While the Wyoming legislature was busy fighting about private schools, the budget and a few tax issues, it also passed legislation that continues to make the state the place to be for Blockchain technology.

Early one November morning last year, Devils Tower Senator Ogden Driskill got a call from Afton Senator Dan Dockstader.

"He'd discovered that Rocky Mountain Power was accelerating closure of a number of their coal-fired units down around Kemmerer in his district," Driskill said.

House Democrats are pushing an effort to overhaul the nation's election and ethics laws. But Wyoming Republicans say the effort is a smokescreen to help keep Democrats in power.

On Sunday, March 10, the Smithsonian Channel is premiering a new four-part series focused on Yellowstone National Park. The series was produced by Grizzly Creek Films based in Bozeman, Montana.

Wyoming Public Radio's Kamila Kudelska spoke with Thomas Wilson, the executive producer, and Eric Bendick, a producer and writer for the series, to get a behind the scenes of how wildlife focused series is created. First Bendick answered how the series tries to differentiate from well-known Yellowstone stories.

On a pond in a top-secret spot on the Laramie plains, I take my first steps out onto the ice behind Fisherman Larry Fioanini. He tells me to walk right behind him, pointing out some open water in the middle where a spring percolates, keeping it from freezing.

A California condor recently flew from Arizona to Wyoming but died shortly after arriving. California condors are an endangered species, and the bird, which was being tracked, was taken in for a necropsy by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This past year has been turbulent for the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear. It was returned to the threatened species list last fall shortly after the state made plans to begin a grizzly hunt. Now, because of their uncertain status, people who live in grizzly habitat are frustrated, and some grizzly experts are fearful that the bear is losing support from its human neighbors, and experts say that local support is vital.

In wide open spaces like the rural parts of the Mountain West, there's sometimes little known about the secret lives of plants and animals. There are too many square miles and too few scientists. That's where citizen scientists can come to the rescue.

The American West has inspired countless artists. But that holds especially true for one prominent artist from the region. Gabe Leonard is a Gillette native who calls himself the "Cinematic Artist."