From the Associated Press
WYOMING
Lottery lawsuit
CHEYENNE — A state judge has declined a request from a Cheyenne man to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by the Wyoming Lottery Corporation. The corporation claims Edward Atchison has tried to sabotage its relationship with national lottery organizations. The judge says he wants more specifics from the corporation about its claims.
Wyoming lawmakers consider increasing cigarette tax
CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — A Wyoming legislative panel has recommended increasing a tobacco tax to bring down the state’s smoking rate, but shied away from naming a particular amount.
The Casper Star-Tribune reports that Wyoming current taxes cigarettes at 60 cents a pack, well below the national average of $1.58. The state’s smoking rate, meanwhile, is 20.6 percent while the national average is 17.8 percent.
The recommendation now makes its way to the Joint Revenue Committee, which meets next month in Cheyenne. Those lawmakers will decide whether to draft legislation on the issue.
Alpha natural Wyoming
CHEYENNE — The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality is refusing to reconsider permit renewal for a coal mine owned by bankrupt Alpha Natural Resources. Department officials say not renewing would violate a bankruptcy judge’s order. The Powder River Basin Resource Council says the state by law can’t renew the permit because Alpha doesn’t meet Wyoming’s bonding requirements.
Wind Park Battle
CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — A proposal to create a wind farm in eastern Wyoming could be stalled by further court battles from a group of landowners that has been fighting the project since 2011.
The Casper Star-Tribune reports that the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council approved the 46-turbine project last week, ruling that the park’s new developer, sPower, has demonstrated that it has the financial capacity to build it.
The Northern Laramie Range Alliance disagrees and says it will likely appeal the ruling in court.
NATIONAL
FBI opens hate crime probe in Indiana attack on Muslim woman
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — The FBI has opened a hate crime investigation into an attack on a Muslim woman in which police say an Indiana University college student shouted racial slurs and tried to remove her headscarf. The federal statute sets a maximum 10-year prison sentence for a hate crime in most cases.
Mine-Waste-Spill-Investigation
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Government investigators squarely blamed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday for a 3 million-gallon wastewater spill from a Colorado gold mine, saying an EPA cleanup crew rushed its work and failed to consider the complex engineering involved, triggering the very blowout it hoped to avoid.
The spill that fouled rivers in three states would have been avoided had the EPA team checked on water levels inside the Gold King Mine before digging into a collapsed and leaking mine entrance, Interior Department investigators concluded.
Major drug tunnel found on US-Mexico border in California
SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities say 12 tons of marijuana have been seized and 22 people arrested in connection with a cross-border tunnel to Mexico that runs the length of eight football fields.
The U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego said Thursday that the passage connecting warehouses in Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego was lit, ventilated and equipped with a rail system.
Six people were arrested in the U.S. and 16 in Mexico following raids on Wednesday. Two tons of marijuana were seized in the U.S. and 10 in Mexico.
U.S. authorities say smugglers moved the first load of drugs on Wednesday and that they are confident nothing got through undetected.
U.S. Homeland Security Investigations began investigating in May.
Feds block push by Colorado to create pot bank
DENVER (AP) — Colorado’s attempt to create a bank to service its marijuana industry has suffered another setback by the federal government and could be facing an impossible dilemma.
The Federal Reserve — the guardian of the U.S. banking system — said in a court filing Wednesday that it doesn’t intend to accept a penny connected to the sale of pot because the drug remains illegal under federal law.
The stance appears to mark a shift in the position of the federal government. Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department issued rules for how banks can accept pot money.
By pushing for approval from the Federal Reserve, it was “as if Colorado enacted a scheme to allow trade in endangered species or trade with North Korea,” the filing says.
The mixed signals have left Colorado’s marijuana industry in a bind. Many shops still operate in cash, unable to accept credit cards or make other electronic transactions.
