It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Thursday, March 27th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show! From 6 to 10 a.m., Monday through Friday, we bring you news, weather, sports AND in-depth interviews with news-makers from across Wyoming - and this week we’ve got a fantastic guest host, Charene Herrera, who will keep the conversation lively! Just click on the Cowboy State Daily homepage to join in.
–
Douglas Circuit Court Judge Clark Allan fought back tears when he accepted a prosecutor and defense attorney’s plea agreement, giving a 41-year-old woman two years of probation last week for stalking two teens.
Evidence surfaced last year that Marcie Smith was behind a yearlong effort to make then-15-year-old Gillian Holman look like a bully who was cruel and promiscuous. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the families of the teen and her now-boyfriend say they understand why she only got probation, but wish jail time had been offered.
“After I wrote the first story, so many people were like, Why two years probation? What's with this plea deal when the law allows up to a year of jail on each count?... I also asked the moms of both victims in the case, like, what's up with this?... so if there's a claim like, Oh, your warrant is over broad, I can get a suppression on all the fruit of that warrant, and then your case is going to fall apart. Then the prosecutor and the victims have to look at that like, could that happen? And not only could that happen, but do we want to take the risk? Is it more fruitful for us to get those two years of No Contact is allowed? Is that a better, safer bet for us? And in this case, the prosecutor ultimately, with the family reluctantly on board, the prosecutor ultimately decided, yes, it's better to play it safe.”
Besides the probation term, Allen ordered Smith to get mental health help, avoid alcohol and drugs, have no contact with the Sorensen and Holman families, and pay nearly $1400 total in costs, fines and fees.
Read the full story HERE.
–
“Ghost guns” are a commonly used term for firearms that can be assembled at home from kits made by 3D printers or ordered online.
In a 7-2 decision handed down Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Biden-era rules declaring that “ghost guns” should be treated like regular firearms, making purchases privy to background checks and requiring the guns to carry serial numbers.
Some Wyoming gun rights activists blasted the ruling, telling Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz that it will do nothing to keep guns away from criminals, but will restrict law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights.
“I talked to a couple Wyoming gun rights activists. They don't like it. They didn't like it when Biden was pushing it, and they don't like it now that the the the more, supposedly more conservative Supreme Court has upheld it, because they say, Look at this. This is not going to do anything to keep people from still making weird guns at home. It's not going to do anything to keep criminals or bad actors from getting hold of firearms. All it's going to do is make things more difficult for law abiding gun owners. And then also an argument can be made, which was actually in the dissenting opinion by Clarence Thomas. Justice, Clarence Thomas, that really it amounts to. Legislating from the bench because you're designating just firearm parts in the same category as a fully assembled and functional, functional firearm. And dissenters are arguing that only Congress can make those sorts of designations.”
According to data from the U.S. Department of Justice, there’s been an increase in the number of ghost guns showing up at crime scenes.
Read the full story HERE.
–
For U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, the crux of the mistake Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made in discussing sensitive attack plans in a chat that inadvertently included a magazine editor, comes down to whether Hegseth knew the journalist was in the chat.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that that was Lummis’ response when she was asked about the issue, while talking to a group of reporters Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C.
“She was asked again by another reporter, who clarified that maybe the issue is just the fact that the information was being revealed on an unclassified platform was really the issue at hand. And then Cynthia responded, but did Hegseth know it? And I think the answer on that there's been no evidence to prove that Hegseth knew the editor was on the chat. So she walked away after she gave that repeated answer. Barrasso has had a similar stance, but he did tell reporters earlier this week that it is a serious matter that can't be repeated again.”
The Atlantic originally didn’t publish specific information about the attacks, out of concern that they could be classified and have national security implications. The magazine later published them after the Trump administration insisted that the material was not classified, and disputed the editor’s characterization of the texts.
Read the full story HERE.
–
A pair of Wyoming ventures developing two different types of rare earth processing recently provided details about capital investment attached to each project.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the news arrived as part of a marketing wave pushed out by rare earth mining companies pitching themselves to investors.
“There are international headlines right now about how China controls the rare earth minerals market. And… these are elements that have science fiction-like names, and they're necessary to create high tech from your cell phone to really sophisticated weapon systems. And … so it's a matter of national security, says the Trump administration, and therefore he's really lit a fire under this industry with a recent executive order. What that means for Wyoming is that there's a new infusion of cash, to a couple of projects… not only do they have rare earth deposits, so they have the minerals that the Trump administration has really put an urgent rush on.”
The chairman and CEO of Ramaco Resources agreed that Wyoming is well positioned to serve the growing demand for rare earth minerals, given it has two processing facilities in the works.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Former Wyoming Game and Fish Department chief Brian Nesvik was in front of a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday to be grilled on why he should lead the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Nesvik told the committee that his 30 year career with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department - ascending to director before his retirement last year - has given him the experience to balance state and federal environmental laws, as well as competing stakeholder interests at local levels.
Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry reports that Nesvik’s next challenge will be navigating those dynamics from the federal side.
“He has an enormous challenge. Obviously, he knows everything there is to know about Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain region in general, I would think, with regard to the the whole ecosystems that are in existence there, the fish and wildlife habitat, the mountains, all of that he's going to know… he certainly knows federal laws, environmental laws can can get very complicated and tricky. He knows all of this stuff, but he's going to have to learn about parts of the country, I think, specific regions of this country, on the coast, for example, Texas, there are so many there's so much variety in terms of the the biological diversity in this country, so he has a steep learning curve to to take charge of this whole agency.”
Nesvik’s confirmation to the top FWS post is not in doubt. But first, the Environment and Public Works Committee will vote to send his nomination to the full, Republican-controlled Senate.
Read the full story HERE.
–
After her boyfriend forced her to get into his minivan, a Fremont County woman jumped out of the moving vehicle and rolled into a ditch, before being forced back into the vehicle and having to jump from it a second time.
That’s what court documents allege in the case against 70-year-old Jeffery King, who was charged Monday with one count of felonious restraint, another of reckless endangering, and a third of domestic battery. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that 42-year-old Sarah Evans was the alleged victim.
“She was walking along Riverton bike path with a different man that she crossed paths with and he joined her, and then King is reported to have gotten out of the van and confronted this other man, And they both draw knives, and at some point, the younger man decides, I don't want to get involved in this, and he walks away to the sound of her shouting, no, no, no. As King allegedly urges her to get in the van… according to her interview at the time, she he was beating her head and face and picking up tools and hitting her, and she jumped out of the moving van, and then she told the deputy. Then he got out and started beating me outside. I got back in the van, and then I had to jump from it another time, at which point another man said he came and picked her up.”
The Fremont County Attorney’s Office filed the charges about five months after the alleged offense. Fremont County Attorney Patrick LeBrun confirmed that King is in custody and not on the run.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Multiple large New York banks have recently announced plans for stable tokens for U.S. dollars to travel to and from the digital world, riding on the heels of a newly installed and crypto-friendly Trump administration.
But Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that Wyoming-based Custodia Bank has beaten them all to the punch.
“What they were trying to do is provide like an on off ramp for money to go to and from a bank account in onto like a cryptocurrency platform… so far, nobody has done that. It's been a regulatory obstacle course for custodia Bank, which has been trying to do it since 2020 so, you know, they partnered with a bank in Texas which… provided the master account. That's the account that you need with the Federal Reserve in order to access their services. It's a bank account for banks, basically. And so working with Vantage in Texas, they were able to do eight transactions demonstrating, you know, this technology, taking money on and off the Ethereum blockchain… normally to do eight transactions, it would take a minimum of a day per transactions. So you're talking about more than a week. They did this in a couple hours. And then the normal cost for that is $35 per transaction, the highest charge for this, using their technology, was 25 cents. So it got dramatically quicker, dramatically cheaper to do it this way.”
Custodia Bank CEO Caitlin Long told Cowboy State Daily that she lamented that it was a Texas community bank, and not a Wyoming community bank, that approached them to do this first, but pointed out that this has been part of Custodia’s business plan since 2020.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Texas researchers have concluded that Yellowstone’s bison herds — which fluctuate between 4,000 and 6,000 animals — have merged into a single breeding population.
That doesn’t mean the Yellowstone bison are in imminent danger of becoming inbred, but Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that the herd’s genetics could eventually suffer if current trends continue.
“They've long been thought of as two separate herds, like the northern Park herd and the Central Park herd, and this, this research paper, argues that it's really, essentially, especially in terms of genetic exchange and breeding, it's essentially just one big herd. And that has some interesting implications, not not only in the management and conservation of the bison, but also, you know, raising the concern of genetic diversity at present. It doesn't sound like it's, you know, the number of animals fluctuates between 4,000 and 6,000. That's enough, at least, for now, to preserve the genetic diversity. But there's worry that, if things stay the way they are, it could become a problem.”
Bison conservation advocates worry that current trends and management practices, which include hunting and/or rounding up and slaughtering bison as they leave the park, could eventually ruin the Yellowstone bison’s genetics.
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 tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
