Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Wednesday daybreak summary
The heartbroken parents of slain flower girl Katie Flynn burst into tears yesterday when a Long Island jury found the drunken driver who slammed his pickup head-on into their limousine guilty of murder. Former Little Rock resident, 25-year-old Martin Heidgen, could spend up to 25 years to life behind bars for the shocking crime. Heidgen had at least 14 drinks before getting behind the wheel, and his blood-alcohol level was more than three times the legal state limit.
Alex Daniels reports in the Democrat-Gazette on Senator Blanche Lincoln’s political activities and travels during this political season. She has been to a dozen states to make a personal pitch for Democratic candidates. And her political-action committee has contributed $178,000 to Senate candidates, the Senatorial Campaign Committee and to state party organizations, according to Federal Election Commission records.
An issue advocacy group that denies affiliation with any political party or candidate received better than 99 percent of its third-quarter funding from Republican Party organizations, according to its report to the Internal Revenue Service. The Coalition for Arkansas' Future reported receiving $540,500 from Republican Party organizations between July 1 and Sept. 30 - 99.7 percent of the total $541,900 the group received during the period, according to the IRS report dated Monday.
Instead of $20 million previously projected over the coming biennium, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission director now expects the commission will get only $2 million to $3 million in the next year or so from natural gas leases in the Fayetteville Shale.
Highway planners from Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri need to consider outside-the-box funding sources, such as public-private partnerships and toll roads, to complete the unfinished gaps in Interstate 49, according to financiers.
Raytheon Aircraft Co. has received a business-jet order of more than $500 million from NetJets, which bodes well for workers at its Little Rock finishing plant.
The Jonesboro Sun reports rainfall Sunday and Monday is affecting the cotton harvest, and it has stopped wheat planting. The state's cotton crop is expected to be very good, possibly the biggest in several years, but it has been an expensive crop and rain delays at harvest are not something that is needed, extension officials say.
Los Angeles-based IVI Communications, which purchased Cabot-based Internet service provider Futura in February, hopes to soon deliver broadband to those users via WiMAX. The new technology can send a broadband signal as far as 30 miles, across distances without broadband from telephone and cable companies. It could bring high-speed Internet to many rural areas.
The 2006 White County Fair broke attendance records with more than 53,000 passing through the gates.
A 30-year-old Little Rock woman was killed Tuesday afternoon when struck by a train she apparently never heard. Little Rock police said Lataya Jones was wearing headphones as she walked down the tracks near 65th Street and University Avenue where a Union Pacific Railroad train struck her from behind. “Witnesses said she never turned around,” said Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings.
Failure of a Union Pacific train crew to “remain attentive and alert” led to an October 2005 collision that spilled a vaporous chemical into a residential neighborhood and fueled an explosion fatal to a Texarkana woman, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
After the jail-related sales tax it supported failed at the polls, the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce has asked the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to study public-safety needs in Pulaski County.
A 44-year-old man caught inside a Pine Bluff liquor store decided to have “one for the road” before he was arrested for commercial burglary early Friday morning. Police said they watched Clifford Gray pick up a bottle of liquor and take a drink, then grab a pack of cigarettes and smoke one before they could enter the building and take him into custody.
The Daily World reports attorney Dion Wilson has filed a complaint alleging discrimination against the 1st Judicial Drug Task Force stemming from an incident that occurred last Friday in Marvell. According to court documents, the task force confiscated $1.2 million in cash, a 2006 Dodge Charger and a handgun from Phillips County resident Bobby Craft. Wilson claims white arresting officers have no drug related evidence against the black suspect.
It’s official - the Little Rock Zoo’s baby gorilla is a boy.
Alex Daniels reports in the Democrat-Gazette on Senator Blanche Lincoln’s political activities and travels during this political season. She has been to a dozen states to make a personal pitch for Democratic candidates. And her political-action committee has contributed $178,000 to Senate candidates, the Senatorial Campaign Committee and to state party organizations, according to Federal Election Commission records.
An issue advocacy group that denies affiliation with any political party or candidate received better than 99 percent of its third-quarter funding from Republican Party organizations, according to its report to the Internal Revenue Service. The Coalition for Arkansas' Future reported receiving $540,500 from Republican Party organizations between July 1 and Sept. 30 - 99.7 percent of the total $541,900 the group received during the period, according to the IRS report dated Monday.
Instead of $20 million previously projected over the coming biennium, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission director now expects the commission will get only $2 million to $3 million in the next year or so from natural gas leases in the Fayetteville Shale.
Highway planners from Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri need to consider outside-the-box funding sources, such as public-private partnerships and toll roads, to complete the unfinished gaps in Interstate 49, according to financiers.
Raytheon Aircraft Co. has received a business-jet order of more than $500 million from NetJets, which bodes well for workers at its Little Rock finishing plant.
The Jonesboro Sun reports rainfall Sunday and Monday is affecting the cotton harvest, and it has stopped wheat planting. The state's cotton crop is expected to be very good, possibly the biggest in several years, but it has been an expensive crop and rain delays at harvest are not something that is needed, extension officials say.
Los Angeles-based IVI Communications, which purchased Cabot-based Internet service provider Futura in February, hopes to soon deliver broadband to those users via WiMAX. The new technology can send a broadband signal as far as 30 miles, across distances without broadband from telephone and cable companies. It could bring high-speed Internet to many rural areas.
The 2006 White County Fair broke attendance records with more than 53,000 passing through the gates.
A 30-year-old Little Rock woman was killed Tuesday afternoon when struck by a train she apparently never heard. Little Rock police said Lataya Jones was wearing headphones as she walked down the tracks near 65th Street and University Avenue where a Union Pacific Railroad train struck her from behind. “Witnesses said she never turned around,” said Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings.
Failure of a Union Pacific train crew to “remain attentive and alert” led to an October 2005 collision that spilled a vaporous chemical into a residential neighborhood and fueled an explosion fatal to a Texarkana woman, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
After the jail-related sales tax it supported failed at the polls, the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce has asked the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to study public-safety needs in Pulaski County.
A 44-year-old man caught inside a Pine Bluff liquor store decided to have “one for the road” before he was arrested for commercial burglary early Friday morning. Police said they watched Clifford Gray pick up a bottle of liquor and take a drink, then grab a pack of cigarettes and smoke one before they could enter the building and take him into custody.
The Daily World reports attorney Dion Wilson has filed a complaint alleging discrimination against the 1st Judicial Drug Task Force stemming from an incident that occurred last Friday in Marvell. According to court documents, the task force confiscated $1.2 million in cash, a 2006 Dodge Charger and a handgun from Phillips County resident Bobby Craft. Wilson claims white arresting officers have no drug related evidence against the black suspect.
It’s official - the Little Rock Zoo’s baby gorilla is a boy.
