Thursday headlines

My morning updates are on K-106.3 The Greatest Hits of All Time with John Lee and Spirit FM at 93.3 and 100.7. You can also hear my early morning headlines on Y-95 in Camden.

I occasionally add items of state and local interest on my Lynch at Large blog

https://lynchatlarge.wordpress.com/

My train blog is very popular, so check out Trains for America.

http://trains4america.wordpress.com/

Gov. Mike Beebe said Tuesday that an increase in the cigarette tax should help pay for a statewide trauma system.

Arkansas Times reports that, when the leg gets back to work next week, the new House Speaker Robbie Wills will roll out a new web site with Power Point, You Tube coverage and Twitter.

Making animal cruelty a felony got a big push. The Farm Bureau has announced its decision to support the proposal which is expected to be filed next week.

Arkansas ranks fourth nationally in teen pregnancies. Thank goodness for Mississippi at number one.

Arkansas State University says more students applied for scholarships for next fall than the school has the money to honor. So, only qualified new students who applied by Dec. 1 will get their tuition money.

The Highway and Transportation Department is getting ready to quickly spend an anticipated $378 million in federal money.

A video sent to the Democrat-Gazette contains interviews conducted with six girls removed from the Tony Alamo facilities near Texarkana. Each of the girls tell caseworkers there was no abuse of nay kind. Alamo is awaiting trial in Texarkana.

Those storms in 2008 are an economic boom throughout the region. The CityWire internet site in Fort Smith says building construction permits are up 26%, due largely to storm repairs.

The federal Agriculture Department declared three southwestern Arkansas counties disaster areas because of farm losses due to bad weather last year. The declaration for Little River, Polk and Sevier counties covers losses from the combined effects of ice storms, low temperatures frost and freezes between Dec. 8, 2007, and Oct. 31, 2008.

A Mexican woman who survived four days without food and water in a Washington County holding cell can remain in Northwest Arkansas to nurse her sick daughter. Adriana Torres-Flores= appeared in a Memphis immigration court to explain that, if deported to Mexico, her 10-year-old daughter, Cristina, sick with a digestive ailment, likely would die without American health care.

Officers say a man who is armed and dangerous is on the run. Archie Barfield took off from his Little Rock home once he found out he faces criminal charges involving a 6-year-old child.

The Arkansas Securities Department issued a cease and desist order to R. Kyle Stewart of Mountain Home, a former A.G. Edwards employee who allegedly bilked over $600,000 from two elderly Baxter County residents.  In one case, Stewart listed himself as the beneficiary of his 89-year-old client’s charitable trust.  Stewart also persuaded another 102-year-old client to invest $340,000 in CCK Corp., of which Stewart was the president.  The company’s only asset was a checking account that Stewart himself used.

U.S. Attorney Jane Duke said a federal grand jury indicted Harold S. Longs of Jacksonville on one count of securities fraud and 18 counts of wire fraud related to his company Your Money Worth Inc.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has raised an objection to the construction of what it described as a Fellowship of Christian Athletes addition to the athletic facilities at Fountain Lake High School. Private mone¥ built it, but the school district will operate it.

The Justice Department will not oppose ending the 2004 consent decree over Pulaski County’s Election Commission. That amounts to a clean bill of health.