Thursday morning summary

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said the state Republican Party chairman took “a cheap shot” in asking him to investigate whether then-first lady Hillary Clinton violated state law during her husband’s presidential campaign in 1992 by listening to a recording of a phone conversation. “They know that this was a bogus allegation of doing something that wasn’t against the law at the time it happened, if it happened,” he said in an interview after he spoke to the Political Animals Club at the governor’s mansion in Little Rock.

The Green Party can appear on the fall 2008 ballot in Arkansas. The secretary of state’s office says that officials had counted 12,000 valid signatures on the party’s petition – 2,000 more than needed under a new state law.

The top senator on education issues wants Education Commissioner Ken James to reject all requests from school districts to use “poverty” money to supplement teacher salaries. Sen. Jim Argue released to the news media a letter he sent to Gov. Mike Beebe in which he argued for those funds to be used only for targeted programs for underprivileged students.

The Brookland School Board agreed to add a football program beginning with the 2008-09 school year, school officials said. Superintendent Kevin McGaughey said the district will field a full senior high team in 2011. The boosters agreed to raise 50 percent of the program’s purported start-up costs, while the school district funds the remainder from state funds intended for educational putposes. McGaughey estimated the minimum costs for the first year at about $60-70,000, including the salary for a head coach, a stipend for an assistant, uniforms and equipment. No mention was made of taxpayer subsidies for insurance, transportation costs, grounds maintenance, or utilities.

More than one-third of Rogers High School seniors reported they used marijuana, a figure higher than the state average. That’s the news the Rogers School Board heard from Jim Johnson, assistant superintendent for secondary education.

Attorneys for the Watson Chapel School District will appeal a federal judge’s ruling in a lawsuit filed against the district’s uniform policies and the way they are enforced.

The Senate this week approved a spending bill containing $4.6 million for law enforcement and science and technology projects in Arkansas. The earmarks, money set aside for specific programs, were inserted by the state’s two senators in one of 12 appropriations bills adopted by Congress each year. The legislation funds the Commerce and Justice departments and a handful of smaller related agencies.

Arkansas businesses assisted by the Arkansas Small Business Development Center generated more than $154 million in increased sales in 2006, according to a study released this week.

Marty Belz and Bruce Burrow’s development company, Belz-Burrow, has sold two of Jonesboro’s busiest strip malls to New York-based Stonemar Properties in a $16 million deal.  Belz and Burrow have led the development of Little Rock’s Peabody and Hilton Hotels, as well as Jonesboro’s Mall at Turtle Creek. Stonemar plans to give a facelift to Crossroads Shopping Center and Bernard Court and could add new major retailers to the mix.

Arkansas ranks near the bottom among the states in addressing women’s health issues. While the nation as a whole received a grade of “unsatisfactory” in the study, Arkansas was among 11 states and the District of Columbia that received failing grades. Arkansas ranked 49th overall, Louisiana ranked 50th and Mississippi ranked last at 51st.

The recent $4.6 billion settlement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Southwestern Electric Power Co.’s parent company shows that SWEPCO will not “willingly upgrade technology” to satisfy the law or protect unique habitats, opponents of a proposed SWEPCO plant in southwestern Arkansas have announced.

The Wal-Mart Supercenter in Flippin was granted a retail beer and small-farm winery permit by the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, and opponents said the deal will put smaller retailers out of business.

Little Rock public school students are leaving about life under the thumb of Big Brother. The Little Rock Police Department tapped into the district’s closed-circuit, digital surveillance system Monday. The live feed allows the department to check the view of any of the 700 security cameras in schools before officers respond to emergency calls.

The new superintendent of Conway public schools has warned teachers and other employees to expect cutbacks in staff through attrition and possibly through layoffs and elimination of some programs. “There will be fewer people working in our district next year than this year,” Superintendent Greg Murry said in a recent interview.

The Fort Smith Board of Directors has rejected a proposed ordinance making English the official language of the city, by a 4-3 vote. The board twice delayed a vote on the issue, on Aug. 21, and on Sept. 4, before Mayor Ray Baker on Sept. 18 read a proclamation making English the official language of the city. Despite the mayor’s proclamation, which is strictly symbolic, Ward 4 Director Bill Maddox asked that the ordinance be brought back before the board.

Two paramedics tried and acquitted in Crawford County District Court on charges they violated a Van Buren ordinance regulating ambulance service have filed a federal suit claiming violating of their rights under the U.S. and Arkansas constitutions. It names as defendants Donald Jenkins, both individually and in his capacity as Van Buren city attorney; the city of Van Buren, the mayor and aldermen.

A Wrightsville Unit sergeant has been fired after being accused of accepting a $300 bribe to turn a blind eye to an inmate’s possession of cocaine and a cell phone, a prison spokesman confirmed Wednesday. The sergeant, who remains unidentified because he has state appeal rights remaining, worked for the Department of Correction for more than 23 years before being dismissed.

An Arkansas County jailer was fired Tuesday after he reportedly helped an inmate escape from the county jail last week in DeWitt. Arkansas County Sheriff Allen Cheek decided to fire the jailer after a statement the jailer made to Arkansas State Police investigators, according to Arkansas County jail administrator Ernest Golden. Cheek declined to release the name of the jailer, citing an ongoing state police investigation into the jailer’s actions. No criminal charges had been filed against the jailer as of Wednesday evening.

A Little Rock woman who says she has multiple personalities stands convicted of first-degree murder for the 2002 death of her elderly mother, whose remains have never been found. Aileen Marie Berry dropped her challenge to the case against her, accepting an 18-year prison sentence. In exchange for Berry’s no-contest plea, prosecutors reduced the charge from capital murder and dropped a related felony theft count. Berry will be eligible for parole after serving 12 years.

Four months after his wife and best friend said he vanished after plunging 100 feet off a bridge into the Red River, a Fouke man who had been set for trial in a rape case before his disappearance, was arrested at a home in rural Polk County. Police say they believe Jody Cook, 32, faked his own death to avoid prosecution. Now he, his wife and his best friend will face charges related to his disappearance, said Carlton Jones, deputy prosecuting attorney for Miller County.

Filed under: Arkansas, Summary

Wednesday morning summary

Rep. Vic Snyder reported no contributions during the period ending Sept. 30. Snyder, a Democrat, said he’s raised $6,900 to date. Snyder reported spending $7,120 and had $6,972 in cash on hand. U.S. Rep. Marion Berry raised the most for his re-election bid among Arkansas’ four House members over the past quarter, according to reports filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission. Berry, a Democrat, raised $294,684 over the past three months, bringing his total contributions to $538,223.

The committee supporting a proposed ballot measure to bar unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children has raised more than $13,000, and the committee backing a proposal to create a state lottery to pay for more college scholarships has raised $10,000, according to their latest finance reports.

The push for a new disclosure rule in the Arkansas House of Representatives this week is over. The rule would have required the 100 House members to file monthly public reports of what they received from lobbyists. Reps. Dan Greenberg and Steve Harrelson had planned to ask the House on Thursday to adopt it. But they said that they wouldn’t make that request because they had decided they couldn’t get the two-thirds majority needed for adoption.

Attempting to manipulate state law for partisan advantage, the leader of the Arkansas Republican Party asked Attorney General Dustin McDaniel on to investigate whether then-first lady Hillary Clinton violated state law during her husband’s 1992 presidential campaign by listening to a recording of a phone conversation. The law that GOP Chairman Dennis Milligan said that now-U.S. Sen. Clinton of New York may have violated wasn’t on the books until 1993. And the complaint was filed 14 years too late.

Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Brian Miller has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas to fill a seat left vacant by the death of the state’s first black federal judge. Miller, one of two black judges on the Court of Appeals, would replace George Howard Jr., who died in April at age 82.

Gov. Mike Beebe tells faculty and staff of the state’s two-year colleges that he wasn’t always their “flag-carrying cheerleader.” But in the past half-dozen years, Beebe said he has learned to appreciate two major qualities of community and technical colleges: their academic and financial accessibility and their flexibility.

Spending more than $500,000 to renovate the first floor lobby of the state Capitol into a visitor center is a worthwhile investment with more visitors touring the building since the Clinton presidential library opened in 2004, according to Secretary of State Charlie Daniels.

Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s campaign to put a state lottery proposal on the 2008 ballot announced Tuesday it has hired a national firm to help gather the signatures necessary to get the measure before voters next year.

Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay is once again guaranteed enough money to house 800 inmates in 2008, but Pulaski County cities will have to ante up again for more jail space, Pulaski County Quorum Court budget committee members have said.

Falling natural-gas prices and large national inventories have led Chesapeake Energy Corp., one of the two major developers of the Fayetteville Shale formation in Arkansas, to reduce its drilling rig projections about a third. Southwestern Energy Co., meantime, is taking a wait-and-see attitude regarding 2008.

After 26 years at the station, KTHV anchor Anne Jansen announced her retirement effective February 1. She is a giant of the broadcast industry.

The Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission on Tuesday granted a seven-year lease extension to the concessionaire at the state’s largest airport in exchange for a nearly $2.3 million upgrade in concession facilities.

A spokesman with the Arkansas Department of Health says an investigation into a case of tuberculosis (TB) at a Pope County industry will continue for about another week. Ed Barham, public information officer with the Arkansas Department of Health says the agency is almost finished reading all the chest X-rays taken from employees during its investigation at Atkins Prepared Foods in Atkins.

A lawsuit has been filed against White County Medical Center in which a man claims he was left untreated for over six hours while he was having a heart attack, while the hospital is asking for the suit to be dismissed.

Texarkana Baptist Orphanage administrators have updated records, instituted a new discipline plan, installed new doorways to improve supervision in the children’s dorms and are developing written case plans for each child. The changes come in the wake of heightened state monitoring of the facility after a report in April of sexual misconduct between boys living at the orphanage.

A rookie patrolman suspected of recklessly driving through Barling after consuming alcohol was fired from the Fort Smith Police Department. Officer David Andrew Howard, was off-duty and driving 64 mph in a 40 mph zone. He had not consumed enough alcohol to warrant an arrest for suspicion of DWI. Howard did not identify himself as a police officer.

Forty-six pit bull or mixed-breed adult dogs and puppies taken from an alleged dog-fighting operation are being cared for at the Memphis Animal Shelter, but their future is gloomy at best. Arthur Bland is being held on a $50,000 bond, charged with cock or animal fighting, cruelty to animals and possession of marijuana. Walter K. Ward is being held on a $100,000 bond in Shelby County Jail, charged with cock or animal fighting, animal cruelty, possession of pot and drug paraphernalia.

Filed under: Arkansas, Summary

Tuesday morning summary

The Department of Defense says an Arkansas soldier has been killed in Iraq. The Defense Department says First Lieutenant Thomas Martin of Ward died Sunday in Al Busayifi, Iraq, after insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire. Martin was 27.

President Bush swung through prosperous Northwest Arkansas to praise a hands-off government attitude toward business and to chide Congress about spending priorities, which include minimal health care for the children of working families. Speaking to hand picked audiences, designed to shield him from criticism for the failed Iraq war policy, growing federal deficits, and tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush also took the opportunity to stir up resentment against aliens.

Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Wendell Griffen is seeking a summary judgment in a suit he filed against the state commission that disciplines judges. The motion includes a deposition from former Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission Executive Director Jim Badami, who admitted that he directed that one of the complaints be filed after reading a newspaper account of one of the judge’s speeches.

A judge has tossed out a lawsuit aimed at overturning a March 13 millage election in the Dollarway School District, ruling in part that a group of residents waited too long to challenge the results. Circuit Judge Rob Wyatt, in an oral ruling in Jefferson County Circuit Court, said the challenge should have been made within 20 days of the election, as required by law.

Lt. Gov. Bill Halter raised more than $210,000 in the three months that ended Sept. 30 as he cut his 2006 campaign’s debt to him from $736,059 to $573,045, according to reports filed Monday.

The official enrollment in the Little Rock School District increased by 66 students to a record high of 26,757 on Oct. 1 this year, continuing a four-year-old growth trend despite recent School Board controversy and the opening of an independent new charter school.

A lease is expected to be signed by the Bryant School Board that would allow the Paron High School building to become the Paron Community Center. The former Paron School District merged with the much larger Bryant School District in 2004 under provisions of Act 60, which made school districts with fewer than 350 students merge with larger districts, either through annexation or consolidation.

Fisk University in Tennessee has until Friday to respond to a claim by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum that it can’t share an art collection with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in a $30 million deal.

The final resting place of the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate is now officially on the National Register of Historic Places. U.S. Sen. Hattie Caraway’s Grave Site in Oaklawn Cemetery in Jonesboro is now on the country’s official list of historically significant properties. The Tyronza Water Tower, constructed in 1935 with Public Works Administration assistance, also was named to the list.

Gruesome details emerged about the slaying four years ago of a Pine Bluff drug dealer whose killers tortured him with a broomstick, a hot iron and a knife in hopes that he would reveal the whereabouts of a hidden stash of money. The testimony of Darryl Walker, who pleaded guilty last year to participating in the murder of Darryl Johnson of Pine Bluff, started the second week of testimony in the federal capital murder trial of Vertis Clay of North Little Rock.

Filed under: Arkansas, Summary

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