WASHINGTON — President Bush is expected to soon sign into law a military construction bill that will allow the Army to spend $1.2 million for a new warehouse at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, officials said. The humidity-controlled building would include a sprinkler system and would replace a World War II-era building that was hit [...]

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SPRINGDALE – Chambers of commerce in Northwest Arkansas and Fort Smith joined representatives of the Northwest Arkansas Council on Wednesday in announcing support for the interstate highway and higher education bond ballot questions to be decided in a statewide special election Dec. 13. The chambers involved have supported measures before, but Wednesday is the first [...]

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FLIPPIN – Enough water, at least for survival for Arkansas’ renowned trout fishery, is just around the corner, two Arkansas congressmen said Wednesday.U.S Reps. Marion Berry, D-Ark., and John Boozman, R-Ark., praised recent congressional approval to implement minimum flows on the White River. Last month, Congress approved the Energy and Water Appropriations Act for fiscal [...]

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LITTLE ROCK – Democrat Bill Halter, who is exploring a run for governor in 2006, raised $142,085 in November, his campaign reported Wednesday.The monthly total brings Halter’s fundraising to $649,243 since he filed papers with the secretary of state’s office on Oct. 5 to form an exploratory committee. “Bill Halter’s latest financial disclosure report shows [...]

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LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas’ first public school facilities director and a longtime Department of Education official announced his retirement Wednesday.David Floyd, named in July to head the new Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation, said he would step down at the end of the year because of health reasons. He would not [...]

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Dr. Neal Baer, a Harvard-educated pediatrician from Los Angeles, was telling me what would happen on television that night on “Law & Order: SVU,” meaning Special Victims Unit.You see, hundreds of children remain unaccounted for from Hurricane Katrina. Some have been kidnapped and abused. This episode would center on three children of New Orleans abducted [...]

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LITTLE ROCK – The rape conviction of Benton County resident Clifton Robert Warner was upheld by the state Court of Appeals on Wednesday.Warner, a habitual offender because of previous convictions for writing hot checks and failure to appear, was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 5-year-old girl.The victim reported [...]

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LITTLE ROCK – The Arkansas Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a 100-year prison sentence given to Charles Cory Whited of Hindsville, who pleaded guilty to seven felony charges in February.In his appeal, Whited argued that Washington County Circuit Judge William A. Storey should not have allowed “the speculative opinion testimony” of a Fayetteville police [...]

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LITTLE ROCK – Gov. Mike Huckabee urged Arkansans on Tuesday not to travel to Aruba on behalf of the family of missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway. Several of the girl’s relatives live in Arkansas. Huckabee joined Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, who recently urged all Americans to refrain from traveling to the Caribbean island in an [...]

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LITTLE ROCK – The family advocacy group that conceived the state’s basic health insurance plan for the children of Arkansas’ working poor honored Gov. Mike Huckabee on Tuesday for creating and selling the ARKids First program to the Legislature. “He made children’s health care a high priority during the 1997 session and beyond,” Rich [...]

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