Wednesday early

The new director of the state lottery plans to hire 95 employees and institute ATM style ticket machines that will give you a payoff if you have a winning ticket.

Abdul Hakim Muhanmmad, accused of killing a solider outside a Little Rock recruiting station, placed a collect call to the Associated Press and made a number of statements concerning the incident. Muhammad says it was a symbolic and justifiable protest of American interference in the Middle East.

A judge has ordered that trial for a man accused of killing Arkansas Tech student Nona Dirksmeyer be moved to Johnson County.

Arkansas’ graduation rate is slightly above the national average at 72%. Among black students, 62% graduate, compared to 51% nationally.

Protesters of the West Memphis Three case disrupted Circuit Court Judge John Fogleman’s press conference announcing his run for the state supreme court. Fogleman was a prosecutor in that case and is running against Appeals Court Judge Courtney Henry.

Lawyers for groups opposing construction of a coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County say the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality did not fully consider the plant’s potential impact on the environment when it granted an air quality permit for the plant.

The Polymer Group will close its plant in North Little Rock  by the spring of 2010. This will mean the loss of some 140 jobs.

Polymarin, a wind blade manufacturer locating in Arkansas, will delay production until the third quarter of this year.

Big John Tree Transplanter Manufacturing Inc. of Heber Springs has sold an order of seven transplanters to the city of Baghdad,

Management at a Conway hotel is claiming $50,000 in damages was caused by a prank caller who may be responsible for similar attempts at phone-it-in vandalism throughout the state and nation. They will ask you to turn on your sprinkler system. Don’t do it.

The Federal Aviation Administration is reviewing a proposal that would pull meteorologists out of the regional centers, and consolidate them in two facilities, in Kansas City, Mo., and College Park, Md.

The design has been approved for the United States Marshall Service Museum in Fort Smith.

Little Rock police have nabbed a couple of juveniles in connection with last weekends shooting of an ice cream truck operator. Prosecutors expect to charge them with attempted capital murder.

For the first time in history, the University of Arkansas Police Department has acquired two bomb-sniffing dogs

Filed under: Arkansas