Wyoming News Briefs

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Gov. Matt Mead is urging communities in northwest Wyoming to raise money to clear roads inside Yellowstone National Park of snow. Spring plowing in Yellowstone is postponed due to federal budget cuts. Scott Balyo with the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce says the chamber is ready to raise money, but first needs to work out what the total cost will be.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A lawyer for a Riverton man serving a life sentence for murder has told the Wyoming Supreme Court that his client's conviction was a miscarriage of justice. Gabriel Drennen's attorney argued yesterday that a prosecutor incorrectly told the jury that state law prohibits shooting an unarmed man. The lawyer says Drennen feared for his life after Leroy Hoster pushed him.

POWELL, Wyo. (AP) — A judge in Casper has sentenced a Utah man to more than nine years in federal prison for a series of bank robberies in Wyoming and three other states. The Associated Press reports Joshua Beckstead's bank robbing spree began after he was released from jail to go to a dentist and failed to return.

POWELL, Wyo. (AP) — Authorities say a teenager was shot and seriously injured while he and a friend were cleaning handguns in Clark, a small town near the Wyoming-Montana border. Park County Sheriff Scott Steward says 19-year-old Patrick Caines was shot in the lower abdomen Monday night and is recovering in a Billings, Mont., hospital.