CdA man hits casino jackpot

A funny thing happened to Coeur d’Alene resident William Hennings as he waited to take a bus home from the Coeur d’Alene Casino just before midnight Dec. 4.

He plugged money into a nearby Power Ball slot machine and won more than $746,000.

“My family’s going to have a real nice Christmas,” Hennings, 47, said in a news release from the casino.

Hennings’ $746,948.68 jackpot is the second largest in the casino’s nearly 14-year history. In 2004, an anonymous Spokane man won slightly more than $1 million.

A Montana native, Hennings is unemployed but had worked at the smelter operation in Kellogg.

Hennings said he’s already bought a new truck and a new house. He estimates he only spent $25 or $30 playing the game for about 20 minutes before he struck it rich.

“I couldn’t sleep for the first 36 hours, but I’m sleeping real good now,” Hennings said, according to the news release.

– Meghann M. Cuniff

Boise

Craig won’t resist wilderness bill

Sen. Larry Craig told congressional leaders he would not stand in the way of a bill to designate new wilderness in Idaho’s Boulder-White Cloud mountains, though the measure died in last-minute negotiations before the Senate adjourned.

Craig’s spokesman, Dan Whiting, said Monday that the Republican senator – who had placed seemingly deal-breaking demands on the bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho – made the pledge to supporters who nearly brokered a compromise that would have attached the wilderness measure to a tax bill in the final hours of the GOP-led session.

Simpson had convinced House and Senate negotiators to include the wilderness bill as a rider to the bipartisan tax bill. Despite support from incoming House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, top Republicans removed the wilderness rider hours before the tax package cleared Congress early Saturday morning, according to lobbyists and congressional staffers who followed the negotiations.

Before the frantic midnight negotiations, Craig decided not to block the wilderness measure – a promise Whiting said will extend into next year, when Simpson has said he will try to revive the legislation.

“He said he would not stand in the way and he’s not going to change that position between now and the next Congress,” he said.

– Associated Press