Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
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Power struggles between lawmakers reverted at least a quarter of Wyoming’s legislative redistricting map back to square one during a contentious meeting Wednesday in Casper. With time ticking down before the 2022 budget session convenes in Cheyenne in February, members of the Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections, and Political Subdivisions Committee narrowly voted to adopt a plan involving significant changes for communities along the Interstate 80 corridor in southern Wyoming. While some lawmakers called it a compromise, others cal...
Circumstances have changed with the COVID-19 Delta variant’s incursion into Wyoming, health experts say, prompting officials to issue new recommendations and many to ask whether more needs to be done to increase the state’s vaccination rate and slow the virus’ spread. Wyoming appears to be in a “new, concerning” phase of the pandemic, the Department of Health announced Wednesday, as the highly-contagious Delta variant is now dominant. “National estimates right now are that about 92% of the virus infections in Wyoming and in our region are...
LARAMIE - Protests against racism and police brutality have escalated this week in Laramie as supporters and apparent counter-protesters in trucks, motorcycles and Jeeps have confronted people blocking intersections along Grand Avenue. Thursday saw the fifth consecutive day that protesters have defied police requests to confine their marches to sidewalks and instead have disrupted traffic between First and 15th streets along Grand Avenue. While the first week saw demonstrators stay on...
CHEYENNE – The U.S. Department of Agriculture in the administration of President Donald Trump could be very good for farms and ranches in the Cowboy State, a Wyoming official said recently. Commodity prices in the agriculture sector have put Wyoming farmers and ranchers in difficult positions in the last several years. Following a period of “prolonged, extraordinary profits where commodity markets had only been rising in 2013,” that’s not been the case in the last four or five years, said Nathan Kauffman, a Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas...
CHEYENNE — Wyoming’s secretary of state is confident in the security of the state’s election systems amid widespread national concerns of foreign interference in 2018’s midterms. In addition to the general tumultuous nature of the 2016 election, the Department of Homeland Security heightened concerns about possible interference in election systems when it reported 21 states were the targets of foreign nation-state meddling. President Donald Trump met with top figures in his administration Thursday to discuss measures aimed at protect...
CHEYENNE – A “stand your ground” bill is on its way to Gov. Matt Mead’s desk for his signature. Both the House of Representatives and Senate passed their “stand your ground” bills – House Bill 168 and Senate File 71 – through their chambers of origin. They didn’t coast through, however, after lawmakers in both houses expressed concern over civil and criminal immunities in the legislation. Wyoming already has a castle doctrine, which provides a person can legally use weapons in self-defense in the home without a duty to retreat. In any o...
CHEYENNE - Wyoming senators amended a “stand your ground” bill for the second day in a row before passing it Wednesday. Pressure mounted on senators Tuesday as they voted to remove an immunity provision that its sponsor, Sen. Anthony Bouchard, R-Cheyenne, said gutted the bill. On Wednesday, senators pushed two amendments that were adopted to give the bill back some of its teeth. The legislation would take the castle doctrine, which doesn’t require a duty to retreat in self-defense within the home, and expand it. Essentially, it provides immun...
CHEYENNE – Cheyenne's James Byrd is looking to wear a new hat in public office as he announced his candidacy Thursday to be Wyoming's next secretary of state. Byrd is serving his fifth term in the Wyoming Legislature representing House District 44. But he will not seek another term as he made the decision to campaign to become one of Wyoming's five statewide elected officials. "I want to push the envelope a little bit more," Byrd said after his announcement at the Cheyenne Depot Museum. "In t...
CHEYENNE (AP) — A Wyoming lawmaker said this week he thinks incidents of inappropriate sexual behavior by state legislators likely are underreported. With resignations in state legislatures around the country related to inappropriate sexual behavior, the Wyoming Legislature is reviewing its current policies and trainings. The Legislative Service Office, or LSO, formed a team recently to meet with interested parties and look at antidiscrimination and sexual harassment issues. LSO Director Matt Obrecht sent a memo to the Wyoming L...
LARAMIE (AP) — For Brian Toelle, a visiting professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Wyoming, it’s been an enjoyable change of pace for the industry professional in his second year teaching courses and working with students. “I love it,” Toelle said. “I’m really enjoying it.” But visiting professor appointments aren’t really meant to last for extended periods of time. That’s why Toelle is hoping to obtain the recently adopted faculty designation professor of practice. Not only would doing so allow him to continue teaching...