Early Monday news

General Motors is expected to file for bankruptcy protection this morning. The U. S. government will reportedly assume sixty percent ownership.

Police agencies across the region continue to search for two convicted murderers wearing blue, prison-officers ’ uniforms who escaped from the Cummins Unit in Grady on Friday evening.

American Airlines Flight 1420 crashed off the runway at Little Rock National Airport the late night of June 1, 1999. The pilot and 10 other people died.

DraftExpress.com has an interview with former Razorback Patrick Beverley in which he describes submitting academic work that was not his own as part of the situation that surrounded his departure from the program.

The Arkansas Lottery Commission is about to trim more than 40 applicants for its executive director job, deciding whether to select, among others, a former Arkansas lawmaker, a lottery executive with experience in Georgia and Tennessee or a former New York lottery director.

About 700 protesters, many from Cleburne County, came to the state capitol demonstrating to repeal the law that makes it easier to get mixed drink permits in dry counties.

A group of El Dorado investors will end negotiations with Pilgrim’s Pride for the sale of the local chicken plant.

Fitch Ratings has revised its rating of Southwest Electric Power Co. from stable to negative. SWEPCO is building a natural gas powered plant in Louisiana and is seeking permission for a coal fired plant in Southwest Arkansas.

Duke Energy has announced plans to plant 1 million trees on about 1,700 acres in Arkansas to help the electric power company generate carbon offsets.

A group that wants to open the Red River north of Louisiana to commercial traffic says developing the river would give the region an economic boost and help the environment because it would promote more energy-efficient travel.

Conversion of a Batesville industrial plant to allow a workforce expansion of hundreds of jobs will be paid for in part with a $1.8 million federal grant awarded to the city, according to members of the Arkansas congressional delegation.

The Wal Mart shareholders meeting is set for Friday in Fayetteville. It’s always a big deal.

Franklin County’s population is expected to nearly double this week when a crowd of traveling concertgoers from every state and a half-dozen countries swarms Mulberry Mountain for the Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival.

Filed under: Arkansas

The “official” Friday Arkansas headlines

Army 1st Sgt. Blue C. Rowe, 33, of Summers died Tuesday in Afghanistan, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.

Governor Beebe says experience with lotteries would be helpful for a new director but not essential.

Gov. Mike Beebe is ordering all state agencies under his control to submit plans to reduce energy costs and says they can tap into a $15 million fund to pay for those improvements.

While manufacturing employment continues its precipitous decline, government job growth is growing and may soon become the largest employment category in the state.

The Little rock National Airport officials plan to use the $3 Million to add L-E-D lights one of the taxiways. The lights use less energy and reduce operating costs.

El Dorado officials have not given up on buying an idled Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. plant despite the Texas company’s rejecting the first bid.

Sanderson Farms, the nation’s fourth largest chicken processor, posted a larger-than-expected second quarter profit thanks to better operating margins, cheaper grain and industry production cuts that have kept prices steady amid unstable demand.

A shareholder complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court alleges that Dillard’s board members have breached their duties, wasted corporate assets and unjustly enriched themselves.

Up to 1.7 million pounds of Tyson chicken could be headed to Illinois food banks, courtesy of a class-action lawsuit settlement.

Less than two weeks after winning a delay in jailed evangelist Tony Alamo’s trial on sex charges, Alamo’s lead defense attorney told prosecutors he plans to withdraw from the case

A judge has ruled that a man accused in the shooting death of an employee at the Wal-Mart in Paris is fit to stand trial.

A registered nurse who works for a Fort Smith-area nursing home was charged with domestic battery for purportedly assaulting her 80-year-old mother as the two argued about a telephone.

Filed under: Arkansas

First Thursday news

FOX TV and the producers of American Idol say that Kris Allen’s title is safe and that the results were fair and accurate.

The chief judge of the Arkansas Court of Appeals strongly criticized the Pulaski County Prosecutor’s Office and Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Simms in connection with a deal that prosecutors made with a witness in exchange for testimony.

A man sitting in a car in a parking lot did not present enough probable cause for police to commence questioning that led to a drug arrest, the state Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

A Lonoke County man did not commit aggravated robbery when he brandished a toy gun and demanded the return of $2, the Arkansas Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

State utility regulators want proof that a “grass-roots” organization of Southwestern Electric Power Co. ratepayers is just that — and not a shell group of environmentalists who already seek standing in SWEPCO’s rate case.

The new state Lottery Commission will be looking at director candidates next week and expects to make a choice within a month.

Banks and entrepreneurs could have a new tool to invest in underserved areas of Arkansas, which includes about 85% of the state. The U.S. Department of Treasury announced that Arkansas would receive $55 million in “New Market Tax Credits” through the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.

Five are dead in a wreck involving a “special needs van” on Highway 63 between Jonesboro and Bay. A car driving the wrong way collided with the small bus carrying special needs adults. Drivers of both vehicles reportedly among those killed.

A Pine Bluff woman who was allegedly seen shoplifting items from a store in the Dollarway area Saturday could be charged with robbery after she reportedly fought a store employee, then hit him with a car while trying to escape.

A Pulaski County jury rejected the claims of the family of a 4-year-old Conway boy that negligent treatment at Arkansas Children’s Hospital left the toddler brain-damaged for life.

Many Arkansas farmers have missed the best time to plant because of persistent rains, and more precipitation is in the forecast.

Filed under: Arkansas

Very early Wednesday

The New York Times is reporting that AT&T reps attended Kris Allen watch parties and taught Allen fans how to “power text.” Allen fans were able to cast 10 votes at the push of a button.

Arkansas state police say they issued 1,663 speeding tickets to motorists during the Memorial Day holiday weekend but that another 1,963 drivers were let off with just a warning.

A legislative panel will take up a thorny question during the interim between sessions: What should happen when a school district has declining enrollment but is so isolated that consolidation with another district is inconvenient?

The temptation to “posture for elections” will prove irresistible to lawmakers meeting in annual legislative sessions, Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter said Tuesday.

The Arkansas Health Department has started its annual statewide surveillance for West Nile virus.

To make sure Arkansas’ needy get appropriate public assistance, the state Department of Human Services plans to hire 112 temporary family support specialists with federal stimulus money,

General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada has awarded a contract valued at more than $150 million to produce reactive armor tile sets for the Stryker family of vehicles. 20 new jobs are coing to Camden.

Rheem Manufacturing Co. has announced “a voluntary, early retirement, reduction-in-force program” to 50 salaried employees of the Air Conditioning Division of its Fort Smith plant.

Inadequate crowd management found in death of a temp employee crushed by Black Friday shopping horde at Long Island Wal-Mart,

Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. has repaid its $450 million debtor-in-possession loan arranged through the Bank of Montreal in January.

Two women who ignored a lawsuit filed against them by the Arkansas attorney general’s office have not responded to a federal judge’s order that they pay nearly $700,000 in penalties for defrauding at least 139 Arkansans through a credit-repair scam.

NLR PD is nearing readiness to apply to test its unmanned surveillance helicopter over the city.

Little Rock Fire Department crews and divers from the Pulaski County sheriff’s office searched a pond at a southwest Little Rock city golf course for a 13-year-old boy who disappeared after he fell out of a boat he and two other boys were in Monday night.

John Daly’s suspension on the PGA Tour is over, and the two-time major champion plans to return in three weeks for the St. Jude Championship and U.S. Open qualifying.

Filed under: Arkansas