Substance use disorder is often an unexpected trap. It can begin innocently enough, but then quickly lead to dependency. The drug hijacks and rewires the brain, tolerance grows and the desire for ever-stronger substances becomes too great to overcome.

Grace Foulk reports on news throughout the state from April 3 - April 9.

Dave Wolfskill and Marki Davis have spent a lot of time together in the trenches. The two met in 2012 on a social media platform centered on locating missing youth. At the time, both were private investigators in their own practices and a shared passion for helping bring missing people home.

Anne Larson won't make you get up at 4 a.m. to feed her menagerie of animals at Pine Ranch. But if you sign up for the full-day extreme homestead experience, you'll certainly be put to work on the 34-acre ranch that she calls home.

Grace Foulk reports on news throughout the state from March 26 - April 2.

The road to recovery for anyone struggling with substance use disorder can be long and difficult. Deciding to enter treatment itself is a huge hurdle, and invariably, the relapses and obstacles along the way can make it appear that sobriety is unreachable. While strategies for drug treatment and recovery support services continue to evolve, there are already programs in place in Wyoming to help people reach this goal.

Grace Foulk reports on news throughout the state from March 20 - March 26.

Drug overdoses are now a leading cause of death in the United States, with nearly 107,000 fatalities alone over the past 12 months. Yet, the addiction and overdose epidemic has been building for two decades in which nearly one million Americans have died in every corner of the country—including in Wyoming.

Grace Foulk reports on news throughout the state from March 13 - March 19.

Scott Hoversland, executive director of the Wyoming Community Development Authority (WCDA), is no stranger to crisis. Within two years of joining the nonprofit in 2005, Hoversland and his team helped families navigate the housing market during the Great Recession.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago, mixed messages from public health professionals have occasionally left Americans confused about the best course of action, leading to political and social disagreements about everything from mask policies to vaccine incentives to business reopenings.

On March 11, 2020, the Wyoming Department of Health announced the state’s first lab-confirmed case of “coronavirus disease 2019,” long before anyone knew how devastating the COVID-19 pandemic would turn out to be.

Attorney Donna Sheen, founder of the Laramie-based Wyoming Children’s Law Center, has devoted her career to advocating for children’s legal needs in special education, education services and the juvenile justice system.

Sheen recently spoke with the Wyoming Truth, noting the need for new approaches to juvenile justice, beginning with alternatives to arrest. The first set of excerpts from the conversation covered how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted juvenile justice in Wyoming, the need for better data collection and sharing and whether youth who are wrestling with addiction should be arrested.

Grace Foulk reports on news throughout the state from Feb. 27 - March 5.

Wyoming had the fourth highest juvenile incarceration rate in the nation in 2019, locking up 239 out of every 100,000 juveniles that year—outranked by Washington, D.C., West Virginia and Alaska—according to the latest Easy Access to the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement report.

Grace Foulk reports on news throughout the state from Feb. 20 - Feb. 26.

TikTok has been in the crosshairs in recent months as at least a dozen states, including Wyoming, banned the social media app from all state-owned electronic devices and networks. Critics cite security risks related to the popular social media app’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party and its potential to influence foreign governments among its concerns.

Grace Foulk reports on news throughout the state from Feb. 13 - Feb. 19.

For many young boys, growing up to be a cowboy and rodeo star is the ultimate dream. But for Abe Morris the dream became a reality, leading him to a new home in the Mountain West, a successful bull riding career and a life filled with adventure.

Grace Foulk reports on news throughout the state from Feb. 6 - Feb. 12.