News

SMYRNA, Del. (AP) - A pair of business partners is planning to open Delaware's first craft distillery.

Thirty-two-year-old Mike Rasmussen of Bear and 46-year-old Ron R. Gomes Jr. of West Chester, Pa., plan to open Legacy Distilling in Smyrna. The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., reports it would be the only standalone distillery in the state to make gin, vodka, whiskey and brandy.

A bill signed into law this spring created a framework for issuing licenses to distill spirits. Production is limited to 750,000 gallons a year.

Rasmussen and Gomes say they were attracted to Smyrna because its water contains fewer metals, such as iron, which can delay fermentation and become expensive to treat.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Gov. Martin O'Malley is expected to sign a bill this week that would make Maryland the first state to ban an arsenic additive in chicken feed.

Last month, state lawmakers passed a bill banning the use of Roxarsone, a chemical used to help the birds grow and fight parasites.

Pfizer Inc., which distributes Roxarsone, stopped selling the chemical in July after a U.S. Food and Drug Administration study found higher levels of inorganic arsenic in chicken treated with

Roxarsone than in those that were not fed the chemical. Arsenic is a known carcinogen.

Opponents have said the measure isn't needed because Pfizer Inc. voluntarily suspended sales of the chemical.

The law would take effect Jan. 1.

There’s a seven hour work session set for today during which the Salisbury City Council will take up the controversial charter amendment that would increase minority representation on the council.

By a 3-to-2 vote the Council told the City Attorney Mark Tilghman to draw up a measure that would expand the majority-minority district to two at-large council members while leaving a second at-large district with 3-members.

In addition, the proposal would eliminate the staggered elections for the council members and the Mayor.

Council members Laura Mitchell and Shanie Shields opposed the two-district plan saying that it does not eliminate the disparity in the minority vote.

The Laurel School District is still facing some more red ink despite spending cuts that threaten 35 teachers, paraprofessionals and staff positions.

Laurel school board president Patrick Vanderslice said that a state panel told the district it still needs to close an expected $650-thousand deficit for the coming school year.

The Wilmington News Journal reports that the district’s finances were in such bad shape that the state had to intervene and create a financial recovery team to review Laurel’s budget.

Vanderslice told the paper that everything is on the table and that meetings are being held around the district to find ways to save money.

Rehoboth Beach has extended its new construction moratorium within 15 feet of the ordinary high water mark of the city’s lakes.

The city’s Planning Commission has been given 3 months to find ways to protect the resort’s lakes including regulating residential development.

The Commission will assess the effectiveness of existing structures, established buffer zones and other protective measures.

But the Salisbury Daily Times reports that resident Burke Flickinger had told the Commission that the moratorium was unfair to property owners who had not caused any problems.

The lone dissenter on the panel Stan Mills said that a 10 foot restriction would have been appropriate.

Signs are on the agenda for tonight’s Princess Anne Town Commissioners.

The commission imposed a 120-day moratorium on new signs to give it time to consider a request by the Princess Anne Volunteer Fire Company to install an electronic sign in the town’s historic district.

But the town’s 1996 ordinance does not take into account the new electronic digital signs.

Fire company member Steven Smith says that the proposed 7 by 3 foot sign would be smaller than the existing message board that now sits on the sidewalk.

It would also be nearly 9 feet off the ground and would announce burn bans, rabies clinics and other information to the community.

The rules for the signs are tighter in the town’s historic district than in other parts 

Salisbury University and University of Maryland Eastern Shore officials were preparing for the worst: a "Doomsday" budget proposal that would have included, potentially,  $50 million in cuts to University System of Maryland schools.

Institutions feeling the brunt of budget cuts

The Salisbury Daily Times is reporting at this hour that hospital officials have confirmed local landlord and businessman Donnie Williams died last night of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Williams is a former president of Salisbury Area Property Owners Association and owner of Fruitland-based Advanced Property Rental.

The hospital staff says he was admitted to the intensive care unit of Peninsula Regional Medical Center last night and died shortly thereafter.

The paper reports…that Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis confirmed sheriff's deputies responded to Williams' home on Joy-Row Lane early yesterday afternoon…to report about a man suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.

James Durham was awarded $1.1 million in damages by a federal jury in Baltimore yesterday for his firing 4 years ago as a sheriff’s deputy in Somerset County.

In 2008 he filed a grievance charging corruption in the Somerset County Sheriff’s office.

He also accused co-workers of forcing him to change a police report.

In his suit against Somerset County Sheriff Bobby Jones, Durham was awarded $400-thosuand for loss of pay and $700-thousand in damages to his reputation for defamation of character and public humiliation.

Durham told WBOC-TV that the last four years of his life had been a nightmare trying to clear his name.

Fisker, the car company that wants to build electric hybrids in Delaware, is fending off accusationsthat a $100-thousand model of the Karma caused a house fire in Sugar Land, Texas.

The blaze destroyed the electric powered car and two other vehicles.

The investigation is still ongoing but the Wilmington News Journal reports that no official source has linked the cause of the fire to the Karma.

But Robert Baker the chief investigator with the Fort Bend County Fire Marshal’s Office was quoted earlier this month as saying that he had determined the fire came from one of the vehicles parked inside the garage.

DOVER, Del. (AP) - The state House has given final approval to a bill creating the new crime of home invasion in Delaware.

House members on Thursday voted unanimously for the bill, which had been amended by the Senate.

Under the bill, a person who unlawfully enters an occupied home and robs, assaults, rapes, kills or kidnaps someone could also be convicted of the separate crime of home invasion if he is armed with a deadly weapon or injures someone.

Under the Senate amendment approved by the House, an offender would not have to know or suspect someone was home at the time of the unlawful entry in order to be found guilty of home invasion.

The bill, which now goes to the governor, was favored over a Senate proposal that carried stiffer penalties.

The Atlantic Wind Connection can now move directly to an environmental review of its proposed underwater electric transmission line that would connect future wind farms off the Delaware coast.

The Wilmington New Journal reports that the US Department of the Interior this week said no one entered a competitive bid for the ocean tracts.

The $5 billion underwater project is called a backbone and would consist of a 300-mile underwater transmission line along a 200-foot-wide right of way.

It would be located around 10-to-18 miles offshore.

But there is uncertainty about the future of wind power off the coast of the First State.

Bluewater Wind had a contract to provide offshore wind power to Delmarva Power.