RALEIGH -- State officials are trying to figure out how to pay for services for disabled infants and toddlers as federal financing ends.
Federal money to help youngsters who have trouble walking or talking will end by July 1, the Raleigh News & Observer reported yesterday. Federal education laws require the services.
The program has provided therapists to go to homes and day-care centers to show parents or teachers the best way to interact with young children to improve their physical and emotional development.
Pender County therapist Briana Kelly has started an online petition to keep the services and had nearly 400 signatures late Wednesday.
Brad Deen with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said that the services have cost Medicaid about $12 million in the past year.
Soldier, 45, from Fort Bragg killed in Afghanistan village
FORT BRAGG --A 45-year-old Fort Bragg soldier was killed while unloading medical supplies in a village in northwestern Afghanistan on Tuesday.
Military officials say that Staff Sgt. Ronald Jay Spino, from Waterbury, Conn., died in Bala Morghab, a village in Badghis Province.
Spino was assigned to the 44th Medical Command at Fort Bragg. He returned from Iraq in February and deployed to Afghanistan in November.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut ordered flags in the state lowered to half-staff.
Winston-Salem man accused of groping women in Atlanta
ATLANTA -- Authorities have arrested a Winston-Salem man, saying that he groped women at a downtown Atlanta building while high on crack.
Frank McMillan, 33, first groped a woman's backside after giving her a bear hug in the building's lobby around 7:40 yesterday morning, said Georgia State Patrol Lt. Paul Cosper.
Authorities say that McMillan then touched three more women in a revolving door as he left the building. McMillan was apprehended a short time later and taken back to the building.
Cosper said that witnesses identified him and that he acknowledged doing the assaults and being under the influence of crack cocaine.
McMillan faces one charge of sexual battery and four counts of simple battery for the assaults.
It was not immediately known if he has an attorney.
Mom on cell phone drove into train's path in fatal wreck
RALEIGH -- Authorities say that a woman was talking on her cell phone when she drove through a railroad crossing into the path of an Amtrak train last week.
The N.C. Highway Patrol has determined that warning lights and bells and the crossing gate functioned properly before the Dec. 22 crash that killed Erin Lindsay-Calkins and her 5-year-old son.
The highway patrol said that witnesses reported seeing Lindsay-Calkins, 26, using her phone as she drove toward the railroad crossing near Efland in Orange County.
Bystanders pulled her 4-month-old daughter out of a car seat in the vehicle's twisted metal.
None of the 215 passengers on the Amtrak passenger train bound from Charlotte to New York was hurt.
Bankruptcy judge approves sale of resort assets to company
BEAUFORT, S.C. -- A bankruptcy judge has approved the sale of most of the assets of the Daufuskie Island Resort & Breathe Spa to a North Carolina company.
The judge in Beaufort ruled Wednesday that the assets can go to Montauk Resorts for nearly $50 million. Daufuskie owners Gayle and Bill Dixon declared bankruptcy nearly a year ago.
The resort includes an inn, two golf courses, several restaurants, an equestrian center and the rights to develop more than 500 commercial and residential parcels.
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