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It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming, for Friday, May 2nd. I'm Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Wyoming Community Foundation, who asks you to give back to the place you call home. "5 to thrive" is YOUR opportunity to leave a legacy for generations to come. Support the community nonprofits you care about with a gift through the Wyoming Community Foundation. Visit wycf.org to learn more.

– As conservatives across the nation have rallied behind President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's efforts to reduce government waste through the federal Department of Government Efficiency program, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus wants to follow that model at the state level.

Cowboy State Daily's Leo Wolfson reports that, in outlining its goals for the upcoming interim legislative session, the Freedom Caucus says "DOGE-ing Wyoming's budget" is a top priority to identify unconstitutional and wasteful spending.

"I spoke to Representative John Bear, the chairman emeritus of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, about this, and Bear said one specific thing that he would like to do is looking at state grants… He's concerned about that, and brought up a few situations where that's happened. One example was a AIDS awareness event held in Laramie, where the Department of Health gave a few $1,000 for this event, but the event also featured a drag show and alcohol and Bear thought that was an inappropriate use of state money… Also pointed out that he believes that giving money to any nonprofits is debatably unconstitutional under the Wyoming constitution."

Although he's said before that he only wants to prevent an increase in state spending, Bear told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday he also wants to put state grants under the microscope.

Read the full story HERE.

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On Tuesday morning, Bobby Watts chased two burglars away from a Riverton business he manages, helped deputies investigate, went to confront one of the suspected burglars on the road, and took some gunshot shrapnel to his upper arm.

Then, he told Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland, he started his normal workday.

"The remote connection to the business alarm waking him, like 320 and he goes and kind of chases down two guys that had broken into the shop and see the getaway vehicle, which the sheriff's office, you know, associates with a female who's still at large, and his his wife, chases the getaway vehicle down to a trailer park, you know, where authorities find it, and gets the license plate number, and then he you know, watts helps, helps deputies with their investigation. They're looking through video, and helps them identify the one guy they caught on the highway. And then later on, someone says, oh, there's a guy with the bucket walking down the road. That's our bucket that probably has all our keys in it. So he goes to confront the guy in the bucket, and he gets there's a there's a he gets shot at through the windshield of his f3 50, and he ducks just in time he gets his arm what he calls cauterized from hot ledge, shrapnel from where the bullet hit the windshield slowed, splintered little lead beads in his hoodie that he didn't get to Keep because investigators took it for part of their investigation, and that was just early morning after that, he had a full day of work."

The Fremont County Sheriff's Office later that day identified the suspected burglars as 18-year-old Kenneth Hebah and 32-year-old Kevin Pino. They're both in custody and charged with felonies.

Read the full story

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