It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Thursday, November 13th. I’m Mac Watson. This newscast is “Brought to you by the University of Wyoming Center on Aging. Did you know that 1 in 3 Wyoming adults have pre-diabetes, and most don’t realize it? Are you tough enough to know your numbers? Take the quiz at: Find Out WY dot org."
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The court-appointed conservator of a Riverton boy sued the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Tuesday over a youth group boat-tubing incident in which the boy lost his foot. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports the lawsuit is asking for damages, costs, interests and other relief.
“There's two varieties of negligence claims, and they want general and special damages, interests, costs and any other, any other relief the court deems appropriate…the case was filed Tuesday. What you'll see next is the church will file, probably an answer and or a motion to dismiss. Like, if the church says the laws you invoke don't match the claims you place, then it may file a motion to dismiss. Otherwise, we'll just see an answer which usually comes out, like we deny wrongdoing all together. Let's go to trial, and then the two sides exchange the information that they are told to exchange to get a fair trial, and then they either both prepare for trial or they negotiate toward a settlement.”
The complaint also asserts claims that the boy’s sister suffered trauma for watching the boating incident.
Read the full story HERE.
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Longtime Wyoming journalist Susan Anderson has passed away. Although she may be remembered most as the anchor on KTWO-TV, Cowboy State Daily’s Jackson Walker reports she had an enviable and ground-breaking journalism career.
“Longtime Wyoming journalist Susan Anderson died Monday due to complications with ovarian cancer, although she may be remembered by most as an anchor for K2 TV, she was also the business editor of the Casper Star-Tribune and served in the Wyoming Legislature. Anderson came to Wyoming after visiting Laramie for the first time and going on a fishing trip there, that experience made her fall in love with Wyoming, and actually caused her to leave her prestigious West Coast News job in San Francisco. She had since gone on to become known as, as Wyoming, as they come, and earned a reputation for being a hard working news hound.”
U.S. Sen. John Barrasso knew Anderson personally and told Cowboy State Daily her lengthy career made Wyoming a better state for its residents.
Read the full story HERE.
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A new Senate amendment could allow members to receive big payouts over FBI spying tied to Jack Smith’s Jan. 6th probe. Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry reports from DC that Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who was spied on, says she didn’t write the measure and hasn’t decided if she’ll seek damages.
“Senate Majority Leader John Thune adding this late just before final passage in the Senate. You know, I don't know how they came up with that figure…what some Republicans in the House were saying is, it's like…If they want to debate this, they need to have a committee hearing. This has to be vetted. This was stuck in a bill at the last minute. It was stuck in a must pass spending bill to reopen the government at the last minute...Because if you're going to be paying US senators who were the subject of the Jack Smith investigation, if you're going to be paying the Senator's reparations, this needs to be out in the open. That's what a lot of House Republicans said. That's why they were not happy at all to learn that this was in the Senate amended measure to reopen the US government, ending the shutdown.”
Early this month, the Senate Judiciary Committee released an FBI document showing the phone records of Lummis and seven other Republican senators were scooped up in Smith’s investigation, dubbed “Arctic Frost.”
Read the full story HERE.
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Momentum behind Wyoming’s uranium industry continues to build. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the U.S. Interior Department gave it a tremendous boost Friday by officially designating the resource as a “critical" mineral.
“When it comes to the when it comes to the uranium industry, that it hasn't always been good times. There have been a lot of lean years, and so even when there's a little bit of good news, it's a big deal to the state's uranium industry. And we just had that this week, the USGS returned uranium to a list of critical minerals. Now there's probably some deep bureaucratic reason why that's a great thing. Generally, our sources told us that what it means is that you might move up on the list of priorities. You might have an easier time getting permitting. It's really just a formal recognition of the administration policy of let's mine a lot more Uranium. And so Wyoming's industry naturally is excited to hear that.”
The Interior Department, through the U.S. Geological Survey, published the final 2025 List of Critical Minerals on Friday, outlining 60 minerals vital to the U.S. economy and national security that face potential risks from disrupted supply chains. The list adds 10 new minerals including boron, copper, lead, metallurgical coal, phosphate, potash, rhenium, silicon, silver and uranium.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily, after this….
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Speaking at the governor's annual business conference on Wednesday, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Utah and Wyoming should embrace the need for data centers. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports on why Gov. Cox is so enthusiastic about this opportunity for western states.
“The idea here is super abundance. We can innovate our way to the power that we need without killing the planet, without spiking the energy costs. We can do both. We just have to put our minds to it where there's will, there's a way kind of thing. And I think the subtext of all that is the states that engage in that you know, then, instead of throwing up barriers, engage with that and embrace the challenge. Will also get the opportunities. And it's going to be a huge difference maker. It's going to be a game changer, and maybe, at last, will help the West to start diversification, instead of always being relying on all these commodities that get shipped elsewhere, no value added in the state.”
Governor Cox added, “What’s happening in energy is unlike anything that’s happened in my lifetime.”
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming’s U.S. Senators are stumping for the BLM’s Biden-era Public Lands Rule to be rescinded. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that some Wyoming energy industry insiders say it’s the right thing to do.
“In 2023 the Biden administration put forth what they call, what is called, for short, the public lands rule, which kind of leaned more heavily into conservation, and the current, you know, President Trump's Secretary of the Interior who oversees BLM, has, you know, indicated that he might want to try to rescind that rule. And our senators, both of our senators, as well as some from other western states, recently shot off a letter saying, you know, that they're very strongly in support of rescinding the rule.”
In September, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced his intent to repeal the Public Lands Rule and opened a public comment period on the matter. The public comment period ended Monday.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Riverton man accused of fatally slitting Gustave Yellowhair’s throat two years ago is finally headed to a felony-level trial court. Clair McFarland reports that Fremont County’s top prosecutor showed proof Wednesday that 31-year -old John William Goodman acted with “premeditation.”
“The defense attorney Valerie Schoenberger said, I don't think you've shown premeditation. You just you have a dead body, you have some DNA, but where's the premeditation? Where does the planning? And you know, the Wyoming Supreme Court says that there has to be a sufficient period of time before a killing for there to have been this planning and to form this incent and the prosecutor Micah Wyatt countered with, ‘He was bound hand and foot. That indicates some level of planning.’ He said that the victim had hurt his sister, that also indicates some level of planning. And so the prosecutor met this low bar of probable cause that is sufficient to vault the case into the felony level court.”
Goodman faces a first-degree murder charge, and an alternate theory of felony murder, or the claim that he committed a murder while perpetrating some other felony.
Read the full story HERE.
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A night of intensely colorful auroras put on a show over Wyoming and much of the Northern Hemisphere Tuesday night. Cowboy State Andrew Rossi reports that the light shows were so powerful, even photographers with decades of experience capturing auroras say they were the “best ever” seen in Wyoming.
“The Space Weather Prediction Center detected two coronal mass ejections that emanated at different times, but they collided with Earth's atmosphere at the same time. And the cool thing about that is, when you get two coronal mass ejections at the same time, they amplify each other, so that led to a dazzling display of reds and greens and a whole spectrum of colors across Wyoming and in 45 states and as far south as Mexico. So it wasn't the most powerful or intense geomagnetic storm that we've had during this most recent solar cycle, as the sun exits its solar maximum…people I talked to said you could watch the skies change as the one coronal mass ejection ebbed away and the other one slammed into the atmosphere. It was a really beautiful thing, and a lot of people were thrilled to see it.”
What stood out most to most of the photographers’ watching the celestial show was the colors and coverage of Tuesday night's aurora. Green auroras are the most common, but Tuesday night's skies were dominated by red.
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 watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.
