It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, February 10th. I’m Mac Watson.
–
The 68th Wyoming Legislature Budget Session opened on Monday at the Capitol in Cheyenne. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports from the Capitol that the session started with Gov. Mark Gordon urging legislators to restore key portions of his November budget recommendation.
“Most of what he discussed, alongside touting Wyoming, its values, its industries, was asking lawmakers to reinstate his budget request, and that's because the joint appropriations committee got first slash at his draft budget and cut and denied various things from it, including a proposed $40 million cut to the University of Wyoming. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus in response, said Governor Gordon needs to chill with the spending and then the State of the Judiciary, Chief Justice Lynn Boomgaarden of the Wyoming Supreme Court delivered her speech on allowing the Wyoming judiciary to be a co equal and independent branch of government. She referenced the unavoidable that a January 6 opinion by the High Court casting abortion as a fundamental right and upholding it, striking down two laws that would have restricted it. She recognized that this is causing lawmakers to consider how the courts are structured, how judges and justices are chosen, and she urged them not to quote ‘politicize’ the courts. The Wyoming Senate held a series of introductory votes in which they decided which bills were even worth their consideration, and one of the bills that they decided in a 21-10 vote was not worth their consideration would have purged the Wyoming Business Council from Wyoming's law books altogether. However, even though the Business Council CEO Josh Dorell was pleased and called it ‘a decisive win.’ He said, ‘Look out, because there is still a budget amendment that would defund the council.’ Now it stands to reason that the Senate could change that budget amendment. Today's vote indicates they might, but it is viable at this juncture.”
The legislative Joint Appropriations Committee proposed multiple cuts and denials to Gordon’s recommendations, in its second-draft version of the budget. Now the Wyoming Legislature will grapple with the third and later drafts until it sends a budget to the governor’s desk around the first week of March.
Read the full story HERE.
–
The Freedom Caucus of the Wyoming House of Representatives spelled out its priorities for the 2026 session of the Wyoming Legislature Monday, immediately after Gov. Mark Gordon delivered his State of the State address. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that their press conference outside of the state capitol, was pointed and direct.
“When the governor referred to the Freedom Caucus as club ‘No.’ Now they took offense to that and put their own spin on that phrase a couple of times, and really said, we're about ‘yes.’ We're about ‘yes’ to our agenda, which has heavy emphasis on protecting unborn children and banning abortion, which has a lot of emphasis on getting smut out of libraries, and they took issue with the University of Wyoming as well. They also talked a lot about election reform, pen and paper ballots…also today, a big priority for the Freedom Caucus was to get a slate of election reform bills introduced to the house for consideration. They needed a two thirds majority to be introduced. They didn't get that coalition of Republicans and Democrats spoke out and voted down many of these measures.’
Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, from Cody, opened the press conference saying that “The Freedom Caucus exists for the people of Wyoming. We are doing the work of the people.”
Read the full story HERE.
–
Two people are dead after their semitrailer exploded when it hit another semi that was parked illegally on the side of Interstate 80 near Green River on Sunday. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that authorities say the crash and explosion looked like a movie scene.
“It exploded on contact, and the two people who were in that second semi trailer were killed. I talked to the the incident commander, with the Green River fire department who said that, ‘Yeah, it was a pretty bad one, and very unusual in the fact that it did there was an actual explosion there, and they came and there, it was already fully engulfed when they got there, and so their main focus was just getting getting water on it, keeping it, you know, getting it knocked down, and keeping it contained to just the crash area and not have it start a wildfire, getting into the grass and everything.”
Authorities have not released the names of the deceased since the investigation is still ongoing.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Meteorologists are monitoring an incoming winter weather system that they say will provide western Wyoming's snowpacks with high-quality snow. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that meteorologists are saying this storm could provide the best and heaviest snow of the season.
“It's not that this incoming system is necessarily different from anything we've had this winter. The fact that's different is that we no longer have a high pressure ridge settled over the Rocky Mountains that's funneling that winter weather away. So the moisture and the cold air that's descending from the Pacific Northwest and the Arctic Circle is going to reach Wyoming, and there's nothing stopping it from reaching Wyoming. So it's not going to be immediate. We're looking at maybe some rain, snow flurries in the lower elevations, while the mountains get most of this initial wave of winter weather. But as Cowboy State daily meteorologist Don Day put it, this week's weather is a ‘sacrificial lamb’ that's going to make the incoming winter weather systems more impactful as we go into the latter half of February and into March, and we're talking about high quality snow, wet, heavy, high water content, that's exactly what you want, building up the snow pack.”
The incoming winter weather has already affected Wyoming. The Chief Joseph Highway and Granite, Teton and Togwotee Passes were covered with a fresh covering of wet, heavy snow on Monday morning.
Read the full story HERE.
–
I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily news continues now…
–
A Park County man who claims to be the “business partner” of a 90-year-old Cody woman with a failing memory is accused of stealing more than $100,000. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that Joseph Newton is accused of stealing from her over at least a three-year span.
“Looking at the court documents that they've had kind of a trouble really adding it up, because apparently he's some, he was some kind of business partner with her and what they believe is he used that position to get money, and the money was allegedly to pay for bail for himself and for other people. Some of it was like $50,000 for construction on a property.”
60-year old, Joseph “Joey” E. Newton has been charged with three counts of exploitation of a vulnerable adult for allegedly convincing the elderly woman to write him dozens of checks for large sums of money, including money for bail and attorney’s fees, according to Park County Court documents.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Although it's been balmy in Wyoming, the arctic blast that hit Texas and northern Mexico is slowing the spread of the New World screwworm. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that while that’s good news, it doesn’t mean the strict monitoring will let up anytime soon along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The New World screw worm is a devastating fly. It actually burrows into the open wound of an animal and then gets into it goes around and around like a cork screw. That's how it gets its name.the screw worm lays its eggs in open wounds, and so then the further that it burrows into that wound, the bigger it makes the wound. And it can actually be life threatening to cattle.”
The screwworm is being closely monitored because officials say one case has been reported in a cow less than 70 miles from the border.
Read the full story HERE.
–
The horror-comedy movie "Sharktana" begins filming at the Lost Horse Lodge in Montana on Monday. The movie is about warm temperatures melting ice that held sharks frozen in a remote cave. Cowboy State Daily’s Anna-Louise Jackson reports one shark has already gotten loose and gone on a feeding frenzy.
“The director's from Hamilton, which is south of Missoula in Montana. He is known for horror movies. He's made several independent films. He usually writes his own movies, but he was passed the script from a first time screenwriter, a guy who worked at a local ski area in Montana, and that guy had this idea of sharks in the snow, and so they teamed up. They brought in another guy who's a producer, and so the three of them worked on the script, and now they'll be making this movie, first time for this director, doing someone else's script, first time for this screenwriter, getting his script to see the light of day. And it's all happening in Montana. So, a very local independent film.”
Since this is a smaller film, there’s no word on what streaming platform will carry “Sharktana” when it comes out.
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 watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.
