Friday Arkansas news notes

Game and Fish estimates that 400,000 of you will be in the deer woods tomorrow morning.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln says the Senate’s agriculture committee will meet in Arkansas later this month for a field hearing on how to strengthen and grow our rural economy.

The FBI has entered the investigation of finances at UCA. The Log Cabin Democrat quotes a source suggesting a Little Rock ad agency’s activities in connection with a booster club and a coaches show may be a central issue.

The former chief counsel of the Teacher Retirement System could be subpoenaed if she fails to appear before a legislative committee to discuss irregularities that occurred on her watch.

Arkansas ranks 8th highest among 33 jurisdictions (31 states, D.C. and Virgin Islands) in Powerball gambling per capita this week. We are third highest in the percentage of Powerball players making Powerplay wagers.

After another questionable officiating call in a Southeastern Conference game involving one of the league’s two best teams, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said in a Clinton Presidential Library speech that there is no conspiracy to keep the top teams in position to play for the national championship.

The Clinic at Walmart will open at a retail store in Little Rock. St. Vincent Health System will operate the clinic, a place for basic checkups, screenings and minor injuries.

Wal-Mart expects same-store sales during the critical fourth-quarter holiday shopping season to be flat or down 1%. Total company sales for the first nine months of the fiscal year are down 0.3% from the same period in 2008. Net income for the nine-month period was up 2.7%.

The lawsuit against Arkansas poultry producers continues in Tulsa federal court. A Cargill executive testifies that he did not check to see if company farmers were following an environmental handbook he helped compile that warned not to spread excess chicken manure because the runoff could pollute area water.

Farm Bureau says the price of a Thanksgiving dinner dipped slightly this year, thanks to a drop in dairy prices. The bureau’s annual survey finds that a family of 10, on average, will pay $40.75 for a Thanksgiving meal, 22 cents cheaper than last year.

An attorney for a man sentenced to die for killing his girlfriend and her two children in Fort Smith argues to the state Supreme Court that the victims’ decomposing bodies were discovered during an illegal search.

The state Supreme Court rejects the appeal of a condemned murderer from New Orleans who claimed he suffered from stress related to Hurricane Katrina when he killed a Fayetteville couple two years ago.

Curtiss Vance, convicted Wednesday in the murder of television anchor Ann Pressly, will serve life in prison.

From Garland County,four dead in a house fire in Pearcy. A fifth person is dead in a separate house fire on the same property. A car belonging to the owners of the burned house found burning across town.

Police in Berryville say a co-worker killed a 24-year-old northwest Arkansas man found shot to death and buried in a shallow grave for his identity.

Tony Alamo, now 75 years old, will be sentenced today to up to 175 years after being convicted in July of taking girls as young as 8 across state lines for sex.

Former Newton County Sheriff Jerry Lynn Jones got an eight-month federal prison sentence, was fined $3,000 and ordered to pay restitution of more than $100,000 for failing to report self-employment earnings while drawing disability payments.

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