NORTHERN ROCKIES

Grizzlies on the move in Rockies as hunting in limbo

BILLINGS, Montana – Grizzly bears are expanding their range in the U.S. Northern Rockies, spreading from remote wilderness into farmland amid a legal fight over proposed hunting.

New government data from grizzly population monitoring show bruins in the Yellowstone region of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho expanded their range by about 1,500 square miles over the past two years.

They now occupy almost 27,000 square miles, a range that has grown 34 percent in the past decade.

Run-ins with bears are happening in agricultural areas where the fearsome animals hadn’t been seen for decades, raising tensions in communities over the grizzly’s status as a federally protected species in the U.S. outside Alaska

Wyoming and Idaho officials proposed grizzly hunts last year, but they were blocked by a judge’s ruling.

Government attorneys on May 24 asked an appeals court to overturn part of that ruling. The case could take months or even years to decide, even as there’s no end in sight to the trend of bears getting into more conflicts at the periphery of their range.

An estimated 700 bears live in the Yellowstone area. Biologists say that’s a conservative figure and doesn’t include grizzlies that are outside a designated monitoring area that’s centered on Yellowstone National Park.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contends the animals no longer need federal protection. State officials say hunting would give them a tool to better manage their numbers, but that it would be limited to sustainable levels.

KANSAS

As Kobach weighs Senate bid, national Republicans ready to stop him

WASHINGTON – National Republicans are prepared to intervene in the Kansas Senate primary to ensure that conservative firebrand Kris Kobach does not win the party’s nomination should he run, multiple sources told the Kansas City Star.

Kobach said this month that he is still “actively considering” a bid for the U.S. Senate next year in Kansas. The seat will come open with the retirement of Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, 83, who announced in January that he would not run for reelection.

Any anti-Kobach efforts by groups such as the National Republican Senatorial Committee or the Senate Leadership Fund likely would take the form of undermining Kobach without actively supporting any of the other GOP candidates running against him.

Kobach’s former campaign manager, State Rep. J.R. Claeys, denounced the national Republican opposition to Kobach.

“The swamp in D.C. is wide and deep,” said Claeys, who said he was authorized to speak for Kobach. “It wouldn’t be the first time the D.C. establishment came after a true conservative here in Kansas. Kris stands with President Trump – he’s tough on illegal immigration – and these sorts of attacks show the establishment is soft on that issue.”

The NRSC told The Star that the NRSC’s job is to win elections, and the committee reserves the right to ensure that there is a candidate who can do so. The NRSC said it already has met with several candidates who can beat Kobach.

NEW MEXICO

She can take it, but not ‘him’: Gender-specific nouns nixed

SANTA FE – The first female to oversee New Mexico’s multibillion-dollar mineral resources is proposing to do away with gender-specific pronouns such as “he,” ”his” or “him” in state agency rulebooks.

Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard says her agency will hold a public hearing in Santa Fe on the proposed changes. Gender-specific pronouns would be replaced by more neutral or specific references.

Garcia Richard says current agency rules use male pronouns throughout to refer to her position. She says it’s no surprise that some written wording has grown outdated at the 120-year-old agency.

The commissioner has final say on the language changes.

The State Land Office oversees energy leases across about 14,000 square miles of state trust land to help fund schools, universities and hospitals.

WYOMING

Noisy Yellowstone geyser roars back to life after 3 years

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK – A noisy geyser in Yellowstone National Park has roared back to life after three years of quiet.

Ledge Geyser is one of the biggest in Yellowstone’s Norris Geyser Basin.

The Billings Gazette reports the geyser shoots hot water at an angle up to 125 feet high and a distance of 220 feet.

Yellowstone geologist Jeff Hungerford says Ledge Geyser is noisy because its water and steam must pass through a narrow opening in the ground.

Yellowstone has 1,300 thermal features and 500 geysers, more than anywhere else on Earth. Some geysers such as Old Faithful are predictable but most, like Ledge Geyser, erupt erratically.

ARIZONA

Trump loyalist who insulted McCain worries Republicans now that she leads Arizona GOP

PHOENIX – In 2016, Donald Trump stormed Washington and swept aside a hostile Republican Party establishment. Now, as he seeks reelection, the president has tightened his grip on the GOP as loyalists – whose main credential is fealty to the White House – seize control of state parties around the country.

Trump acolytes have replaced veterans and party insiders in Arizona, an emerging 2020 battleground, the new party chief is Kelli Ward, a former state lawmaker, fierce Trump devotee and twice-failed candidate for U.S. Senate who campaigned against fellow Republicans the way a battering ram meets a brick wall.

She attacked two of Trump’s nemeses, former Sen. Jeff Flake and the late Sen. John McCain – insulting his family as McCain lay on his deathbed – consorted with conspiracy-mongers and forced her 2018 primary opponent, Martha McSally, to hug Trump so tightly, critics say, that she helped Democrats win their first Senate seat in Arizona in 30 years.

The fact she now presides over the state party delights Democrats and makes no small number of Republicans exceedingly nervous.

Trump carried the state – a onetime GOP stronghold – with less than 50 percent support, and if anything, polls suggest, has grown less popular since.

McSally, appointed by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to fill McCain’s term through 2020, is expected to face Democrat Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, in a bid to finish the final two years of McCain’s term. The contest, considered a toss-up, will be central to control of the Senate.

No state party leader, however, has done as much as Ward to antagonize fellow Republicans.

Running against McCain in 2016, Ward – a physician – said she knew “what happens to the body and the mind at the end of life” and declared the vigorous 80-year-old senator “old and weak.” She accused him of turning his staff and young volunteers into “campaign terrorists.”

When McCain was diagnosed with brain cancer in July 2017, Ward suggested he quit and touted herself as a replacement. A little over a year later, when McCain’s family announced the end of his cancer treatment, Ward suggested the timing was meant to draw attention from her bid to succeed the retiring Flake.

Her selection by party activists over a chairman tied to the party establishment came as a shock to Ducey and other GOP leaders who underestimated Ward’s strong backing among grassroots Republicans.