Cowboy State Daily Video News: Wednesday, September 2, 2026

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, September 2nd.  I'm Mac Watson.

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Nearly a year after the proposal was rejected, the scaled-down Laramie Range Wind Project was approved Tuesday after a contentious two-day hearing. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that up to 139 wind turbines would be placed on more than 41,000 acres about 20 miles north of Cheyenne.

"In a unanimous decision, the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council voted to approve a permit request for the Laramie Range Wind Project. This is a huge project; that if it moves forward, it would be twice the size of Cheyenne. Cheyenne area rancher and realtor Wendy Volk has been a staunch opponent of this project from the beginning. She has been an advocate against what she calls the Wyoming wind wall, where if you look at wind projects cumulatively, how they connect or how they're connected to each other. She says, if we're not careful, we're going to have a wall of wind across the whole southeastern corner of the state."

The project was scaled down, initially starting out at about 53,000 acres, which would have been about three times the size of Cheyenne. After a lot of public pushback and a 'no' vote from Laramie County Commissioners last year, the developers offered to shrink it both in terms of acreage and in terms of number of wind turbines.

Read the full story HERE.

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A judge declined Monday to drop charges against transgender activist Rihanna Kelver, after Kelver claimed self-defense for pointing a pistol at a man last September. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the judge ruled that Kelver wasn't "in danger of imminent death or serious bodily injury."

"Rihanna Kelver had tried to get two felony counts dropped on self-defense claims here last week in court, and the judge said that she would take it under advisement. Judge Westby came out on Monday and said, "Look, Rihanna Kelver was not the initial aggressor. Evidence suggests Kelver was afraid in the moment, but this didn't rise to the level of allegedly pulling a handgun on someone, so the judge decided to keep the case alive. Sometimes the lawyers will negotiate a plea deal, and sometimes they'll gear up for trial, and that depends entirely on the case, the defendant, the counsel, that kind of thing."

Kelver is arguably Wyoming's most outspoken transgender activist, and protested a new Wyoming ban on transgender use of public bathrooms last summer by using the women's bathroom at the state Capitol.

Read the full story HERE.

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