It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Wednesday, December 18th. 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.
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While the Teton County Sheriff’s Office’s failure to communicate with federal immigration officials allowed more than 100 illegal immigrants to slip away between early 2023 and late 2024, other major Wyoming counties avoided similar results by keeping in coordination with federal officials.
That’s according to Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) data released Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reviewed the report.
“This is a saga continuing from late November when Harriet Hageman was like, Teton county sheriff is scuttling ICE's efforts to detain illegal immigrants while they're still at the jail. And so ICE on Tuesday released numbers showing how successfully, or how faithfully, other major Wyoming counties detain illegal immigrants for the agency at its request, and those numbers showed that none of the top populated six counties in Wyoming are having the same kinds of issues. they have basically scuttled zero hold requests due to non notification or being non communicative.”
In a Tuesday interview with Cowboy State Daily, Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr reiterated his earlier position: He’s happy to hold inmates for up to 48 hours after they’re supposed to be released, but only if ICE can get its detainer request signed by a judge, magistrate or clerk of court.
Read the full story HERE.
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A prolonged downturn in Wyoming’s fossil fuel revenue over the past decade has state Rep. John Bear of Gillette bringing a plan to the table he believes will be a novel approach to bolster the state’s coal industry and give communities more control of their power supply.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that Bear wants the state to develop a regulatory framework to allow for the creation of small coal-fired power plants dotting the state.
“This would be done, really, for the idea of trying to help Wyoming become self sufficient for its energy, to keep lower costs down, and as a way to keep its coal industry alive, as way of trying to keep this industry going with the demand of these small scale plants. It's a very innovative and rather unique idea… But there's certainly some major roadblocks that would occur with this. For one is getting people to invest in this would be certainly a challenge, especially because of the uncertain regulatory landscape that that would bring.”
Coal production is on pace to record another modern low in Wyoming, at risk of falling below 200 million tons produced for the year for the first since 1992.
Read the full story HERE.
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BNSF Railway has made public statements about a tentative collective bargaining agreement reached after arbitration with union officials, which tout a 3.5% wage increase per year for the next five years, as well as additional vacation and “meaningful” enhancements to health care benefits.
What they do not mention, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean, is that these gains will come at the expense of yard helpers and brakemen at BNSF, the latter of which appear to be poised to be phased out altogether.
“the railroad industry as a whole has been trying and pushing automation and reduction in crews for a long time now. They've been trying to get rid of conductors since 1998 they want to get down to a one person crew for some of these trains, which are, you know, they can be very long, like 9200 feet even, there's a safety factor there. When you start reducing the number of personnel and an emergency happens and there's only one person on board the train, what happens if something happens to that person? There's no one to do anything about the emergency, right? So the unions feel that, you know, the the cuts are, are getting to that point where it's a safety issue”
Emails obtained by Cowboy State Daily show that BNSF plans to eliminate about 20 brakemen, as well as 60 yard helper positions companywide on Dec. 27, two days after Christmas. It wasn't clear how many Wyoming jobs could be impacted.
Read the full story HERE.
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A U.S. House committee has called for a federal criminal investigation into former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, accusing her of “criminal witness tampering” when she was vice chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that an interim report issued by the Republican-led committee found that Cheney and former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson communicated via the encrypted Signal app before Hutchinson’s explosive 2022 testimony to the House Select Committee.
“It is not actual criminal charges. It's just kind of making the recommendation just the same way that her committee did to bring charges against President Elect Donald Trump. So it's not so significant in what it does right now, but it does kind of lay some groundwork or give some ammunition for … Trump's new Justice Department, to open up a case against Liz Cheney.”
The report could also spur President Joe Biden to preemptively pardon Cheney, a consideration he was reportedly giving earlier this month.
Read the full story HERE.
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It took drones and a school lockdown, plus agents from the Wyoming Highway Patrol, at least three counties and the federal government to stop the 100 mph escape of a Colorado man wanted for multiple felonies.
But ultimately the spike strips and highway tactical maneuvers did the job, and 42-year-old John Fowler was apprehended on December 10th, according to Crime and Courts reporter Clair McFarland.
“The guy fled from the police first point of contact at a LaBarge residence, and then there was a manhunt for him overnight that several agencies were coordinating on… and at Farson, which is a charming intersection town, a very low population, they decide… We're going to spike strip him. So they do that, but then he managed to glug on another three miles. And so they do what they call a tactical vehicle intervention… it's like when you're playing pool and you want to nick the ball from the side and send it spinning off at an angle. You don't want to ram the ball, you know, you don't T bone it. So they kind of Nick the guy from the side, have him spin, and then they park in front and behind so he can't take off again.”
Fowler’s name wasn’t in the public federal court docket as of Tuesday afternoon, but his entry in the Sweetwater County Detention Center roster says he’s wanted for drug delivery.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming is usually associated with country music, home of well-known names of the genre such as Chris LeDoux, Ian Munsick and Luke Bell. But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was all about garage band blues and rock and roll.
According to legend, at some point during an extended West Coast tour of a Casper-based garage band called The Tremors, a young Kurt Cobain attended a Tremors show.
It’s said that Cobain was so inspired by the Tremors’ performance, he went on to form Nirvana and launch the grunge rock movement. At least, that’s what Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz heard.
“I actually found one of the members of the band who he sees. He returned, you know, after they were done with her crazy years in the northwest, he returned back to Casper… The guy does not, you know, he said, I don't remember ever seeing him in the audience or meeting him or anything like that. But he said, it's, you know, it is completely plausible that sometime in that time frame, probably toward the mid or late 80s, Cobain could have come to one of our shows, and he could have thought we were cool.”
Cobain, who was born in 1967, would have been a toddler when the Tremors first arrived in Seattle. But later on in the mid-1980s, it is plausible that a then-teenage Cobain might have snuck into a bar or club to catch a Tremors show.
Read the full story HERE.
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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.
