Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Here is the Wednesday summary
The Arkansas Supreme Court will hear Appeals Court Judge Wendell Griffen’s request that it open to the public a Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission hearing into whether Griffen violated rules restricting a judge’s public speech.
Arkansas stands to reap a windfall from natural gas exploration in the Fayetteville shale, but attempts to raise the state severance tax could run off developers, according to Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy in remarks to the Little Rock Rotary Club.
The Little Rock School District is asking a federal judge to disqualify civil-rights attorney John Walker from participating in forthcoming court hearings regarding the district’s compliance with its desegregation obligations. District attorneys claim that Walker, who represents the class of black students known as the Joshua intervenors, violated court orders and rules by talking with a school administrator concerning whether the district had accurately reported the academic performance of African-American students.
The former main Little Rock Public Library will undergo a $41 million conversion into a high-tech operations facility to partially accommodate about 100 new jobs and serve as one of two primary data centers for Entergy Corp.’s four-state system.
One Arkansas State University student may be taking graphics arts studies too far. According to university police records, a 19-year-old student has become an unlicensed tattoo artist on campus, inking perhaps 100 students. No charges have been filed.
Fort Smith Police say a 2-year-old girl was shot in the head Monday, possibly by a 3-year-old brother, and an 8-month-old girl was left alone at home when her mother’s boyfriend took the rest of the family to a hospital. The girl was not seriously injured, all three children have been placed in custody by the Department of Human Services.
A Fort Smith, Oliva Stewart, was fatally shot Tuesday outside an apartment complex during a shootout between police and a man armed with a sawed-off shotgun. The incident began when police pulled over a car and a man emerged with a sawed off shotgun.
Authorities continued to search Tuesday for a work-release inmate who walked away from a construction site near Texarkana - the fourth such inmate to escape this year.
The Garland County sheriff ’s office initiated an online notification system Tuesday that allows residents to conduct computer searches for sex offenders living in their neighborhoods.
Donna Sue Mars of Bentonville has gone on trial on charges of having sex with a 13 year-old boy and exposing him to the JIV virus.
Brewer Lake contines to rise and Conway Corp. announced Tuesday that it has lifted mandatory watering restrictions, which have been in effect for customers since Aug. 1.
The superintendent of the Earle School District, who is a state senator-elect, drew the ire of a state representative from Forrest City on Tuesday after he told lawmakers that the district failed to solicit bids on four projects totaling about $55,000 due to “human errors.”
Hartford Mayor Melba Fox-Hobbs, Hartford Alderman George Decker and a would-be alderman, Brenda Layne, have sued the Sebastian County Election Commission, calling for a new election in the mayoral and two alderman races.
The Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation of Fayetteville, which gave the University of the Ozarks $7 million in 2001, has gifted $2.96 million that will endow the maintenance and operations of the the 34,000-square-foot teacher education and communications center that opened on the Ozarks campus in 2002.
Linda Caillouet reports in “Paper Trails” that ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which earlier visited Arkansas to remodel the Northwest Arkansas home of missing-children activist Colleen Nick, is looking for another worthy family in the state.
Arkansas stands to reap a windfall from natural gas exploration in the Fayetteville shale, but attempts to raise the state severance tax could run off developers, according to Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy in remarks to the Little Rock Rotary Club.
The Little Rock School District is asking a federal judge to disqualify civil-rights attorney John Walker from participating in forthcoming court hearings regarding the district’s compliance with its desegregation obligations. District attorneys claim that Walker, who represents the class of black students known as the Joshua intervenors, violated court orders and rules by talking with a school administrator concerning whether the district had accurately reported the academic performance of African-American students.
The former main Little Rock Public Library will undergo a $41 million conversion into a high-tech operations facility to partially accommodate about 100 new jobs and serve as one of two primary data centers for Entergy Corp.’s four-state system.
One Arkansas State University student may be taking graphics arts studies too far. According to university police records, a 19-year-old student has become an unlicensed tattoo artist on campus, inking perhaps 100 students. No charges have been filed.
Fort Smith Police say a 2-year-old girl was shot in the head Monday, possibly by a 3-year-old brother, and an 8-month-old girl was left alone at home when her mother’s boyfriend took the rest of the family to a hospital. The girl was not seriously injured, all three children have been placed in custody by the Department of Human Services.
A Fort Smith, Oliva Stewart, was fatally shot Tuesday outside an apartment complex during a shootout between police and a man armed with a sawed-off shotgun. The incident began when police pulled over a car and a man emerged with a sawed off shotgun.
Authorities continued to search Tuesday for a work-release inmate who walked away from a construction site near Texarkana - the fourth such inmate to escape this year.
The Garland County sheriff ’s office initiated an online notification system Tuesday that allows residents to conduct computer searches for sex offenders living in their neighborhoods.
Donna Sue Mars of Bentonville has gone on trial on charges of having sex with a 13 year-old boy and exposing him to the JIV virus.
Brewer Lake contines to rise and Conway Corp. announced Tuesday that it has lifted mandatory watering restrictions, which have been in effect for customers since Aug. 1.
The superintendent of the Earle School District, who is a state senator-elect, drew the ire of a state representative from Forrest City on Tuesday after he told lawmakers that the district failed to solicit bids on four projects totaling about $55,000 due to “human errors.”
Hartford Mayor Melba Fox-Hobbs, Hartford Alderman George Decker and a would-be alderman, Brenda Layne, have sued the Sebastian County Election Commission, calling for a new election in the mayoral and two alderman races.
The Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation of Fayetteville, which gave the University of the Ozarks $7 million in 2001, has gifted $2.96 million that will endow the maintenance and operations of the the 34,000-square-foot teacher education and communications center that opened on the Ozarks campus in 2002.
Linda Caillouet reports in “Paper Trails” that ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which earlier visited Arkansas to remodel the Northwest Arkansas home of missing-children activist Colleen Nick, is looking for another worthy family in the state.
