News

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.

NEW CASTLE, Del. (AP) - Members of the board overseeing Delaware's Sustainable Energy Utility are meeting amid heightened public scrutiny of the energy efficiency program.

The SEU oversight panel was scheduled to meet Friday morning at the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control offices in New Castle.

Lawmakers voted in 2008 to establish the oversight board to help promote energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in Delaware.

But questions have been raised recently about the SEU's transparency and the way it does business, and one of its two co-chairs recently announced his resignation.

The Salisbury Daily Times reports Donnie Williams, owner of Advanced Property Rental in Salisbury, allegedly shot himself in the chest Thursday.

More on this story on Friday.

Delaware State Police are investigating a rash of burglaries that have occurred in the Bridgeville area.

One Seaford property and four Bridgeville homes were burglarized from May 1 to May 9, and officials say a suspect entered the empty properties through doors and windows during daylight hours.

The suspect stole electronic devices, money, a small caliber handgun and two ATVs.

When one female victim returned to her residence, she witnessed what she described as a “small male subject” running across her yard and fleeing toward Cannon Road in a white station wagon.

Locations of the burglaries

·         Rabbit Run Road, Bridgeville, DE

·         Cannon Road, Bridgeville, DE

·         Ray Road, Bridgeville, DE

Delaware is the 18th most bike-friendly state; Governor Markell wants top 10.

Delaware residents will have the opportunity to speak for or against proposed bike and pedestrian paths at Thursday night's public workshop in Lewes.

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and the Delaware Department of Transportation are sponsoring the event, which will outline Governor Jack Markell's First State Trails and Pathways Initiative.

Projects to be highlighted

Jessica Smithson wants the Wicomico County School District to fire a bus driver after her son was dropped off with a nose bleed miles from his home in the rain.

She said her son Jason text messaged her at around 6:40 am on Tuesday telling her that he had the nosebleed.

The Salisbury Daily Times reports that she said around 15 minutes later he sent her another message telling her that she needed to pick him up because the bus driver had allowed him off the bus and then drove away.

The paper reports that the student had asked the bus driver to drop him off so that his mother could pick him up.

Smithson said she found the ninth grader about three miles away from their home with his face, shirt and hands covered with blood.

The video of an alleged bullying incident on a school bus from Carter G. Woodson Elementary School in Somerset County is being kept under wraps by local officials.

Jenna Howard said that last Friday her son Caleb Marshall was crying and upset telling her that another boy had physically hurt him while they were riding on the school bus together.

WBOC-TV reports that Caleb said the boy had punched and kicked him on the side of the head and knocked him down to the ground.

The student said the boy then started stomping him on the head.

It was all caught on a camera installed inside the bus.

 The Lower Shore delegation found itself divided over the legislation approved in Annapolis during this week’s special session.

State Senator Jim Mathias voted for the measure that would shift some teacher pension costs to local governments.

But the Salisbury Daily Times reports that the Worcester Democrat opposed the proposed tax hikes on individuals making $100-thousand and joint filers earning $150-thousand of taxable income.  

Meanwhile, State Senator Rich Colburn voted against both bills.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - The Maryland House of Delegates has approved a budget package in a special session.

The House voted 77-60 on Wednesday to raise income taxes on single filers who make more than $100,000 and joint filers who make $150,000 in taxable income a year.

The House voted 86-51 for a separate bill to split teacher pension costs over four years and raise taxes on tobacco other than cigarettes.

The House votes ends a special session that began on Monday.

Gov. Martin O'Malley called the special session to avoid about $500 million in budget cuts that were triggered by the General Assembly's failure to pass the budget package during the 90-day regular session last month.

MILLSBORO, Del. (AP) - A Delaware official says there isn't any money in the budget for dredging of smaller inland bay waterways.

David Small, the deputy secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, says that because of attrition of staff and equipment, the state's ability to perform the work has also decreased.

Local representatives met with DNREC officials this month about the issue. Rep. John Adkins says he would like to see a permanent funding source so mud flats and sand bars don't emerge at low tide.

The two pedestrian bridges in Salisbury City Park could be closed for the rest of the summer.

Teresa Gardner, director of Public Works, said city inspectors have found significant signs of deterioration on the Snow Hill Road pedestrian bridge during an inspection this month.

The Salisbury Daily Times reports the inspectors said they found the wood had warped and shrunk.

In addition, they said the screws that hold them together had rusted apart allowing the planks to be removed by hand.

Gardner also said that support beams had rusted to the point…that they had lost 30 percent of their thickness.

DOVER, Del. (AP) - A bill to regulate and monitor payday loans in Delaware continues to move through the legislature after winning narrow approval in the House.

The bill is scheduled for a hearing Wednesday in the Senate Banking Committee.

The bill cleared the state House two weeks, with only one more vote than needed for the required three-fifths majority.

Payday loans typically are small, short-term loans with high interest rates that effectively represent advances on a borrower's next paycheck.

The bill does not cap interest rates for payday loans, as previous failed proposals tried to do, but it does limit borrowers to no more than five payday loans in a 12-month period and lenders to no more than four rollovers of an existing payday loan.

DOVER, Del. (AP) - A bill that would prevent Delaware employers from demanding that employees and job applicants disclose social media login information has cleared a House committee.

The bill was released by the Telecommunication Internet and Technology Committee on Wednesday after lawmakers agreed to add an amendment exempting law enforcement agencies.

The amendment also allows the Department of Correction to request and achieve access to an employee's social networking site to ensure compliance with DOC policies.

A companion bill would prohibit both public and private educational institutions from requiring that a student or job applicant provide their social networking login information was released from the committee earlier this month.