IN BRIEF

FORMER CONTROLLER'S DEATH

Court rejects request for rehearing of appeal

The Nevada Supreme Court has denied a petition from Chaz Higgs to rehear the appeal of his murder conviction in the death of his wife, former Nevada Controller Kathy Augustine.

In a 4-2 ruling, justices said Higgs' claims had been addressed in a previous appeal, and there was no legal basis for reconsideration. One justice did not participate in the decision.

The ruling was issued Tuesday.

The 44-year-old Higgs, a critical-care nurse, was convicted by a Reno jury in June 2007 of murdering Augustine by injecting her with a paralytic drug that is used in hospital emergency rooms.

He was sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole after 20 years.

Other nurses testified during the trial that Higgs had access to the drug before Augustine was found unconscious in her Reno home in 2006.

IRAQ-AFGHANISTAN TRIP

Gibbons on way back after visits with troops

Gov. Jim Gibbons was scheduled to be back in the state late Wednesday or early today after a weeklong overseas trip that included military briefings and visits with Nevada troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The trip also included a visit to the military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany, where soliders wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq are taken for treatment.

Gibbons made the trip, organized by the Pentagon, with governors of Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri and Texas.

More than 800 Nevada National Guard members are stationed in Afghanistan, and about 150 other guard members from the state are in Iraq, where Gibbons went in May 2008 on a similar trip.

Gibbons was a combat pilot during the Vietnam War and a reconnaissance pilot during the first Gulf War. He retired from the Nevada Air Guard in late 1994.

SURVEYING WORK

Helicopter crash kills LV man in Pennsylvania

A Las Vegas man is dead after his helicopter crashed in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, where he was reported to have been using the craft to do surveying work.

State police did not immediately release the man's identity but said he was working for an Oregon company.

Fayette County 911 dispatchers said the crash was reported about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday in Wharton Township, about 35 miles south of Pittsburgh.

Authorities said the man was dropping a basket of supplies to the ground when the helicopter crashed.