June 15-21

It was a good week for…

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BRYAN ABERNATHY. A judge found the Fayetteville doctor not guilty of misdemeanor terroristic threatening despite a tape recording made secretly by a 28-year-old female patient and submitted as evidence, in which the doctor offers the patient a beer, offers to perform oral sex on her, tells her he’s found her attractive for 10 years and threatens to kill her if she tells anyone.

It was a bad week for…

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PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT. The Arkansas Department of Education took over the state’s third largest school district, removing embattled Superintendent Charles Hopson and the school board in the process. Retired Superintendent Bobby Lester will run the district while it’s under state control.

HELENA-WEST HELENA SCHOOL DISTRICT. The state also took over this school district, which was designated as fiscally distressed last September and, according to the state, hasn’t made sufficient progress.

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AGGRIEVED WALMART WORKERS. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling that 1.5 million female employees could proceed with a class action sex discrimination lawsuit.

ARKANSAS RAZORBACK BASKETBALL. Rotnei Clarke, the Hogs’ leading scorer from a year ago, left the program. He’s the third Razorback to ask for release from his scholarship since Mike Anderson became head coach.

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ARKANSAS STATE HOSPITAL. Because the State Hospital, which cares for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled, hasn’t been able to meet federal Medicare standards, the state sacked its leader, Charles Smith, and David Laffoon, the leader of the Behavioral Health Division of the state Human Services Department.

MARION BERRY. The former U.S. congressman was diagnosed with lymphoma following recent brain surgery.

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SECRETARY OF STATE MARK MARTIN. He whined that his office has suffered from “abuse” of Arkansas’s Freedom of Information Act, partly because he’s a Republican.

MIKE HUCKABEE. The former Arkansas governor said the former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour had experienced something akin to discrimination in his flirtation with running for president because much political commentary centered on Barbour’s thick Delta accent. Saying he was offended by that reasoning, Huckabee invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s credo that men should “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” adding that he thought there should be another component — people “should not be judged by the accent of our speech.”

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