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In 2009, Russia’s state nuclear agency, Rosatom, began acquiring a Canadian company called Uranium One. It started small—17%—then kept buying. By 2010, Rosatom wanted control. The prize wasn’t just uranium. It was access: to Kazakh deposits, American mines, and strategic reserves buried beneath a 35,000-acre ranch in Wyoming.The deal needed approval from CFIUS, a powerful U.S. committee tasked with blocking foreign threats to national security. On the panel sat the State Department, then led by Secretary Hillary Clinton.That spring, as the uranium deal quietly advanced toward Washington, Salida’s charitable arm—the Salida Capital Foundation—received $3.3 million. It was an anonymous donation.Within...

The state of Wyoming quietly bought $10 million in gold in December as required by a new state law. Sponsors of the law hail it as a hedge against dollar devaluation while critics say there’s no good way to cash in on gold’s increasing value. Wyoming’s historic $10 million gold purchase required by 2025 legislation has happened with little fanfare. There were no public announcements or press releases at the time. There was just a brief mention of the December purchase during a Jan. 9 Joint Appropriations Committee hearing. Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, asked the Wyoming Treasurer’s office for an...

Wyoming’s first hard rock mine in a century is all but shovel ready and may be sitting on a pile of gold much larger than what’s so far been showcased for investors. The CK Gold project, 20 miles west of Cheyenne past Curt Gowdy State Park, also could be worth a lot more than previously estimated because of an explosion in the value of gold. It’s more than doubled since about a year ago. Chairman of the U.S. Gold Corp. board, Luke Norman, told investors this past week that the company now believes its project is sitting on top of...

The Rocky Mountain West remains in the grip of fentanyl and methamphetamine addiction, with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reporting record drug seizures throughout the region in 2025, Wyoming included. Last year, the DEA seized 8,729,000 fentanyl pills and nearly 3,100 pounds of methamphetamine across the four-state mountain region that includes Colorado, Utah, Montana and Wyoming, with fentanyl seizures in Wyoming up by 264% in 2025, according to DEA figures. Statewide law enforcement continues to grapple with drugs infiltrating Wyoming communities as traces of carfentanil, an extremely potent synthetic opioid used to tranquilize large animals, was discovered in small doses...

The Wyoming Supreme Court has struck down two pro-life laws banning most abortions, allowing the killing of unborn babies to continue. In a 4-1 ruling on Tuesday, the court declared the bans unconstitutional, citing a 2012 state constitutional amendment that protects the right to make health care decisions, despite the fact that killing babies in abortions is a denial of health care for unborn babies. The laws, passed in 2023, included a comprehensive prohibition on abortion with exceptions for rape, incest or to save the mother’s life, and the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills. “A woman has a...

Wyoming's oil and gas producers say Christmas came early last week when the Bureau of Land Management extended the deadline for compliance with bonding requirements that threatened to shutter small operators across the state. The Direct Final Rule delays enforcement of Biden-era regulations that would have increased bonding costs by 1,400% while the Trump administration works toward permanent solutions. "This marks significant progress in addressing the anti-oil and natural gas regulations that were handed down during the previous administration," said Pete Obermueller, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. "While this rule does not cover new bonds and does not...

Rep. Harriet Hageman, a Republican, is running for Senate in Wyoming next year, seeking to replace retiring GOP Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who announced last week that she would not ​run for re-election. Trump quickly gave Hageman his "my Complete and Total Endorsement, writing in a Truth Social post hours after she launched her campaign that he knows Hageman well and she "is a TOTAL WINNER! Harriet has ALWAYS delivered for Wyoming, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate." Hageman, 63, was elected to be the state’s lone representative in Congress in 2022 after ousting then-Rep. Liz...

Thank you, Wyoming! Serving our state has been the honor of my life. - Cynthia Lummis

The girl Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers say they rescued from two kidnappers told her sister before the incident that she was being followed and that someone AirDropped to her a photo of a gun pointed at the house where she was staying, court documents say. The Wyoming Highway Patrol on Nov. 29 arrested two men who were traveling with a 16-year-old girl, on claims the two men were kidnapping her from her home in Wisconsin. They struggled with cellphone pings in the sparse state and resorted ultimately to scouring the state’s roadways until they found the girl, the agency said...

The September day was rapidly fading as 12-year-old Kaci Bulkley settled in for a shot at her first elk, a huge bull, 600 yards away. She couldn’t quite get her custom-built 7mm Remington magnum rifle steady enough, so her dad, Hazer Bulkley, offered some help. “I wasn’t feeling too steady. So my dad took off his shoe, and put it under the gunstock” Kaci told Cowboy State Daily. That provided the solid rest she needed, so she pulled the trigger and landed a lethally solid hit. “He (the bull) took about 10 seconds to go down. He went about five...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Investigators in Wyoming sought to identify two men they believe left a homemade bomb in front of the state Capitol, causing the building’s evacuation after a passerby found the object and brought it inside. The bomb, at a time of heightened political angst in the U.S., put the sleepy capital of the least-populated state on edge for awhile, with drones overhead and officers with bomb-sniffing dogs combing the Capitol grounds. But a day later, things appeared back to normal. No security was visible at the 135-year-old, sandstone building where visitors have always been able to more...

The U.S. Department of Education has contracted with far-right organizations Turning Point USA and the Heritage Foundation to develop a “patriotic” curriculum, perpetuating Stephen Miller’s guttural threat that “Children will be taught to love America. Children will be taught to be patriots.” Miller’s words echoed Joseph Goebbels’ commitment to indoctrinate children in 1930s Germany. On Veterans Day, we recall how 1950s American kindergartners learned to love our country. We stood proudly facing the flag with hands over our hearts, pledging “allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, one Nation...

President Donald Trump pardoned Troy Lake on Friday. The 65-year-old Wyoming diesel mechanic spent seven months in federal prison for tweaking and removing emissions systems on ailing engines. He was originally sentenced to one year and one day in prison, but was released early to home confinement with an ankle monitor in September. He and his business Elite Diesel were also fined $52,000. Though relieved to be free of the dismal prison in which he spent his 40th wedding anniversary and his 65th birthday, Lake said that he believed he’d spend the rest of his life as a convicted felon,...

R.C. and Annia Carter survey their ranch near Ten Sleep, Wyo., on Oct. 14, 2025. The Carters have practiced regenerative or holistic agricultural practices to cultivate their pastureland. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times ================================================================ TEN SLEEP, Wyo.—The alfalfa weevil, scourge of Western ranchers, appears when the frost melts, skeletonizing leaves and profits. There are ways to limit its damage—early harvest, livestock grazing, and intercropping alfalfa with grass—but most growers opt for insecticides. R.C. Carter, a third-generation rancher in Northern Wyoming, recalled a realization he had while using a 1.5-gallon container of concentrated pesticide to spray a 60-acre alfalfa pasture. “I was...

For 15 years, Matthew Shepard’s unspeakably brutal murder on a lonely prairie in Wyoming has been a byword for the very worst of American anti-gay bigotry and a rallying cry for a more tolerant, more inclusive society. The 21-year-old University of Wyoming student was found trussed to a fence post, bleeding and half-frozen to death, in a rocky field on the outskirts of Laramie. He had been pistol-whipped so severely that his brain stem was crushed. His killers even removed his shoes, on the off-chance he broke free of his bonds and tried to run to safety. Shepard’s death inspired...

WORLAND — More than 4 tons' worth of giant pumpkins were weighed at the 2025 Wyoming State Championship Weigh-Off and Pumpkin Drop on Saturday. Then, a lot of that tonnage was hoisted 200 feet into the air and dropped to explode in spectacular fashion. The climax of the event was watching a 1,700-pound pumpkin smash the crap out of a porta-potty. The cold, windy weather did nothing to dampen the spirits of people whose “pumpkin fever” had them fiendishly devoted to their pumpkins, zucchinis, and watermelons for months. They came to see the weight of their work, then watch it...

Why pay $1.59 million for a used Gulfstream IV jet when you can potentially acquire a Fairchild C-119L Flying Boxcar military transport plane for $150? If that’s out of your price range, how about a Boeing KC-97 Stratofreighter tanker aircraft for $25? Those are the starting bids for two of the 16 aircraft available at auction on the website Public Surplus. Big Horn County is selling the aircraft, mainly from the World War II and Cold War eras, after the Wyoming Supreme Court gave the go-ahead. “They’re aircraft in various stages of undress,” Paul Thur, Big Horn County Airport manager,...

- I visited a public high school in Upton, Wyoming, that's changing the conversation around college. - The school has a personalized learning structure, preparing students for one of three futures. - I was surprised at the level of individualization for every student's career and education path.

Zack Ford of the ThinkProgress blog really ought to invest in a dictionary. As the editor of the left-wing blog's LGBT section, he took the lead in blaming Christians, conservatives, and traditionalists for the deaths of 49 people in Orlando last week while simultaneously braying about conservatives "scapegoating" radical Islam. Note to Zack Ford: it's not scapegoating to blame radical Islam when a radical Islamist shoots up a nightclub. It is scapegoating to blame Christians when a radical Islamist shoots up a night club. Scapegoating, by definition, is blaming the innocent. His revolting article represents everything that's wrong with the...

One of the most famous trial attorneys of the 20th century and a proud son of Wyoming, Gerry Spence, died overnight Wednesday, at the age of 96. Spence was a legend among the trial bar — especially for his civil practice and criminal defense work. =============================================================== One of the most famous trial attorneys of the 20th century and a proud son of Wyoming, Gerry Spence died overnight Wednesday in his Montecito, California, home at the age of 96, his family says. Spence was a legend among the trial bar, especially for his civil practice and criminal defense work. He was...