Laramie, Wy – The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for portions of southeast Wyoming for this afternoon and evening (Tuesday).
The Weather Service says scattered thunderstorms will develop this afternoon across the area. The slow-moving storms will have the potential to produce rainfall of two to three inches per hour.
The agency says that areas that received heavy rain over the past couple of days, including the City of Cheyenne and portions of the Laramie Range and southern Nebraska are prone to excessive runoff from the storms.

Laramie, Wy – As of tomorrow the state sales tax on groceries is gone. This year the legislature passed a bill removing the tax for two years. Proponents say it could save families a few hundred dollars each year. And the lawmaker that has pushed the hardest for this change recently is Democrat Ann Robinson. At a news conference she said this was the work of many legislators over many years, but it finally happened.

Laramie, Wy – Cheyenne Frontier Days is featured in the latest issue of the Triple-A travel magazine.
The magazine contains a three-page spread and calls Cheyenne the "best rodeo town" in the country.
Personnel with the magazine visited last year's Frontier Days to interview both travelers and participants.
Tourism officials say such articles often have a lasting impact on tourism all year.

Laramie, Wy – More than 100 commercial drivers received tickets this week in Yellowstone National Park. They came during a surprise inspection along the park's western edge.
One-hundred-seventy-six commercial buses and big-rig trucks were stopped Monday and Tuesday along U-S Highway 191, and only 16 passed without any safety violations.

Laramie, Wy – Babies born in Wyoming after July 1 will
undergo screening for more medical conditions. That's under a program administered by the Wyoming Department of Health.
Previously there has been testing for seven conditions, but will expand that to cover 28 conditions.

Laramie, Wy – On Saturday smoking and the use all of tobacco products will be prohibited in Wyoming's prisons. The women's prison has been smoke free for some time, but all of the other facilities will have to adapt to the change.
The Department of Correction's Tobacco Cessation Coordinator, Elizabeth Robison, says there may be some small problems as people adapt, but this new rule will have many benefits including saving the state money in the long term and short term.

Laramie, Wy – As the Fourth of July approaches more and more of Wyoming is under a fireworks ban. Already much of the southeastern part of the state has made it against the law to set off fireworks.
But, the people that sell fireworks think this is unfair. Fire King Fireworks is located near Cheyenne and its manager, Brian Mills, says they oppose the law because it targets their industry not because of their actions but rather their customers'.
Mills says the ban isn't affecting their business because they get so many out of state customers.

Laramie, Wy – The University of Wyoming is going to do some key research in brain development. The National Institutes of Health has given U-W a grant for more than ten million dollars to research neuroscience. The director of that program, Bill Flynn, says specifically they will look at how different types of stimulation affect the development, and organization of the brain.
This research could have implications for how isolation of children or birth defects to the eyes might affect brain functioning as adults.

Laramie, Wy – Tourism officials from Cheyenne say
Wyoming's history with the U-S Marshals Service would make the city a great place for a national marshals museum.
The president of the Cheyenne Area Convention and Visitors Bureau were in Arlington, Virginia earlier this week to present Cheyenne's bid for the museum.
He points out that there was a marshals museum in Laramie until just a few years ago, and that many of the artifacts from that museum are in storage in Cheyenne.

Cheyenne, Wy – The Wyoming Department of Corrections is still moving forward with plans to build a new prison in Torrington. Plans got put on hold after an earlier proposal came in well over budget. But spokeswoman Melinda Brazzale says they are currently in the process of hiring a construction manager who will try and bring the project together within the budget guidelines. They will come on board and work with the architect, the engineer, the value engineering company that has already been hired, our office and the office of administration and information.