Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, December 4th . I'm Mac Watson.

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More than two weeks after a 10-month-old boy was reported missing, authorities have issued a felony arrest warrant for his mother, who's accused of taking the baby. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that the father is offering a reward for any tips that would lead to getting his son returned home safely.

"A felony warrant has been issued from Madeline Daly for custody interference, because she has absconded with the couple's son, and she was last seen in the Worland area on November 16…So on Wednesday, the father of the child announced he was putting up a $10,000 reward for any information leading to his safe return."

Daly's grey 2017 Dodge Ram pickup was last seen in the Worland area in the Big Horn Basin in north-central Wyoming with her last known address at an RV park in Ten Sleep.

Read the full story HERE.

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Construction of a $60 million state-of-the-art rare earth processing and separation demonstration plant is complete in Upton, Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the plant is expected to be a re-defining moment in America's efforts to break China's rare earth stranglehold.

"So Rare Earth Resources is keeping China from having a monopoly on this technology. Their proprietary and patented technology will keep production of the elements that it mines within the US, and it also intends to process and separate the elements more efficiently and in a more environmentally friendly way…construction of the plant is completed, but the plant will not be fully operational until early 2026."

Processing and separating the rare earths, which will come from neighboring Crook County as part of the Bear Lodge Critical Rare Earth Mining Project, will be a game-changer for Wyoming — and the domestic supply chain as a whole.

Read the full story HERE.

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A Worland man who riddled his own dog with bullets was sentenced Wednesday to three years' supervised probation and fined $1,000. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Donald "Dudley" Wright says he's had death threats over the incident.

"He was facing years in prison, potentially, and so he was like, I just can't believe how severely my life is derailed over these incidents. I still have a right to put down my own dog. And, you know, he said he was trying to put down this dog that was eating medication and reportedly killing chickens, and it just went haywire in the dark, you know, the dog got free, and then he couldn't finish the job, and then the neighbor women like ran off with it before he could finish the job. And the prosecutor countered, saying, 'it's not that you were trying to put down your own dog, it's the jury found the way you did it to be cruel in nature, feloniously cruel.'"

Wright told the court that in hindsight, he wished he'd handled his frustration with the dog differently.

Read the full story HERE.

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Rock Springs residents turned out Tuesday to support promised changes to a controversial plan to manage 3.6 million acres of southwest Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Tracie Sullivan reports the plan is being amended to comply with Trump's order to peel away roadblocks to U.S. energy development.

"People right now are optimistic that th