Headlines on Thursday morning

The Arkansas Court of Appeals today overturned Public Service Commission approval of a construction permit for SWEPCO’s proposed power plant in southwest Arkansas. Inadequate assessment. It ordered a new PSC hearing on environmental and other issues.

The death of a 44-year-old man as Pulaski County’s first stemming from the severe heat.

Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Curtis Coleman said today his comment that traveling to Southeast Arkansas one “might as well get a visa and shot” was not meant to be derogatory, but rather as a metaphor for the diversity of Arkansas.

Former Congressman Asa Hutchinson wants an independent review of Arkansas’ prison system. Hutchinson called for an outside panel to recommend changes to the state correctional structure during a speech to the Washington County Republican Women.

A Sebastian County circuit judge did not err in terminating the parental rights of a woman who drank 13 beers the night before a court-ordered psychological evaluation, the state Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

Interactive marketing consultant Acxiom Corp. expects its fiscal first-quarter revenue to fall as much as 21 percent as clients delay or cancel marketing programs.

Home sales in Arkansas were down 8 percent in April, compared with April last year, the Arkansas Realtors Association said earlier this month, the most recent report available. It was the best monthly report since September.

Jobs in Arkansas’s clean energy economy grew more than twice as fast as overall jobs between 1998 and 2007, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew ’s analysis found that jobs in Arkansas’ clean energy economy grew at a rate of 7.8 percent, while overall Arkansas jobs grew by 3.5 percent.

Union Pacific is planning to stop using workers in its rail yard tower in Texarkana and replace them with video cameras. The local fire marshal says hazardous materials pass through all day and night and that move might be dangerous.

Verizon Wireless has told 42 more former Alltel Corp. workers that they will be cut in mid-July, making the total of ex-Alltel employees who will have been let go since January nearly 200.

Axciom will suspend contributions to employee’s 401k plans and cut some salaries to deal with the economic slowdown.

At least 200 jobs — including 50 within the next three months — will be coming to Harrisburg in  Poinsett County. Rusken Packaging will move into the old American Greetings factory on Arkansas 1.

America’s Car-Mart officials say the interest rate it charges on used cars in Arkansas will jump from 5.5 percent to 12 percent once President Obama signs a 2009 appropriations bill.

Little Rock National Airport, Adams Field, has seen the number of passengers boarding dip 10.2 percent in the first five months of 2009 as airlines continue reducing service, increasing fares and adding fees to remain profitable.

Pine Bluff Convention Center Director Bob Purvis told the center’s finance committee that he and his staff are exploring new methods of collecting taxes used to fund operations.

NFL training camps start in a matter of days and former Razorback and Jacksonville Jaguar Matt Jones is still waiting for the phone to ring. Jones was cut by the Jags last year after serving time in jail for violating terms of his drug court program.

Lurch, the Watusi steer from near Greenbrier with world-record horns, is suffering from suspected cancer, and his owner says she doesn’t want to prolong any suffering for the animal.

The Arkansas Court of Appeals has overturned the abuse-of-a-corpse conviction of a Mena woman charged with killing her husband and then dismembering him.

The murder trial for a Lee County man accused of killing the Marianna Fire Chief has been transferred to St. Francis County.

Prosecutors say Shane Lonix, the man accused of murdering Plumerville Police Department Assistant Chief Joseph Cannon, may have stolen the murder weapon from a Conway home earlier this month.

Filed under: Arkansas