Monday summary 3/3/08

My column is in today’s Democrat-Gazette on the Voices page in the Arkansas section and I can honestly say there is something in there to offend everybody.

Get a taste of Lyncho from my morning updates twice every hour on Spirit 93.3 and K-106.3.

The radio show starts at 9.

KSMD 99.1 FM – Searcy/Batesville
KWCK 1300 AM – Searcy
KAPZ 710 AM – Bald Knob/Augusta
KAWW 1370 AM – Heber Springs/Clinton

Arkansas 78 – Vandy 73

UALR beat Louisiana-Monroe 59-55 to win a share of its third division championship in five seasons. UALR has the No. 2 seed at next week’s Sun Belt Tournament at Mobile, Ala.

27 year-old Adam Nickel of Madison, Wisconsin is dead after running the Little Rock Marathon. Nickel collapsed at the finish line after running the course in 3 hours. Tamrat  Ayalew, formerly of Ethiopia, now of Atlanta Georgia won the  LR Marathon. Ayalew came to the US seeking political asylum, you see he was SHOT IN
THE KNEE, yes SHOT IN THE KNEE back home. He ran the marathon at just over 2 hours 20 minutes.

Although Arkansas high school athletics rules require head football coaches to teach academic courses, a little more than 13 percent of the state’s 193 head football coaches don’t teach a single class. According to a Democrat-Gazette investigation, football coaches often make much more than teachers with classes which are required by law.

For the vast majority of Arkansans, a severance tax increase on natural gas producers won’t lead to a jump in heating bills. An official of the state’s largest natural gas utility, Center-Point Energy, tells the Democrat-Gazette it won’t be passed on to its customers.

The special prosecutors in the shooting of 12-year-old DeAunta Farrow by a West Memphis policeman submitted a letter to the judge Friday saying their review of additional evidence provided by an attorney for the boy’s family didn’t change their opinion that the officer committed no prosecutable offense.

Jazmin Coultas, a Rogers High School sophomore, collapsed Friday night during a basketball game at the Wampus Cat Arena and was transported by MEMS to the Conway Regional Medical Center. Another player accidentally struck her in the head.

Local law enforcement and the FBI are investigating three bomb threats in the Clarksville schools last week.

Fewer than 2 percent of those booked at the Washington County Jail on state and local charges are in the country without proper documentation, according to a recent study.

The Conway Regional Medical System will begin a $25 million expansion. In Fort Smith, Sparks Regional Medical Center just dedicated a $40 million expansion.

Governor Beebe visits the Nextle plant in Jonesboro tomorrow. Must be some kind of good news.

Sometime after Wednesday, Redstone Construction of Little Rock will begin widening Napa Valley Drive between Hinson and Rainwood roads. Farther south, the intersection of Napa Valley Drive and St. Charles Boulevard will also be widened as part of the $1.6 million construction work. It will take five months. Organizers promise it will not interfere with the Greek Food Festival.

Four people were injured, including one who was shot by a police officer, during a gunfight early Sunday at a hookah club in North Little Rock’s Levy neighborhood.

A man accused of running over a girl’s foot during a melee in Boyle Park in Little Rock on Tuesday was arrested Sunday after being released from a hospital. Kelwyn Porter, 29, who was shot in the leg during the fight, was released from Baptist Health Medical Center about 2 p.m. and taken to police headquarters, where he was arrested on one count of first-degree battery.

Despite his father’s plea for leniency, a 23-year-old Little Rock man who abducted and raped a woman while he was on probation for molesting another woman was sentenced to 43 years in prison Friday. The father of Justin Ramon Phillips told Pulaski County Circuit Judge John Langston he was slow to realize that the mental illness that plagued his own life had also infected his son. Robert Phillips, 51, testified he suffered mood swings for years until he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2000.

Filed under: Arkansas