Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 526
Gabriel Estrada, 30, of Denver, Colorado, was sentenced to 120 months, with five years of supervised release to follow, for attempting to entice a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity. U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson imposed the sentence in Cheyenne on Jan. 13. A federal jury convicted Estrada on Oct. 25, 2024. According to trial evidence and court documents, Estrada used a chat website to meet up with a 13-year-old persona for sexual intercourse. An undercover agent posed as a 13-year-old female living in Laramie, Wyoming....
Rekindling a still-smouldering debate from last year’s legislative session, Laramie Republican Rep. Ocean Andrew on Thursday brought House Bill 199, “Wyoming Freedom Scholarship Act” — a measure that would bring universal school vouchers to Wyoming. Lawmakers created a new program in 2024 to give income-qualified families up to $6,000 in state funds to offset private school fees, pre-K tuition or homeschool education costs. School choice advocates wanted to extend the program to all Wyomingites with school-aged kids, but legislative comprom...
The gunman who opened fire in Yellowstone National Park on July 4 had plans for “Pro White Nationalist Violence” and “a history of expressing white supremacist and antisemitic views.” That’s according to court documents filed in federal court Friday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Wyoming, which revealed new details about the incident and the shooter, Samson Lucas Bariah Fussner, a 28-year-old Floridian and employee of Xanterra Parks and Resorts. Fussner was shot and killed by park rangers after opening fire at the Canyon Lodg...
For decades, researchers in and around Yellowstone National Park have used seismic waves - imagine giving the region an MRI - to map the hot mush below the Earth's surface. Now a group of scientists from across the country have added solar storms and lightning to the diagnostic toolkit, tapping into the Earth's natural electricity to further refine the image of what lies up to 30 miles below its crust. "The challenge we face in geology, is there are very few direct observations of what's actuall...
Despite overwhelming evidence that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are the main driver of a climate crisis that threatens to imperil modern life on Earth, some far-right members of the Wyoming Legislature contend it's a hoax intended to depress the state's fossil fuel-reliant economy. Rather than capitulate to out-of-state policies and market forces, the state ought to set an example and outlaw carbon reduction measures altogether - a "bold step forward to lead a balanced, science-based...
The coming Wyoming Legislature, with its large cadre of first-time lawmakers, will consider significant reforms to the state's justice system. While much remains to be seen, WyoFile is watching four areas in particular where next year's policy-making could most directly impact policing, courts and government accountability. Among those measures are several bills the Joint Judiciary Committee crafted over the last 10 months. Testimony by subject experts has informed those pieces of legislation, b...
Opponents of the controversial Rail Tie wind farm in southern Albany County have sued federal regulators, hoping to halt the 149-turbine renewable energy project that would span 26,000 acres. The suit, filed Dec. 23 in the U.S. District Court of Wyoming and assigned to Chief Judge Scott W. Skavdahl, alleges the federal Western Area Power Administration - a division of the U.S. Department of Energy - failed to adequately weigh impacts on wildlife, wetlands, cultural resources and the Ames...
Wyoming's water chief wants emergency funds for hydrologists to measure flows in the state's portion of the troubled Colorado River Basin, documentation he said is vital to preserving irrigation and other uses. State Engineer Brandon Gebhart asked for $167,210 in supplemental budget funds, a piddling amount in the world of western water finances, but a critical sum necessary to launch the work this spring. He called parts of the proposed allocation an "emergency," a designation that would...
Someone recreating on public land south of Jackson called in the report of a dead cow elk. Wyoming Game and Fish Department personnel went to investigate, and while they were at it they took a tissue sample to ascertain what might have killed the cow. Two days before Christmas, the state agency publicized the unwelcome, but not unexpected news: The forlorn animal tested positive for chronic wasting disease, an always-lethal sickness with the potential to devastate big game herds. The CWD...
The federal government bought Wyoming's 640-acre Kelly Parcel school section for $100 million today, a transaction that will see the wildlife-rich property that lawmakers had proposed for commercial development, instead preserved as part of Grand Teton National Park. The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Grand Teton National Park Foundation announced the completion of this morning's sale after the foundation spearheaded a $37.6 million drive for private funds to augment $62.4 million in fe...
Oneil Anthony Findley, 28, of Jackson, Wyoming, was convicted by a federal jury on Dec. 11 of attempted possession with intent to distribute cocaine, use of a communication facility to facilitate a drug offense, and drug conspiracy. The trial lasted three days and was held before U.S. District Court Judge Kelly H. Rankin. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, while investigating a possible drug distribution network in Jackson, agents with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) and United States Postal Inspe...
A judge has ordered federal wildlife officials to decide by Jan. 20 whether Yellowstone-area grizzly bears should be delisted from the Endangered Species Act. The order, issued by U.S. District Court of Wyoming Judge Alan Johnson, could speed up a potential handover of authority to Wyoming, Idaho and Montana - opening the door for grizzly bear hunting. Johnson issued the decision Friday in response to a Wyoming petition that sought to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to honor a missed...
Wyoming’s largest electricity provider, Rocky Mountain Power, has agreed to trim a temporary rate hike for its 144,000 customers. The decision follows pressure from the Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocate and Wyoming Industrial Energy Consumers — a powerful rate-scrutinizing group that accounts for about 70% of the company’s electrical power consumption in the state. The Wyoming Public Service Commission on Monday approved a settlement agreement between the parties that finalizes an $80.6 million increase — about 7% less than Rocky Mountai...
The whereabouts of the pint-sized pika, a mammalian indicator species that is losing its alpine habitat to climate change, have been mapped for the first time in Wyoming's reaches of the Rocky Mountains. Biologists who keep watch over non-game species for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department surveyed the distribution of the talus-dwelling lagomorphs, finding pikas in nine mountainous areas: the Salt River, Snake River, Wyoming, Wind River, Gros Ventre, Teton, Absaroka, Bighorn and Snowy ranges....
Recent sentencings from the US Attorney's Office District of Wyoming: Injury or Depredation to U.S. Property Sherette Joseph Lujan, 48, of Riverton, Wyoming, was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment with 3 years of supervised release for injury or depredation to United States property. The court also ordered him to pay $2,304 in restitution. According to court documents, on June 15, the Riverton Police Department was dispatched to the Riverton Post Office for a report of a man breaking windows in the building with a metal object. Officers d...
Continued criticism of the near-final plan guiding management of 3.6 million acres of public lands in southwest Wyoming has sparked speculation that the incoming Republican-led Congress will nix the new charter through an oversight instrument that's never been used to intrude into federal land use planning. Worries emanating from environmental advocacy groups and retired federal government employees are that the next Congress will undo the Bureau of Land Management's Rock Springs Resource...
Unlawful Possession of a Machine Gun Preston Lewis, 21, of Rock Spring, Wyoming, was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment with three years of supervised release for the unlawful possession of a machine gun. According to court documents, on April 11, the Rock Springs Police Department was called to a firearms dealer for a report of a suspicious male who had purchased approximately $18,000 worth of high-dollar firearms. Police later found the defendant at another firearms dealer. During questioning, the defendant admitted to straw purchasing f...
U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) released the following statement after being elected by Senate Republicans to serve as the Assistant Majority Leader for the 119th Congress: “I want to thank the people of Wyoming for their support and for allowing me to continue serving our state in the United States Senate. I want to thank my Republican colleagues for their confidence and their vote today. It is my honor to serve them as Assistant Majority Leader. “We have an extraordinary opportunity in front of us. Voters spoke loudly. It is our job to...
A bill honoring the life and legacy of former Shoshoni Postmaster Dessie A. Bebout passed the United States House of Representatives this week and is on its way to the President’s desk for approval. The legislation was introduced in the Senate by U.S. Senators John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), and Tom Carper (D-Del.), where it passed unanimously in April of this year. The bill then progressed to the House, where it was supported by U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) and unanimously passed. The legislation honors Dessie Bebout b...
Congresswoman Harriet Hageman recently introduced the Visa Integrity Preservation Act, a bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to close the loophole that has allowed the Biden administration to grant mass amnesty to over 500,000 immigrants who illegally entered the United States or overstayed a visa. This would require illegal aliens under all circumstances to depart the United States and be subject to an interview before they could receive a nonimmigrant visa. The bill would also bar them from reentering the United States...
Wyoming is poised to become the first state in the nation to see a Freedom Caucus take the statehouse reins after Republican lawmakers on Saturday selected four members of the hard-line group for House leadership, several legislators told WyoFile. Saturday's vote at the GOP caucus in Casper was not entirely a surprise since all but one of the races were uncontested. The results, however, are significant - the national Freedom Caucus movement hopes to recreate its Wyoming success in other...
SHIRLEY BASIN-Josh Oakleaf stood where Carbon County miners scoured the earth's surface starting 60-some years ago in search of the uranium that fueled the United States' rise to becoming a nuclear superpower. After the mine went bust in the late 1970s, the land - part of the Heward Ranch - would have initially been a moonscape. Federal environmental regulators initiated a partial reclamation effort here in the 1990s, but much bare ground remained and the landscape still didn't support much...
Facedown in the dirt, with bear bites on his back and rump, Dennis Van Denbos wondered how this would end. It wasn't looking good. "When I [got] that third bite ... I thought, 'They are just going to eat me,'" he said. "It wasn't a fearful thing, it was just a recognition that this was going to happen." The year was 2007, and Van Denbos had taken an early walk in Grand Teton National Park that had turned perilous after he happened upon a sow grizzly and her three cubs as they fed on an elk...
JACKSON - After an acrimonious, three-hour meeting, Wyoming's top five state elected officials have approved a contract for a $100 million sale of the Kelly parcel to Grand Teton National Park. "I believe in our office we can take the $100 million and turn it into $1.6 billion," Treasurer Curt Meier said, shortly before voting for the deal. "That that could be a perpetual - actually, generational - fund that would benefit the students and the education system of the state of Wyoming until the...
SHERIDAN — Gov. Mark Gordon said on Wednesday that state agencies may have to “limit services” following voter approval of a constitutional amendment that allows lawmakers, if they so choose, to create a separate residential property tax class. He also said he was “pleased” the amendment passed in Tuesday’s General Election. “It was a good election, by all accounts here in Wyoming. Things turned out well,” Gordon said on Wednesday morning. “I am particularly happy about the Amendment A passage. I wasn’t sure it was going to pass. It is a diffic...
