Monday headlines for Arkansas
January 31, 2010 Leave a comment
Some 1300 homes and businesses are still without power and a few schools in northwest Arkansas are closed today, but the winter storm has passed.
John Arthur Hammerschmidt, son of tformer Congressman John Paul Hammerschmidt, is being mentioned as a possible candidate to run for the U.S. House seat his father held more than 20 years according to the City Wire internet site in Fort Smith and Roby Brock’s TalkBusiness.net
The Higher Education Department says that fall enrollment in state colleges and universities was up 6.2 percent from a year ago.
Governor Beebe is warning state Republicans against partisanship. The regular budget session starts one week from today.
Rep. Mike Ross and Sen. Mark Pryor are objecting to Agriculture Interior Department proposed restrictions on ATV use in the Ouachita National Forest. Their concern particularly relates to the Wolf Pen Trail System.
The city of Pine Bluff has heard a final figure from the Internal Revenue Service on back payroll taxes from 2007: $43,552. The city also owes the IRS for similar payroll issues from 2008, but has not received an official figure.
Ron W. Strother, the president and chief operating officer of Home Bancshares Inc. of Conway and well-known businessman, died Sunday afternoon in west Little Rock in an apparent suicide.
Acxiom Corp. says its profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31 was $14.2 million, up sharply from an $11.4 million loss a year earlier.
Metropolitan National Bank, the sixth-largest Arkansas-based bank with $1.5 billion in assets, lost more than $80 million in 2009 as it continues to write off bad loans.
Three inmates escaped the Juvenile Detention Center in Jefferson County after a scuffle with guards. One of the guards, Officer Leonard Wall, died from injuries he sustained during the brutal attack. Two 16 year-olds are in custody. Authorities are still searching for 18-year-old Brandon Henderson.
An advocate for members of the Tony Alamo organization called a judge’s decision to sever the parental rights of several of those members a “tragedy” and says the parents plan to appeal.
Evan Lee Batton of Dardanelle is charged with rape and engaging children in sexually explicit conduct for use in pornography stemming from a multi-state ongoing criminal investigation.
A Little Rock man who admitted last year that he helped prostitute a 16-yearold girl, using some of the profits to buy crack cocaine, was sentenced to 7 1 /2 years in prison.
