Cowboy State Daily Video News: Friday, January 16, 2026

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Friday, January 16th.  I’m Mac Watson.

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The governor's policy director told members of the Joint Appropriations Committee on Thursday that their advancement of a proposal to kill the Wyoming Business Council was "crazy" and "nuts." Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports why he used those terms.

“Randall Luthy started off talking about the respect he has for the legislature, but he said, ‘This is nuts. This is crazy.’ He is the governor's Policy Director, former Speaker of the State House. He was saying this is just a very big, rushed effort. And then another policy person from the governor's office said, ‘We want to work with you on improving this agency over the course of the next year. We want to not drop this on the people three weeks before a session at 4;30 on an afternoon…It was Sarah Duranzo that proposed the working group and the interim work and to that House Appropriations Chair, John Bear said, ‘I don't think this committee has any interest in delaying this a session. But if you did do such a working group, would you include taxpayers who have not benefit from this agency, who might be skeptics on it?’”

The bill's next stop is the Wyoming Legislature, which convenes in a budget-planning session Feb. 9 and can modify, reject or pass the bill. If Gov. Mark Gordon, who has defended the agency, vetoes the bill seeking to kill it, the legislature would need a two-thirds majority to override his veto.

Read the full story HERE.

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Bodycam footage from nearly 5 years ago in Sheridan between 3 police officers and a disoriented man have created outrage on social media. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the video maker says the man suffered a stroke and underwent brain surgeries and was not treated properly by police.

“On social media around Sheridan, a lot of folks were talking about this incident that occurred on a snowy night back in February of 2021 a man appeared to be intoxicated, but it turned out he had something far more serious going on. He had he was actually experiencing a stroke, according to reports that are now pulled together in this online viral video that purports to tell the story of a man appears in his 40s and is really disoriented, and quite frankly, he's treated really well by law enforcement…But critics accuse the Sheridan Police Department of not doing enough to protect this man's health.”

Attempts to reach Davis and the video’s creator were unsuccessful.

Read the full story HERE.

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A massive Canadian cold front, bringing gusts up to 75 mph and single-digit wind chills, will clip eastern Wyoming on Friday. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that Black Hills Energy declared an Emergency Public Safety Power Shutoff Watch in some areas due to “high fire-risk conditions.”

“Black Hills energy is taking this action as a precaution. When you have high winds, there's a chance the power lines can blow down, and with as dry as Eastern Wyoming is, there's a chance that there could be wildfires. The way this pattern is shaping up, it's looking like it's going to cover Eastern Wyoming on Friday. Western Wyoming will get some lower temperatures, but won't be affected otherwise, and then we're just going to continue in this holding pattern as we move through January.”

Meteorologist Don Day tells Cowboy State Daily that the subsequent cold front will be like “another slap in the face of winter,” but the strong winds and cold temperatures won’t be carrying much, if any, snow. It’ll be all the fun of Wyoming’s winter winds without any of the much-needed moisture.

Read the full story HERE.

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A Cody man was sentenced to 4.25 years in prison on Wednesday for possessing 28 weapons, including pipe bombs and a machine gun, while he was under a protection order. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that Ronald Bailey told the judge he is the victim.

“A Cody man that was in federal district court US District Court here in Casper, seemed to try and convince the judge that he was a law abiding citizen…He had been told by a judge previously, when a protection order was issued against him that he could not possess weapons. And the judge told him that, you know, it seems that you love your guns more than you love the law…He was sentenced on two counts, two counts were dropped. So the two counts that he was sentenced on he got 51 months. He received 51 months each, and those are concurrent. So he's going to spend about four and a quarter years in a federal prison.”

Randall Thomas Bailey appeared with his attorney in a striped prison suit and shackles before Judge Scott Skavdahl. In October 2025, he pleaded guilty to charges of possession of a firearm by a person subject to a court order and possession of an unregistered firearm.

Read the full story HERE.

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I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

 

Cowboy State Daily news continues now…

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In what he called a win over China, Sen. Ogden Driskill advanced a proposed $16 million state-backed loan to bolster a rare earths processing plant. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that one industry rep says, "This is truly Upton versus China — this is how Wyoming pushes back against China.” 

“Rare Element Resources is really chomping at the bit to get this money to finish making a more permanent processing plant there in northern Wyoming and their lobbyist, Jeff Doherty said, ‘This is truly up in Wyoming versus China. This is how we in Wyoming push back against China.’ This would give, if it's successful, it would give a base here in Wyoming for people to run rare earths through…China has its own facilities to process. And also these are for building tech components. And so there's a little bit of a tech race, little bit of a national security component, whereas Wyoming is having this session, these talks about, do we are direct ourselves in business? And the compromise they ultimately came to was, ‘Okay, we'll offer a loan

to do what so that rare earths companies can apply for the loan rather than a grant.’”

If the entire legislature approves release of the loan, Rare Element Resources, which is operating in Upton, Wyoming, may have to compete against other businesses in the industry to win it. But Driskill said the money would help the company install its more permanent processing plant.

Read the full story HERE.

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A 19-year-old Casper man was sentenced to 8 to 10 years in prison on Thursday for the stabbing of a 17-year-old boy over a mutual love interest. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that the victim’s mother said that her son will have the scars from the attack for the rest of his life and as the stabbing punctured both lungs and damaged his liver.

“In court today, the district attorney presented three videos at the sentencing hearing, and they showed the perspective from the front porch. They had a video camera on the front porch, and so it showed the victim coming to the house. And then there was audio of the conversation that went on, lots of vulgarity. And then we see that the victim and defendant coming out onto the porch, wrestling one another, and they go down these steps, and during that time the victim was stabbed, but he altogether, he was stabbed five times…This was all over a girl, according to court remarks, and he was sentenced to eight to 10 years in prison.”

The mother of the victim, Ashleigh Humphrey, recounted how she was called at work and told to go to the hospital. There she found her son with injuries so bad it visibly affected those in the hospital. She added that her son had two chest tubes placed in his lungs.

Read the full story HERE.

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At a hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman told Fish & Wildlife Dir. Brian Nesvik that grizzlies need to be delisted because they are mauling too many hunters. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that Nesvik agreed and said he believes the grizzly population has recovered.

“Brian Nesvik, former Wyoming Game and Fish director, now US Fish and Wildlife director, Harriet Hagman, our Republican congresswoman. They were in a hearing in front of a subcommittee that Harriet Hageman chairs, and they kind of got onto the subject of delisting grizzly bears. They've both come out and said in the past they really wanted to happen. Nesvik didn't really change his tone from if, it happens, it's probably going to be a couple years. But Hagman kind of took it in the direction we're going to open up more land for hunting. We need to do something about these grizzly bears, because they keep mauling hunters.”

Nesvik appeared before the subcommittee to speak about his goal over the next two years to open new hunting and fishing access on 16 federal wildlife refuges, in areas totaling roughly 87,000 acres.

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.