Arkansas Thursday morning news notes

According to Roby Brock’s TalkBusiness.net, Governor Beebe’s approval rating has dipped from 77% positive in July to 71% approval in October.

Gov. Mike Beebe still opposes an initiated act voters approved last year banning unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children, and he thinks the law has hindered the state’s ability to recruit qualified adoptive and foster parents.

Members of the state House of Representatives will prohibit fundraising during the Legislature’s fiscal session next year. House members rejected a rule requiring them to find the cheapest route when traveling out of state at taxpayer expense.

The Health Department is cutting money that would have been spent on the trauma system’s emergency services, salary for trauma system staffers, the Arkansas Community Health Centers and charitable clinics.

Arkansas 211, a telephone program that helps connect thousands of callers with social-service programs statewide, will shut down this week because of a lack of funding.

The first deployment of National Guard troops to Afghanistan will begin in less than a week with teary goodbyes beside rumbling buses at the Jonesboro armory.

Farmers in 60 Arkansas counties are eligible to apply for emergency low-interest federal loans under a U.S. Agriculture Department declaration related to October flooding.

Chick-fil-A Bowl representative Jack D’Arcy will visit Fayetteville to scout the South Carolina Arkansas game. The two teams are being scouted as potential representatives in the 2009 Chick-fil-A Bowl on Dec. 31.

Murphy Oil Corp. of El Dorado, citing significantly lower sales prices for oil and natural gas and lower earnings from the refining and marketing operations, reports third-quarter net income fell to $188.9 million, less than a third of the $584.4 million earned in the same quarter last year.

Wal-Mart will eliminate 60 positions from its international division but add 40 new slots elsewhere in the division.

In the first day of testimony in the Ann Pressly murder trial, the victim’s mother described finding Pressly in her blood soaked bed and an emergency room doctor described the condition of her face as unrecognizable There is worse.

Three women whom evangelist Tony Alamo is accused of taking as “wives” at young ages and transporting across state lines have asked to speak at his sentencing hearing next week.

Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery says a woman who fled with her husband to Vermont rather than face sentencing on 20 counts of animal cruelty has finally been sentenced to a year in the county jail and fined a total of $10,000.

Filed under: Arkansas