A fractured Arkansas Supreme Court today opened the door for private discussion of public business by e-mail, though it could have been worse had a couple of justices had their way.

The Trump administration has folded under congressional pressure and backed off plans to scrap a Forest Service job  training program that would have closed a Job Corps center in Cass in Franklin County.

Without explanation, federal Judge James Moody Wednesday granted a request by the state attorney general's office to stay his preliminary injunction against the state law that prohibits campaign fund-raising more than two years before an election.

Judge Chris Piazza has again ordered payment of $323,267 in attorney fees to John Ogles for his legal work, along with Mike Wilson, in Wilson's third challenge of unconstitutional pork barreling by the Arkansas legislature.

A study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine found that Arkansas’s Medicaid work requirement led to lower insurance rates among 30- to 49-year-olds in 2018, the group targeted by the first-of-its-kind work rule last year.

At Wednesday afternoon’s meeting of the state Medical Marijuana Commission, commissioners approved changes in location for three dispensaries and changes of ownership for four dispensaries.

You knew it. Jason Rapert was in the mix on silencing of expression of gay pride at the University of Central Arkansas.

Optometrists have formed a group to fight the effort by ophthalmologists to roll back expanded surgical privileges optometrists won in the recent legislative session.

Casey Tucker, a Little Rock lawyer, has joined two other candidates in the race for the seat on the bench held by Circuit Judge Chris Piazza, who's retiring.

Here's the video news roundup. Also the open line.

Multi-hyphenate talent Beth Ditto makes a bold, strange move for her acting career in the new Showtime series, "On Becoming a God in Central Florida." Set in 1992 near Orlando, Fla., Kirsten Dunst stars as Krystal Stubbs, an ambitious water park employee who gets embroiled in an insidious pyramid scheme. Ditto plays Bets, the wife of Stubbs' employer and a cautious voice of reason against Founders American Franchise, the multi-level marketing outfit seeking wealth and power at all costs.

"When Wes told me the idea of the name 'Control,' I thought it was a perfect fit for a record store. I’ve always thought of music was a way to take control of your world. Whether it's personal or political, music is a way to find your way through everything."

Coming Friday, June 14: A busy 2nd Friday Art Night features new exhibits, new venues, and gamblers and tavern owners over at the Old State House Museum.

“We’re a lucky band of goofballs who get to do this for a living."

“I’m so many things,” Faux said. “I’m goofy. I’m creative. I’m smart, when I want to be. I’m sexy. I’m loud. I’m fearless. Sometimes I’m scared, sometimes I’m a crybaby, sometimes I’m dismissive. Sometimes I’m detached. I’m all of these things.

The film was screened for a group of around 40 Walmart associates and, a press release said, "profiles Walmart associates and their fight for respect at Walmart through OUR Walmart (now United for Respect) over the last near-decade."

Arkansas Country Music Awards (ACMA) held its annual ceremony Monday night, June 3, presenting signed and unsigned Arkansas musicians and singer-songwriters, heralding the talents of country music talent from sound engineers and entertainers to radio promoters to dobro players.

In laying the disaster at the feet, primarily, of liars and tinpot dictators, “Chernobyl” creator Craig Mazin here has spun a deft political drama for an era where the phrase “Russian election interference” has rocked Europe and the United States.

The Arkansas Arts Center bids au revoir with "DELTA 60," a documentary film about artists Melissa Cowper-Smith, Neal Harrington, Tammy Harrington, Robyn Horn, Tim Hursley, Lisa Krannichfeld, James Matthews, Dusty Mitchell, Aj Smith and Marjorie Williams Smith. 

As the river encroached the park, lapping against the bricks of the back of the amphitheater, its brisk current often matched the blistering tempos. Geese wandered about near the backstage equipment like hopeful groupies.

Hard to pick a favorite at That Ramen Place.

Shirley Temple’s got some company.

Calling all bourbon lovers! The Arkansas Times' 3rd annual Pig & Swig event on Friday, June 14, at the River Market Pavilions will feature five Knob Creek whiskeys.

Perhaps to nobody's surprise, the doors to the beloved Stifft Station dive, Pizza D'Action, will open up once again this afternoon at 4 p.m., this time under the direction of Rev Room manager Mike Brown.

It’s the time of year for seersucker suits, sipping whiskey and watching the river flow by. You can be that laid-back and party, too, at the third annual Arkansas Times Pig and Swig, coming to the River Market on Friday, June 14.

Prince Williams hopes his bar and seafood shack will earn a reputation for solid food and keep people coming back. The duck gumbo will make us return.

If you are not currently wedging some deep-fried cauliflower into your work week, you might not be doing it right. 

The 2019 Summer Field Trip of the Southern Foodways Alliance is hopping over to Bentonville in June.

Two-dimensional Byzantine iconography surrounds the Anunciation visitor on all sides — intentionally presented in a flat matte style, "not meant to be Renaissance art," Father Nicholas said — but now, the eye is drawn to the radiant glass at the altar, Christ in a gold robe and halo, holding a chalice in one hand and the Eucharist symbol on the other. Over 200 shades of glass and eight months of work went into the icon, Father Nicholas said. 

Stone's Throw Brewing opens its Stifft Station Taproom on May 7.