By Peter O'Dowd

By Elsa Heidorn

Laramie, WY – The state GOP announced today it will hold a debate for Republican presidential candidates at the end of the month. A spokesman says a majority of the nine Republican presidential candidates they've asked to come to a town hall-style meeting in Casper and Riverton have agreed. Mike Eathorne is helping to coordinate the event, which will be on September 29th. He says Wyoming has been getting a lot more attention since the GOP moved up its caucus to be the earliest in the nation.

By AP

Laramie, WY – Snowmobiles and snow coaches in Yellowstone National Park are still noisier at times than limits established by park officials.

A draft report on wintertime noise in Yellowstone says the consistently loudest spots last winter were near Old Faithful, and along the groomed road between Madison Junction and the West Entrance.

The Park Service study says conditions are quieter than in years past, but says more should be done to reduce noise in the winter.

Laramie, WY – Qwest has installed radio backup links and 50 miles of fiber lines between Evanston and Kemmerer since a nearly statewide 911 outage a year ago.

The company's Wyoming president, Mike Ceballos, filled the Wyoming Public Service Commission Tuesday in on what the company has been doing since the outage in August 2006.

Laramie, WY – People who live near a mine reclamation project in Rock Springs say hydrogen sulfide gas has been seeping into their homes and making them ill. Residents of Ash Street say the gas got so bad they were forced to evacuate and spend a few days in a motel.

The project involved lifting 25-ton weights and dropping them on the ground to collapse old coal mines underlying the city. The goal was to eventually open for development 840 acres in the city. That area has been off-limits to building because of the mines.

By Bob Beck

Laramie, WY – Nationally, the numbers of those who hunt and fish is down and a similar trend is also occurring in Wyoming.

Despite efforts by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to increase visibility of outdoor opportunities fewer young people are taking up those activities.

Wyoming Game and Fish spokesman Eric Kezler believes Wyoming has more young people taking part in hunting and fishing than other states, but he says those sports have nowhere near the popularity they once did.

By Peter O'Dowd

Laramie, WY – Last weekend, an Arizona girl was killed when she drove her off-road vehicle into an abandoned mine. A state official says the same thing could happen here.

From Rock Springs to Sheridan, Marcia Murdoch says abandoned mines are spread across Wyoming. Murdoch works for the state's department of environmental quality. She says hundreds of sites need to be addressed. Some are 50-foot century-old coal mines. Others like uranium pits in the Gas Hills are much deeper.

Laramie, WY – A Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper and two others were injured when a patrol car hit a car head-on while passing a tractor-trailer south of Gillette.

The Highway Patrol says 27-year-old Trooper Joshua Gebauer was driving with 19-year-old Darryl Bower, of Wright, in the patrol car.

As the patrol car was passing a tractor-trailer, it hit a 1993 Mercury Tracer driven by 51-year-old John Harvey, of Gillette. Harvey was hospitalized with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Gebauer and Bower were treated and released.

By AP