Friday morning summary

E-mails exchanged between former Pulaski County Comptroller Ron Quillin and his lover, who represented a company that sold the county more than $1.1 million in services, are public records, the Arkansas Supreme Court has determined. The decision came nearly four months after the Democrat-Gazette filed a Freedom of Information Act request to access the e-mails, which Quillin sent and received mainly during work hours.

The organization hoping to stop unmarried couples from adopting or becoming foster parents in Arkansas got the go-ahead to start a petition drive to earn a spot on next year’s general election ballot.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has rejected Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s proposed constitutional amendment to create a state lottery, citing ambiguities and uncertainty as to whether it would affect the bingo amendment Arkansans already have approved. Halter’s group will resubmit.

An attorney for former state Rep. Arnell Willis, who is contesting the June 2006 runoff for the District 16 state Senate seat, argued before the Arkansas Supreme Court that his client has still not received a fair trial. Willis, of Helena-West Helena, filed suit against Sen. Jack Crumbly of Widener and the St. Francis County Election Commission. He wanted the St. Francis County Circuit Court to throw out the results of the June 13, 2006, runoff in the Democratic primary between him and Crumbly, in which Crumbly was declared the winner by 78 votes.

Don Davis, on death row for a 1990 slaying of a Rogers woman during a robbery at her home, has been sentenced to die on Nov. 8. But a top official in the attorney general’s office said it isn’t clear how a case before the U.S. Supreme Court claiming that lethal injection violates the 8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment will affect Davis’ execution or that of Jack H. Jones Jr., scheduled to die on Oct. 16.

A Supermax warden who runs the state’s most restrictive prison has been hired to administer the Youth Services Division’s residential programs, including those at Alexander. Some advocates say they were disappointed with the hiring of Kim E. Luckett, questioning the appropriateness of appointing a prison warden to revamp how the state treats its most troubled youths. Others reserved judgment, saying his advanced degrees and work experience could be just what the troubled youth agency needs.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has placed the Little Rock port on the Arkansas River in a floodway. The preliminary decision will be appealed, according to Paul Latture, executive director of the Little Rock Port Authority. Latture said the new status won’t affect the port’s industry, which is on the other side of the levee. Four companies announced plans this summer to invest more than $270 million and employ nearly 1,450 at the port, and that development won’t be affected.

Craighead Electric Cooperative Corp. of Jonesboro has accused Entergy Corp. of grabbing one of its industrial customers by running lines and poles to a new American Railcar Industries Inc. plant in Marmaduke.

An Arkansas company is offering $100 to a Utah woman who found a severed mouse head in a can of green beans if she pledges not to take legal action, but she’s not biting. The letter from Allen Canning Company of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, describes it as a “gesture of goodwill.” Marianne Watson isn’t interested.

Sgt. Jeff Morgan, one of three ranking Fort Smith police officers suspended as part of an internal investigation, was fired from the Police Department. Morgan, a 20-year veteran of the department, along with Maj. Jeff Barrows and Capt. Steve Howard, was the subject of an internal investigation conducted by the department’s Office of Professional Standards.

A complaint lodged with the Arkansas Ethics Commission alleges that Greenwood Mayor Ken Edwards wrote checks in August for personal expenses on his 2006 election cycle campaign fund. Filed by former mayor Garry Campbell, the complaint also alleges Edwards failed to report a $1,000 campaign contribution from Greenwood resident Buren Been. n the Oct. 2 affidavit, Been calls the contribution allegations a “despicable and damnable lie” and threatens to file a lawsuit if the allegations aren’t retracted.

Fifth and sixth-grade teachers at Fort Smith Fairview are participating in a pilot program in which students are separated by gender. There are three classes of students at both grade levels. One is all boys, one all girls and the third a traditional, gender-mixed group. Students stay in the groups for all their classes.

A bomb threat scribbled on a men’s restroom wall at Pocahontas High School resulted in students being released at 2 p.m., Superintendent Daryl Blaxton said. Blaxton said the threat was similar to ones communicated over the last week in Doniphan, Mo.