Arkansas Blog

Good day for a nap. Anyone awake out there?

The feds and blue state Dems are Arkansas's generous patrons, and Governor Sanders is an ungrateful welfare queen.

Terry Hartwick, mayor of North Little Rock, claimed that “pickleball is important to all of us, not just senior citizens like myself,” though there was a fair share of gray-haired representation in the audience. Hartwick also playfully alluded to the tension between tennis players and “pickleball people”: They “say hello, but don’t really like playing side-by-side.”

Weekend plans, anyone? Sailing away to the other side of the world sounds nice.

Policy experts at For AR People followed happenings at the Capitol this week to bring you this quick, easy and not completely demoralizing update.

"Why do we keep opening up more and more publicly funded schools where the affluent children congregate, with poor kids left behind?"

This week marks the eighth anniversary of the state takeover of the Little Rock School District on Jan. 28, 2015.

Arkansas Republican leaders are poised to lock people up longer and build more prisons. 

On cottonmouths and copperheads.

The otherwise mostly procedural, but abnormally well-attended monthly Central Arkansas Library System Board of Directors meeting yesterday, took an interesting turn in its final minutes. Three impassioned community members were given the floor to advocate on behalf of the Galleries & Bookstore at Library Square, whose fate has been murky since the announcement in December that the space would be closed in late spring or early summer of this year to make room for the Main library's operations while the primary building undergoes extensive renovations.

The legalization of recreational marijuana in Missouri and maybe Oklahoma raises concerns for Arkansas dispensaries.

Two Hot Spring County Sheriff's deputies are facing charges after being accused of assaulting a person they'd just released from jail.

Gov. Sarah Sanders has appointed former state Rep. David Haak of Texarkana to the Arkansas Highway Commission. Haak, who owns a business that makes labels for auto tires, is an old pal of Sanders' father, former Gov. Mike Huckabee. He replaces Robert Moore on the commission. Haak's term will run through Jan. 14, 2033.

The master plan detailed the perception of Little Rock as it relates to crime, suggested ways to increase diversity and recommended tourism improvements. Throw in a hotel with a water park and play some DJ Khaled.

Conservative lawmakers are attempting, fruitlessly but feverishly, to codify the traditional gender binary with laws about who can use which bathrooms and who can use which pronouns.

Blue Hog Report's Matt Campbell is focusing his legal and investigative skills on a  south Arkansas prosecutor who tried to protect her child-rapist uncle while she was a deputy prosecutor. As if that weren't bad enough, Blue Hog's investigation of 9th District West Prosecuting Attorney Jana Bradford also shows she accepted illegal campaign contributions.

Little Rock-based Good Day Farm has a cultivation facility in Oxford, Mississippi, and will have six Good Day Farm-branded dispensaries across the state.

Arkansas House and Senate Democrats have filed a bill that would raise Arkansas's pitiful starting salary for public school teachers and give all teachers a $10,000 raise.

A late amendment to a bill that would dictate where transgender public school students can use the bathroom delayed a vote Thursday. But lawmakers heard public testimony and asked questions about the legality and logistics. A committee vote is expected Tuesday.