Gov. Mike Beebe defended the Conway Human Development Center today, saying the state investigates any claims of improper patient care at the facility and numerous reviews have found none. A day after the U.S. Department of Justice sought a federal court order to halt new admissions of school-age children to the facility, Beebe also suggested a long-standing disagreement between the state and federal officials over how to care for the developmentally disabled may have prompted the Justice Department action.

State highway officials said today they have not given up on getting a full $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for the $250 million Bella Vista bypass project planned in Northwest Arkansas.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum announced today it will present the former president and Arkansas governor with the Reflections of Hope Award on April 21, two days after the 15th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Both political parties are taking tea party activists seriously and are wary of offending them – if they are not already actively wooing them for state races this fall. Just look at the governor’s election in Ohio. Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich openly touts his tea party credentials in his bid to defeat incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland. “I think I was in the tea party before there was a tea party,” Kasich famously told a Columbus crowd earlier this year. “This is a real movement with a real message about people’s frustrations by broken promises that leaders on both sides of the aisle would be foolish to ignore,” he went on to write in a blog posting.

Arkansas' unemployment rate remained at 7.6 in January for the second month in a row, labor statistics released today show.

Residential customers of Entergy Arkansas can expect lower electric rates this year even though Entergy is seeking an increase in base rates, the company said today.

PINE BLUFF, Ark. — A condemned killer scheduled to be executed next month can be interviewed by lawyers for a capital punishment opponent accused of trying to smuggle contraband to him on death-row, a judge ruled today.

Washington's refusal to accept new felon transfers from Arkansas since the shooting of four Lakewood police officers is apparently a violation of an interstate compact between the states.