land in northeast Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that Weston County Fire Warden Daniel Tysdal said they're experiencing "late-summer fire weather conditions and fire behavior." "Fire Warden Tisdale said that the fire itself is not a major concern, it's just a warning for what's to come. They're dealing with severe drought conditions, and they're seeing late summer fire patterns, and it's just the beginning of June. As of Monday afternoon, the fire is 100% contained. It burned about 3800 acres. I did talk to a local rancher family, and I could just say that their ranch family was hit by it. No livestock were injured, just a lot of fence was burned, and they are praying for rain." The blaze was started just days after the nearby Shipwheel Fire was started by lightning and burned 456 acres in the same corner of the county. Read the full story HERE. –  At a panel discussion on Saturday, Cheyenne leaders and industry officials said data centers are already helping stabilize electric rates and are opening new land for housing. But Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that skeptics still aren't buying it. "This has actually happened here in Cheyenne. Meta paid like a million bucks to run three miles of water and sewer lines to its center, so that they can, you know, provide the domestic water. They're on a closed loop system, but they still have restrooms for the employees and water for the break rooms and that kind of thing, and so they spent a million bucks to bring that three miles to their data center. Well, where housing developments in that area were economically unfeasible. So, you've kind of opened up this whole new place where development can come in, like housing or shopping, whatever, retail businesses, and that kind of thing." Cheyenne LEADS Executive Director Betsey Hale tells Cowboy State Daily that Cheyenne has 10 data centers already operating, five under construction, and nine more announced or in planning stages. Another 36 data center companies or site selectors have expressed some level of interest in Cheyenne or Laramie County, Read the full story HERE. –   Big Horn County Search and Rescue had to rescue two German tourists after Google Maps got their rented Jeep stuck on a backcountry road. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that a Wyoming tow truck driver put it bluntly, "If you're going to be in the Bighorns, don't trust Google." "In Wyoming, a Google Maps directive can lead you down a dirt track road or to a road that's closed or that's only seasonally, seasonably open or seasonally open, and that's what these German tourists found out. The tourists were visiting Medicine Wheel, and Google Maps gave them a shortcut to get the shell, and as they're going down that shortcut, they realized that their vehicle was not the kind that they would want for that particular road. They turned around, they tried to get back to where they started, and then they lost two of the tires because of a sharp rock. They didn't go there by accident. Google Maps told them that that was a viable route, and they trusted Google Maps to get them from point A to point B." The pair was evacuated by BCSAR volunteers on ATVs that evening, but their Jeep Compass was stuck in the mountains until the tires could be replaced. Read the full story HERE. –  I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –  A Cody river guide said his raft was nearly sunk by an electric fence wire strung too low across a river in Park County, while he was out on a float with his girlfriend and her young son on Sunday. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Ryan Anue says the situation could have "gone bad fast." "They came across an electric wire that had been serving across the river, electric fencing wire, no big deal, they, you know, so they ducked into that, but then as soon as they popped up from under that one, they saw a second one was there, and the guy said that this one was kind of bowed down into the river a little bit, so they had to kind of go to one side, and when they did that, it caught on what they call a thigh brace, which is kind of like a metal brace that sticks up out of this inflatable raft. The guy said it was starting to drag the boat underwater, it was just total chaos." Everyone made it to safety, but as Ryan sees it, the manner in which the wire was strung over the river was hazardous and possibly illegal. He said that he reported it to the Park County Sheriff's Office. Read the full story HERE. – The State Land Board voted 3-2 Monday to pause its work to halt two controversial wind leases — until a court decides a major legal question on them. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Secretary of State Chuck Gray called it "irregular," but Auditor Kristi Racines cast it as common sense. "While the Wyoming Supreme Court decides a major legal question about one of the two similar leases, um, Secretary of State Chuck Gray and Superintendent Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder voted against it. Gray called the process irregular, but State Auditor Kristi Racines, who was among the three aye votes, along with the governor and the treasurer, said she basically cast it as a common sense move, like this isn't about being pro or anti win project, this is about giving the court some space rather than digging potentially a deeper hole, legal hole for ourselves." The board comprises Wyoming's top five elected officials: Racines, Gray, Gov. Mark Gordon, Treasurer Curt Meier, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder. Read the full story HERE. – Oklahoma resident Les Vandever says he is still stunned after seeing a man charging into a herd of bison in Yellowstone. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that Vandever says "It was a moment of unbelievable stupidity." "This couple was driving in their vehicle, they pulled over, look at some bears, and they saw someone hop out of another vehicle and charge at a herd of bison, because they were crossing the road, and this person decided that was a good way to get them moving the way that he wanted them to go, or it was just something stupid he did impulsively in the moment. But the photos and their license plate were given to a Yellowstone Ranger. Maybe this guy was trying to be a wide receiver for the Ohio State Buckeyes because he was wearing an Ohio State shirt at the time, so who knows what the thought process is that goes behind that." Vandever tells Cowboy State Daily that he got clear photographs of the individual's face and the vehicle's license plate, which he's since shared with a Yellowstone ranger. Read the full story HERE. — Wyoming's own Brandon Nimmo was honored by the Texas Rangers on Sunday with his own bobblehead night. Cowboy State Daily Columnist Bill Sniffin was in Texas for the game and came away with a rare item. "They had these bobble heads, and they made such a deal, I don't know whether Brandon Nimmo really did want to be a bull rider or not, but they, according to the Texas Rangers, he did, and so they put him on a bucking horse, and then they had rodeo clowns all over the stadium, and promoting it, and it was really special, and of course, he had a good night at the plate. He had a double, scored a run, and he also had some great catches out in right field, and it was very.. I felt really darn proud to be there, and I was wearing my Wyoming gold Wyoming cowboy hat. it isn't very often that Wyoming is the center of the universe in baseball."  Bill also reports that Brandon's 90-year-old grandpa threw out the first pitch.  Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, June 8th.  I'm Mac Watson – Our most-read story over the weekend is a two-part series from features reporter Jen Kocher on a cold case in Rawlins from 1974. More than 50 years after four young girls vanished in what has become known as the 'Rawlins Rodeo Murders,' the case remains unsolved. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that one name kept coming up. "In 1974 four girls disappeared, and their ages range from 10 to 19. Two girls were local Rawlins girls, and the other two were visiting family and friends. One was visiting from South Dakota, and one was visiting from Red Lodge, Montana. There's no link between the four girls. One of the predominant suspects was a long-haul trucker named Royal Russell Long, and in my conversations with people, his name popped up a lot, and he was considered a suspect, but he wasn't the only suspect, and authorities have not released where the names of those suspects are, where they are currently within the investigation, but it is ongoing." Royal Russell Long was actually arrested for kidnapping two teenage girls and taking them home to his house in Evansville, and sexually assaulting them. Long ultimately served time in a Wyoming prison for kidnapping and assault, dying of a heart attack in 1993 at the age of 58. He was never officially named as a suspect in the Rawlins Rodeo Murders.  Read the full story HERE. – To clear the way for a Montana logging project, the Trump administration wants to redefine secure grizzly habitat from 2,500 acres to 1 acre. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that opponents say it will get bears killed but a retired Wyoming forester says logging is good for grizzlies. "Some people really strongly oppose that, and say that that's just not enough protected or undisturbed habitat for bears, and also that putting roads into those areas can make it easier for people who want to illegally shoot bears to do so. But I also talked to a retired forester, and he told me that, that really, in a lot of ways, bears can thrive in areas that have been logged, because it might promote more of a rodent population, it might promote the growth of berry bushes and things that bears like to eat." At issue is the proposed Larabee Hat project in Powell County, Montana; between the Continental Divide headwaters of the Little Blackfoot River and Highway 12 near the town of Elliston. Over the next 15 to 20 years, the project would entail building 16.8 miles of new roads and 17,696 acres of logging. Read the full story HERE. –   A woman who has made it her mission to document the last remaining pay phones in Yellowstone has bad news. The last working pay phone in the park appears to be dead. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the phone was still working last summer but when photographer Kim Bird checked it days ago, there was no dial tone. "The last one that people knew of that was still connected anywhere was at the Norris campground, which has been closed since the pandemic, and somebody went out there recently, said they picked up the phone and didn't hear a dial tone, so that's pretty conclusive evidence that that pay phone is defunct, which makes sense because the Norris Campground itself is defunct, and the park doesn't have any - it's the park hasn't expressed any interest or desire to reopen that campground anytime soon. It's possible it may never reopen, so it makes sense that the only paid phone there would no longer be working as well." Pay phones have become increasingly rare in modern society, but they still had an important place in remote areas like Yellowstone. Still, nothing lasts forever. Read the full story HERE. –  Counterfeit $100 bills are passing throughout Wyoming and store clerks say iodine counterfeit detector pens won't detect the fake bills. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that one store manager says "The counterfeit pens are garbage."  "It was printed on real money paper, they used a dot, like $1 bill, bleached it out, and then printed a 100 on top of it, and so those normal counterfeiting pins aren't going to detect that, and the way those work, they have iodine in them, and when iodine contacts with wood pulp that you know the common ordinary everyday paper is made out of, it'll fade, it'll kind of turn brown, and so if the ink stays black, it, you know, it's not common everyday wood pulp paper, right." According to the Federal Reserve, counterfeit paper currency costs the U.S. public and organizations between $30 million and $200 million in actual circulation at any given time. However, when taking into account the broader counterfeit goods industry (such as fake designer clothes, electronics, and pirated merchandise), the total economic loss to U.S. businesses exceeds $220 billion annually. Read the full story HERE. –  I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –  A Kemmerer couple is on medical leave taking care of a newborn and their 7-year-old son who has a rare genetic condition that took his eyesight. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingebeck reports that all the little boy wanted to do was go hunting this year, instead he's fighting for his life. "There's a seven year old from Evanston that his parents noticed that he was having some issues. And they thought they were dealing with ADHD. They send them to school the next day, and they get a call that he was having a problem navigating stairs. So, their pediatrician told him to take him to the EED in our emergency department in Salt Lake City at the Children's Hospital there. They did that, and  testing showed that he had this rare genetic disease that basically, as it takes over the sheath around nerves in his brain, and his brain can't communicate with the rest of the body like it should, and so now he's in the hospital." Christopher Culler, 38, and wife Bailey Bowen, 30, are now on a mission that has them on family leave from their jobs at Rocky Mountain Power and praying for a boy who seemed normal and active until a little more than a year ago. Read the full story HERE. – A family in Laramie County was trying to fix their well when they discovered a half-buried cannonball in their yard. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that  after being told it was non-explosive by a bomb squad, the mother decided to give it away, much to the dismay of her son. "A lot of people think of cannonballs as being just solid objects, solid metal objects, and that's not untrue. But a lot of cannonballs during the Civil War-era did have explosives and black powder in them, and they had complex triggers that were designed to be waterproof, so in theory you could find a cannonball that was triggered to explode, and it still could explode. So, when this Laramie County family found a cannonball as they were trying to fix their well, they did what they needed to do. They contacted the Laramie County Sheriff's Office, who sent their bomb disposal team out there to evaluate it, and they ultimately determined that there was nothing explosive about it. It was just a giant metal ball in the middle of nowhere." Whenever there's a suspicious and possibly explosive item discovered, law enforcement agencies don't take any chances.  They deploy whatever and whoever's needed to assess the situation and safely dispose of the object, whether it's a suspected explosive ordinance, a decoy, or just an unexpectedly excavated training device. Read the full story HERE. –  "Outriding the Devil," is the title of a Wyoming-made film that shows the brutal side of "real" rodeo. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the new film earned major praise from national outlets like Sports Illustrated.  "This is the Angela Ganter story. Angela Ganter had a stunning career, and then she ran into a cancer diagnosis, stage-four breast cancer. The doctors told her, "Hey, we're sorry, you know, but we don't think you're going to live, much less ride in the rodeos ever again. But she didn't give up. The reason for the film's name 'Outride the Devil,' the kind of chemotherapy they gave her is called the Red Devil, because it's so hard on your body. She fought her way back from death's door to eventually another championship barrel race in Canada, Calgary, so you know it's a great comeback story." The film, directed by Raen LeVell, has enjoyed a multi-week run as the No. 1-ranked Western documentary on IMDb. Read the full story HERE. — When Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak wanted a new design for the newest SUV in the fleet, he asked a local artist to create a "Clint Eastwood High Plains Drifter" look. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the sheriff says he's received nothing but compliments on the new wrap.  "The rap was designed by artist Jordan Dean. He's also the one who painted the wild horses on the city of Cheyenne's water tanks. Kozak really wanted something that was going to draw the eye. This is a recruiting vehicle, so they pulled out all the stops. They've got video games in the backseat for kids to play. They can jump in the cruiser and check out the coolest police car, in Kozak's words, around town. Something that was really meant to get people to check it out and help recruit officers." The cruiser's first major public appearance in Cheyenne was Saturday during a downtown summer event, where families were able to climb inside, check out the lights and meet members of the sheriff's office. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, June 5th.  I'm Mac Watson –  Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon joined President Trump in Washington, D.C., on Thursday as the president invoked a national security law to send $700 million to the coal industry. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that includes $75 million to boost construction of a coal export terminal in Oakland. "They're going to fast track construction of the Oakland, California coal port, which is a huge deal, because Governor Gordon has been courting these industry people in Japan, Taiwan, saying, "Look at this clean coal we have in the Powder River Basin, and it is comparably clean, and so without port you can have all the clean coal in the world, but then be kind of stuck when it comes to Asian markets, so actually that's the huge thing is that this gives that outlet." While calling Gordon a "great guy," the president invoked a Cold War-era law designed to boost energy production in the face of national security threats to allocate $700 million in public money for the coal industry. Read the full story HERE. – Speaking of coal…The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it is proposing a rule to change an Obama-era 2014 Wyoming regional haze plan that would have shuttered the Dave Johnston Unit 3 power plant in Converse County. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports EPA Region 8 administrator and former Wyoming legislator Cyrus Western called Thursday's announcement a win for Wyoming. "That plant was due to close by the end of 2027 and they're proposing it's just a start of the process, they're proposing a rule to reverse that, so that it continues its what they say is a lifespan that goes into the 2040s and of course Wyoming jobs, Wyoming production revenue goes along with that."  Gov. Mark Gordon in an EPA statement Thursday called the maneuver proof "that environmental stewardship and energy production can go hand in hand, and said the proposal reflects a science-driven, sensible approach that relies on real-world data and measurable outcomes rather than predetermined anti-fossil fuel agendas." Read the full story HERE. –   President Trump's lifting of restrictions on motorized use of federal lands dating back to the 1970s has some Wyoming motorsports enthusiasts cheering. But, Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that others worry that it will cause a wildlands disaster. "Trump just pretty much wiped the slate clean, and you know, got some mixed reaction today. Of course, I talked to some motor sports enthusiasts, and they said, 'Hey, this is great, this is cool, that gives us more access for the public. This is what public lands are for.' Other people are like, 'motorized users are maybe a small percentage that has a huge impact on the wildlife and all of the users.' So maybe they, from their perspective, it's maybe a little bit unfair that everywhere we go now there's going to be dirt bikes or ATVs ripping around, like where are we going to go to have quiet spots." The Trump administration rescinded Executive Order 11644, issued in 1972 by President Richard Nixon, along with President Jimmy Carter's 1977 EO 11989, which amended and strengthened Nixon's order. Read the full story HERE. –  Wyoming State Sen. Cheri Steinmetz on Thursday said she's calling for a poll among legislators to see if there is enough support for a special session to address data center concerns, like water use. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that both the governor and Senate President called such a move premature. "She dispatched a poll to the full legislature, saying, 'Hey, you know, I'm looking at Governor Gordon's order, and I think that the legislature should be addressing this. So, how about a poll to see who's interested? Let's talk about water. Let's talk about some of these controversies surrounding data centers and the Senate President and the Governor were both like the legislative committees, lots of them are working on this. It is a dedicated topic in multiple legislative committees, so let's let them research this and see what happens." Steinmetz sent the request in an email to state House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, all legislators, and Legislative Service Office Director Matt Obrecht. Read the full story HERE. –  I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –  Wyoming ranchers rallied at the state Capitol on Thursday demanding action against what they call a "wind wall" of turbines across the state. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that one rancher says wind power is threatening Wyoming's rural future. "It's the sheer scale of it that's riling these folks up. These are people who understand private property rights. They're not against that, and they're not saying wind the clock back, you know, and they're not saying we don't ever want any more wind farms ever. But what they are saying is, look at the map, look at how big of a swath this is cutting, and think about how is that going to affect wildlife? How does that affect agriculture and farming? You know, what is the legacy we're leaving to future generations?" Ranching family members came to the Capitol in Cheyenne to speak out against a "wind wall" in southeastern Wyoming that stretches from Casper to Cheyenne and beyond. Read the full story HERE. – A Laramie couple was bound over to felony-level court this week after a meth-filled syringe was found in their baby's crib. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the couple claimed the syringe belonged to the other, while the baby's mother admitted using meth, according to court documents. "A probation officer was doing a routine check when she knocked on the door of Alicia Edwards, when Edwards didn't answer the door, law enforcement went around behind the building, and they found Edwards and her husband and her partner, Edward Miller, hiding in a shed. They ordered them out. Edwards admitted to using meth. They also found various paraphernalia and methamphetamine inside the shed. At that point, law enforcement was called to the scene, and when they searched the home, they found a hypodermic needle inside the baby's crib." Alyisha Edwards and Edward Miller are each charged with one count of a child being present where meth or fentanyl is possessed, a felony that could put them in prison for up to 10 years each.  Read the full story HERE. –  A Cheyenne man is suing Secretary of State Chuck Gray after Gray denied his bid to get on the Republican primary ballot to elect a virtual intelligence personality to the U.S. Senate. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Gray says, "I won't tolerate a mockery of our electoral system." "Victor Miller is saying, "Oh no, I'm a real human and qualified to be on this ballot. I'm gonna hand over my spot to this bot once I get it, but I'm a real human and have a right to be on this ballot, whereas Secretary of Just Gray is more casting that as a veneer and saying, "No, no bots on the ballot, so we're not going to make a mockery of the elections." Victor Miller is a human being. But he's promised to give his spot, if he can get one, on the Wyoming Republican primary election ballot to "Virtual Integrated Citizen" (VIC). That's an artificial intelligence bot that Miller says is part of a long plan to replace politicians. Read the full story HERE. — Scientists are excited about the possibility of colorful aurora shows on Thursday and Friday nights and Wyoming is in the target zone. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that conditions for this event are being compared to May, 2024, which provided some of the most colorful shows in decades. "It's a g3 Geomagnetic Storm that's three coronal mass ejections combining together over Earth's atmosphere, and now recent report I saw said that there were up to four, so it's possible that there was a spectacular aurora over the skies of Wyoming on Thursday night, and if it was strong enough, it's possible that we could see more color and more aurora as we get into Friday evening." Wyoming aurora enthusiasts are already anticipating a good show, as experts say there might not be another one this good for another 10 years or more. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, June 4th.  I'm Mac Watson –  More than 32 years after her body was found along I-80, the woman known as "Shafter Jane Doe" has been identified, officials announced Thursday. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports Mary Alexander's nude body was posed on the ground, arms extended to either side in the shape of a cross. "Nobody reported her missing, because her family, she was a free spirit, so she was, they thought, laid on the side of the road for about seven days until she was found. So that was in 1993 And today the Elko County Sheriff's Office announced that they have identified her after 32 years. Her name is Mary Alexander, and she was a German immigrant, she moved to California in about 72 and she left home about 18 or 19. There was a lot of emotion in the room when the investigators announced her identity. These guys have been working on it for decades, and this is a huge story. In that, she's thought to be one of the nine victims in what's called the Great Basin murders, which took place between 1983 and 1997." Elko authorities announced Alexander's killer as Roger Durkee of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Investigators were getting ready to fly out to Wisconsin with an arrest warrant to take him into custody, when they discovered he had already passed away in November of 2025. Read the full story HERE. –  The transgender Laramie resident who protested Wyoming's cross-sex access ban for public bathrooms at the Capitol last summer is now waging a self-defense argument in a felony assault case. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Rihanna Kelver says he didn't go looking for a confrontation.  "Kelver was charged in September with aggravated assault, possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intents, and interference with a peace officer, so that's two felonies and one misdemeanor. That case got knocked down to two misdemeanors at some point, like November, and there were negotiations underway where the prosecutor and the defense were trying to figure out what sentencing was appropriate, and the court file indicates that fell apart, and the prosecutor ratcheted back up to the two felonies and the one misdemeanor, and it's now on the level of the felony court." 26-year-old Rihanna Kelver made headlines last summer for using the women's bathroom in the Wyoming Capitol when a new state law was activated banning the practice.  Read the full story HERE. – A Torrington family says the Goshen County Sheriff's Office told them a suspect turned himself in for shooting their Rottweilers, whose mutilated bodies were found in the North Platte River. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the sheriff's office confirms there is a suspect in the case who has not been identified. "On Wednesday morning, Angelica Garcia learned from police that a suspect had come forward and turned himself in. However, the Goshen County Sheriff, Corey Fleener, said that they are keeping his identity private for now because it's a public safety concern. The suspect is not currently in custody, and they have not formally been charged as of Wednesday afternoon. An organization out of Washington, DC, is offering a $2,500 reward for anyone who has information that will help convict the person responsible for what they see as an unlawful killing of these dogs." The president of the Animal Wellness Action, Wayne Pacelli, tells Cowboy State Daily that  the reason the group became interested in this case is because of the well-studied link between animal cruelty and broader patterns of domestic violence. Read the full story HERE. –  Laramie doesn't have any plans for data centers, but that didn't stop locals Tuesday calling for a permanent moratorium on them.  Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that because of resident's concerns, the mayor is taking action. "One gentleman suggested that the council consider a permanent moratorium on data centers. Mayor Sharon Cumby told me that they are planning to now fast-track a joint session between city council and county commissioners to talk about what you know if data center developers come in asking for proposals the city and county come together to have a very clear set of guidelines or procedure to answer those questions." Laramie city staff is compiling information that will explore the scope and ramifications of data centers and Mayor Sharon Cumbie said she wants to make sure that her staff has adequate time to thoroughly gather the latest information, so the joint groups are well informed when they come together. Read the full story HERE. –  I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   An Evansville man accused of not returning to a Casper halfway house after work faces more charges for allegedly breaking into people's homes. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that he "grabbed a container of orange juice from the fridge" when confronted by a frightened woman at one house. "She called 911 and said, 'I don't know where he went, but there was a guy that came into my house and took orange juice.' This guy, before he left, said, 'Yeah, I've been staying at your trailer in the backyard.' Then, about an hour later, they get another call from a woman who sees a guy who is apparently drunk or something walking down an alley. Police go there and find the man that matches the description from the other residences, they start talking to him and understand that, yeah, he's the guy that took the orange juice." Court documents show Garrett Maheu's renewed encounter with the court system began with his failing to return to the halfway house facility by midnight May 25th following a shift at the Outback Steakhouse in Casper. Read the full story HERE. –  Despite huge storms in southern Wyoming, May was Jekyll and Hyde, either exceeding or falling short of moisture expectations — with much of the state still in drought. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports meteorologist Don Day says  some towns in Wyoming are dry as a bone. "In some places, like Buffalo, they got less than 30% of their historical average for precipitation in the month of May, that's the seventh consecutive month of below average, below average monthly precipitation in Wyoming. There is a chance that June and July could be more wet as we get into an El Nino, and the North American monsoon begins to form, but unfortunately it's very rare for June or July to turn around a drought situation." After the warmest, driest winter on record for areas across Wyoming, experts described the snowpack going into May ranging anywhere from "just OK" to "basically horrible." Read the full story HERE. – The Wyoming Department of Education warned lawmakers this week that artificial intelligence is coming, so students should receive training outside of Facebook and Instagram. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that "The job of a school is to create real intelligence," said Rep. Ocean Andrew. "The person who works in this area for Sheridan County School District number 1 said, 'Yeah, we just, we just work on guidance because it's more flexible, more malleable, urge against plagiarism, urge against surveillance, urge against bad topics like that, talk about AIs have biases and can hallucinate, and we just try to teach our people how to warn and safeguard against these things.'" The committee ultimately didn't draft legislation during its Tuesday meeting, but questioned the department on next steps. Read the full story HERE. — As Yellowstone buzzed with tourists and other bears were caught up in courtship, a black bear apparently decided he'd had enough and zonked out by the roadside near Tower Junction. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that the bear was out so hard, some people worried that it was dead. "This black bear that's just, just off the road, flopped over on his back, just absolutely passed out. Snooze and tongue hanging out. Other bears are running around, and you know, because it's courtship mating season, so other black bears are really up and active and chasing each other, and all that, but this one was just not. It's 80 degrees, I'm flopping on my back and taking a nap. The bear was passed out so hard, some folks were worried that it was dead, and he said a lot of other people never even saw it, they had their eyes up looking at the other bears that are running around. They didn't notice this one right in front of them, that was just, just zonk." Wildlife photographer Corey Pettis tells Cowboy State Daily Grizzly bear activity has been getting plenty of attention in Yellowstone National Park this spring, but around Tower Junction, it's all about black bears. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, June 3rd.  I'm Mac Watson – Police in Montrose, Colorado, say a Gillette resident bought a gun in Wyoming, drove hundreds of miles and started randomly shooting. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that police say they don't know why 42-year-old Eduardo Garcia Barrera did it. "Barrera, a part-time resident of Gillette, bought a gun at a local sporting goods store in Wyoming, and then he drove 11 hours to Montrose, Colorado, where he then unleashed a fury of bullets in downtown Colorado, in a busy commercial section, he did strike a 22-year-old pedestrian before he ultimately turned the gun on himself. The 22- year-old victim is in stable condition." Police say the incident unfolded over roughly 35 minutes Saturday morning as Barrera fired at moving vehicles and pedestrians as he entered the western Colorado city. Read the full story HERE. –  A Bozeman woman is home following a 24-day hospital stay after her hand was ripped off in a terrifying horse accident at the Montana State University rodeo practice arena. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports the woman's husband and MSU rodeo coach sent team members to find the detached hand. "Presely Whitaker was training a horse in a small enclosure with a rope, and something happened to spook the horse or buck her off somehow. The horse drug her through the arena and she hit a fence and broke her jaw, and that's where she also lost her right hand. Presley was flown to a hospital in Salt Lake City, where surgeons tried to reattach her hand. However, the damage was too extensive, and they were unable to do so. Casey Ray Sellers, the rodeo coach at Gillette College, told me that she's seen people lose fingers in rodeo accidents and horse accidents. She's seen a lot of wrecked legs, but she's never seen someone lose a hand." On May 4, Presley was pen roping a young horse — a horsemanship technique that teaches young horses how to handle cattle and grow accustomed to working with a rope — when the horse she was on threw her and took off. Read the full story HERE. –  Cheyenne attorney George Powers, who filed a complaint calling for a criminal investigation against Chuck Gray for releasing sensitive voter data to the federal government, asked the Wyoming Supreme Court on Tuesday to appoint a special prosecutor. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Powers wants answers. "Powers has said, 'Well, get a special prosecutor, you know, find a way to rope in a special prosecutor. And then Kautz, the Attorney General, said, 'You know, I'm handling this in accordance with the rules, not in the public arena, so that's what that's what Attorney General Kautz said to Powers on May 4th, and so then Powers pushed again May 20th, like I need to know something's going on, we're probably, we can file a writ of mandamus, making you do the thing, so that so he did end up filing that writ of mandamus. Which is a petition to a court to make an official do something that is clearly that official's duty." Powers also asked the high court to issue an order "commanding," Wyoming Attorney General Keith Kautz and the AG's office to recuse themselves from investigating whether Gray could have committed a crime. It's unclear whether the AG's office already has, or has not recused itself from the matter.  Read the full story HERE. –  Cheyenne planners are recommending denial of most of the provisions in a huge 3,200-acre Microsoft data center expansion. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that one resident said during a marathon five-hour hearing Monday that this would overtake the city. "A fifth of Cheyenne's size, this 3200 acres coming into the city. It's huge. It's just a huge track that really did kind of put some scale to it. So the person who brought that up was one of the commissioners, Megan Connor, and she just wanted to know, you know, how did the planning people come to determine it's beneficial to the city? It's kind of hard to imagine, and then because it's in the beginning stages, Microsoft really hasn't planned it out, or you know, there's no way to know how much water it will eventually use, or you know exactly how many data centers will go there."  Only one part of the plan — assigning agricultural zoning to the 3,050-acre Highlands area if it is annexed — will reach the June 8 City Council meeting with a recommendation to approve. Read the full story HERE. –  I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. — A young grizzly named Storm got too close to a sandhill crane's nest in Yellowstone. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that the crane was having none of it and drove the bear off.  "She apparently got too close to a crane, a sand hill crane nest, and so you see this, the crane came out, you all stood up big and tall with its wings spread out, being all intimidating, and stood the grizzly bear down. I talked to some bird experts, bird biologists, and they said, 'Yeah, you know, birds whether they're big birds like crane or even smaller birds, they will take off after something as big or even considerably larger than them if they think their nest is at stake.'" Drawing itself up to its full height, the crane towered over Storm with its wings spread wide in a display of aggression during their close encounter on Saturday in Yellowstone National Park. Read the full story HERE. –   The city of Rock Springs is catching backlash after declaring June "pride month." Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that one councilman says people are upset. "Councilman, Rick Malonis, was talking about how, you know, he cast it as ironic. They took a photo of the Pride display, the flags, and everything under a banner that said 'In God We Trust,' and so Malonis derided the proclamation, but the other council members that I talked to on Tuesday said that the backlash is being overblown." Rock Springs has declared June "pride month" for years, but this year's proclamation has generated a surge of backlash, as shown through 543 comments on the city's Facebook post and 43 shares as of Tuesday afternoon. Read the full story HERE. – A Casper man who tried to burn down his ex-boyfriend's house last summer — but made sure to save his own pet snake — was sentenced Monday to six to eight years in prison. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that the ex says David Lee Wilkinson "destroyed everything in my life."  "Casper Mann, 31 years old, faced his last day in court, presumably when he was sentenced for setting fire to his ex-boyfriend's home last summer, and the ex-boyfriend did testify to say that you know his relationship with this guy was great and terrible at the same time, and that you know he felt like he took a bullet for others that might be in a future relationship with him. He said that alcohol fueled a lot of his problems, and he had trauma in his past. Meanwhile, the defendant just sat at the table and kind of just sat there and watched and listened, and then when it was his turn, he apologized for what he had done." Wilkinson entered a plea deal with the Natrona County District Attorney's office on Feb. 19 where both a first-degree arson charge for the July 16 fire and a domestic battery charge for an Oct. 11 incident were admitted via an Alford plea.  Read the full story HERE. –  Wild turkeys recently attacked an elderly California woman, leaving her bruised and bloody. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Game and Fish says Casper's urban turkeys "have absolutely established a reputation for aggressive, bold, and disruptive behavior." "Gaming Fish told me that they do get - they haven't had like in bonafide turkey attacks yet, but they've had instances of turkeys, you know, trying to fight people's dogs, turkeys chasing people, trapping people in their cars, those sorts of things. And I talked to a resident who lives right next to the downtown area, and she says, I haven't really had a run-in with the turkeys yet, but I don't get really close to them either. Don't take for granted that turkeys can't be aggressive." 83-year old Mary Jo Kelly, of Alameda, California described the turkey attack as terrifying. She suffered severe bruising and cuts to her right hand that required stitches at a local hospital. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, June 2nd,  I'm Mac Watson –  A Torrington family is in shock after finding their mutilated dogs partially submerged in the North Platte River. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that Angelica Garcia said two people made the grisly discovery of her dogs in the river.  "The Garcia family says that they let their dogs out Friday morning, and they escaped, which was a common occurrence. They were known to get loose and wander about town. Angelica Garcia says that most of the time people would just bring the dogs back, and it kind of became a running joke in the community. The dogs went missing in the afternoon, and were discovered in the early evening by a woman walking with her young son. She found the dogs half submerged in the North Platte River. There were two Rottweilers, and it looked like they'd been blasted by a shotgun, one was missing its head, the other was missing its neck and its chest." Goshen County Sheriff Kory Fleenor confirmed Monday that his office has an open investigation into the incident, but declined to comment on whether investigators have determined a cause of death or whether any suspects or persons of interest have been identified. Read the full story HERE. – The poll U.S. House candidate Chuck Gray touted Monday leveled disparaging claims about opponents Reid Rasner and Steve Friess. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the poll, conducted by Fabrizio, Lee, and Associates, claims Friess "never had a real job" and Rasner acted like a "Hollywood celebrity" during a marriage to "his gay husband."   "They concluded that Gray was leading with 21% of the vote if the election were held mid May, but there was also a push poll phase, and I received screenshots shortly after reporting the favorable poll with very charged, very loaded attacks on Reid Rasner and Steve Freese. The commentary about Rasner was dredging up things from his 2020 to 2022 divorce proceedings, including a subjective comment saying he had hyphenated his name like a celebrity.  The prompts about Steve Friess were calling him an elitist and calling him out of touch with Wyomingites." The survey was a poll of 400 Wyoming Republican voters from May 13-16th and reveals Secretary of State Chuck Gray leads a crowded GOP U.S. House race with 21% support. Casper businessman Reid Rasner is second at 14%, and Teton County's Steve Friess is third at 10%.  Read the full story HERE. –  The family of a woman killed by a distracted driver in downtown Sheridan a year ago said they feel slighted by the 60-day sentence he got Friday. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that the woman's daughter says the sentence brings "deeper grief," not closure. "Kate Gladden, her daughter does not feel like justice was served, and they were quite disappointed because they had been hoping that the judge might take into consideration their victim statements and charge him with the full penalty under the law, which would be up to a year and $2,000 fine, but that did not happen. She stuck with the plea agreement for 60 days." 65-year-old Julie Fitzsimmons was visiting her daughter Kate Gladden and her husband Nate, in Sheridan. Julie died of blunt force trauma to the head after being struck and thrown more than 7 feet by the vehicle.  Read the full story HERE. – A 27-year-old man accused of shooting another man and leaving him bleeding in a Cheyenne street after a blowup over a former girlfriend pleaded not guilty Monday to attempted second-degree murder. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that Adrian Maggos allegedly asked police how "the guy I shot" was doing. "He sat quietly along with 11 other inmates from the jail, they all were wearing the bright orange jumpsuits, the orange proxy, he had his legs were shackled together, and when it was his turn, he got up and didn't say much to the judge, just answered his questions, 'yes sir,' 'no sir,' and when he, when the judge asked him for  how he pleaded to the charge of attempted secondary murder, he said, 'not guilty.'" The judge then set an Oct. 6 trial date for Maggos, while his attorney informed Judge Hibben that a motion to reduce his $250,000 cash-only bond would be filed in writing. Read the full story HERE. –  I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   A Wyoming barrel racer was stunned to learn that the teen girl accused of stabbing three horses in Las Vegas over the weekend tried to borrow one of her horses last month. Cowboy State Daily's Julie Mankin reports that Laura Nichols says "It makes my skin crawl to realize she was stalking my horses, too." "She said we need to back up about a month ago at a big show in Utah. After that show, I got a message from a random girl out of the blue that wanted to know if I'd let her run one of my horses, and I wanted to help. I didn't really have one, and she just kept asking about these specific horses of mine, and, and so this weekend I looked to see if that was the same person, and it was the accused from Las Vegas, so it's just chilling." Nichols, who has earned more than $400,000 competing on the half-brother of one of the stabbed horses, said she's especially horrified by the attack. Read the full story HERE. –  A Cody-based search and rescue team helped coordinate the search for the body of "Alaskan Bush People" star Matt Brown. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that Brown's body was found Sunday after he went missing four days earlier after allegedly shooting himself along a Washington state river. "Bill Dohse, who founded Find 911 and OSAR, which is a national search and rescue group with many different partners from around the country. And so what Dohse did in this particular instance was work with his partner agencies to deploy assets to the scene in Washington, which was extremely remote and near the Canadian border, and the sheriff's department and family were very grateful to have those assets on the ground. Dosey was able to work from his incident command center on the side of the road because he was en route to Washington to get there when Brown was found." Dohse, a former Fremont County Deputy Sheriff and Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper, founded the Cody-based search and rescue group founded in 2015 that specializes in finding missing people and pets.  Read the full story HERE. –- This year's election climate could make the perfect storm for Libertarian Shawn Johnson to win Wyoming's U.S. House seat, politicos say. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that experts say if Johnson can court conservatives, and the winner of the GOP primary is hugely unpopular, he could have a shot.  "Sean Johnson gave a speech at his Sunday nomination at the Libertarian Party convention, that was, I mean, it was visibly electrifying to the attendees, and I got to thinking about it later. It very much resembled the Declaration of Independence, where there was this list of grievances, grievance after grievance of tyrannies that the people have endured, and it ended with this, this call for revival, and this pledge of one's own honor to the cause. And I asked him Monday, did you mean to structure that like the Declaration of Independence? He's like, no, he was just speaking from the heart." Johnson will face the lone survivor of a hotly contested 10-person GOP primary contest, and the winner of a two-way Democratic primary election. Both major party primary elections are set for Aug. 18. Read the full story HERE. –  Fifty years ago, the cameras rolled on "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" at Devils Tower after a handshake between a then-unknown Steven Spielberg and rancher Jesse Thomas Driskill. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that a high school student named Ogden Driskell (who would later grow up to be a current state senator) remembers Spielberg was adamant about not telling anyone about the movie before it debuted. "It was a funny story that Ogden told Spielberg swore them to secrecy about the movie because he didn't want the public to see that tower before the movie came out. He was just sure, you know, that nationwide people had not seen, did not know about this tower, and he knew the kind of impression it was going to make. His dad's the one who made the deal with Steven Spielberg, and Spielberg's like, 'I don't want anybody to know about that tower. Nobody knows about that tower. You have to keep it secret. Don't let anybody know what's going on.' But you know, so August, like, well, they thought he was kind of crazy." Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a blockbuster science fiction movie that was released in 1977. Written and directed by Steven Spielberg, it  would go on to completely reshape tourism in northeast Wyoming. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, June 1st,  I'm Mac Watson – In a setback to the Wyoming Republican Party's long mission to gain independence from state law, a Uinta County judge Friday upheld multiple Wyoming election laws, dismissing the state Party's claims that its rights trump them. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Uinta County District Court Judge James Kaste's Friday ruling gives a concrete, but appealable, answer. "What we had was a hot springs county Republican party spat that exploded into a much bigger debate about whether the Wyoming Republican Party and its counterparts are private groups that have associational rights that trump the restrictions that state law places on them, and at least for this struggle, which pertains to some county membership and voting criteria, and the involvement of this basically the state party's arbitration committee, the judge said,  'No, the party's associational rights aren't that burden. The state does have a legitimate electoral public interest in keeping these processes orderly, and the laws are constitutional.'" If it so chooses, the party can appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court challenging the judge's decision. Read the full story HERE. –  Trucker Riaz Ahmad Noori is now facing homicide charges, accused of triggering a 26-vehicle crash in the Green River Tunnel in 2025 that killed three people. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that an affidavit says "human error was the primary factor contributing to these crashes." "Investigators say that Noori was going over the speed limit when he ran into the back of a pickup, setting off a multi-vehicle collision and pile up. He was going about 10 miles per hour over the illuminated posted speed limit. Despite snowy conditions, there was also ice on the road. So he's also facing litigation from a lawsuit that was filed in September, saying that he was driving recklessly and caused the fatal crash." The Feb. 14, 2025, initial crash ballooned into a 26-vehicle catastrophe that filled the westbound Interstate 80 tunnel near Green River with fire, explosions, and thick, black smoke.  Read the full story HERE. –  Living homeless in a Las Vegas wash, hooked on meth, and surviving by the reflexes of his past gang life, Rusty Rawson turned to his adolescent son for guidance. Cowboy State Daily's Zak Sonntag reports that the answer brought them back to Casper and a path toward recovery. "So they've been back in Casper 18 months, and they're going through the rescue missions discipleship program, and that has been a big change for Rusty specifically. But just having a bed to sleep in, a place to get a hot meal, and a community has provided the stability that they need to start thinking about the future again. And for Sterling, who is now 14-years old, the improvements are just monumental. I mean, here's a kid who didn't finish sixth grade, didn't attend a single day in seventh grade, and then he comes back, jumps into the end of eighth grade, and here he is graduating his freshman year from Kelly Walsh High School this week with a 3.8 GPA, and that's just because he has the support of this community." For the last 18 months, Rusty and Sterling have been staying in beds at the Mission, where Rusty has joined its Discipleship Program, and getting back to being a truck driver. Read the full story HERE. – Halle Crozier of Buffalo is inspiring Wyoming's high school rodeo community as she fights to recover from a vaccine reaction that destroyed her body. Cowboy State Daily's Julie Mankin reports that Halle says she could've chosen to not get better, or choose to be positive and work hard to get better. "Rodeo is something that has allowed Halle to heal, and it makes her feel alive, and honestly, she has the heart of a cowgirl, it's been in her blood her entire life. Halley's grit and determination is so inspiring, and fans have gone so nuts to watch her, that the Wyoming High School Rodeo Association changed their rules after decades to allow this timed event star to partner with her as his second partner. It's usually only one partner, but they love Hallie and what she's done for the culture of rodeo." Despite limitations with lifting her arms and lingering balance and coordination problems, things are looking up for Halle. The 16-year-old got her driver's license last year.  Read the full story HERE. –  I'll have more news from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   Despite a series of bizarre, controversial, and sometimes outrageous campaign videos, Wyoming politicos say Reid Rasner's campaign for U.S. House is not a parody. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that state Rep. John Bear says, "Why would somebody spend this much money on a joke?"  "You find commenters piling up in an ever-increasing mountain, asking, is this a parody? Is this satire? Because some of the videos are zany. I talked to people from both ends of the political spectrum in Wyoming, serving in offices or that have run statewide campaigns, and they said no. No one's going to spend $1.3 million ish, on a joke, and so, which is, you know, as of April 1, that's about the size of the Raisner campaign. His spokesman said that they reach people through social media, but they do also take hard policy stances and forward-thinking positions. I also spoke to one drama coach, Michael Stadile, out of Casper. He coached drama for 45 years. He said, 'If this is satire, this man gets an A.'" Rasner was among the earliest to declare for what's now a 10-person GOP primary contest for the House seat, which incumbent Rep. Harriet Hageman is vacating to run for U.S. Senate. Read the full story HERE. –  A century after Union Pacific stopped using it, decades of work has saved and restored Evanston's historic Roundhouse and Railyards. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that $28 million has been spent so far but it's one of the rare roundhouses in the U.S. that's still completely operational. "It's all part of the vision of a guy named Jim Davis. He was hired as the urban renewal manager, worked for the city for many, many years. His charge was to revital. He happened to meet and befriend an architect along the way, and that guy knew how to do historic preservation, and so you know by teaming up with people in the community they were able to forge a path forward to save the depot.  That became a springboard for the larger project, the Round House; he built a core of people who could see the value in saving these old buildings, which there aren't many of them left in the country." The Roundhouse is a 63,000-square-foot, 96-foot-deep curved brick-and-mortar behemoth built around a post-and-beam interior. Read the full story HERE. –  FBI files from 1933 reveal that $90,000 in ransom loot from a Machine Gun Kelly kidnapping scheme ended up buried somewhere around Cheyenne. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports about $25,000 is still unaccounted for. "According to FBI documents I found in a newspaper article at the time, the money supposedly they turned out the money to the FBI, but there's only of their take, there was $75,000 apparently in that suitcase, and the FBI accounted for like 38,000, but so there's like $25,000 that has never been recovered, whether that's remained in Cheyenne, was it taken to the West Coast. We don't know for sure." FBI documents from the time are not clear about whether all of that money was removed or recovered; however, the ground somewhere around the Wyoming Capitol in those months played a part in one of that decade's notorious gangster sagas. Read the full story HERE. –- New research published by the Geological Society of America has revealed that Devils Tower is actually constantly moving. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that an international team of geologists determined that it's perpetually and ever-so-slightly swaying, twisting, and turning in the wind. "Now, the thing is, you'd never know that, because the amount of movement is less than a micro meter, that's 1,000,000th of a meter, so it's not happening on a scale that humans can see. They put two sensors at the base of the tower and one sensor at the top of the tower, and then they had the climb up, put the sensor up, then climb up the next day to collect it and analyze that data, and what they found were the signatures of vibrations that have a definite movement to them." Devils Tower is a giant, eroded plug of volcanic rock. It was an intrusive body of magma that cooled under the surface and was gradually exposed by millions of years of erosion. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, May 29th.  I'm Mac Watson – Just weeks after unveiling a 3,200-acre data center expansion around Cheyenne, Microsoft is adding two more parcels totaling 420 acres. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the move comes amid a deepening debate over data centers, growth, and water. "They're going to add 420 acres to the overall 3,200 acre footprint that they announced in April, so that announcement in April tripled their footprint in Cheyenne. So it's adding on to what was already a pretty massive expansion as far as their data center footprint goes, and so you know, I don't know exactly what they plan to do on those parcels, they were very close-mouthed about that, they wouldn't answer any further questions." The two areas are on opposite sides of Cheyenne, but one of them, a 385-acre parcel, is near the 3,200-acre site, which is not far from Laramie County Community College. Read the full story HERE. –  A 25-person team from the ATF is in Cheyenne to investigate the huge fire that burned a four-story apartment building under construction in minutes Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that the fire chief says it was "just a matchbox with open lumber, ready to go up at any time." "The fire chief said it's not a secret why it burned so fast, and it was so hot. It was under construction, so a lot of the finishes hadn't been put on, which a lot of those have fire retardants. What's interesting, that this giant, four-story apartment building, they were just at the phase of construction that you said, where they were going to be putting in, you know, the internal fire suppression system. Obviously, that's not happening now, but they said a lot of things went right for this fire to go as fast and as hot as it went." Cheyenne Fire Rescue Chief Andrew Dykshorn told Cowboy State Daily that ATF investigators have been at the scene since Wednesday and "bring the federal assets" to handle a major event like the fire at the Ridge View Apartments and Townhomes in north Cheyenne.  Read the full story HERE. –  Nearly two years after the decomposing body of a Cody man was found in a house after a drug bender with a female friend, the woman turned herself in to authorities this week. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that Brook Messick says she wants to take accountability for her actions. "Brooke Messick remembers a night of drugs and partying during the weekend, right before August 14 in 2024. She was leaving the house when she decided to go back in and check on a friend who was snoring loudly. She tried to wake her friend up; he would not wake up, and she decided to leave without calling the police or saying anything to anyone. Investigators say that loud snoring after you've been using hard drugs like methamphetamine is a telltale sign of a potential overdose.Toxicology reports later revealed that the victim died as a result of bad drugs. The fentanyl and the methamphetamine had methadone in it, and then later they were able to find on the suspect's phone, Google searches, looking up how to inject methadone." Messick is being held in the Park County Detention Center on involuntary manslaughter and drug possession charges on a $50,000 cash-only bond. Read the full story HERE. – Yellowstone visitors were furious after seeing an illegal drone harassing a grizzly bear and her two cubs. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the man who shot video of the incident says, "Everybody was madder than hell."  "Someone was flying a drone near a mother bear and her cubs in mid-May. We don't know who it was, because the pilot was behind a hill at the time, but we do have the drone on video, and whoever was flying it was getting really close to those bears. The response to that video was pretty universal. Everyone was outraged, because it is illegal to fly drones in Yellowstone, and you certainly don't want to disturb the animals."  If convicted of flying a drone in a national park, the person or persons would be charged with a misdemeanor and face up to six months in jail and $5,000 in fines. Read the full story HERE. –  I'll have more news from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom right after this.   Cowboy State Daily News continues now…. –   Democrats now have parties in all 23 Wyoming counties with Niobrara and Lincoln counties finally reviving theirs. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Niobrara County is one of the reddest counties in the nation, but as of May 1st, it contains 35 registered Democrats, out of 1,233 registered voters. The Wyoming Democratic Party announced it now has county iterations in all 23 Wyoming counties. For the first time in the current leadership's memory, they couldn't even remember a time when they had 23 county parties, and they just secured that this month. And interestingly, there's a few interesting parts of this, is that some prominent Republicans have been calling for more Democratic presence, saying we're weaker when we're a one-party state. Also the Lincoln County Democratic Party Chair, Donald Shelton, was saying, 'I really want to galvanize workers and the working class and hear their concerns and get some momentum behind that.'"  Rep. Tom Kelly, R-Sheridan, in a Facebook post earlier this month, "All of us are better off with a functioning opposition party." Read the full story HERE. –  Uinta County planners voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend permit approvals for a huge 1.25-gigawatt data center. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that one person who attended the standing-room-only meeting said, "Officials need to do their research on data centers." "In Evanston, the gal I talked to after the meeting, you know, she said she really hasn't made up her mind yet. She just has a lot of questions, you just want to understand things a little bit better. She wants to make sure the benefit is really worth any of the risks involved, and some of her questions I felt really were more about AI in general, and how it's being used in society." After weeks of questions and skepticism at public forums and on social media, most of the standing-room-only crowd listened quietly as commissioners voted unanimously to recommend zoning and conditional use permit approvals to Uinta County commissioners for the proposed 1.25 gigawatt, 500-acre, off-grid campus. Read the full story HERE. –  Dashcam video released Thursday shows the wild end to a 120 mph chase on the I-80 where a woman was struck by her own moving car as she bailed out and ran on foot. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that according to officials, even with two flat tires, she was still driving more than 100 mph. "When deputies with the Albany County Sheriff's Office tried to pull over 45 year old Sarah Grayson, because she was wanted in connection to a vehicle theft. She took off going 120 miles per hour on I 80. Sheriff's deputies deployed stop sticks. The car, even with two pop tires, continued rolling at 100 miles per hour as it slowed. Grayson hopped out of the car, which is how she accidentally ran over herself. Law enforcement did take her to the hospital. She sustained minor injuries. She is wanted on felony warrants out of Sublet County, as well as the recent charges connected to a vehicle burglary and larceny." The Albany County Sheriff's Office reports the chase began around 6:25 p.m. on Saturday after a sheriff's sergeant spotted a stolen vehicle traveling eastbound near mile marker 323 on Interstate 80 in Albany County. Read the full story HERE. – Lingle-based state Rep. Scott Smith, a member of the Freedom Caucus, is challenging Wyoming Treasurer Curt Meier for his seat. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Smith says he wants to increase Wyoming's wealth, while Meier says, "He says he's going to do the same thing I am."  "Treasurer Kurt Meyer has a challenger, and that's Representative Scott Smith of Lingle, who's a two-term representative, served on the appropriations committee this year. Myers, he's a two-term incumbent himself, and he made headlines starting in October for having record high investment earnings for the state of Wyoming, generally surpassing minerals. I know there were some caveats to that, but it was the first time the analysts had seen it, had seen him pass those mineral pools that they were referencing." Three weeks earlier, Virginia-based group Make Liberty Win publicly endorsed Smith for the seat, though he hadn't declared an interest in it at that time. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, May 27th.  I'm Mac Watson. – Fifth-generation Wyoming rancher Trenton Thornock pitched a huge 1.2 gigawatt data center on family land to a skeptical Evanston crowd on Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the project is facing a rising tide of opposition against data centers locally and across Wyoming. "Prometheus Hyper Scale, unlike a lot of the other data centers, you know, they have made that public commitment to community engagement, and so what this meeting was all about was answering the public's questions here in Evanston, it was at times an emotional meeting, a little unruly at times. There were some people in the audience, who just yelled out questions whenever, who would challenge answers and basically say 'You're lying!' There was one person who accused Trenton Fornock of being a sellout because he lives in Texas right now. For the most part, though, it was a pretty civil meeting." Thornock says he started his company in 2020 with the idea of first innovating water cooling systems and doing things in a more sustainable way and second impr oving the economy of his home state. Wyoming has struggled with outmigration of its youth, losing most of them by age 30 to other states.  Read the full story HERE. – A fire tore through an under-construction apartment building in north Cheyenne on Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that one witness says the burning was so intense, the building was "a total loss" in minutes. "He said within 10, 15 to 20 minutes it went from just seeing some flames to pretty much being a total loss, and it had been collapsing on itself. While it was burning, they could hear explosions coming from inside the building. Being under construction, there's all kinds of tanks and things with whether you're welding or paint or anything like that. So, whatever they had in there, he said they could hear it popping off." The under construction building is in the Ridgeview Apartments located at 2025 E. Carlson St. just off Converse Avenue between Sam's Club to the south and Storey Boulevard to the north. Read the full story HERE. – State Rep. Mike Yin argued against a proposal by Chuck Gray to ban political party changes after Jan. 1st in election years. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Yin wants to know why Gray is making it harder for people. Gray says it's an election integrity issue. "So, what the committee majority, not Mike Yin and not a few others, decided was they're going to ask staff to draft a bill that is going to ban party changes for like three quarters, nearly three quarters of an election year, and so they did that. So now staff is going to build that draft, and then at a later meeting of the committee, probably September, people can come and comment, and they'll decide at that point or later whether they want to adopt the bill, which would give it an edge going into the 2027 lawmaking session, if they do." The Legislature in 2023 passed a bill banning voters from switching parties between about mid-May and the primary election in mid-August of each election year.  Read the full story HERE. – Two hikers on a multi-day excursion were helicoptered to safety by Teton County Search and Rescue after becoming ill on Monday. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that one rescuer says,  "It sounded like they weren't prepared to hit as much snow as they did in the high country. "In this case, it wasn't a lack of experience or preparedness. The group knew that they were going to be encountering snow in high elevation on the Teton Crest Trail, and planned to be there for several days, but there was more snow than they anticipated, and they didn't find water to replenish their stores, because getting water off of smelting snow pack is not a bad way to work around carrying water on a trail like that, but in this case, there was a lot of snow, and not a lot of readily available water. At one point, the hikers even tried to boil snow to get water, but the National Weather Service says that one inch of liquid water is equivalent to 12 inches of snow, and even though they tried, they just didn't have enough to hydrate all four of them. Read the full story HERE. – I'll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily news continues now… – After losing both of her siblings to a male grizzly's attack last spring and then splitting from her mother at an unusually tender age, the young grizzly named Miracle hadn't been seen this spring. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that all changed when the bear showed up at Colter Bay on Sunday. "That's almost the exact same spot she was seen almost in exactly a year earlier, and I talked to a bear biologist up in British Columbia, who, who said, yeah, that tracks, because, especially with female bears, they'll establish a range and they'll establish routes to get around, and the person who took the video said it really seemed like she was, she was coming from from one wooded area, trying to get to another wooded area, in other words, she wasn't interested in hanging out in Colter Bay. She was just making that her route through, and the biologist said, 'Yeah, that makes sense.'"  Wildlife photographer Marcela Herdova tells Cowboy State Daily that the 2.5-year-old Miracle appears to be in good health. Read the full story HERE. – A Casper man who admitted being a serial arsonist and starting numerous fires got 6-12 years in prison Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that Dallas Smith sought probation instead of prison time, but the judge wasn't having it. "He apologized for his actions, said that he knew that he caused some people some financial pain, and he had said in an affidavit that he had started the fires to get rid of the pain. So he asked the judge, and his defense attorney asked the judge if he could get probation and serve time at a place in Sheridan, and the judge was not going to go along with that. She said, "First degree arson, we're not going to do any probation with that." Natrona County District Court Judge Kerri Johnson sentenced Smith to the six to 12 years, and he was sentenced to time served 270 days for three other counts of arson that were part of the plea deal. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming biologists say a wolverine that had a rare close-range encounter with a hiker in the Wind River Range mountains is the same animal they've been tracking for more than a year. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that the animal has a huge range, being tracked over 200 square miles. "That's typical for wolverine range, 200 or even more. They are wide-ranging animals. The running joke, or the way I put it is, even a lot of wolverines isn't a lot of wolverines, because they are very typical, very typically solitary animals that have gigantic ranges and just don't have much to do with each other, so they're, they're not, it's not like elk, they're very widely dispersed animals, so it makes sense." The wolverine that Zachary Shifrel photographed from about 20 yards away is a mature, 28-pound male, who was collared back in 2025, so say biologists Dean Clause and Rusty Kaiser. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming meteorologist Don Day is skeptical about a popular weather forecasting website's prediction of a wetter-than-normal summer. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that Day says Wyoming is a huge state for this kind of forecast. "The website Open Snow published their summer 2026 forecast in terms of temperature and rainfall, and they have above average or above normal rainfall for the entirety of Wyoming and portions of 12 other states. So I spoke with Cowboy State meteorologist Don Day about that. First off, he was skeptical because it's open snow. He said that they can be very ambitious with long-range weather modeling." Day tells Cowboy State Daily that Wyoming isn't a one size fits all state, so even if some places do see above normal precipitation for summer, that doesn't mean it's a blanket statement that's going to cover every spot in the Cowboy State. Read the full story HERE.   And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, May 26th.  I'm Mac Watson. – On Memorial Day, Bill Parr remembers the men he served with during a 22-year career in the Navy who never came home, but he won't talk about them. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that he spoke with Parr at the Cheyenne National Cemetery. "Parr told me basically what veterans usually tell me, that it's a day for remembering those who died, those who paid that ultimate sacrifice for America's freedom, and that he doesn't want to talk about himself. And when I asked him if there's anyone in particular that he was at the National Cemetery to remember, he just kind of got quiet and tears kind of came to his eyes and he just said yeah but I'm not going to talk about them and so that's a pretty common pretty common response." Parr tells Cowboy State Daily he enlisted in 1969 at age 18 and was quickly sent to Vietnam. He served two tours on river boats providing supply interdiction coming down the Mekong River.  Read the full story HERE. – It's grizzly mating season in Yellowstone, and a pair of popular bears were too caught up in courtship to notice gawking crowds. But Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that the sweet scene isn't common behavior for bears. "People got a lot of really adorable pictures of them cuddling together, and I did talk to a wildlife biologist, who said don't mistake any of this for like human concepts of romance. Grizzlies don't fall in love, they don't pair bond over any great length of time. In fact, it's not unusual for female grizzly to mate with multiple males over the course of a mating season, because their eggs don't start to gestate right away, they have delayed, usually the gestation doesn't start until they actually go into their hibernation den to time it, so the babies are born around January." The amorous grizzly scene near Yellowstone Lake caused a bear jam for at least a quarter mile in each direction this past week. Read the full story HERE. – Meteorologist Don Day says reports of a Super El Niño brewing in the Pacific Ocean are ludicrous. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports an El Niño is coming and will likely be beneficial for Wyoming. "Why Cowboys State Daily meteorologist Don Dey is skeptical, because a lot of people are trying to anticipate what the impacts of this El Nino will be six months from now, and that's based on long-range weather modeling and we have seven months now of examples of how bad long range weather modeling can be when it comes to predicting these trends. El Nino historically has meant wetter weather for Wyoming in the late fall, going into winter, and then the next spring, and if there's a super El Nino, there's reason to believe that there would be more of that, just more precipitation."  A Super El Niño is a stronger-than-normal El Niño, meaning the surface waters of the Pacific are warming along the equator. Read the full story HERE. – Kelley Marshall was on track for a violent death when eagle-eyed cops recognized she was being trafficked. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that one trafficking expert says that "People think it doesn't happen in rural states like Wyoming, but it does." "Kelly Marshall wants people to understand that for sex buyers, that transaction that they think is an equal financial transaction, and most cases probably isn't, probably that person is being trafficked, and secondly, she really wants under people to understand how they can help, and that's the whole point of Truckers Against Trafficking, who she works for. They want to mobilize people on the front lines to help not only recognize it but report it." Marshall has channeled her own experience into educating others as a training specialist and survivor leader for Truckers Against Trafficking, a national nonprofit that prepares truckers, law enforcement, truck stop employees, port workers, and other individuals and groups to identify and report human trafficking.  Read the full story HERE. – I'll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily news continues now… – Judge Andre Rudolph grew up in Cheyenne, played running back for UW and once ran down a defendant to earn the nickname "Batman." Cowboy State Daily's Zak Sonntag reports that before the judge's sudden death last week at the age of 59, he also changed the lives of lawbreakers willing to take his help and accountability. "Judge Rudolph had a very human touch in the courtroom. He had a philosophy of justice that was more about life direction than punishment. He wanted people to be the best version of themselves, and he wanted them to see that they were not defined by their worst mistakes. As a result, his courtroom, according to his clerks and according to other witnesses, could feel a lot more like a mentorship conversation than a legal proceeding, and he had an outsized personality – just very gregarious, agreeable, sociable, but firm and intelligent." Raised by his grandmother and without the support of his biological parents in a Cheyenne home of meager means, he nonetheless thrived as a star athlete, honor-roll law student, and then became among the youngest judges appointed in Colorado.  Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming's Catholic Carmelite mountain monks are using computers, heavy machinery, and robots to build a massive Gothic monastery in the mountains of the Bighorn Basin. Cowboy State Daily's Jackie Dorothy reports that it's a stark contrast to the simple lives these men of faith live making coffee and raising cattle. "The reason the monks are building their monastery in the rural mountains, far from civilization, is because they're seeking a life of prayer and solitude, but they also want to build something beautiful for God, and the way they're doing it is building the monastery in the old Gothic medieval style, and they're doing it themselves. The quote they had gotten before was for 20 million to 100 million, and they've done it for a fraction of the cost using modern technology. Another thing that comes up is why use modern technology. You're medieval monks, but that is what monks do. They seek modern technology, so that they can spend more time in prayer." Wyoming's Carmelite monastery began in 2007 with $400 and a dream to build a Gothic-style monastery in the mountains of the Bighorn Basin. Today, it is estimated that the monastery's church, located along Meeteetse Creek, will be finished in another six years.  Read the full story HERE. – A 70-year-old tourist was killed after being thrown six feet in the air by a bull bison on a popular hiking route in Custer State Park. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the sheriff says this is the first fatal attack by a bison in the park in over 20 years.  "They were ahead of them about 1,500 feet, according to a law enforcement report. One of the bulls turned around and charged the woman. The husband called 911 from behind the tree, and help did arrive fairly quickly. However, by the time they arrived, the husband was performing CPR, according to reports, and the woman had already stopped breathing, so there was nothing that rescuers could do to save her. Michelle McElroy tells Cowboy State Daily that she took video on the same trail of two bull bison and turned around. She adds that if her family had known someone died on that same trail just a day before, "I wouldn't have taken my 5 kids on it had I known." Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming's looser liquor laws — and higher elevations — make for memorable nights and steady business in Evanston on the state line with Utah. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that some call it Utah's "Sin City," where people go for booze, to place bets, and buy fireworks. "I was told by three different ones that they, they generally can spot the Utahns because they're the ones that are kind of looking over their shoulder as they're ordering a beer and a shot, feeling like they're doing something wrong that they're going to get in trouble for. Utah had for a long time 3.2% beer, and in 2019 they finally got rid of that requirement that beer had to be under that amount, and they actually had the Clydesdales came and did a funeral procession for 3.2% beer." A new Utah law that went into effect Jan. 1st that bans people convicted of DUIs with a blood alcohol content of 0.160% or greater from buying booze. That makes Evanston's bars and liquor stores enticing for those who can't buy alcohol close to home. Read the full story HERE.   And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, May 22nd.  I'm Mac Watson. – Converse County this week rescinded an order that could have fast-tracked data centers and given the county more control in the process. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that one legislator says it's a legal issue, but people also "lost their minds" when they heard the words  "fast-track." "Representative Kevin Campbell said that there was a dearth of transparency in this whole process, and that that was his main qualm with it, but in the meantime, the Attorney General's office reportedly settled it anyway by saying, 'I know you can't just put in one of these industrial parks if you don't already have zoning, you can't put it in without a mechanism like that, and Commerce County does not have zoning.'" Commission Vice-Chair Rick Grant tells Cowboy State Daily that the prospective industrial park wasn't meant specifically for a Prometheus Hyperscale data center and the county hasn't received an application for any such development. Read the full story HERE. – Parts of Wyoming got up to 2 inches of water from this week's storm that shut down I-80 and Rawlins for more than a day. But Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports all that precipitation wasn't a drought-buster.  "Speaking to Wyoming meteorologists, we don't want a drought-busting storm all at once, because for as low and as dry as we are, if we got all the moisture we needed to break a drought in one fell swoop, we'd be talking about widespread destruction. May has been a very good month in terms of moisture. We've gotten several inches in the areas that needed it most, and that's definitely improved the situation. But at this point, we're looking at a prolonged drought that isn't going to be rectified by a single event, but if we continue getting more of these storms that drop an inch or two of liquid water at a time, we can make a nice dent in the drought situation." Meteorologist Don Day tells Cowboy State Daily "Getting rid of a drought is like eating an elephant — one bite at a time." Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming regulators are cracking down on bar raffle games like Queen of Hearts and Music Bingo that raise money for charities, saying they're illegal gambling. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that event organizer Brian Grzegorczyk asks, "Why is horse racing an exception, but not charity?"  "His nickname became Alf Evermore, and so most people just know him as Alf, but so he has a pub here in Cheyenne called Alf's Pub, and he is the founder of a charity effort called Thankful Thursdays, and in 16 years that charity has been around 16 years now, and it's given more than four and a half million to local groups over that 16 year period, and so you know it's become a powerhouse for giving money to local charities." According to Wyoming Gaming Commissioner Nick Laramendy,  Wyoming statutes define gambling as risking any property for gain that is contingent in whole or in part by chance. Read the full story HERE. – A wildlife filmmaker spotted 47 grizzlies in the Absaroka Mountains before noon, more than twice as many as he's ever seen in one day in the Yellowstone area. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that they were gorging themselves on moths, so he tried one.  "He says he's eaten them a few times. He said they taste like honey roasted peanuts, apparently. Army cut worm moths taste like honey roasted peanuts, that's what he describes the flavor of them. They come up out of the prairies, and they're going up over the mountains on their migration route, that you know, long about that time, late in the summer, early in the fall, but they'll get up on the mountains, and to rest, they'll crawl underneath the rocks, and so the bears go up there and just are flipping rocks over and scooping up these moths and eating them." Moth eater and wildlife photographer Casey Anderson tells Cowboy State Daily that grizzlies will travel many miles from the low country and climb all the way up to the mountain peaks to gorge on the delicious moths.  Read the full story HERE. – I'll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily news continues now… – People are blaming — and crediting — the Wyoming Freedom Caucus for the Legislature's nearly $4 billion school spending package. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports whether the caucus deserves either depends on whom you ask. "The Freedom Caucus was taking some credit and celebrating when that package passed. So this controversy followed, right?  And people were blaming the Freedom Caucus. And at first I was thinking, 'Why are they blaming the Freedom Caucus?' But then I looked back, and I saw that the Freedom Caucus had taken credit for the package, so it's become just this circle, this narrative circle, where they took credit for it, and then now there's this backlash against it, and now they're taking the blame, even though in reality it's almost a full legislature project." On the one hand, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus' former chair, speaking on behalf of the caucus, took credit for nearly $4 billion per-biennium school spending package after it became law. On the other hand, the spending plan itself contains a mix of favored and hated provisions, and it's often misunderstood. Read the full story HERE. – A former BLM director says Steve Pearce's confirmation to lead the agency is good news for Wyoming's energy industries, ranchers and land use. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that William Perry Pendley says "What the BLM director decides determines the fate of Wyoming with regard to its ability to use the land." "Former National BLM manager William Perry Pendley really is excited about this new director, because he is pro multi use on land, so it's this idea that you know we don't have to lease land for just one use, like conservation or grazing or recreation, there is land can be used for multiple things at the same time, and that's something that was not popular in the previous administration. According to Pendley, Pierce brings a private sector background to the BLM, and that's important, because work with the BLM often intersects with private sectors with private business, so it's good for the person in that role to have that experience." That reality is hard to overstate in Wyoming, where public lands define much of the state. In sprawling Sweetwater County alone, roughly 74% of the land is managed by the federal government. Read the full story HERE. – Some Wyoming firearms companies say YouTube is unfairly censoring and banning them without giving solid reasons why. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports one video creator says, "I hate to lose the audience, but I don't miss the BS," about dealing with YouTube before getting kicked off. "Big Horn Armory, that's a company out of Cody that makes rifles and other firearms. They were recently booted off of YouTube, and apparently for violating community status. I talked to their founder and CEO, and said they never clearly explained to them why. He said it was never clearly explained to them, and they were just booted off, and so they switched over to Rumble, which is a different video platform." Greg Buchel, founder and president of Big Horn Armory Inc., tells Cowboy State Daily that their posted content on YouTube didn't include any of the platform's clearly forbidden material, such as instructions on how to alter a firearm. Read the full story HERE. – Steve Price, a "legend" who raised money for many Cheyenne causes, passed away earlier this month.  Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports one fellow auctioneer says "I don't know anybody who wasn't his friend." "Steve Price was a legendary cowboy in Cheyenne, and also an auctioneer who raised a bunch of money for many nonprofits in the city. He didn't really have a business, but he just used that to help nonprofits, and he helped so many, including the animal shelter, the hospital, you know, also the state fair board.Somebody at the animal shelter told me that there was this bid that went on for like 10 minutes over a Josh Allen jersey a few years ago that he just kept egging people on, you know, to raise their bid, and so everybody I talked to said he was one of the best people they've ever met." The 70-year-old died while visiting family in Dundee, Michigan, on May 4th. A celebration of life is planned on Saturday at the Archer Event Center in Cheyenne. Read the full story HERE.   And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, May 21st.  I'm Mac Watson. – Releases of up to 1 million acre-feet of water downriver from Flaming Gorge are gutting the gorge's world-famous kokanee fishery and has marinas racing to survive. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that one marina owner says the impact is "like a holocaust for nature."  "How much water did Lake Powell get out of that? Two inches. So we took a seven-foot hit in Flaming Gorge. Lake Powell got a two two inch bump. This is the sacrifice Wyoming made to save Lake Powell and to keep Glen Cove Dam hydropower working. If they take another million acre feet, that lake level is going to fall below his boat ramp." Federal officials announced earlier this year that they will release up to 1 million acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge to boost critically low water levels down the Colorado River on Lake Powell and protect hydropower operations at Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona.  Read the full story HERE. – Emotions were mixed for the 450-Megwatt Chugwater Energy Project before getting its final unanimous approval from Platte County on Wednesday. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that one landowner says "If people really didn't want wind turbines they should have bought" the land.  "A lot of landowners were in support of it, as they were last week at the public hearing. Heard from some others, some new landowners, some different landowners this time around, and again, a lot of support for the project. There was, of course, pushback from people who cited health concerns and property rights issues. One guy said, 'The property rights debate goes as far as your neighbor's chin, so you know that kind of saying that property rights only go so far when it, when it is your property.'" The project approval came in three votes, with commissioners unanimously approving the permits necessary for the wind portion expected to generate 300 megawatts of energy, the solar part of the plan expected to generate 150 megawatts of energy and a 150-megawatt battery energy storage system. Read the full story HERE. – Another calf was killed near Kinnear overnight Tuesday as a bitter feud over roaming Great Pyrenees dogs escalates. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that rancher Chris Eberline found one of her bottle-fed calves found partially eaten. "Eberleen said she went out to feed the bum calves that she needed to bottle feed. When she saw that there was a dead calf laying by its mother, the top half had been eaten. She said it was still fresh. Eberlyn says she has about seven cameras around the property, but they're very expensive. She's paid about $150 per camera, along with a monthly subscription fee, but so far, she's been unable to catch any of these attacks on camera, so it's been incredibly frustrating." By Wednesday afternoon, deputies with the Fremont County Sheriff's Office and an officer with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department were back on the property performing a necropsy on the animal. Read the full story HERE. – State politicos tell Cowboy State Daily that the Trump-driven ousting of Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie sends a message to Wyoming and the nation. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that one former legislator says "Don't step out of line, if you do, you'll get the boot." "Former Senator Anthony Bouchard, he was, during his time in the state senate, very much a conservative firebrand. And so he was kind of spicy on Wednesday talking about Massey, who Bouchard is a fan of, like this is a sign that Trump is holding the strings, was Bouchard's take on it, and he talked about it being kind of this control and capture. On the other side, I talked to Bob Ferguson, who's the vice chair of the Wyoming Republican Party, and he said, 'No, it's deeper than just crossing Trump or crossing Trump a couple times. This guy has been an obstacle to a lot of generally Republican-backed measures.'" Massie, a Libertarian-leaning Republican who urged the release of the Epstein files, lost his primary election challenge Tuesday night to Navy SEAL veteran Ed Gallrein. At more than $32 million in advertising spending, it was the most expensive U.S. Congressional race in the nation's history. And Trump heckled Massie throughout.   Read the full story HERE. – I'll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily news continues now… – Hawk Springs Reservoir in Goshen County is a popular fishing and boating spot for locals and other Wyomingites. But Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that it's already incredibly low, and might be dried up by the end of summer. "It gets its inflows from Horse Creek have already been low this spring, and it looks like the situation is going to get worse because there's 80 plus farms downstream from it that have water irrigation rights to that water, and they're going to need their water this summer, and so the people are already saying the reservoir is going to be really low this year. It might even be all but dried up, just be because of, you know, that combination of not much water coming in, b, all the irrigation rights have to come out." Roughly an hour and a half away from Guernsey State Park, the reservoir is part of the Hawk Springs Recreation Area. It's one of Wyoming's smaller state parks and includes 24 primitive campsites. Read the full story HERE. – A weekend fire that gutted Cheyenne's Historic Pumphouse may not be the end for the run-down 134-year-old building that was recently set for demolition. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that Mayor Patrick Collins says, "We've really tried hard not to be the council to tear it down."  "The fire chief says they're really, they're not going to say anything about it until they're, they're done with that, because they don't want any speculation as to how it started, where it started, and they still haven't had anybody set foot in it, because they're not sure it's safe. They've had drones in there, but just to really assess how damaged this stone building is, they haven't been able to do that. However, the mayor said that the city's architect has said that from what he's been able to see, what they've been able to see there, they have optimism that the stone is still sound. It really wasn't damaged too badly in the fire, and that you know the roof was going to be replaced anyway. It's not a death sentence for the pump."  One of the oldest buildings in Cheyenne, the pumphouse has been vacant for decades and a magnet for vandals and vagrants. Read the full story HERE. – Rumors of a data center development in Lincoln County has provoked fear as locals get more vocal against them. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that a county commissioner says people are jumping the gun, because there are now no data center projects on the table. "Some of this panic is being spurred by a huge data center project in Utah called the Stratos Project, that's a data center and power development backed by investor Kevin O'Leary in Box Elder County, Utah, so a lot of people in Lincoln County, which is a neighbor to Utah, are, you know, just nervous and wanting, you know, they don't want to see what's happening in Utah come to their county, and their county is kind of, you know, nearby." Many are wary because of an escalating debate and pushback over data centers in and around Cheyenne, along with a hugely controversial project in nearby Utah. Read the full story HERE. – A young, scrawny, and seemingly confused black bear has been hanging around a rural Weston County neighborhood outside of Upton. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that one resident says he had to shoo it away from garbage cans. "So far people told me that he's behaving himself, they're assuming it's a he, probably a younger bear, maybe one or two years old, maybe just separated from its mother, and it's kind of trying to find its way in the world, and kind of showed up in this rural neighborhood outside of Upton. Folks are hoping that it's starting to hunt turkeys and maybe prairie dogs there, maybe it's looking to get some, you know, natural food sources, which is what we want bears to do, because once they start getting into garbage and start getting getting into trouble with people, it usually ends badly for the bear in those cases." Resident Katina Spiker tells Cowboy State Daily that the neighborhood, about 6 miles outside of Upton is an area frequented by mountain lions and bobcats, and coyotes, but is the first bear in recent memory. Read the full story HERE.   And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, May 20th.  I'm Mac Watson. – Fremont County ranchers say roaming Great Pyrenees have killed livestock and terrorized neighbors for years in a rural feud that's now spiraled into criminal charges. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that court records show Kerri Johnson was charged with property destruction last week in the latest development of an escalating feud.  "Two ranch families in Kinnear, Wyoming, have been telling authorities for years that a neighbor's dogs have been coming onto their property and killing their calves. Over the last several years, Kerri Johnson has been charged with an animal at large. Last week, she was charged with property destruction over $1,000 that is a felony, which carries a potential sentence up to 10 years in prison. Rancher Chris Eberline says that her husband was confronted by Johnson when he was fixing fences. Eberlyne said things escalated at a court hearing in December when she told the judge, 'Somebody's gonna get hurt.'" Ranchers living near the Johnson property tell Cowboy State Daily that the legal fight barely scratches the surface of the last several years' struggle. Read the full story HERE. – It took about 36 hours, but most of Rawlins had power restored Tuesday as a fast and furious spring snowstorm wreaked havoc in southcentral Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the Carbon County Sheriff's Office spent the day rescuing residents and helping snow-stranded drivers. "Rawlins just had a rough time of it on Monday. They had a power outage that lasted nearly 36 hours. They were still trying to get power back to some places in Rawlins on Tuesday afternoon. So the Carbon County Sheriff's Office and the Medical Center down there, they had the deal not only with the calls of residents, but dozens of people who were stranded on I 80 because I 80 was closed for most of the day, and they were having problems with their cell phones throughout this whole period, too." Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken tells Cowboy State Daily that he knew he was in for a tough day when he set out to start coordinating the response to the power outage, his truck got stuck in the snow. Read the full story HERE. – A man found dead in a car in the parking lot of the Cody airport after being missing for two weeks died of blunt force injuries and exposure to the elements. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that the family still wants answers as to how their relative ended up in that car. "Sean Ezekiel Hughes was found in a car that was not his at the Cody Airport. He disappeared on April 5, and he had been missing for 11 days when he was ultimately discovered in that vehicle by police. Autopsy reports show he died of a shoulder blunt force shoulder injury, likely from a fall, and also that combined with the elements, and the coroner said that the fall would have caused internal bleeding that combined with cold temperatures ultimately what killed him." Park County Coroner Cody Gortmaker tells Cowboy State Daily that the timeline of the man's death is unclear as to when exactly he got into the vehicle and ultimately died. Read the full story HERE. – Cheyenne's Public Service Committee didn't endorse or reject a 12-month moratorium on new data centers after hours of emotional testimony Monday. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that state legislators say the clash exposes issues the Wyoming Legislature may need to address. "It really exposed a lot of issues that are at the state level, so you know, more guard rails around water use, more transparency. Should these things be going through the industrial siting commission right now? They have a different process that's kind of governing how they function, different people who are kind of going over whether they fit in a community, maybe the industrial siting commission needs to be part of that layer, that's, you know, some of the questions that lawmakers were asking after listening to all the testimony in Cheyenne." The committee's Monday decision highlights deep divisions over the rapid growth of data centers in Cheyenne, as nearby residents worry about water use, noise, rising electricity demand and the pace of development. Read the full story HERE. – I'll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily news continues now… – Wyoming groups that host hunts for disabled veterans fear a proposal to change Game and Fish regulations on what counts as a disability could freeze out some vets. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that the change could disqualify vets with PTSD or disabilities that aren't apparent.  "Nothing has been decided yet, but there's a proposal to, well, the big one is to change what would qualify someone as disabled to get special disabled hunting access. Currently on the books, if you have a qualifying letter, if you have a letter from the VA stating that you are 100% disabled, you are allowed to do that, but what they're talking about getting rid of that and having it just be straight up, you have to have a blindness or some sort of full physical disability.   These veteran groups that host these hunts for disabled veterans are a little bit concerned about that, because they're saying if you cut that out, a lot of the people we host might not qualify for special disabled hunts." The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission is considering several changes to hunting regulations, including removing a provision for counting a "100% service-related disability," based on a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs.  Read the full story HERE. – The federal government looks likely to reject Wyoming's plan to invest roughly $1 billion in projected Trump-backed grants for rural medical services. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Wyoming has to spend the money quickly instead. "Wyoming wanted to invest the money and live off the interest to support these structures over like a three decade or more timeline, and the Fed said, 'No, you got to spend it within a year.' Governor Gordon did go ahead and announce that the feds approved the grant for the first year in that tighter deployment timeline that doesn't involve a long-term investment." Wyoming had planned to invest the majority of a roughly $1 billion projected federal grant for rural hospitals, ambulances, baby delivery and other health care so the state could benefit from gains beyond the five-year grant cycle. Read the full story HERE. – Yoder breakaway roper Hadley Thompson could make history this weekend as the first to earn $2 million with one throw of a rope. Cowboy State Daily's Julie Mankin reports that the 18-year-old could get a huge payout for beating the best in the world. "Hadley Thompson is only 18 years old, still in high school, and she's got experience winning first over the best in the world at breakaway roping. She's a phenom. This is not your typical rodeo. This thing is in Globe Life Field, Arlington, Texas, home of the Texas Rangers. She's the only breakaway roper from Wyoming in contention. There are also a couple of team rompers and a saddle bronc rider from Wyoming that have a chance for the big money." What could an 18-year-old do with $2 million? Thompson tells Cowboy State Daily that it's been hard for her not to think about that. Read the full story HERE. – After a mama duck panicked when her ducklings fell into a Sheridan storm drain this past weekend, a big bearded hero climbed in to get them. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that one woman who watched the rescue says it restored a little of her faith in humanity.  "A Sheridan mother named Franny Blackwell was on her way home from Home Depot on Saturday when she saw a large gathering by a drainage off to the side of the road. She flipped a U-turn, and when she pulled over, she saw a large bearded man going into the sewer to rescue baby ducks. There were about six ducks in total that he pulled out. At first, Mama Duck seemed very suspicious, but by the end it was as if she knew that her babies had been rescued by this mystery man. We never learned the identity of the hero in this story, although several people said that their faith in humanity has been restored again." Blackwell tells Cowboy State Daily that she never learned the names of the people who stopped to rescue the ducklings. Read the full story HERE.   And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, May 19th.  I'm Mac Watson. – A snowstorm shut down more than 200 miles of I-80 on Monday leaving motorists stranded for hours — some overnight — while killing power in Rawlins. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that in some places, residents are under 2 feet of snow. "This storm seems to have caught everyone off guard. So everything that happened on I-80 on Monday. It started because there were power outages in Rawlins, and as a result, from what we're hearing, WYDOT wasn't able to fuel its plow truck, so they had to get their plow trucks to a spot where they could refuel, and then get them out. And these outages were occurring between 2 and 4am on Monday. We've heard reports of multiple accidents, including one where a snow plow was struck, possibly by a semi truck." More than 200 miles of Interstate 80 were closed for most of the day because of winter conditions. As much as 10 inches of snow was reported in some places along the highway, and the Wyoming Department of Transportation was clearing 4-foot drifts by noon. Read the full story HERE. – The U.S. Senate voted 46-43 Monday to confirm Darin Smith as U.S. Attorney for Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the confirmation comes four days after the state's three federal judges ruled he committed "flagrant" misconduct.  "There were like 49 Trump-backed nominees for various federal offices. They were voting one in a block, and the Senate voted 4643 to confirm all of them. Among them was Darin Smith, who, since confirmation, is now US attorney for Wyoming for at least four years, and so there was a big controversy Friday when the three sitting judges, you know, not senior level, not magistrate, but the three sitting judges, the main judges of the federal court signed an order together in numerous, well, nine cases saying that Smith had committed flagrant misconduct that prejudiced the defendants." Smith said that he's deeply honored and grateful that the Senate has confirmed him and expressed gratitude to the President, and to Senators John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, who both voted in his favor. Read the full story HERE. – Two more possible data center projects are on the horizon even as Laramie County planners have recommended approval of a massive 5,600-person man camp to house workers. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that one local resident says, "I did not feel like our voices were considered or heard." "Multiple county residents spoke out at that meeting in opposition to this man camp. Either it butts up against their neighborhood, it's too close to the schools, it should be farther out of town if we have to have it at all, and despite all the public opposition, the county commission, the planners opted to recommend it to the county commissioners for approval, so these residents who are speaking out are feeling like the decision's already been made, nobody hears what we have to say, and if they do, it doesn't matter, because they're moving forward regardless." The next public hearing about the proposed man camp will be on June 2nd at the historic courthouse in Cheyenne.  Read the full story HERE. – Many Wyoming county clerks report a rush of last-minute crossover registrations to vote in the Republican primary. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the state Democratic Party is discouraging crossover voting, while some elected Democrats are encouraging it. "A lot of county clerks, they would see dozens of crossovers from January 1st to the May 13th deadline to change party, and half or sometimes more than half of those crossovers would be in the last five days of that window, and so you, you know, people are cognizant of the deadline, and they are crossing over, and in some counties, Teton, Albany, Laramie, and Toronto, they're doing so in droves." The primary election for Democratic and Republican nominations is Aug. 18. The GOP primary election is generally considered the most decisive election in Wyoming, since it's a supermajority state. Read the full story HERE. – I'll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily news continues now… – Over the past decade, Togwotee Pass between Dubois and Moran Junction in Wyoming has become a circus of wildlife paparazzi around grizzlies. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that one photographer says there's arguing and even threats.  "I talked to some photographers that say the crowd can instantly can easily blow up to over 100 people in no time at all, and so you've got all kinds of problems, you got a busy highway, cars improperly parked, people wandering around on the pavement, maybe bears crossing the road, and then, of course, people getting extremely close to bears. The rule is stay 100 yards away from bears. It applies there just the same as it applies in the national parks, but I mean, if you see some of these photos or this video that the one person sent to me, these people are a lot closer than 100 yards from the bears." Officials say the growing mob over the bears is a disaster waiting to happen. It could be only a matter of time before somebody gets mauled by a grizzly or a semitrailer plows into people too distracted by bears to pay attention to traffic roaring by on U.S. Highway 26/287. Read the full story HERE. – A young person died of blunt force trauma Saturday after falling from a moving pumpjack in the Elk Basin oil field in Park County, according to the Sheriff's office. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that a retired oil worker says in his experience, "It's easy to forget how dangerous pumpjacks can be." "Retired oil field worker Eugene Brown said that in his experience working in that area, in that oil patch, for over 20 years, it was not uncommon for those pump jacks to be out in the open. They were not fenced off. He said he saw youngsters playing on them, and that it is extremely dangerous." The Park County coroner's office confirmed that an autopsy was completed on Monday, but because the deceased is a juvenile, they will not be releasing anything about the name, age, gender, or identity. Read the full story HERE. – Facing the pointed questions of Riverton's old-guard coffee group, known as "The Gentry," has become a proving ground for serious Wyoming political candidates. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that governor hopeful Eric Barlow told those gathered that people in government should "do your damn job."  "The temperature of the room was mixed. You definitely had some Barlow fans there, and you had some harsh critics. You had Wayne Dick, gave him a grilling, Fremont County GOP chair, Ginger Bennett did as well, and so he fielded that, and he told me afterwards he thought it went well." The core group of The Gentry are men-of-a-certain-age who all drink black coffee, all run politically conservative and all live in the Riverton area. Read the full story HERE. – On his first day out black bear hunting in the Snowy Range Mountains, a Cheyenne hunter got his pickup hopelessly stuck. But, Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that on the second day, River Mossberg bagged a super-sized black bear.  "A guy was actually using spot and stock, that means you go out, put boots on the ground, and you look for a bear through binoculars or spotting scope, and then when you see it, then you've got to figure out how to get close enough to shoot. He said that the day before he was trying to show his dad a new hunting spot, and so, I got my truck just buried in the muck up there. So his entire first day of the hunt was wasted trying to get the truck out of the mud, but then on the second day everything came together and he got this nice huge bear."  Mossberg tells Cowboy State Daily that when he spotted the black bear he said, "Holy cow! This sucker is size 5XL!" Read the full story HERE.   And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, May 18th.  I'm Mac Watson. – Fremont County Fire Chief Ron Wempen tells Cowboy State Daily the Wind River Canyon fire was started by a "mechanical issue" on a BNSF train. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that the fire leaped from the train, into the canyon, and quickly spread. "It was confirmed that the fire was caused by some kind of mechanical malfunction on a locomotive that was going through the Wind River Canyon. We don't know the exact nature of that malfunction, but it seems like it was something with the motor. It grew to around 140 acres, but from what I understand, it's either nearly out or completely out as of Sunday, so not a serious fire, but one that a lot of people notice, as it was sending flames up the western slopes of the Wind River Canyon all day Saturday." Several agencies sprang into action to battle the fire in the Wind River Canyon, including a Sikorsky CH-54B Tarhe, famously known as the "Sky Crane" helicopter, that flew in from Central Wyoming Regional Airport to make water drops. Read the full story HERE. – Speaking of fire, a fire ripped through the 134-year-old Cheyenne Pumphouse on Saturday, raising questions about whether the historic building can still be saved. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that one local preservationist says watching the structure burn "was like witnessing a death, for sure." "A lot of the historic old, old hardwoods that was used for the roof and for some of the inside parts was pretty much were burned, but the guts of the place, the bones of it is all stone. It's stone, it's mason work, it's brick, and so the hope is that that stuff wasn't damaged too badly, because the roof burned a lot of it caved in. However, the preservation plans were calling for replacing the roof anyway.  And so when I talked to them, they said, 'Yeah, it was just devastating.'"  The city's historic 1892 brick and stone pumphouse building was spared a date with the wrecking ball by the Cheyenne City Council back in December. Fire officials say their active investigation is ongoing. Read the full story HERE. – A hiker from Colorado hit the wildlife watcher's jackpot last weekend coming within just yards of one of about 15 wolverines estimated to live in Wyoming. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that wolverines are so rarely seen that his photos and video are considered to be once-in-a-lifetime. "They're very rarely seen, and when people do get photos of them, as we've reported before, it's usually very blurry photos from a distance. But a literal rocket scientist got some great pictures and crystal-clear pictures and video of it. The wolverine, you can see in the pictures, he's wearing a radio tracking collar. Still, trying to determine whether it was a Wyoming Game and Fish department collar, but again, this guy, he said he had just enough time to get his camera out of his bag and shot some good photos and some good video of the animal, and then it turned and took off, and that was that. But it's just, it's kind of one of those one-in-a-million stories." The hiker, Zach Shifrel, captured footage of the wolverine near Squaretop Mountain in Sublette County nearing the end of his hike. Read the full story HERE. – The author of Wyoming's Food Freedom Act says recent decisions by the state Dept. of Agriculture to shut down sales of locally produced food are government overreach.  Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that Tyler Lindholm, the state director for Americans for Prosperity and the author of the Food Freedom Act, spoke at a rally in Cheyenne on Saturday, saying the government has found their way around our laws and intent." "The first was in March when the Wyoming Department of Agriculture banned Wy Fresh Farm in Cheyenne from selling certain meats. The second one happened in April up in Cody with Hippie Cow Creamery, when the Department of Ag said they could no longer sell their lattes because they were using raw milk in the lattes. When he's learning that there's this growing pressure and there's these things happening now, across the state, that's causing him to say we need to rewrite this law, we need to make it absolutely unambiguous." The law signed in 2015 allows producers to sell almost any type of homemade or farm-raised food directly to consumers without state licensure, permitting, certification or inspection requirements. Read the full story HERE. – I'll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily news continues now… – A Cheyenne attorney and his father, a former Wyoming attorney general, saw what they described as a huge, super-bright UFO while driving on Highway 59 in 1991. Now, 35 years later, Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that Richard Barrett says he's still trying to figure out what they saw. "It appears right over their vehicle as they're headed south on Highway 59. He said he rolled down his window and put his head out and looked up at it, and to his estimation, he thought it was like 10 stories tall, two discs went upon another, and at the top there was these windows, he said, at the apex there was these windows, and these two discs were like together. It wasn't like they were two separate discs, and there was no noise at all. He said this huge thing that's hovering, that's above them, it's rotating with rotating lights, but the light is so bright that it makes the nighttime day no noise at all." Barrett tells Cowboy State Daily that he and his dad waited until the next day to see if it was in the newspaper, radio or television. When they didn't see anything, both men decided not to tell anyone for fear people would say "they were off their rockers." Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming's federal judges on Friday dismissed nine felony-level criminal cases, including one first-degree murder case against interim U.S. Attorney nominee Darin Smith. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Smith was accused of making "inflammatory and inappropriate" comments to a grand jury. "Shortly after, the judges issued their order, saying this was misconduct, the defense attorneys fired back and said 'We didn't get a chance to respond to the government's argument A and B. We think that these cases should be dismissed with prejudice permanently, because that's the tendency in misconduct cases like these.' So that's a motion for consideration that was pending before the court as of Friday." The judges are pausing their dismissal order until Wednesday at 5 p.m. to give the federal government the chance to appeal if it wishes. If the government doesn't want to appeal, the order will go into effect immediately, so says the order. Read the full story HERE. – Thor Stephenson Jr. thought he was going to die after a shotgun blast destroyed his leg during a pheasant hunt in 2013. Not so. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that he still gets outdoors on a custom brown and gold Bucking Horse prosthetic he says symbolizes being cowboy tough.  "People stop him all the time at his full-time job. He works at the Home Depot in Rock Springs, and he says that the prosthesis has become a part of his personality, it's not just a tool, it's a way that he can connect with people and talk about his love of the Cowboys. Stephenson says he's grateful to the Casper doctor, Camille Lamont, who was able to fit him with this new prosthesis, and the last handful of years he's really been able to learn to trust it more. He's been elk hunting, he's been fishing, he carries logs over his shoulder, and he works full time, something that he knows is only possible because of this prosthesis." Stephenson walks into work wearing a custom $68,000 University of Wyoming prosthetic leg wrapped in brown-and-gold swagger and the famous bucking horse logo. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming's world-famous Fossil Cabin was built from more than 6,000 dinosaur bones, weighs 52 tons and was a target for vandals along U.S. Highway 30. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that it made a nail-biting, 7-mile crawl this week to a new permanent home at the Medicine Bow Museum. "It weighs 100 and I think 15,000 pounds. It's like 52 tons. So they did several things to move this. They placed like a foundation, a movable foundation underneath it. They had to dig out around it and build that underneath it. They shored up the walls, both inside and out, you know, kind of framing it up so that the the walls are held tight, and then they shrink wrap the whole thing, just plastic all around it, you know, and then to get this on a trailer and move it slowly." Wyoming's Fossil Cabin was once featured by Ripley's Believe It Or Not as the "World's Oldest Cabin" because of its building materials, some 6,000 dinosaur bones mortared together by Thomas Boylan in 1932 to create a unique roadside attraction for his gas station along U.S. Highway 30 near Como Bluff.  Read the full story HERE.   And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

Russia's state-run nuclear company owned Wyoming uranium assets until 2021. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that how that happened remains murky, but one piece of paper is to blame.  "During the Cold War, we signed that treaty with Russia, and what they were going to do is to unwind their nuclear warheads, take that uranium out of it. Russia put our uranium industry out of business over that treaty. Our uranium assets, which had once produced like 12 million pounds of ore, suddenly dropped to, you know, nothing where we were for a while there. So when things started to kick back up again for nuclear power with these AI centers." Until recently, the fact that Russia owned uranium rights raised few eyebrows in the nation. But that's changed since the United States has been racing to rebuild its nuclear fuel supply chain. Read the full story HERE. – It's been a year since the last sighting of Raspberry, the "Grizzly 399 of Yellowstone." Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that she's usually highly visible from the road on the park's east side, but so far, not this year.  "Raspberry was last seen on May 23 last year. She hasn't been seen since. And a lot of people are going, you know, if she hasn't shown it, because she was like a clockwork, reliable bear, and she wasn't seen all last summer, and she hasn't been seen yet this spring. She's probably gone. There was a bear carcass found in that area, but there's some debate over whether it was hers." The debate over Raspberry's mortality continues because tissue samples taken from the carcass could take up to two years to confirm a possible match.  

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, May 14th.  I'm Mac Watson. – Wyoming's largest livestock marketing company sold 9,000 head of cattle in a special drought sale on Wednesday when it typically sells 400-700 head a week. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the owner of Torrington Livestock Markets says ranchers are "droughted out." "Lander Nicodemus is a co-owner of the Torrington Livestock Markets, and he said that this is really a historic year for drought. The ranchers are selling off parts of their herds because they can't feed their cattle. There's no grass. The grass isn't growing, and with the conditions as dry as they are, they're really in a tight spot, and don't have any choice but to sell so that the cattle can either go to a feed lot early or go to somewhere else where there is pasture." May is normally a slow season at Torrington Livestock Markets, Wyoming's largest livestock marketing company. But on Wednesday, a special drought sale pushed 6,500 head through the barn while showing another 2,500 head through its Cattle Country video auction platform. Read the full story HERE. – Secretary of State Chuck Gray is asking Fremont County commissioners to take "immediate" steps to eliminate a race-based county voting district. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Gray also sent a similar letter to Gov. Mark Gordon about Wyoming's lone race-based state House district. "The planners of these districts were really emphasizing we got to concentrate a lot of Native Americans here because of the case law that reigned at that time. The Supreme Court did a little bit of a twist here last month, making it harder to justify race- based districts. And, you know, and so Secretary of State Chuck Gray went super bold in a letter and said these race-based districts are not allowed. They're unconstitutional." Racial factors went into drawing the state Legislature's House District 33 in 2021. At that time, the relevant case law indicated a need to create a mostly Native American House district in the area of the Wind River Indian Reservation. Read the full story HERE. – A huge wind and solar project near Chugwater to generate 450 megawatts of wind and solar power was unanimously approved Wednesday by Platte County planners. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports many residents showed up to express their opinions about the project. "The chug water energy project in Platte County got a thumbs up on Wednesday, when the Platte County Planning and Zoning Commission voted to move the project forward. This is a major wind and solar project. It will cover up over 49,000 acres, and it will generate a combined 450 megawatts of electricity. Many landowners are in support of it. People also oppose it. Residents don't like their viewshed being messed with. They worry about contamination with, you know, solar panels and groundwater. But overall, the project did pass, and that's going to be a huge step for this energy company. NextEra in Wyoming." Paul Norfleet, a sheep rancher who recently moved to Chugwater, who is in favor of the project, says NextEra's Chugwater Energy Project would allow his ranch to make some money. He added that revenue would go toward regenerating the land.  Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming's congressional delegation is firmly behind the Trump administration's move to rescind the 2001 federal Roadless Rule. But Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that one bear expert says doing away with the rule could have negative effects on grizzly bears. "They did gather and had a brief press conference. Among them was Chris Servheen. He's from this area. He's from Missoula, Montana, but for more than for 35 years, he was like the Fish and Wildlife Service's head grizzly guy for this entire area. In addition to fragmenting habitat, he also argues that you start punching more roads into remote areas that just will probably up the number of Grizzlies getting killed, either people just illegally shooting them from roads, or perhaps even getting struck by vehicles. That could very well undermine the entire case for even delisting the bear." The Roadless Rule protects roughly 59 million acres nationally, including about 4 million acres in Wyoming. Read the full story HERE. – I'll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.   Cowboy State Daily news continues now… – The Jackson woman who gained notoriety for passing out campaign donation checks on the state House floor is running for governor. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Rebecca Bextel is running for the Wyoming Constitution Party's nomination to become governor, the party chair confirmed. "It's an interesting strategy. There's always theories, accusations, finger pointing, like Democrats are infiltrating the primary election. Democratic candidates are winning when Republicans split the vote. Bextel's tagline is that she has an insurance policy against Eric Barlow she considers the most moderate candidate. She believes the other conservative Republicans will split the vote, and if they do, she would like to be on the general election ballot to take on Barlow as the Constitution nominee." If Bextel wins the nomination, she'll face the winners of the Republican and Democratic primary elections, as well as the Libertarian Party nominee in the Nov. 2 general election. Read the full story HERE. – An argument over riding a bike too fast in a Cheyenne park escalated to a 70-year-old man allegedly punching a 12-year-old boy in the face on Monday. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that Glenn Patterson told police the boy called him a gay slur, then they both ended up with black eyes. "Patterson was accompanying his granddaughter at a park in Cheyenne when a 12-year-old boy zipped by on his bicycle. Patterson said he was going way too fast, and he confronted the boy. The boy responded with a homophobic slur. Witnesses, including his own granddaughter, say that Patterson grabbed the biker by his helmet, lifting him off the bike, and then the boy struck Patterson in his eye, resulting in a black eye that police documented, and then Patterson responded by punching the boy in the face. So, the 12-year old also sustained a black eye." Patterson was formally charged with felony child abuse, according to the Laramie County Detention Center. Under Wyoming law, the charge carries a potential penalty of up to 10 years in prison.  Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming state Rep. Bill Allemand, who was charged late last year with drunk driving, doesn't have to undergo court-ordered random alcohol testing while he's in Washington, D.C. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that a Buffalo-based magistrate made the decision. "He's out on bond, but he's supposed to do random alcohol testing. He got permission to forego that alcohol testing for about five days in early June so that he could go to Washington, DC. He told me that the White House invited him and other lawmakers that they're going to talk with Cabinet members about policy things and what Wyoming needs." Allemand has agreed to submit to breath testing before leaving and immediately upon return, the motion says. Read the full story HERE. – Bob Beck, the longtime voice and leader of Wyoming Public Radio, is returning on Saturday for the University of Wyoming to give him its highest accolade — an honorary doctoral degree. Cowboy State Daily's Executive Editor Jimmy Orr reports that Beck says he was surprised by the honor. "There's a few people who have lasted decades in the media, Joan Barron for 50 plus years, and she's a columnist for us. Kerry Drake has been around for 40 plus years. And then there's Bob Beck, who was the voice of Wyoming public radio for 34 years. Everybody knows Bob. Everybody likes Bob. Really smart guy, gregarious person, a gentleman, and he just lent himself to an award like this because he was so well respected."  Beck, who led Wyoming Public Radio's media news team at the University of Wyoming for 34 years, retired in 2022 to move to Syracuse, New York.  Read the full story HERE.     And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.