Laramie’s mechanical genius Elmer Lovejoy designed and built Wyoming’s first automobile in 1895. It was a steam-propelled carriage that carried four people comfortably. It could be driven up to eight miles an hour. Lovejoy’s “horseless carriage” predated Henry Ford’s automobile by several years.

School staff in Wyoming can now carry concealed weapons, on a district by district basis. A bill passed during the 2017 state legislative session gave school boards the power to decide if guns should be a part of security protocol. So far two communities, Cody and Evanston, have taken advantage of the new law. But in Evanston people like Sheila McGuire are pushing back.

As previously reported the state of Wyoming is trying to figure out what to do about issues related to prison overcrowding and public safety. Marc Pelka is the Deputy Director of the Council of State Governments Justice Center who is helping the state find ways to deal with offenders earlier in life and find ways to keep recently released inmates from violating parole or probation.

He was in Cheyenne this week as part of a conference dealing with these topics and others. Pelka’s project is called Justice Reinvestment, he explains it to Wyoming Public Radio’s Bob Beck. 

Wyoming State Treasurer Mark Gordon is looking for a promotion. Gordon is among those who are seeking the Republican nomination for governor.

A new permanent exhibition at the Draper Natural History Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West focuses on golden eagle research but it also looks at how golden eagles have been and still are significant to the Plains Indian people.

Over the next few weeks, we're going to take you on a tour of some of our favorite public lands.  

Most people visit Curt Gowdy State Park in Southeastern Wyoming for the world-class mountain biking, reservoirs filled with rainbow trout, and hikes through steep granite formations.

But entomologist Christy Bell comes for the bees.

The Trump administration has confirmed a proposed bailout to the coal and nuclear industries. A memo from the Department of Energy was leaked recently outlining the plan. It would force utilities to buy electricity and capacity from retiring coal and nuclear plants to keep them alive for two years. University of Richmond Law Professor Joel Eisen, who has written extensively on matters on administrative law, energy, and the electric grid, helps make sense of what the draft memo means.

The U.S. House of Representatives has been voting on a slew of opioid-related bills–and they’re not done. The plan is to take up more than 30. Some deal with ensuring old pills are easily and safely disposed of, while others try to ensure the government has the best data on the crisis. Still, others seek to prevent drugs from flowing in through the nation’s many points of entry–whether the southern or northern borders or via a plane or ships.