Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, February 25th. I'm Mac Watson.

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A Thermopolis couple who rent a vacation home in Puerto Vallarta is doing fine after violence rocked the city after the killing of a cartel leader. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Matthew and Lindy Be Hughes even helped college kids who were stranded.

"They ended up doing a really cool thing is, kind of through the social network there, they found out that somebody, a Canadian citizen, had what she initially thought were, were two, she said, two teenage daughters stuck in an Airbnb there that was nearby. So they risked it. They went ahead and kind of drove to that location with some food. She said, 'We just turned off the headlights and drove to get there, and they got there, and there weren't two college kids – there were seven, all holed up in this Airbnb with, like, almost no food.'"

Despite the violence, the couple says they have no plans to come back to Wyoming anytime soon.

Read the full story HERE.

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The Wyoming House of Representatives on Monday handed the Senate a two-year budget draft totaling $9.96 billion, while the Senate sent the House a $10.13 billion draft budget of its own. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that even though that's a difference of $170 million, the governor remains upbeat.

"So, Governor Gordon had a roundtable style press conference on Tuesday with reporters. He was actually cautiously optimistic. Because even though it was fraught and there were these bare-knuckle debates over the function of government and political philosophy, the House did come again within a narrow range of the Senate and the governor's draft budgets, each side adopted 37 amendments, the same exact amount, despite more than 200 being proposed on the House side. And so he was cautiously optimistic, saying, 'Yeah, it got wild and wooly, but we can see the light.'"

Now the attention in the Capitol shifts to the two men tasked with appointing 10 negotiators to haggle over the differences: House Speaker Chip Neiman, of Hulett, and Senate President Bo Biteman, of Ranchester.

Read the full story HERE.

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After a Senate bill to reform the Wyoming Business Council stalled on Tuesday, the agency continues to remain alive in both chambers. Cowboy State Daily's David Madison reports despite the bill's struggle, the business council itself remains alive in both chambers' draft budgets.

"There's concern among some lawmakers that this is a venture capital firm that the state funds and then picks winners and losers out there in the Wyoming economy. And there was more debate on that today about the constitutionality of the Business Council itself. There was an amendment offered by Senator Steinmetz that actually got a lot of support. Her amendment failed by one vote, and it was an amendment to a bill Senate file 125, which is dead. but the debate over the Wyoming Business Council continues."

On Feb. 9, only 10 senators voted to dismantle the Business Council outright, losing 21-10. Two weeks later on Tuesday morning, 15 senators voted for Steinmetz's amendment to Senate File 125 — falling just one vote short of passing.

Read the full story HERE.

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With less than a month left in the winter season, Wyoming is getting some much-needed snow in the mountains.