Wednesday Arkansas roundup

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln says she told President Barack Obama during a Tuesday evening meeting that she’s concerned about the cost of a government-funded health insurance option. Lincoln met with Obama for about 30 minutes at the White House.

So far the state has been awarded over $1.1 billion in Recovery Act stimulus money as of September 30. Of that, over $323 million has been received and $112.5 million has been spent. 2,633 jobs have been created or saved.

The Department of Health is reporting that a total of 172,873 doses were given out at mass flu clinics across the state last week. That included only about 24,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine.

The Cooperative Extension Service says Ashley, Chicot and Desha counties are particularly hard hit by the heavy rains in October. Farmers across the state have suffered from the weather.

State revenues fell $17.8 million short of projections last month, but budget officials are optimistic the economy would begin to improve early next year.

One regular and two alternate jurors remain to be seated in the first degree murder trial of Curtis Vance. Testimony concerning the killing of television anchor Ann Pressly is expected to begin this afternoon.

Washington County will mandate microchips be implanted in dogs picked up in unincorporated area without collars, if a proposal by the county’s Animal Concerns Advisory Board is implemented.

A federal court jury agreed with six black employees of Nucor in Blytheville that they were subjected to racist treatment, and awarded $200,000 to each. According to Arkansas Business, supervisors re-enacted lynchings, broadcast racial slurs over the plant’s radio system and portrayed black employees as monkeys.

The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a $2.75 million award in compensatory damages for a Little Rock woman who sued drugmakers Wyeth and Upjohn, saying the companies’ hormone therapy drugs caused her breast cancer.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., making a $34 billion bet on the future of the U.S. economy.

Windstream has an agreement to acquire NuVox, a privately held local exchange carrier based in Greenville, S.C., in a deal valued at about $643 million.

The investigation into injuries suffered last week by a a prisoner in the Lonoke County Detention Facility is now being conducted by the state police as a homicide.

State police say a Blytheville woman is dead after the collision of her vehicle and a state trooper’s patrol car.

Filed under: Arkansas