Monday, September 11, 2006
Monday morning
Flags will fly at half-staff today, the fifth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
The Clarion Ledger reports five years after the federal Transportation Security Administration was created to help fight terrorism, current and former TSA employees in Jackson, Ms. claim security at Jackson-Evers International Airport is compromised regularly. Those employees allege they are assisted by their supervisors in cheating on TSA security inspections, have been told to allow potentially dangerous passengers to board aircraft and that top managers ignore safety procedures in order to protect their jobs and to please the airlines flying out of Jackson.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded grants totaling $24.6 million to airports in Gulfport, Greenville and Raymond to improve safety, extend runways and replace buildings destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.
The Democrat-Gazette conducted an analysis of federal data which shows residents of Arkansas’ dry counties are no safer from death in a traffic accident involving someone who had been drinking than those in wet counties, five years of federal accident statistics show. The fear of drunken driving is a rallying cry for opponents to the spread of restaurants licensed to serve alcohol in dry counties, but an analysis shows that easier access to alcohol coincides with a lower risk of death in an alcohol-related crash.
Enrollment at the University of Arkansas’ flagship campus is up less than 1 percent for the fall semester. The most significant gains were in the number of international and Hispanic students on campus, while the number of blacks fell 3.6 percent, from 982 last year to 947 in 2006.
University of Arkansas officials broke ground Saturday on a new 7,000 square foot chancellor's house, made possible by a $1.75 million donation from Wallace Fowler.
The growth of per capita personal income for Arkansans living in metro areas slowed last year and in most areas trailed inflation, according to estimates released this week by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Legislators have complained that an audit report gave little insight into why prosecutors sometimes don’t pursue charges against people who steal money from public entities and worried that prosecutors were letting people go unpunished because of politics. Sen. Hank Wilkins, D-Pine Bluff, said the report left open the suspicions that prosecutors were making “good-old-boy decisions” when they don’t file charges.
Desha County authorities say they're awaiting results of DNA tests to try to find out who killed a Pine Bluff teen who disappeared near Dumas. "We're at a point of an arrest," sheriff-elect Jim Snyder said Saturday. "We're looking at a southeast Arkansan."
Eleven former employees of the Country Club of Little Rock pleaded guilty to federal identity theft charges and agreed to accept deportation to their native countries. Ten are from Mexico, while the 11th is from Honduras.
Incentive pay for bilingual employees returns to the Springdale city council agenda tomorrow night. The measure would pay city employees, in jobs where the skill is needed, an extra $100 per month.
Without saying why, Special Circuit Judge John Cole of Sheridan on Friday rejected defense motions to dismiss the principal charge of operating a “continuing criminal organization” against four defendants in a Lonoke County prosecution alleging illegal drugs, illicit sex and abuse of an inmate-labor program.
A wheelchair-bound cancer patient, Charles Edwin Peebles, is facing first degree murder charges in White County after shooting his the nephew, a licensed practical nurse who took care of Peebles and lived on the same acreage. Relatives have speculated that the recent discovery of natural gas on the property may have played a role in the killing.
The people of Faulkner County are already reaping the benefits of the sheriff’s new helicopter. In a joint operation with state police and National Guard, nine marijuana plants were seized Friday as the result of airborne survailence.
Attorneys in the U. S. Northern District of Mississippi are petitioning the General Services Administration to build a new federal courthouse in Cleveland. Greenville leaders have vowed to fight attempts to relocate the federal building and recently criticized Cleveland business and civic leaders for lobbying for the new building. The GSA has said the Greenville building needs to be replaced and last month suspended a site study so Cleveland can be considered as a location.
The Clarion Ledger reports five years after the federal Transportation Security Administration was created to help fight terrorism, current and former TSA employees in Jackson, Ms. claim security at Jackson-Evers International Airport is compromised regularly. Those employees allege they are assisted by their supervisors in cheating on TSA security inspections, have been told to allow potentially dangerous passengers to board aircraft and that top managers ignore safety procedures in order to protect their jobs and to please the airlines flying out of Jackson.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded grants totaling $24.6 million to airports in Gulfport, Greenville and Raymond to improve safety, extend runways and replace buildings destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.
The Democrat-Gazette conducted an analysis of federal data which shows residents of Arkansas’ dry counties are no safer from death in a traffic accident involving someone who had been drinking than those in wet counties, five years of federal accident statistics show. The fear of drunken driving is a rallying cry for opponents to the spread of restaurants licensed to serve alcohol in dry counties, but an analysis shows that easier access to alcohol coincides with a lower risk of death in an alcohol-related crash.
Enrollment at the University of Arkansas’ flagship campus is up less than 1 percent for the fall semester. The most significant gains were in the number of international and Hispanic students on campus, while the number of blacks fell 3.6 percent, from 982 last year to 947 in 2006.
University of Arkansas officials broke ground Saturday on a new 7,000 square foot chancellor's house, made possible by a $1.75 million donation from Wallace Fowler.
The growth of per capita personal income for Arkansans living in metro areas slowed last year and in most areas trailed inflation, according to estimates released this week by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Legislators have complained that an audit report gave little insight into why prosecutors sometimes don’t pursue charges against people who steal money from public entities and worried that prosecutors were letting people go unpunished because of politics. Sen. Hank Wilkins, D-Pine Bluff, said the report left open the suspicions that prosecutors were making “good-old-boy decisions” when they don’t file charges.
Desha County authorities say they're awaiting results of DNA tests to try to find out who killed a Pine Bluff teen who disappeared near Dumas. "We're at a point of an arrest," sheriff-elect Jim Snyder said Saturday. "We're looking at a southeast Arkansan."
Eleven former employees of the Country Club of Little Rock pleaded guilty to federal identity theft charges and agreed to accept deportation to their native countries. Ten are from Mexico, while the 11th is from Honduras.
Incentive pay for bilingual employees returns to the Springdale city council agenda tomorrow night. The measure would pay city employees, in jobs where the skill is needed, an extra $100 per month.
Without saying why, Special Circuit Judge John Cole of Sheridan on Friday rejected defense motions to dismiss the principal charge of operating a “continuing criminal organization” against four defendants in a Lonoke County prosecution alleging illegal drugs, illicit sex and abuse of an inmate-labor program.
A wheelchair-bound cancer patient, Charles Edwin Peebles, is facing first degree murder charges in White County after shooting his the nephew, a licensed practical nurse who took care of Peebles and lived on the same acreage. Relatives have speculated that the recent discovery of natural gas on the property may have played a role in the killing.
The people of Faulkner County are already reaping the benefits of the sheriff’s new helicopter. In a joint operation with state police and National Guard, nine marijuana plants were seized Friday as the result of airborne survailence.
Attorneys in the U. S. Northern District of Mississippi are petitioning the General Services Administration to build a new federal courthouse in Cleveland. Greenville leaders have vowed to fight attempts to relocate the federal building and recently criticized Cleveland business and civic leaders for lobbying for the new building. The GSA has said the Greenville building needs to be replaced and last month suspended a site study so Cleveland can be considered as a location.
