It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, August 26th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Converse County Tourism Promotion Board! Discover Douglas and Glenrock in beautiful Wyoming, where rich history, outdoor adventure, and welcoming communities await. Feel the Energy of Converse County at www.ConverseCountyTourism.com.
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With carefully worded legal terms and patriotic sentiments, President Donald Trump on Monday announced an emphasis on prosecuting people who burn American flags.
While Wyoming’s two U.S. Senators voiced their approval, Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that a leading First Amendment expert in the nation said prosecutions stemming from the order would be unconstitutional.
“Trump's executive orders are really careful about, like, we're gonna do this controversial, controversial thing, but we're going to do it within the confines of case law and what's legal and what's allowed. So they try to thread the needle. But even so, with his Monday order against flag burning, a top speech attorney professor in the United States was like, it's still unconstitutional, and that's because Trump tried to bootstrap flag burning to other non speech offenses like property destruction.”
The order calls for the U.S. Attorney General to prioritize prosecution of the nation’s criminal and civil laws against American flag desecrations that happen in the course of other, tangential crimes.
Read the full story HERE.
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Firefighting crews working a pair of uncontained wildfires in western Wyoming can expect some help from Mother Nature this week.
Late August is usually hot and dry, perfect for turning Wyoming’s forests and grasslands into tinderboxes. But Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that this week will be abnormally cool and wet.
“These firefighting crews are finally going to get a little bit of help from mother nature here with these wildfires, especially the two burning in the western part of the state. Although they really haven't grown a whole lot in the last couple of days, they are still 0% contained, at least, that's what they're reporting. So they're burning pretty hot, but the weather is really going to come through for them. Don Day says that pretty much for the whole week they can expect it to be cooler, it's going to be more humid, and he won't guarantee it 100% but he says, they'll probably get some rain.”
In response to the Dollar Lake and Willow Creek fires, Gov. Mark Gordon signed an executive order Monday declaring those emergencies.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Maryland case of New World screwworm in a human being illustrates an important fact about the flesh-eating parasite that has the agricultural world on edge.
The individual has since recovered, and there is so far no indication of any transmission to humans or other animals. But alerts have gone out across the nation, nonetheless, to other agricultural stakeholders. That includes Wyoming agriculture and veterinary officials, who told Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean they are mainly pushing awareness right now, as well as heightened vigilance across the livestock industry.
“In Wyoming, ranchers probably feel pretty safe. We're pretty far north. This is a subtropical, tropical pest, it requires hot temperatures, moist environments. We don't have either one of those things, really, most of the time in Wyoming, but they have been seen as far north as North Dakota in the past… we're all just as near as the nearest airport to people who have traveled, and potentially have traveled in Central America, which is where this is is kind of taken off from.”
Screwworms were once common in the southern United States up until the 1950s or so, and they cost the agricultural industry millions annually. The pests ranged from Florida to California, infecting all sorts of living, warm-blooded animals, not just cattle. Their scientific name, in fact, means “man eater” in Latin.
Read the full story HERE.
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For one week in June, hundreds of Wyomingites across the political spectrum galvanized under the leadership of a purple-haired, outspoken, female Ph.D. from Laramie.
Whether it was fate or a broken-clock moment, Rep. Karlee Provenza has become the face of the Wyoming resistance to a proposed public lands selloff. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland spoke to Provenza, who along with Representative Mike Yin, is holding town halls across Wyoming.
“They arranged the town halls uniquely so that … the arrangement is discouraging to hecklers, right? Because you walk in and you're expecting, like a stage and like this preachy politician, and everyone's gonna kind of listen and then maybe shout. That's not the way they have it set up. They have these town halls set up in these little tight chair circles… And you're supposed to respond to prompts from Provenza and Yin about the Wyoming you want to see, and then, and then, like, the group scribe stands up and reads the answers… one of the prevailing themes that just kept surfacing Thursday was we're concerned about keeping public lands, and that was the groundswell that Karlee Provenza rode this summer.”
The listening-session meetings started in Cheyenne earlier this month. Provenza and Yin went to Casper on Tuesday, and Lander on Thursday, and are planning at least seven more stops in seven more towns in the coming weeks.
Read the full story HERE.
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The power is finally back on across much of southern Carbon County after lightning hit a power substation and left about 5,600 Rocky Mountain Power customers without electricity for more than 16 hours Sunday and Monday.
The outage closed many businesses, affected traffic signals and gave kids in Rawlins a bonus day off from school, according to Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison.
“It was a big light show, hail, heavy rain and a direct hit to Rocky Mountain Power's Platte substation. It hit the lightning arrester, and that's supposed to absorb the impact of a of a lightning bolt, and it did its job, but I think it went too far, according to a company source there, who said they blew some fuses and just had a mess to clean up… I spoke to the chief of police in Rawlins, and he said we were ready for it. We have a protocol, all the major buildings, the prison, they all have backup generators. But he said… when I woke up that morning. I was like, Wait, hold on, how am I going to get my cup of coffee?”
Fortunately for commuters, some enterprising youngsters who found themselves with a day off of school, set up a battery-powered coffee stand - charging $2 a cup. The power returned at 11:30 a.m.
Read the full story HERE.
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The section of the Air Force that oversees the military branch’s bases is un-grounding the Sig Sauer M18 handgun, after pausing its use for a month over the July 20 shooting death of a Wyoming-based airman.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the Air Force Global Strike Command has completed a “comprehensive inspection” of its nearly 8,000 M18 Modular Handgun systems, after pausing their use July 21 out of what officials say was, quote, “an abundance of caution following a tragic incident.”
“It's always hard to grasp at the inner workings of a military establishment, but what we know is that they that an airman died in a shooting incident, January, July 20, the next day, the branch of the Air Force that oversees bases paused that pistol and launched an investigation into into those pistols. A few days after that, someone was arrested on claims of false swearing and involuntary manslaughter in that same debt. And then the investigation of the gun finishes up.”
21-year-old Brayden Lovan died in a gunshot incident on July 20. The base announced about three weeks afterward that a person had been arrested in the shooting on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and making false statements.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Hillsdale College member classical charter school continues to grow as staff and students started the school year Monday in a new 36,000-square-foot, $15 million building in Mills.
The Wyoming Classical Academy, a charter school, celebrates its third year of operations by moving into the new two-story structure, and Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that both students and staff are thrilled.
“They use a curriculum from Hillsdale College in Michigan, which is well known for its classical education and in learning techniques… they start out in kindergarten and first grade, they have Spanish, and they have Latin as they get in later in elementary, and then in high school, they can have advanced Latin… They have American history, literature, all the kinds of classic learning that you think about… the students I talked to are excited to be there. The parents I talked to were excited to have their kids there.”
The school’s mission statement informs parents that it will, quote, “train the minds and improve the hearts of young people through a content-rich classical education in the liberal arts and sciences, with instruction in the principles of moral character and virtue.”
Read the full story HERE.
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And forget the night before Christmas, Santa hits Yellowstone National Park four months before.
Employees of Xanterra Parks and Resorts celebrated Christmas in August on Monday, the 25th. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that the event has been an annual tradition in Yellowstone for more than 70 years.
“On the night of August, 24 employees from Xanterra, that's the concessionaire that runs the hotels and restaurants in the park, they come out to Christmas tree rock, and they decorate the trees, and then sometime on the 25th national park employees come out here to take down the decorations. So it's the morning of August 24 here in Yellowstone, you can see the tree behind me has a bunch of ornaments and cards attached to it, and there's a big red ornament on the top of that lodge pole, pine on Christmas tree rock… good natured holiday fun during the busiest time of the year for the park.”
There may be no snow, and the timing’s not right, but Old Faithful Inn’s a spectacular sight for that one day in August, when everyone's there to see Yellowstone's wonders — so, why not share the spirit of Christmas with cookies, fun, and great decorations at the peak of summer?
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. Thanks for tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
