Thursday summary 3/13/08

You can hear my morning updates on Spirit 93.3, which is also carried on KAWW 100.7 in Heber Springs and K-106.3 the Greatest Hits of All Time with John Lee. I am on twice an hour between 6 and 9 weekday mornings.

The radio show is on at 9.

KSMD 99.1 FM – Searcy/Batesville
KWCK 1300 AM – Searcy
KAPZ 710 AM – Bald Knob/Augusta
KAWW 1370 AM – Heber Springs/Clinton

The House minority leader slammed Gov. Mike Beebe’s proposal to raise the state severance tax Wednesday and said most other House Republicans oppose the plan. Rep. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, said the agreement Beebe unveiled a day earlier to increase the tax companies pay for extracting natural gas in the state would have “detrimental economic effects.”

A forgotten phone call meant a female prisoner spent four days without food or water in a tiny closet in the Washington County courthouse. The bailiff has been suspended without pay for 30 days.

The parents of a boy who attends school in the North Little Rock district alleged Wednesday the district has failed to comply with federal disability laws, and that failure creates hardships for students who use wheelchairs.

A woman who police say helped start last month’s melee in Little Rock’s Boyle Park has been arrested on charges of aggravated assault and inciting a riot. Police say Lisa Davidson of Little Rock and her daughter went to the park armed with chased a young woman who had fought Williams at the park that day.

Dwayne Dobbins, an ex-lawmaker who has filed as a candidate for a state House of Representatives seat, was placed in 2006 on the state’s Child Maltreatment Central Registry.

Dillard’s is planning to close stores in Richmond, Virginia and Greeley, Col. cutting 100 jobs.

A Wal-Mart employee, who suffered headaches after accidentally breathing cleaning chemicals through an office ventilation system, met her burden of proof and is entitled to additional medical treatment, the state Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. The decision reversed a ruling by the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation denying benefits.

Little Rock City Directors are considering a sales tax increase after the city ended 2007 with a $3 million deficit.

Harry Ward, the former Chancellor at the UAMS, credited with much of the building on that campus from 1979 to 2000, is dead at 74.

A draft of bylaws being considered by the U.S. Marshals Museum Board of Directors has raised concerns among board members about whether they should be expected to make annual monetary donations. In a draft a fundraising policy calls for board members to make the Marshals Museum a priority in their personal giving.

Prosecutors say a man accused of killing a University of Arkansas student from Greenbrier could face the death penalty over the slaying, despite his claims he blacked out and couldn’t remember what happened.

A season-opener at Texas A&M, a long homestand and a late-season trip to Alabama highlight Arkansas State’s 2008 football schedule.

John Daly woke up Wednesday morning to read that swing coach Butch Harmon fired him. Then he got a phone call when he was at the entrance to Bay Hill letting him know he had been kicked out of the Arnold Palmer Invitational for missing the pro-am.

Filed under: Arkansas Favorites

Monday summary

An 18-year-old Arkansan who was killed in Iraq on Friday had arrived in the country just two weeks earlier, his father said Sunday.  Nathan Thacker died near Kirkuk when a roadside bomb detonated near a vehicle he was in, the U.S. Department of Defense announced late Saturday. Sixty-four soldiers with Arkansas roots have died in the United States’ war in Iraq and Afghanistan – 61 in Iraq and three in Afghanistan.

Embattled Razorback coach Houston Nutt is on the defense after a 9-7 loss to No. 18 Auburn. “The contract (Arkansas officials) have given me, it’s real clear: It says 2012,” Nutt said, referring to the one-year contract extension he received in December. “It doesn’t say you’re gone (in) 2007, 2008. It says 2012.” Apparently, Nutt has never heard the name “Nolan Richardson.” Nutt also hinted that the unimpressive effort will change the way the Razorbacks approach the second half of the season.

Danny Nutt did not resign his employment at the University of Arkansas when he stepped down as running backs coach July 16 and is drawing his annual salary of $145,000 while on sick leave, according to documents obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette through the state’s Freedom of Information Act. The documents also show that Danny Nutt had a balance of 477 hours of sick leave as of Oct. 1, meaning that he could be on paid leave essentially through the end of the year.

The House voted 232-173 to end a controversial program which allows private companies to collect taxes for the Internal Revenue Service. Despite the favorable vote, the bill’s prospects appear dim because of a veto threat by President Bush and resistance from the Senate. Reps. Berry, Ross, and Snyder voted to end tax collection by private companies. Rep. John Boozman voted to continue the program.

Arkansas farmers are expected to harvest a record corn crop this year and set record per-acre yields for corn, rice and grain sorghum, the U.S. reported in updated figures Friday.

While gasoline prices have been stable this month in the $2.70 range, consumers can forget the usual autumn price drop and instead look for prices to increase between 5 cents and 10 cents before the end of the year.

Two Little Rock journalists are suing the governor, attorney general and three top officials at the Arkansas Department of Information Systems, seeking the location of state computers that were used to change information about Mike Beebe and Mike Huckabee on an Internet encyclopedia. The changes made to Wikipedia.org could be violations of the state’s ethics law, Kelly P. Kissel and Jon Gambrell of The Associated Press say in their lawsuit.

Gov. Mike Beebe says he opposes a proposed initiated act that would bar unmarried couples from adopting children or acting as foster parents.

Legislators are grumbling upon learning what prosecutors do – or don’t do – when told about state or local funds missing and about the Health Department not keeping track of its equipment. The lawmakers received a report from the Legislative Audit Division that showed charges filed by prosecutors in only 43 of the 141 matters referred to them last year by the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee or the legislative auditor.

U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson Jr. has granted a motion to reopen at least on a limited basis a federal lawsuit over the state’s consolidation of the former Lake View School District in Phillips County with the neighboring Barton district. The judge also has granted a motion by the state government defendants asking that they be allowed to renew their earlier request that the lawsuit be dismissed.

The Arkansas Insurance Department hopes to decide as early as this month whether the state’s “any willing provider” law requires insurance companies to reimburse hospitals equally for the same procedures.

A regional effort to curb homelessness in central Arkansas is on the cusp of getting a location for a daytime service center. For more than two years, a government-led approach to end persistent homelessness has called for a place to offer basic health, hygiene and housing-referral services to the area’s homeless, who number at least 3,000. It will be located at 201 E. Roosevelt Road in Little Rock.

In the second school year since the $50 million El Dorado Promise scholarship program was introduced, the El Dorado School District has reversed its trend of declining enrollment with an influx of 142 students, according to October enrollment figures.

Inmates sewing glove inserts in a pilot program at the Pine Bluff Unit are doing what most Arkansas inmates can’t do: make money. Prison officials told the Board of Corrections that the work, in partnership with a Heber Springs company, is an expansion of a program that began in 2005 with women inmates. The program, which has to be certified with the U.S. Department of Justice and meet prevailing wages, initially will pay inmates the $6.25 minimum wage.

North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Hays wants a regional solution to the county jail’s bed shortage, but he’s considering reopening the former city jail if a quicker and more economical answer can’t be found.

Ozone levels in central Arkansas narrowly met federal airquality standards for the 2007 summer season, the committee that forecasts the region’s ozone levels said Friday.

Squeezed by lower reimbursement rates from Medicare, Metropolitan Emergency Medical Services plans to begin charging a subsidy to some small towns and rural areas. The annual charges, which are based on the difference between income and cost, will range from $179,000 for Grant County to $28,000 for Sherwood. It will charge Lonoke $87,000, Maumelle $63,000 and Cabot $50,000.

The Fort Smith Housing Authority Commission unanimously voted to fire FSHA Executive Director Roger Fleetwood for a violation of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regulations. Matt Jennings, the city’s community development director, said Fleetwood violated a federal regulation regarding conflicts of interest when he purchased a foreclosed property at auction that the original owner had purchased using HUD funds.

The Oregon manslaughter trial of Andrew Kumpuris, son of Little Rock City Director Dean Kumpuris, has been pushed back until January, according to Multnomah County court records. Andrew Kumpuriswas the driver of a 2001 Infiniti Q30 with Arkansas plates that crashed on a state park road in Portland on July 20. The man who picked him up at the airport, John Lehmann died in the crash. According to court records, Kumpuris had a blood-alcohol level of 0.11, over Oregon’s legal limit of 0.08.

A 10-year-old Dumas boy, who police say took a school bus and led police on a 45-mile chase on Oct. 6, is now charged with several offenses in juvenile court. The boy, a fourth-grade student at Dumas Elementary School, is charged in the juvenile division of Desha County Circuit Court with breaking and entering, theft of property, fleeing and reckless driving. The youngster could be sentenced to time at the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center.

Michael Fortino, a convicted child pornographer, has gone from having a sentence less than the minimum recommended under federal sentencing guidelines to the maximum after U.S. District Judge Jimm Hendren learned Fortino had sent him forged letters urging leniency. Fortino had forged a letter from his own attorney, and forged a letter from his psychologist. Fortino understated his assets by at least $500,000. Hendren sentenced Fortino to 20 years in federal prison followed by supervised probation for life and a fine of $250,000, the maximum.

Filed under: Arkansas Favorites, Summary