It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Friday, November 6th. I’m Mac Watson.
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While one Sweetwater County mom braces for having vital medical care for her children cut off, Cowboy State Daily’s Emma Jane Jackson reports that her bigger fear is what 350 WE Soda layoffs announced Wednesday will do to her neighbors.
“One of the fallouts that the employees of WE Soda are bracing for is the possible loss of health insurance with the sweeping layoff that's coming up. I talked to Bree McMullen, whose husband has worked at the mine since 2019, and she said that it's been really helpful for her family, taking care of their five kids and a granddaughter, two of which, her 18-year-old son and her one-year-old granddaughter, were born with the same condition, and both of them now have ongoing medical needs that she said the job provided really good insurance for. She also said that the pay was good enough that she was able to stay home and raise her kids as a stay-at-home mom.”
WE Soda is set to cut 40% of its workforce in Sweetwater County. Representative Cody Wylie, R-Rock Springs, tells Cowboy State Daily that this announcement hits at an especially bad time since the holidays are coming up. He emphasized that the cut of 350 employees is 3% of the county.
Read the full story HERE.
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A popular AI police dispatch app reported that a man was killed behind a Gillette apartment complex Wednesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports the only problem with the report is that it was completely wrong.
“The incident was actually categorized as a fatality report, but come to find out, according to Campbell County Sheriff's Lieutenant Dan Maul, this was just a routine traffic stop. A woman was apprehended and taken into custody for a warrant, but there was no physical altercation or anything that would indicate that someone had been killed. Welcome to the increasingly strange world of AI-generated police reports. Crime Radar is one of the most popular apps in the country, with over four and a half million downloads and people using it to keep track of live police dispatch calls, and this isn't just happening in Gillette. There are several incidents in other states where heinous crimes, overdoses, shootings, have been misreported by Crime Radar in the past.”
Byron Oedekoven, a former Campbell County sheriff and longtime leader of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, tells Cowboy State Daily he’s not opposed to using artificial intelligence. He sees its potential, but draws a firm line between using a machine to gather information and allowing it to make decisions about what's true.
Read the full story HERE.
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Glenrock voters ousted their mayor Tuesday amid a monthslong fight over the town's Flock license plate reader cameras. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports transparency hawks say he lost because of the Flock controversy, while others point to a general feeling of unrest.
“I spoke to John Galloway, who has done public records requests and writing and transparency work on this topic. So he pointed out that during the primary election, Judy Colling lost to the mayor, but in the general election, she bounced back and defeated him. He's pointing to in the meantime exchanges between the mayor and residents versus calling having a really direct public response about where she stands on Flock cameras and skepticism toward them. Other people said, ‘No, why would you blame the mayor? Maybe some people are ready for change.’ All of this has unfolded since early July.”
The controversial cameras were bought and installed in 2024 after the police department included them in its budget and the council approved their purchase, installation and use, according to Mayor Bruce Roumell.
Read the full story HERE.
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Mail troubles are brewing in Lincoln County. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports one homeowner in a new subdivision has been waiting over a year to receive mail service, while nearby Grover residents must now travel to Afton to collect mail after their local postal services were closed.
“They all thought they'd be getting mail like any day now, but they still don't have the locking mechanism for these boxes a year later. Evidently, there's one guy for the whole state of Wyoming to put these locks into place, and the homeowners themselves can't hire somebody to do the work. It has to be done by an authorized postal person, and there's only one guy in the whole state for that. And so they are still waiting a year later for an actual physical residential address.”
Mark Call said his request dates back to November of 2025 and that he, his wife, and his neighbors have repeatedly contacted postal officials seeking service since then. He said he was told the lock would be installed in early 2026, but the work remains unfinished.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily News continues now….
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A Rock Springs UFO investigator says he has no explanation for videos of mysterious rotating lights a Gillette woman captured. Cowboy State Daily’s Emma Jane Jackson spoke to the woman who says she’s seen the strange object multiple times in Wyoming and Montana.
“Gillette woman Sommer Chase said that she and her husband both started seeing these mysterious rotating lights when he was working as a miner in Colestrip, Montana, and then they moved to Gillette over the summer. She told me that when she and her husband take their regular walks in the evening, it's pretty common to see these same lights that seem to rotate in a triangle shape in the sky. She finally posted these on social media pretty recently, and she was kind of concerned about being called a liar or just being met with skepticism. But she actually found that not only did the video get 200,000 views, but there were people commenting from all over the country saying that they've seen the same thing.”
Chase tells Cowboy State Daily that her sightings stretch back to her childhood on a North Dakota farm, long before anyone carried a camera in their pocket. She adds she’s certain she isn’t hallucinating and believes the lights aren’t satellites or drones.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Rock Springs man who told his girlfriend “I will wait 20 years so I can kill you” was sentenced Tuesday to 12-20 years in prison. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that police say he kidnapped the woman and tortured her for days, even threatening to murder her cat and family.
“24-year-old Jake Thomas Canestrini in October accepted a plea deal and was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to kidnapping and two counts of aggravated assault and battery. Sweetwater County Judge Clark Stitz sentenced him to 12 to 20 years, which coincidentally, before he had even been arrested, he allegedly told the victim in this case that he would wait up to 20 years to kill her.”
The case began with the woman’s account of what happened after her parents left town May 30. She and Canestrini were living at her parents’ Rock Springs home. Shortly after the parents left, she told investigators, Canestrini threw her to the ground multiple times and would not let her leave. Rock Springs Police Officer Tiffany Harris wrote in an affidavit supporting the original charges that he repeatedly hit her in the head.
Read the full story HERE.
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With 408 applicants waiting for housing vouchers and 158 waiting for one-bedroom public-housing units, the Rock Springs Housing Authority is closing both waiting lists Dec. 1. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports the agency’s director made the difficult decision.
“I spoke with Rock Springs Housing Authority Director April Thompson. She told me that it was a very difficult decision because she wants to help everyone. She said if she could give everyone an affordable place to live, she would. However, that's not the reality. I talked to Mayor Max Mickelson, and he said that the City Council will be discussing some ordinances later on this month to really look at affordable housing and just some of those key issues that Rock Springs is seeing, but you know the state as a whole as well.”
Thompson tells Cowboy State Daily that the agency could continue accepting applications, but that would mean telling people they might wait four or five years before receiving assistance. Instead, Thompson decided to close the two lists for the first time in her 13 years with the Housing Authority.
Read the full story HERE.
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An orphaned moose calf apparently has bonded with a huge bull in Grand Teton, following the bull around like a puppy. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that Grand Teton wildlife watchers say the bull is affectionate and patient, but gets annoyed when the calf tries to nurse.
“Nobody's sure what happened to the calf's mother.out of all the moose out there has kind of latched on and bonded with this one huge bull, and and people say you know the bull's patient, lets him hang out with him, nuzzles him and stuff, and then they probably if the calf tries to nurse the the bull pushes it away. But really the calf is big enough now that it's eating solid food. It's eating forage. I also talked to biologists and said that if it's to the point where it's weaned off of milk and it can eat forage, it is weird for it to bond with a bull rather than go find a surrogate mama cow.”
Female animals will sometimes adopt the offspring of other females that were killed. They might also babysit each other’s calves, fawns or cubs. When a female grizzly was spotted in Yellowstone in 2024 with five cubs in tow, the consensus was that some of the cubs must have been adopted.
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.
