VIC, an artificial intelligence (AI) backed by Cheyenne resident Victor Miller, has been banned from registering to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Miller is taking that decision to federal court.

The Secretary of State Chuck Gray rejected Miller’s AI for failure to comply with the ballot name requirements under Wyoming law. That rejection was affirmed by the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming when Miller's motion for a temporary restraining order was denied. Miller amended his complaint after the motion was denied.

Miller tried to run the Chat GPT program for mayor of Cheyenne in 2024. Victor and his AI lost that election.

After the mayoral election, Miller stepped back from electoral politics to focus on the Rational Governing Alliance (RGA), an organization with the goal of “transforming democratic governance through artificial intelligence.”

Miller’s nephew, Landon, has filed to run for Cheyenne’s Ward 1 City Council seat with the same goal of getting AI into office.

“Both state and federal law are clear: to be a candidate for office, you must be a human being, not an AI bot,” said Gray in a press release. "I won't tolerate a mockery of our electoral system and will not allow our electoral system to be taken advantage of by AI.”

Miller told Wyoming Public Radio (WPR) that Gray’s ban on AI mocks Wyoming’s electoral system. Miller said he remains undeterred and said AI is on the ballot, whether Gray likes it or not.

“What he [Gray] can not do is exclude a candidate from the ballot based on those views,” said Miller. “That is the question now pending in federal court. I will have full faith in the ability of this court to see things as they are and make the correct decision.”

Open AI, the company behind Chat GPT, shut down VIC in 2024 and Miller has since worked on a custom-made AI for governance. During an interview with WPR last year, Miller talked about using AI to replace politicians. Since AI programs can’t hold office, Miller has said people will have to act as “meat avatars”, or a human acting on behalf of an AI once in office, essentially allowing AI to govern through an individual. Ultimately, that’s how Miller was able to run for mayor, and remains the primary strategy in pursuit of public office.

“The facts are clear. AI is on the ballot again. For Ward 1 Cheyenne City Council, and after our favorable judgment for U.S. Senate,” said Miller. “AI is on the ballot because of the meat avatar system, which is bulletproof and protected by the highest ideals of American freedom.”

This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.

This story is part of our Quick Hits series. This series will bring you breaking news and short updates from throughout the state.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is looking into recent incidents of Indigenous rock art vandalization in northern Wyoming.

Six sites in the Bighorn Basin were damaged, according to a press release sent out by the agency on June 4. People scratched names and phrases onto and next to the petroglyphs, and shot bullets at the sites. At one location, someone lit a bonfire below the rock art, causing the rock to crack, crumble and change colors.

“This intentional damage takes away future generations’ ability to view this part of our human history and to study these sites,” said Cody-based BLM archaeologist Karina Black.

That damage is irreversible, according to the agency. All six sites are protected under the federal Archaeological Resources Protection Act and vandalizing them is illegal.

In 2025, the Wyoming Legislature also passed a law creating fines for anyone who vandalizes petroglyphs, pictographs and historical inscriptions on state land.

Anyone with tips or information about the vandalism can reach out to the BLM Cody Field Office at 307-578-5900.

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The Gillette News Record reported on June 12, 1988, that Opal Butcher had graduated from the University of Wyoming in Casper. The 76-year-old went back to college to earn her bachelor’s degree in social science. She planned to use the degree as a substitute teacher in Glenrock, where she was living at the time.

As historic snowpack lows dovetail with significant federal workforce reductions, Bobbie Scopa has a close eye on ignitions.

She spent 45 years on firelines and now helps lead a nonprofit of concerned current and former federal wildland firefighters, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters. But she won’t make a prediction about what the season will look like.

“Conditions can be as dry as you can imagine, but you don’t get any ignitions. And so if you don’t get the ignitions, you’re not gonna have big fires,” she said.

She’s one of several fire watchdogs who spoke to reporters at a June 2 news conference managed by the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation and advocacy organization that tracks support for environmental policies.

Panelists said they’re tracking acreage of prescribed burns, how much forests are thinned and how many federal employees are fighting fires.

Federal data show Wyoming was one of few states to have a slight increase in how much small trees were thinned last year. The state also saw an increase in the number of units with prescribed burns and how many units of piled materials were burned. Thinning and targeted burning can help reduce the severity of future fires, according to U.S. Forest Service research.

But along with Utah and New Mexico, Wyoming was part of the exception as all other states saw decreases, according to Andrea Delgado, a former U.S. Forest Service fuels and forestry specialist.

She said that wildfire mitigation in national forests and grasslands fell by 35% last year compared to 2024.

“That’s an area nearly six times the size of Rocky Mountain National Park that did not get treated,” she said.

In 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told the public that cuts under the Trump administration’s DOGE committee would spare firefighting operations.

Still, across the West, federal land agencies were down 26,000 staff from 2024 to 2025, according to an analysis from former government officials of data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Some of the former employees offered critical support to fire suppression and mitigation work.

That means teams nationwide could still feel the pinch.

In May, the Spread Creek Fire on the Bridger-Teton National Forest tested local teams. High winds whipped the fire to 257 acres within a 24-hour period. The district received 100 firefighters from out-of-state to contain the blaze. But as more fires begin to pop up across the West, help could be slower to arrive.

Scopa said the cut positions don’t necessarily extinguish embers, but they manage logistics.

“Making sure the food is showing up, [making] sure that the maps are accurate and drawn, and the financial records are managed,” she said. “This is a huge business.”

The National Interagency Fire Center updated its summer forecast this week, with western Wyoming entering “significant wildfire potential” starting in July.

Republished with permission from Wyoming News Now, a TV news outlet covering the Cheyenne and Casper areas.

Cheyenne Frontier Days will be here before we know it, with the festivities kicking off in just about six weeks.

"It's a feather in our cap, it's beautiful over there, what they've done to build that thing up. I think people are going to be amazed, I am every time I go over there," said Tom Hirsig, CEO of Cheyenne Frontier Days (CFD).

He said he's excited to see the progress made with the new Morning Star Indian Village and Chute 9, adding that Chute 9 will offer some of the best views in the arena.

"It's like taking the West Side stands, which are in the shade, and the East Side stands, which are right behind the buckin' shoots, kind of a combination of those two seats, the best of both of those," said Hirsig.

In addition to the new construction, this year, CFD will participate as part of the America 250 celebration.

"It's quite an honor to be nationally recognized. Cheyenne Frontier Days, being the Day of the West, is really going to be a big day for us. It'll be historic," said Hirsig.

Through a formal order issued by the Secretary of the Interior, July 23, 2026, is designated as the Day of the American West.

The order specifically recognizes Cheyenne Frontier Days for its longstanding role in celebrating and preserving Western heritage and traditions.

“At Cheyenne Frontier Days, cowboys and Indians are not opposing legends, but complimentary traditions. One represents the working spirit of the frontier; the other, the cultural and spiritual lifeways of the first peoples of the Plains,” it reads.

The secretary of the Interior, secretary of Agriculture, secretary of the Air Force and numerous department heads from Interior and Agriculture will be in attendance.

"You know it's like the 4th of July multiplied by 250," said Hirsig.

CFD runs from July 17 through 26. This year’s event is called Year of the American Indian.

We now know who’s running in the Republican and Democratic primaries coming up on Aug. 18. More than 150 people filed to run for the Legislature, and statewide and federal races are also packed. Wyoming Public Radio’s State Government Reporter Jordan Uplinger has been tracking candidate filings and making videos about it on social media. Here are his highlights of the races for the U.S. House and Senate and Wyoming’s governor.

As we heard from Jordan, the fields are crowded for Wyoming’s representation in Washington, D.C. But this is also a big year for the balance of power in the state Legislature. In the last election, a group of hardline conservatives called the Wyoming Freedom Caucus won a majority of seats in the state House. Will they be able to hold onto it is a big question leading into the primary election. Here’s Jordan’s breakdown of which races may tip the scales.

The Wyoming Primary is Aug. 18. Keep up to date with Wyoming Public Media’s election coverage by following our election information page.

Check out Wyoming Public Media’s Facebook, Instagram or YouTube pages to see more of Jordan’s videos.

Today on the show, we hear from a woman who grew up in Wyoming but decided to self-deport. Weston County has a new clerk after two years of investigations into the former county clerk’s election mistakes. And we tag along on one of the hottest outdoor recreation pastimes of the moment: bird watching. Those stories and more.