It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Wednesday, February 26. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Wyoming Senior Olympics, thanking the participants, volunteers, supporters, and sponsors of the February winter games in Pinedale. Visit Wyoming senior olympics dot com!
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Members of the Wyoming House and Senate were unable to come to an agreement about property tax relief Tuesday morning, throwing into doubt the future of a 50% tax cut — the biggest property tax bill of the 2025 session.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that despite the Joint Conference Committee meeting being held at the crack of dawn with hopes of coming to a final solution on property tax relief, it only took about five minutes for those hopes to quickly extinguish.
““The deal that we are speaking of was a compromise involving a 25% cut with no backfill and no sunset date. The members of the Senate said the house had previously agreed to this. And Senator Troy McEwen called it very, very disappointing. I reached out to some of the House members who had a different story. Representative Scott Heiner, a Republican from Green River, said that there was no deal to speak of. And Representative Tony Locke, a Republican from Casper, said, that's not how the house does business.”
A vote to move forward with the Senate’s compromise offer on the deal for a 25% cut was rejected on a 3-3 vote, with every member of each side voting for their chamber’s position.
Read the full story HERE.
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The tiny outpost of Aladdin in northeast Wyoming is home to the state’s oldest general store, which has also served as a local post office since 1898. But no more.
The U.S. Postal Service has discontinued its contract with the Aladdin General Store, a change that is tied, somewhat ironically, to efforts by the store’s new owner to preserve this historic treasure. That’s according to business reporter Renee Jean.
“The general store, which is Wyoming's oldest continuous operating General Store, has always been Aladdin's post office, but no more. Trent Tope came along, and, you know, he grew up shopping at the general store as a kid, and he wanted to preserve it, and so he purchased the store from the original owners who held the postal contract. Well, it turned out that… whoever owned that contract, had to own the ground beneath the post office. And so that triggered a breach of contract… the post office was not interested in letting Trent take that over… with what's happening right now with delivering for America and the US Postal Service is trying to cut costs. It does kind of beg the question of how many more small communities… will be on the chopping block, where… if something happens, somebody changes hands, new owner takes it over, Oh, well, there's another contract we can get rid of.”
Tope said the store will still sell stamps and postcards for those who want them, even though it is no longer an official post office location.
Read the full story HERE.
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Several iPhone users on Tuesday learned that when they tried to voice-dictate the word “racist” into their phones, the word “Trump” flashed in its place momentarily.
Cowboy State Daily reporter Clair McFarland said she didn’t observe the phenomenon on her older iPhone, although other reporters with newer phones did. She spoke with Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, who was outraged that such a glitch could slip into the iPhone software, and pointed toward partisan involvement.
“So you're audio dictating a text to someone or a note you're dictating, if you say the word racist, the word Trump flashes in its place momentarily… that indicates maybe the iPhone is really more strongly linking Trump and racist right now… you know, it might not be a prank. It's some of these pattern learning algorithms. They're relying on patterns. So if a lot of people are claiming Trump is racist, the algorithm could be learning from the connection between those two words.”
Apple vowed to fix the issue, saying they are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation and are rolling out a fix.
Read the full story HERE.
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A neighborhood feud turned into a scene from “Mad Max” when a Montana man transformed his truck into a firebomb on wheels and sent it crashing into a neighbor’s house in 2023.
In dramatic home security video shot the morning of Nov. 10, 2023, Paul Ailport is seen speeding across his neighbor’s lawn in Pablo, Montana, in a pickup he turned into a firebomb and shooting off fireworks. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that Ailport was sentenced earlier this month to 110 years in prison for attempted murder.
“It's not uncommon for neighbors to have disputes, right? What is uncommon is for your neighbor to get so upset with you that he turns his three quarter ton pickup into a fiery rocket on wheels with gasoline and propane and fireworks and a 13 foot steel beam on top… There's video of him shooting across his yard and crashing in to this poor guy's house. Well, that steel beam as intended shot into the house nearly hit a young woman who was about to step into the shower and killer. And Mister port was pulled from the burning wreckage by the homeowner, and he was then charged with attempted homicide.”
Ailport’s neighbors told Cowboy State Daily that the man terrorized their little neighborhood for 18 months. The neighbors and Ailport’s family blame methamphetamine for Paul’s descent into psychosis and paranoia. Those involved in this bizarre saga complain about gaps in law enforcement protection and the mental health system big enough to drive Ailport’s flaming truck through.
Read the full story HERE.
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A bill introduced in Congress Tuesday — backed by U.S. senators from Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Nebraska — would block federal funding to "sanctuary cities," the term for jurisdictions with policies that harbor illegal immigrants.
The legislation, called the No Bailout for Sanctuary Cities Act, was announced by U.S. Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho. Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry reports that the bill follows an executive order signed last week by President Donald Trump which actually goes further.
“The Senate Bill… sets out what a sanctuary city is, and cuts off funding to illegal immigrants in that sanctuary city. But not all federal funding, just the federal funding pertaining to the illegal immigrants … Trump's executive order goes much, much further… It does actually talk about sanctuary cities, but it cuts off funding for illegal immigrants, period. And there's more to it than that, and it does go into sanctuary cities to some extent, but as I understand it… the Senate legislation introduced today would only apply to funding for illegal immigrants within an officially labeled sanctuary city.”
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso is not yet an official co-sponsor but told Cowboy State Daily that he backs the bill. He also said he supports an executive order signed last week by President Donald Trump to block federal agencies and programs from providing taxpayer-funded services to illegal immigrants.
Read the full story HERE.
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People in concealed carry and tactical firearms classes are full of questions, including asking whether they can use their weapons to shoot and kill vicious dogs, some instructors said.
The short answer is, yes — drawing a concealed firearm to shoot a dog that’s about to maul you or your child is essentially no different than any other self-defense scenario.
But Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that past that, as with any situation involving use of a firearm, things can get complicated.
“We have had a couple of pretty terrible dog attacks in Wyoming in recent years, including the 2022 incident where the woman on the Wind River Indian Reservation was actually killed by dogs. And so that raises a question, can you legally use your firearm to defend yourself against a dog? Yes, you can. But of course, if you're, especially if you're in town, there's going to be complicating factors, like, you know, were you absolutely out of options? You had no choice but to shoot, and if you did shoot in discharging your weapon? Did you put any people in danger?”
On rural properties, landowners are within their rights to shoot a loose dog that’s attacking their livestock or poultry, even if it isn’t going after people.
Read the full story HERE.
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Building power lines means negotiating with a string of landowners. In Wyoming, it only takes one property owner to slow down or stop the march of power lines across the landscape.
Senate File 181 essentially sets up a process for landowners to cut deals using eminent domain. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the bill also prevents an energy company or single landowner from forcing eminent domain on his neighbors if they don’t want power lines crossing their land.
“It used to be that a power company could come in and try and declare eminent domain. The legislature responded this year with a couple of bills. One bill would have totally banned that process, making it impossible for, say, a solar company or a wind company to declare eminent domain over private land so they could take a transmission line and connect to the larger grid from their energy generating site at a wind farm or solar array that was House Bill 91 it died back in January. Along comes Senate file 181, which… was a compromise bill. What it says is, okay, you know, eminent domain is still on the table, but before any property can be condemned, a power generating company has to win over 60% has to win over 66% of the landowners or have control of 60% of the land that they plan to put the Transmission Line on.”
On Tuesday the Wyoming House passed Senate File 181 and sent it to the governor’s desk on a 57-4 vote.
Read the full story HERE.
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February is ending with another stellar celestial event: a planetary parade. This time, every other planet in our solar system is participating.
A parade of planets happens when planets are positioned in a way that makes an arch across the sky, as seen from the surface of Earth. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that at sunset Friday, all seven planets will be arching across the sky in an alignment that won’t happen again for another 144 years.
“Just after sunset on February 28 we'll have all seven planets that we can see from Earth visible in the arc of the sky. Now some are going to be more visible than others, just because of the remaining light in the sky and the fact that planets like Uranus and Neptune are just difficult to see, regardless of what time of year it is, or what kind of events going on, but they will all be out there. And if you want to see the eighth planet, all you have to do is look down, because we're on Earth, and we'll be in our own sense of alignment with everything else in the sky that night.”
This “great alignment” — one with all other planets in the solar system — is the most rare. Mercury missed January’s planet parade, which was a “large alignment” of six planets.
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, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. And remember 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.
