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AUSTIN, TX -- Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been released after four nights in the hospital for treatment of severe burns he suffered while vacationing last week. Spokesman Matt Hirsch said Abbott left San Antonio's Brooke Army Medical Center on Friday and is returning to the governor's mansion in Austin. Abbott, a paraplegic who uses a wheelchair, sustained extensive second- and third-degree burns on his lower legs and feet after being scalded July 7 while in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. His office won't say exactly how he was burned.

Fracking is once again becoming a hot topic in the oil and gas world., with Germany moving Tuesday to impose an indefinite ban on the unconventional drilling technique. But in the U.S. this week the story was the opposite. Oil and gas drillers won a critical legal victory over the future of fracking in America’s shale plays. That came in Wyoming, where a District Judge struck down a set of tougher rules on fracking that had been implemented by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) early last year. Last March, the BLM came down hard on the U.S. shale...

A lobbyist organization funded by local governments held a press conference in the state Capitol this week to urge lawmakers to send its members more in state taxpayer dollars. The event took place as legislators are preparing to pass a state budget for next year, and was cast as an invitation to discuss how local government funding is “broken.” Given that message, it may seem ironic that the host city of Lansing collected more tax dollars than it expected for a third straight year and had a surplus. The group is called the Michigan Municipal League, and its members want...

The following is a list of prominent Republicans who say they’re not planning to attend the Republican National Convention -- based on responses from their offices and previously published reports: Former President George W. Bush Former President George H.W. Bush 2008 Republican presidential nominee and Arizona Sen. John McCain 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney 2016 presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval Wyoming Gov. Matthew Mead South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson Kansas Sen....

US scientists have found what it could be key for the future of the country’s ailing coal industry as they detected that ashes from local operations, particularly those around the Appalachian region, are very rich in rare earth elements. Researchers from North Carolina-based Duke University analyzed coal ashes from coal-fired power plants throughout the US, including those in the largest coal-producing regions: the Appalachian Mountains; southern and western Illinois; and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. One of the team main conclusions was that coal waste generated by the Appalachian coal operations was the richest in rare earth...

In the wake of a recent Nevada state party convention that descended into chaos, Democrats are sweating out a similar event in Wyoming on Saturday. When Democrats meet in Cheyenne to select delegates to the July national convention, the same elements that created such a volatile mix in Nevada will be present: anger and frustration over Bernie Sanders’ delegate haul, superdelegates who backed Hillary Clinton before the state caucuses took place, and threats to state party officials. Story Continued Below At a gathering of state Democratic chairmen in Philadelphia last week, Wyoming was identified as one of the upcoming states...

I am certain you’ve never heard of me, unless you are a friend or relative, because I am just a beginner at politics. Yet somehow, in this most contentious political year for Republicans, I am going to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland as a delegate. Here’s how it happened. Wyoming, the least populated state, sends 29 delegates to the Republican National Convention, but that number varies every four years, depending on how well the Republican Party is represented in the state (i.e. legislative seats held, governorship held, party membership per capita). The same system exists at the state level....

Female Republican lawmakers are making the case for Donald Trump to choose a woman as his running mate. Picking a female vice presidential candidate could help mitigate the damage Trump caused with women voters in the primary, they say, as well as counter Hillary Clinton if she is the Democratic nominee. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) offered the idea, somewhat unprompted, at a Capitol Hill event hosted by the Heritage Foundation this week. When a reporter asked a panel of conservative House Republicans who Trump should choose as his running mate, most lawmakers demurred. But Lummis, the only woman on the...

GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz lashed out at Fox News over coverage of Donald Trumpafter a heated interview with Sean Hannity earlier this week. When asked on “The Dom Giordano Program” about coverage of Trump’s claims of unfair “voterless elections” in states like Wyoming and Colorado, Cruz said, “They know it’s not true.” “Donald doesn’t handle losing well, and when we loses, he cries and he screams and he whines and he curses and he insults everybody,” Cruz said. “So when Donald lost five states in a row in landslide elections, that’s when they began making up this nonsense about...

Wyoming County is picturesque rolling hills country dotted with apple orchards and maple groves located in the western part of the state. Both the state of Wyoming and Wyoming County are predominantly white 92% with similar per capita income. Where they differ significantly is in their ability to vote within a Republican Primary Election. Although the State of Wyoming has a population 10 times the size of Wyoming County, only a fraction of a percentage of Wyoming republicans are chosen to vote for the delegates that pick the presidential nominee. Wyoming County, NY had a 40% voter turnout in 2016....

Ted Cruz on Wyoming win: "This is how elections are won in America." Once again, voters are not represented in the process. Instead, "votes" for the nominee are gained by backroom politics. Another corrupt process by the GOP establishment. From Fox News: Ted Cruz on Saturday won all 14 delegates in the Wyoming GOP convention -- a relatively small number but enough for the Texas senator to declare victory and keep GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump from securing the nomination. “We are likely to have a battle in Cleveland to decide who is the nominee,” Cruz told party members before...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – It’s a Ted Cruz sweep in Wyoming. Cruz won 14 of 14 Republican National Convention delegates up for grabs at the Wyoming state convention here Saturday. The crowd here was clearly in Cruz’s corner, as the Texas senator was the only candidate to make the trip to Casper — ahead of a major snowstorm — and Sarah Palin, scheduled to speak for Trump, previously canceled.

It's a Ted Cruz sweep in Wyoming. Cruz won 14 of 14 Republican National Convention delegates up for grabs at the Wyoming state convention here Saturday. The crowd here was clearly in Cruz's corner, as the Texas senator was the only candidate to make the trip to Casper -- ahead of a major snowstorm -- and Sarah Palin, scheduled to speak for Trump, previously canceled.

This is #16 in a series that examines the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal is to assess the rules for 2016 -- relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the W-T-A/proportionality spectrum... The RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half, but tightening proportionality rules. Those alterations will trigger subtle reactions, other rules changes, particularly the new binding requirement, will be more noticeable.... ...Changes since 2012: As FHQ argued at the outset of the... plan to allocate delegates for 2016, there are only so...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Donald Trump's presidential campaign has all but thrown in the towel in Wyoming ahead of Saturday's Republican convention. The billionaire businessman's campaign made a conscious decision not to commit resources to Wyoming, according to Alan Cobb, a senior Trump adviser. Trump picked only up a single delegate in last month's Wyoming county conventions while rival Ted Cruz scored nine. There are 14 more delegates at stake at this weekend's state convention. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press from the convention site in Casper, Cobb said Friday that he expects Cruz to sweep what remains of...

CASPER, Wyo. — On Saturday morning, while his two rivals for the Republican nomination stay back east, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will fly to this city to address the state GOP convention. The potential prize: Fourteen delegates to the national convention in Cleveland. The competition: Hard to find. On Friday, with no explanation to either party officials or media, Donald Trump's campaign announced that Sarah Palin would cancel her scheduled speech here. Additionally, while Republicans gathered for a barbecue and fried chicken dinner, the campaign of Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, was invisible, and the Trump campaign was clearly outmatched. The...

Donald Trump is sending Sarah Palin, one of his best political surrogates, to the Wyoming Republican State Convention, in an effort to woo delegates to his campaign. On Saturday, Wyoming State Delegates will select the remaining 14 delegates to represent the party in Cleveland. Twelve delegates were already selected at party’s county caucuses in March. Three other delegate slots go to the party’s national committeeman, national committeewoman, and the chairman of the Wyoming’s Republican Party. Trump is anxious to stop the flow of delegates to his rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 97% . In Colorado, Cruz swept all 34 delegates...

CASPER – Study a map of presidential primary results and you’ll see Donald Trump dominating in the northeast. You’ll see him beating more established candidates in Arizona and Nevada and stunning pundits with dominance in the South. But where you won’t see Trump winning big, or winning much at all, is in Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, three of the nation’s reddest states. There, the real estate mogul and famed reality star has struggled to connect with voters. Trump is still the front-runner for the GOP nomination, but he has failed in the Northern Rockies. He lost to Sen. Ted Cruz...

February 1, 2016 — University of Wyoming scientists have found evidence of continental collisions in Wyoming’s Teton Range, similar to those in the Himalayas, dating to as early as 2.68 billion years ago. The research, published Jan. 22 in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, shows that plate tectonics were operating in what is now western Wyoming long before the collisions that created the Himalayas starting 40 million years ago. In fact, the remnants of tectonic activity in old rocks exposed in the Tetons point to the world’s earliest known continent-continent collision, says Professor Carol Frost of UW’s Department of...

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is projected to win the Wyoming caucuses, giving him eight wins in the last nine contests. The state awards just 14 delegates on a proportional basis, but the win is another jolt of momentum for Sanders heading into the critical New York primary April 19. Both campaigns paid little attention to Wyoming. Sanders held a rally there Tuesday. Rival Hillary Clinton did not go to the state, but her husband Bill Clinton did.