Novo Studio The official number of Arkansans killed in last weekend’s storms in northern Arkansas has increased from seven to 10, the state Department of Emergency Management said Friday, as Gov. Sarah Sanders ordered flags to fly at half staff on Sunday. Two rounds of severe thunderstorms caused major damage across northern Arkansas and parts of the states of Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky and Missouri on May 24 and 26. More than a dozen tornadoes swept through Arkansas, killing residents of Benton, Baxter, Boone and Marion counties and wreaking havoc across several others. At least one was rate ..read more

Arkansas’s education chief withdrew from legislative review a $99.4 million contract with an Indiana-based education company following pushback from lawmakers on the proposal’s high cost and the vendor’s effectiveness. During Friday’s Arkansas Legislative Council meeting, Sen. Scott Flippo (R-Bull Shoals) said Education Secretary Jacob Oliva asked to withdraw a proposed seven-year contract with Solution Tree, which has implemented its professional learning community program in Arkansas since 2017. In a Thursday email to ALC’s co-chairs, Sen. Terry Rice and Rep. Jeff Wardlaw, Oliva request ..read more

While the seven justices on the Arkansas Supreme Court were able to issue only 14 total opinions in the month of May, they found time today to author a nine-page order admonishing Circuit Judge Morgan “Chip” Welch for, essentially, bruising the court’s ego and being too cautious when trying to figure out how to safely allow lawyers to carry guns in courthouses. The rift between Welch and the Supreme Court began earlier this month, after the high court reversed an earlier decision in which Welch had found attorneys had no right to bring firearms into courthouses and courtrooms in the state. The ..read more

Eleven years after the aging Pegasus pipeline cracked open in a Mayflower subdivision, spilling tens of thousands of gallons of heavy crude, the state and federal governments sued ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. on Friday. And a proposed settlement is expected to be filed soon. John Marks, acting general counsel for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said late Friday that the proposed settlement, called a consent decree, could be filed in U.S. District Court in Little Rock “by next week.” The proposal would be subject to a judge’s approval. The Pegasus pipeline ruptured March 29, 2013, between two ..read more

Look at those mayflies. The post Friday open line appeared first on Arkansas Times ..read more

Eleven Arkansas properties — five churches, a hotel, a gazebo, a park, a campground, an overpass, a pair of downtown buildings and part of a college campus — have been recently added to the National Register of Historic Places, a program administered by the National Park Service that works to “identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archaeological resources.” “The current batch of properties that has been listed on the National Register stands out to me due to the fact that they are located all over the state, illustrating that there is important history and significant properti ..read more

The euphoric highs and crushing lows of June are right here, Hog baseball backers. And as ever, it’s a fair chance that either extreme will occur in the coming days. Arkansas (43-14) hasn’t played its best ball going into the postseason. I’ll never care if the team wins another useless SEC tourney crown because that tournament only serves the bubble teams well. So this latest 0-2 trip to Hoover doesn’t bother me, because the Razorbacks did arrive back home without any real damage to seeding. And this Regional pool could be far more daunting. After the Hogs got dealt a rough one when the commit ..read more

Patsy Alleman-Hickson and her husband, Ethan Hickson, huddled in the laundry room of their trailer outside of Decatur early Sunday morning.  Water whipped under the front door as the couple sprang into the living room to retrieve their cat, Bubby. They quickly retreated back into the laundry room as the structure groaned and trembled around them. A tornado nearly two miles wide was ripping through their property.  That night, at least 11 other tornadoes destroyed homes and businesses, felled trees and upended the lives of hundreds across northern Arkansas. Seven Arkansans were killed ..read more

Jason Sandefer, who was elected to the Conway School Board in 2022, has resigned, the school district has announced. In a statement on its website, the district wrote that Sandefer resigned last Friday, May 24, creating a vacancy for his Zone 1 position. Sandefer was a reliable ally of Superintendent Jeff Collum and a member of the board’s conservative majority. In 2022, Sandefer vocally defended the district’s temporary tightening of email deletion policies so as to avoid having to fulfill at least some requests under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. He was also among board members th ..read more

The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by supporters of proposed ballot initiatives that would change absentee voting procedures and require elections be conducted with paper ballots. Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative Inc., its CEO Conrad Reynolds and Restore Election Integrity Arkansas, a ballot question committee, filed the original jurisdiction complaint against Secretary of State John Thurston and the State Board of Election Commissioners in January. Petitioners asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to independently certify the legal sufficiency of the measures’ ball ..read more