Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming! I'm Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom, for Thursday, May 9th.

Billionaire Bill Gates, who is among the richest people in the world, plans to visit Kemmerer next month for a groundbreaking ceremony for one of his largest investment projects that could reshape the landscape of nuclear energy development in America for decades to come.

Energy reporter Pat Maio says Gates is planning to visit Kemmerer on June 10 to mark the beginning of construction on the multibillion-dollar Terra Power project.

"Terra power, which is building a nuclear reactor, a tiny one. It's about 350 megawatts of power down in Kemmerer… they're going to have an official groundbreaking on June 10. And the CEO of the company, Chris Levesque said during his presentation that Bill Gates is coming to town… he's far already forked out about a billion dollars on the projects, and another $2 billion has been kicked in by the Department of Energy."

Gates has forked out $1 billion on the project so far.

A Sheridan High School virtual learning assistant principal is in police custody on a sexual assault charge.

Sheridan Police Chief Travis Koltiska told Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland that police are still actively working on the case against Jacob Meyer.

"We don't have a lot of details yet. The case was still early and is still under investigation… I know that he's 33, that he was assistant principal of virtual learning at the high school in Sheridan, and he's still in custody as of Wednesday."

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information is available.

The Natrona County coroner says 2024 is shaping up to be a "crazy year" for unnatural deaths, with suicides through the first four months of the year on a record-shattering pace.

Coroner Jim Whipps told county commissioners Tuesday that even third-world countries don't have the suicide rate that matches Natrona County. That's according to Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck.

"The Natrona County coroner has been very vocal about suicide rates in the county. He spoke to the school board last month, and at the county commission meeting yesterday during a work session. He was giving a report to commissioners and said that it's looking like it's going to be a crazy year because of the amount of unnatural deaths he's dealing with, which includes suicide rates. And he said that Wyoming is typically at the top of suicide rates in the country. Certainly Natrona county is probably in the top four in the world, when you look at population ratios, and the amount of suicides that are taking place in the county."

So far this year, Natrona County has seen 12 suicides.

Citizens cheered on Tuesday night after the Laramie city council voted to kill a controversial five story, 88-unit apartment complex in the heart of downtown.

Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz attended the meeting, in which the main focus was the proposal for the Landmark building, which runs along 1st Street behind the Coal Creek Coffee Co. coffee house and brewery.

"It was standing room only in the main city council chamber, and they had to send some people to an overflow room in the basement of Laramie City Hall and watch the proceedings on video… it was funny, they had nothing but good things to say about The company that wants to build the current apartment complex… They're just saying, great company. Great idea, absolutely wrong location. We don't want it here. It's one of those, you know, they say you can't fight city hall. But this is one of those cases in which city hall did listen and they voted