It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Monday, November 25th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show with Jake. From 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., Monday through Friday, Cowboy State Daily’s Jake Nichols takes you deeper into the stories that matter - and keeps up with the news, weather and sports in your part of Wyoming. Just tune into Cowboy State Daily Dot Com and join the conversation.
On Nov. 24, 1971, a passenger who checked in as "Dan Cooper" parachuted out of a Northwest flight somewhere between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle with $200,000 in ransom he'd received in exchange for sparing the lives of the passengers and crew.
Now Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that new evidence has been unveiled in the only unsolved hijacking in the nation’s history - which may crack the 53-year-old case - one that points to a man named Richard McCoy, who pulled off a near copycat hijacking over Utah five months after D.B. Cooper jumped out of the plane.
“Dan Griner, who is a YouTuber and pilot, found this parachute, which is a modified military parachute…he found it in the outbuilding on the McCoy property in North Carolina… this parachute, in Dan's words, is one in a billion, and he feels it is the missing link that will finally connect Richard McCoy, who has long been a suspect by the FBI… Richard McCoy's daughter actually lives in southwestern Wyoming, and she, for a while now, has believed that Richard McCoy, her father is actually DB Cooper.”
Unearthing and revealing the new evidence has become a mission for the McCoy children, to root out the deep family secrets that have shrouded them their entire lives.
Read the full story HERE.
Newcomers moving into politically red states such as Wyoming, Montana and Idaho are more likely to be Republicans, according to voter and state migration data. Many of them are moving out of blue states like Washington, Colorado and California, motivated by a desire to live in a place where a majority of voters are Republicans.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison spoke to a GOP official in Billings, who said The migration may have helped Republicans retake the U.S. Senate this election.
“There's a data firm called L2 which is used by political consultants to pinpoint target voters, and it has a really fun feature in that you can track where newcomers to Wyoming and Montana came from based on prior voting registration records… L2 allowed … Cowboy State daily to do its own research using these databases. And it was both interesting and a little creepy that they have it down to your address and your cell phone number. You want to know why you got so many calls during the political season, it's because of these databases that have us all on a list.”
In Wyoming, many of the new Republican votes migrated in from Colorado - others primarily came from California, Washington, Texas, Oregon, Utah and Montana.
Read the full story HERE.
The leadership positions for the 68th Wyoming Legislature have been decided.
State Sen. Bo Biteman of Ranchester, and Rep. Chip Neiman of Hulett, were named the top leaders in the Legislature as a result of Republican caucus elections held Saturday.
Politics reporter Leo Wolfson pointed out that although the farther right wing of the Republican Party have been named to the most critical leadership positions in the House, in the Senate, there was recognition of the more moderate wing.
“All three main leaders of the House leadership are members of the Freedom Caucus… It's the first Freedom Caucus takeover of a state house in the country... in the Senate, Bo Biteman is definitely more of the Freedom Caucus wing of the Republican Party. But then you have Tara Nethercott, who's definitely more of the moderate wing.”
Sen. Tara Nethercott of Cheyenne was elected majority floor leader in the Senate and Sen. Tim Salazar of Riverton was elected as Senate vice president. In the House, Rep. Scott Heiner of Green River was elected majority floor leader and Rep. Jeremy Haroldson of Wheatland earned enough votes for speaker pro tempore.
Read the full story HERE.
More than seven years ago, Australian Lucy Barnard was in Argentina recovering from a knee injury, and reading about George Meegan, the first man to walk the length of the earth.
She thought she could do it, too - so she did, beginning in 2017. She told Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy that the journey will ultimately cover more than 18,640 miles from the bottom of South America to the top of North America, and if she finishes, Barnard will be the first woman to complete this trek.
“She is walking from the tip of Argentina, and her goal is to the top of Alaska. And she hasn't walked this continuous, but her Trek has been continuous. So every time she stops and goes back home to Australia, she marks where she stops… she starts her path right where she left off, and she has a beacon that keeps track of where she is at all time. Now this beacon is not just for us to be able to track her, which you can in live time. It's also a safety feature, because she is just walking by herself and her dog most of the time.”
Barnard will leave the trail next month to return home to Brisbane, Australia, to renew her visa. When she resumes the trek, Barnard will turn on her beacon and then continue north.
Read the full story HERE.
TerraPower isn’t putting all of its eggs in one basket when it comes to securing itself a supply of uranium for the pilot Natrium nuclear power plant it’s building in Kemmerer.
One of the really high-stakes bets the company founded by Bill Gates is placing, is on a novel uranium enrichment process that uses lasers to separate uranium isotopes. That’s according to Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean.
“The typical way that you separate uranium for you know, decades now, has been by using a centrifuge… but there are other ways to separate and lasers have been used in the past, just not to commercial scale… you're basically tuning in on the isotope that you want with the wavelength of your laser beam… TerraPower hasn't put all its eggs in one basket. They've got contracts and memorandums of understanding with other companies too… ASP isotopes believes that their laser enriched process is going to be cheaper.”
A representative from ASP Isotopes told Jean they’re taking an old technology in new directions to achieve better, commercial-scale results for enriched uranium production.
Read the full story HERE.
If the Wyoming Supreme Court upholds a recent district court judge’s ruling striking down the state’s two abortion bans as unconstitutional, lawmakers and voters may try to change the state Constitution.
But 30 years ago, a group of pro-life activists also rallied a petition to put a proposed abortion ban on the state’s general election ballot, which failed dramatically.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the effort in 1994 involved a unique coalition of Christians, Democrats and lawyers. The effort failed, but not without shaking up the state’s political sphere.
“I think the lesson is that even though we have no idea how Wyoming would vote if this were put on the ballot again, where everyone stood in this struggle, where they planted themselves, defined, to some extent, the later parts of their careers.”
Going forward, it’s not clear what next year’s supermajority-Republican Wyoming Legislature will do. Lawmakers can wait to see how the appeal ends, or they can try to pass narrower abortion restrictions; the other option would be to advance a ballot measure to appear before the voters in the 2026 general election.
Read the full story HERE.
More than 500 workers in southern Montana recently lost their jobs in the largest mine layoff in that state’s history.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison spoke to one worker who thought his job with Sibanye-Stillwater Mining company was one that would last his entire career. But the Stillwater mine 42 miles outside Columbus, Montana, is closing due to the plummeting prices of palladium, which is used primarily in the automobile industry for components like catalytic converters.
“Terry and Shana Heney were settling into their dream home in southwest Billings ready to raise a family in Montana. Little did they know that forces beyond their control were really going to change their plans. From what our reporting showed, Stillwater mining believes that Russia has dumped so much palladium onto the market that that's driven down the price.”
For many of the laid off workers, continuing their careers in mining or using their skills means leaving the state for jobs elsewhere.
Read the full story HERE.
It’s said that soldiers in combat rely most upon those fighting alongside them, and during World War II, some Polish troops had the privilege of that someone being a 600-pound bear.
Wojtek was a Syrian brown bear, a cousin of Wyoming’s grizzlies. Outdoors reporter Mark Heinz says Wojtek was adopted as an orphaned cub by a Polish Army unit early in the war and helped move ammunition during pivotal battles, after which he was promoted from private to corporal.
“They find this tiny orphan cub. They started feeding him condensed milk from vodka bottles to keep him alive and let him grow. And as he grew, he started to like beer and wine. He also likes cigarettes, although he would take a puff or two and then just swallow the cigarette… they officially enlisted him as a soldier, and gave him a rank and a serial number and a salary… He helped move ammunition up to the artillery positions under direct fire during the Battle of Monte Casino, and because of that, he was promoted to corporal.”
While Wojtek’s story might seem too wild to be true, it really shouldn’t come as any surprise that a bear would be smart enough to deliver ammunition and perform other soldiering tasks. Bears in general, and brown bears and grizzlies in particular, are incredibly intelligent.
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! And don’t forget to drop in on the Cowboy State Daily morning show with Jake Nichols, Monday through Friday from 6 to 10 a.m.! Thanks for tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
