Wyoming News Briefs

DENVER (AP) — The Colorado Mining Association is following Wyoming’s lead in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a 2001 rule that largely barred new roads on 58 million acres of roadless areas in national forests. The association argues the roadless rule essentially established new wilderness areas, which only Congress can designate. The group Earthjustice has vowed to fight appeals.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Gov. Matt Mead says he’s glad a federal agency has for a second time denied a permit requested by a Colorado businessman who wants to build a 500-mile pipeline to carry water from southwestern Wyoming to Colorado’s Front Range. The Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, one of the many conservation groups opposed to the project, says the pipeline would hurt endangered species and cost local jobs.

ORADELL, N.J. (AP) — The parents of a Rutgers University student who committed suicide after learning his roommate used a webcam to see him kissing another man says the story of Wyoming’s Matthew Shepard can be a powerful teaching tool. Joe and Jane Clementi spoke as part of a panel discussion yesterday after a production of “The Laramie Project,” which chronicles the death and reaction to the 1998 murder of the gay Wyoming college student.

DENVER (AP) — A union representing grocery store workers in Colorado and Wyoming says a two-year contract extension approved by members will allow them to keep quality health care benefits through 2015. United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 President Kim Cordova said the grocery stores agreed to pay another $11 million to cover health care.