POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) — A 45-year-old Nevada man will spend more than 17 years in federal prison for his role in a large-scale drug trafficking operation that funneled methamphetamine and fentanyl into Eastern Idaho.
U.S. District Judge David C. Nye sentenced Franklin Ryan, of Sparks, Nevada, to 210 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Bart M. Davis announced today.
According to court documents, Ryan sold large quantities of methamphetamine and fentanyl in eastern Idaho between March and September of 2024.
On August 26, 2025, Ryan pleaded guilty to the charges against him. Four other defendants charged as co-conspirators still face pending litigation.
The investigation into Ryan’s drug operation involved a coordinated effort between the FBI, ISP, and the Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program. U.S. Attorney Davis, who announced the sentencing, praised the interagency cooperation and the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney Blythe McLane in securing the conviction.
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) — Many Idaho landscapers depend on snow to keep business going, and this winter has made that challenging. Idahoans are used to seeing snowplows at every corner of the street, but this year, they have become a rare sight.
“Really slow. Obviously, we would like more snow than what we’ve gotten,” said Dustin Inglett, Irrigation Maintenance Manager for T&T Lawn Services.
More snow means more work, but less snow means less to take to the bank.
“Our service time for landscape construction and maintenance is a shorter season. And a lot of your landscaping companies rely on snow plowing to bring in, you know, 20, 30, maybe 40% of their income,” said Casey Price, Landscape Design Build Manager for T&T Lawn Services.
This lack of snow is also bringing concern for the future.
“Growing up in agriculture, it’s always important to have water for your crops. We got to refill the aquifer, and hopefully we got enough still in the mountains to bring us along through the summertime,” said Price.
“It’s obviously even more important for the farmers, and where I’m an irrigation technician. Water is my job. So water conservation also plays a big factor in my day-to-day summer activities. And if we don’t have much to begin with, then that makes my job harder,” said Inglett.
These past few days of snow have been vital to the snowplow industry, and they hope it keeps on coming.
“Hopefully we get a bunch here in the next, next a little while, and we at least have a wet spring so that we can have enough moisture for the summer,” said Price.
ATOMIC CITY, Idaho – Idaho National Laboratory is unveiling a new way to test fuel technology for advanced nuclear reactors at the Materials and Fuels Complex, west of Idaho Falls.
“This is a capability that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world,” said National Reactor Innovation Center Program Manager Josh Gillespie. “When we look at all the different kinds of nuclear reactors that are out there in the world, molten salt reactors are the ones that we have known the least about.”
The new research capability for advanced reactors, known as the Molten Salt Thermophysical Examination Capability (MSTEC), has a price tag of $15 million and took approximately five years to design and construct.
“It’s a new capability we have here … to examine molten salts and to work with our commercial partners to help them drive forward the commercial nuclear industry,” Gillespie said. “… Before we can go off and commercialize these [molten salt] reactors and obtain a lot of the great benefits that they provide, we need to go get a lot of data so we can do this safely, so we can go off and enable the technology.”
Part of the National Reactor Innovation Center, MSTEC is housed at the Fuel Conditioning Facility at the Materials and Fuels Complex.
The MSTEC consists of a “state-of-the-art, shielded argon glove box for irradiated and nonirradiated materials, specifically high-temperature liquids such as fuel salts,” according to an INL press release.
“The primary operation, or the primary function, of a glove box is just to keep our researchers safe,” explained MSTEC System Engineer Nathan Petersen. “The stuff that they work on is hazardous, and so we want to make sure that they can perform their research without any kind of ill effects happening to them.”
The glove box contains eight robotic arms. It is designed to research the characteristics of molten salts deployed in certain advanced reactors – measuring up to 1000 degrees Celsius, viscosity, melting temperature and heat transfer, according to MSTEC Research Leader Mikael Karlsson.
Molten salt reactors can use special salt as a fuel, INL researchers said.
“The technology is not as well explored as a traditional reactor, right. So to be able to deploy the new reactor types, we need to be able to collect good experimental data,” Karlsson said.
Idaho National Laboratory is collaborating with partners such as Oklo, Saltfoss Energy, and others to help develop the fuel cycle.
The Molten Salt Thermophysical Examination Capability (MSTEC) is ready for its debut at Idaho National Laboratory.
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) — The Idaho Falls Police Department is investigating a death in the 1700 block of Rainier St.
The details surrounding the death are limited at this time, but IFPD spokesperson Jessica Clements did confirm to Local News 8 that authorities do not believe there is any threat or safety concern related to this to the community.
IFPD expects to release additional details by tomorrow morning.
This is a developing story. Local News 8 has a reporter at the scene and will provide additional updates as they become available from IFPD.
