It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Thursday, August 28th. 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.
–
Recent steps by the Trump administration and Wyoming are a lifeline for Wyoming’s shrinking timber industry.
But Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that those steps may be too little, too late for what remains of the state’s family-owned lumber businesses.
“I wanted to see… how are our lumber mill industry, timber industries doing since all these changes have come along, are they feeling confident about the future? And, you know, really, they're in such bad shape… they're selling more timber now, sure, but when they go through and start cutting that timber, half of it's dead. You know, got so much beetle kill and so forth out there in the forest that the quality of the timber is much less than it used to be… it's a lot of moving parts and a lot of things that need to happen, and they're not out of the proverbial woods yet.”
To get back to an economically viable level of production, Wyoming lumber producers say they would need to see roughly twice as much timber for sale next year.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Casper Police evacuated two businesses late Wednesday afternoon and then were able to negotiate the surrender of a man on the second floor of the building whom his mother said is wanted for murder.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck spoke to a woman walking around the building who identified herself as Robin Behan, the suspect’s mother. She said her son’s name was Alejandro Behan and he had “gone back home” to Riverton for a visit - and said, quote, “it turns out he was wanted for homicide.”
“I was able to talk to this individual's mother, who said that, you know, she didn't know that he was wanted for homicide. She thought he was wanted for a probation violation, and she encouraged him to surrender to the police, but he apparently didn't do that, and the police showed up in big numbers, and according to another witness, they used a megaphone, speaking speaking in English and Spanish, and then he later saw this individual being walked out in handcuffs.”
A Casper Police Department spokesperson confirmed the department executed a felony arrest warrant in the area near Veteran’s Park off Second Street.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Since 2001, the U.S. Forest Service’s Roadless Rule has forbidden new road construction on national forests across Wyoming’s high country.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz announced the first step toward rescinding the rule. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that that could open up 45 million acres of roadless areas on national forests across the West for possible new road construction - including vast swaths of some of Wyoming’s premier high country, such as the Wyoming Range and Bighorn Mountains.
“There are some people who are enthusiastic about that. Congresswoman Harriet Hageman from Wyoming has expressed very enthusiastic support for that, as she sees it would help along with our logging industry and mitigating fire risk. But I heard today from some people that are pushing back against it, like Trout Unlimited back country hunters and anglers. Organizations like that are saying, you know, hey, not so fast. They're saying that just a blanket, across the board elimination of the roadless rule could possibly mess up really good wildlife conservation and hunting and fishing areas.”
The Forest Service will publish the notice of intent to rescind the Roadless in the Federal Register on Friday. That will open a public comment period, scheduled to last until Sept. 19.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Wyoming has officially surpassed Texas in uranium production, marking a dramatic turnaround for an industry that has languished for decades under depressed prices and foreign competition.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison spoke to industry experts who say that Wyoming's current production levels are just the beginning of what promises to be an explosive growth period.
“They're predicting that the current production rate, which is around 92,000 pounds of uranium each quarter, is what Wyoming is producing right now. That could jump to a million pounds a quarter in the coming years, and put Wyoming at the top of the heap as the leading uranium producer, surpassing Utah… Every year the nation consumes about 50 million pounds of uranium as it powers the 100 something nuclear power plants around the country, and we're only domestically producing 1/50 of that, about a million pounds. And so there's a huge opportunity there for Wyoming to fill in, that need, that demand.”
Wyoming currently has three active uranium mines ramping up production, with a fourth project in the Shirley Basin expected to come online before year's end.
Read the full story HERE.
–
I’ll be back with more news, right after this.
–
Ranchers throughout Wyoming and Nebraska are rallying to provide emergency hay for those impacted by wildfires tearing through Wyoming’s critical cattle grazing lands.
Coordinating a portion of the relief effort is the University of Wyoming Extension, which has launched a website designed to connect ranchers with hay surpluses for those who need help providing for their herds. Cowboy State Daily’s Jackson Walker spoke to donors who are offering hay through the emergency site to ranchers in need.
“I spoke to one individual in Nebraska who was saying that he personally witnessed some of the impacts that that fire can have on cattle. And he told me that, you know, cattle can usually only live about 10 days without eating something, but it takes between 30 and 45 days to regrow grass that's been burned. So individuals like this that are sharing their resources are being very generous and trying to make a really big impact here on cattle in the state of Wyoming.”
Wyoming’s biggest wildfire of the season so far is the Red Canyon Fire, which has burned its way through 125,000 acres in the Bighorn Basin as of Tuesday. Other blazes in Willow Creek and Dollar Lake continue to impact the availability of forage for cattle throughout the state.
Read the full story HERE.
–
As summer 2025 winds down, Wyoming finds itself at the center of America's push to break China's grip on rare earth element production.
Three separate rare earth projects are now underway across the state, representing the most concentrated domestic development effort in decades. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that this summer, rare earth operations near Ranchester, Upton and American Rare Earths' mine outside Wheatland made big moves to cut into China’s grip on the world’s rare earths production, but many hurdles lie ahead.
“I spoke to an expert in Colorado who broke it down and really talked about the hard realities of how hard it is to get one of these operations off the ground. Rare Earth is everywhere, but not in economically viable concentrations where a mine can really profit… we went from ignoring rare earth to really just full speed ahead and Wyoming's right at the forefront.”
The Trump administration has made domestic rare earth production a national security priority, as China controls about 85% of global rare earth processing.
Read the full story HERE.
–
A Wyoming state legislator who’s announced his candidacy for governor has stepped down as chairman of a state Senate committee.
Sen. Eric Barlow of Gillette announced his candidacy for the 2026 governor’s race Aug. 12. But Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Barlow removed himself from his role on the Senate Labor, Health and Social Services Committee because of a Wyoming legislative rule dating back to 1975, which says any committee chair running for a statewide office “shall immediately resign from his or her chairmanship” of the committee.
“It's an old rule. It's 50 years old, so we've kind of lost touch on whoever enacted it, and why the rule just says you're the chair of the committee, you're running for a statewide office, you got to step down. And he did… Senator Cale Case… said, like, I get why we have the rule, because maybe a guy would use the chairmanship to grandstand, which he said Barlow would not do. He called Barlow a gentleman… And then he said, But if a guy did use a position of power like that to grandstand while campaigning, then Wouldn't we all just know that he wasn't fit to be governor?”
Barlow has chaired various select committees and task forces, and remains chair of the Mental Health and Vulnerable Adult Task Force, which is not governed by the committee chair election rule.
Read the full story HERE.
–
In Colorado, mustang numbers are kept in check by volunteers who prowl the range, shooting female horses with darts loaded with fertility-control drugs.
Advocates say that it’s working and spares Colorado wild horse herds from helicopter roundups that have ignited controversy in Wyoming, Nevada and other Western states. But the effectiveness of fertility-control darting is extremely limited in Wyoming, according to outdoors reporter Mark Heinz.
“It requires a lot of diligence. These doses have to be administered to each mare about once a year… you get in places like The Rock Springs area, the huge red desert where you get you're talking sometimes 1000s of horses spread across a gazillion acres, it's probably not going to work… one place where it is practical is the McCall of peaks in Wyoming. It works well there because it's a smaller area, easily identifiable horses… And they also have man made water wells there. So there's points where the horses have to come to get water… which makes makes it much easier to be there and and Dart them.”
Critics say the BLM’s wild horse roundups are cruel and unnecessary, as helicopters are used to drive mustangs into holding corrals. Others argue that the mustangs are a feral, invasive species, and their numbers must be kept in check to protect the rangeland environment and native wild animals.
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.
