Laramie, WY – The Wyoming Department of Corrections is seeking proposals from contractors to build 50 residential housing units in Rawlins for workers at the state penitentiary there.

Bob Lampert is director of the corrections department. He says that lack of affordable housing in Rawlins has been a major barrier to filling vacancies at the prison.

Corrections officials have said that more than one-third of the 322 authorized security positions at the Rawlins prison have been vacant in recent months.

Laramie, WY – About 700 employees at the Idaho National Laboratory have been told not to report to work today because of a wildfire. The fire started last night and as of early today covered more than six and a half square miles.

The fire is on the southeast side of the federal nuclear research area.
Last night the fire advanced within a mile of U.S. Highway 20, and traffic on that road remains closed from junction with U.S. 26 to the eastern site boundary.

By Elsa Heidorn

Laramie, WY – A fire near a federal nuclear facility in Idaho has a Jackson-area anti-nuclear group watching carefully. The wildfire is burning about eight miles away from a complex of buildings at the Idaho National Laboratory. The lab sits about 90 miles from Jackson.

Lab officials say there is no danger to the facility. But Mary Woollen of the group Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free, says the National Lab should be giving the public more specific information.

By AP

By Peter O'Dowd

Laramie, WY – An anonymous tip from a citizen ended the dramatic case in Wyoming in which a military sharpshooter killed his estranged wife as she sang at a restaurant bar in Cheyenne.

Police say Wyoming Army National Guardsman David Munis was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest Tuesday night north of Laramie in southeast Wyoming.

The 36-year-old Munis had been the subject of a police hunt since early Saturday when his wife was shot in the head by a shooter from outside the restaurant bar she was performing in.

By Peter O'Dowd

Laramie, WY – The head of the Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Jennifer Zenor says the week's hype over a military sniper who killed his wife in a Cheyenne bar misses a bigger issue.

"There has been a lot of sensationalism that (David Munis) had sniper training," Zenor says. "It was also about domestic violence."

By Peter O'Dowd

Laramie, WY – Advocates against domestic violence say Robin Munis took the necessary steps to keep her husband from harming her. Authorities say she notified police that David Munis was harassing her on the phone the same day the 36-year-old shot her in a Cheyenne restaurant. Carla Thurin (TUR-een) runs a Cheyenne women's shelter, and she says there was little else the victim could do beyond notifying police.

By Peter O'Dowd

Laramie, WY – A US Forest Service plan for a network of motorized trails in the Snowy Range may affect the threatened Canada Lynx. Laramie Range District Biologist Steve Kozlowski (Koz-LAU-ski) studied the area's wildlife extensively as the forest service drafted its proposal. He says creating the 90-mile trail system requires removing about 23 acres of snowshoe hare habitat.

By Elsa Heidorn

Laramie, WY – Where there once was a coal mine, soon wind turbines will spring up. Rocky Mountain Power says it will build a 99-megawatt wind farm on the restored land where the Dave Johnston coal mine operated for more than 40 years.

Spokesman Jeff Hymas says this location offered several incentives.