Free Republic

Paul W. Davis shares some sad news: It is with great sorrow and regret that I must inform you of the passing of Linda Fincher, Wayne Fincher's wife. She passed away sometime early in the morning, the 28th of August at her home. At this time the cause of death is determined to be a seizure. She was alone at the time. Miss Linda had been suffering from seizures for some years now. I am requesting your prayers for the family, particularly for Wayne and the daughters, Connie and Carol Ann. It was ever Miss Linda's concern that she would...

(Sherwood, AR) -- A burglar is dead after being shot while breaking into a home in Sherwood. Sherwood Police say the man was confronted by an armed Arkansas State trooper who lived there and had been woken up by the sounds of the break-in. It happened around 11:15 in a neighborhood east of Highway 107 and north of Kiehl Avenue. It's not yet known if the trooper, who works the overnight shift, fired any other shots, or if the suspect had a weapon. Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley was on the scene shortly after the shooting. It is protocol...

SHERWOOD, AR – Officers from the Sherwood Police Department are on the scene of a home invasion where a burglar has been shot dead. Officer Josh Adams tells Fox16 that police responded to 1300 Maelstorm Circle where a burglar was shot dead by an off-duty Arkansas State Police Trooper in an attempted home invasion.

Jonesboro, Arkansas (CNN) -- Crazy. That is the word John Mark Byers, whose stepson Christopher was among three second-graders killed in West Memphis, Arkansas in May 1993, repeatedly used to describe Friday's release of three men convicted in the boys' murders from a Craighead County Courthouse in Jonesboro. It is a sentiment shared by Steven Branch Sr., whose son Steven also was slain -- but for entirely different reasons.

JONESBORO, Ark. -- Three men convicted of killing three 8-year-old Cub Scouts and dumping their bodies in an Arkansas ditch changed their pleas Friday, resolving a yearslong effort to win their freedom. Under a plea bargain, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were being freed immediately. The boys' families were notified about the pact ahead of time but were not asked to approve it. The defendants, known by their supporters as the West Memphis 3, agreed to a legal maneuver that lets them maintain their innocence while acknowledging prosecutors have enough evidence against them. They were credited with time...

Much more to come later this morning from Jonesboro, where Circuit Judge David Laser will consider a plea bargain between the state and the West Memphis 3 that could bring their immediate release from prison after more than 17 years. If the judge approves — and this is an all-important if — the defendants will leave still convicted of first-degree murder for slaying three eight-year-old West Memphis boys in 1993. This will leave their staunchest defenders unhappy and offend even many less interested who will take offense at convictions for crimes that Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin...

A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the free speech of a coalition of atheists had been violated when Little Rock's public bus line denied them the right to place $5,000 worth of ads on city buses. Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled that the Central Arkansas Transit Authority and its advertising agency should not have denied the group the right to place the ads on 18 publicly-funded city buses during Memorial Day weekend. Washington-based United Coalition of Reason filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Arkansas group in June after the transit authority and its advertising agency rejected The transit...

LITTLE ROCK — State Rep. Linda Collins-Smith, a Democrat, announced today that she is switching parties and becoming a Republican. Collins-Smith, of Pocahontas, announced the switch during a news conference at the state Capitol. She did not take questions from reporters and did not say whether she would seek re-election next year as a Republican. “I have not changed. I have not left the Democratic party, but the party left me,” she said. Rep. Linda Collins-Smith Collins-Smith called Republicans “hard-working, commonsense people” and said the GOP “most closely holds to the principles that I and most Arkansans believe in.” The...

(Reuters) - Arkansans shopped until they dropped on Saturday, braving temperatures deep into the triple-digits to take advantage of the state's first sales tax holiday weekend. "I have never seen anything like this," said Clancy Graham, a manager at Little Rock's RK Collections Boutique, an independently owned store. "If we could do this three times a year, it would be amazing. It has done crazy good stuff for our business." Arkansas lawmakers approved the holiday in February to give parents a tax break on their back-to-school shopping for items such as uniforms, clothing and school supplies.

(KATV) Bryant - Shots ring out in Bryant Monday afternoon, a woman shoots and kills a man she says it's her ex-boyfriend, but claims it was self defense. It happened at about 4:30 p.m. Bryant police were called to the corner of Raymar Road and Meadowlake. When police arrived on the scene they found the alleged suspect taking his last breath and a woman who was very shaken up. She told police the man was her ex-boyfriend and he abducted her. As friends and family hear the news, they rush to the victim's home now guarded by police. It's the...

S & P has downgraded the United States Credit Rating to AA+ from the AAA rating we had since 1917. It's no suprise since massive spending is still being done on things like green projects, illegal aliens, and useless bureaucrat organizations like the EPA. Decades of foolish Democrat Spending, a few years of foolish Republican Spending, and the spending by Soros Puppet Obama (soon to be more than all other Presidents combined) has harmed the nation that the world depends on. Who will the lazy corrupt Mexican "government" dump their people on without the United States of America? Republicans could...

As we’ve all seen to great effect in the last week, watching laws get made is not for the faint of heart. I’ve made sausage before. That’s a picnic by comparison. Which goes a long way toward explaining something as vague and open to legal interpretation and potential abuse as Arkansas’ “journey” exception to its carry laws. So, when you have a legislative product as poorly crafted as this, it’s only natural to ask for clarification, right? Well, no. This is the state where you have to worry about what the meaning of ‘is’ is. And that’s just the way...

Southwestern Energy Co., Houston, said it has accumulated 460,000 net acres prospective for oil in Upper Jurassic Lower Smackover Brown Dense limestone along the Arkansas-Louisiana state line. The unconventional play is the first the company has revealed publicly of several new ventures it has been pursuing the last 1-2 years and in which it holds a combined 835,000 net acres. The formation’s commerciality is still to be determined, Southwestern said. Southwestern plans to spud its first horizontal well in the play, in Columbia County, Ark., just southwest of Atlanta and east of Dorcheat-Macedonia oil field, late in the third quarter...

Kymberly Wimberly is an 18-year-old mother who was valedictorian of her graduating class at an Arkansas high school. Well, co-valedictorian. Wimberly, who is black, alleges in a lawsuit that McGehee Secondary School Principal Darrell Thompson assigned a white student with a lower GPA as co-valedictorian after she was named the sole valediction. She’s asking for $75,000 in damages and for the school record to be corrected, according to the suit. Molly Bratton, Wimberly’s mother who works as the school’s media specialist, learned of her daughter’s honor from the school counselor. But shortly after, said she overhead someone in the copy...

Map hereLITTLE ROCK — Gov. Mike Beebe and Attorney General Dustin McDaniel released their final House redistricting maps today, two days before the state Board of Apportionment’s scheduled vote on redrawing legislative district lines. The maps, which are identical, contain only small changes from the House maps Beebe and McDaniel released previously. They released their final Senate maps on Tuesday. Like the earlier House maps, the Beebe-McDaniel plan would reduce the number of black-majority House districts from 13 to 11 and would pit incumbent against incumbent in four districts. Incumbents who would find themselves in the same district are Jon...

The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission is hearing testimony as it considers shutting down an Oklahoma company’s natural gas drilling disposal well and banning new wells in central Arkansas where hundreds of small earthquakes have occurred. ... The wells are used to dispose of waste water that’s the result of extracting natural gas from the ground.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A man who confessed to shooting two soldiers outside a military recruiting station in Arkansas has pleaded guilty and received a sentence of life in prison without parole. Abdulhakim Muhammad pleaded guilty to capital murder in the middle of his trial Monday. Prosecutors took the death penalty off the table in return for Muhammad's plea.

Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) will retire at the end of his term, he announced in a press conference Monday morning. "I believe it is time for me to begin a new chapter in my life by spending more time with my family and exploring new opportunities here at home in Arkansas," Ross said at a press conference in Little Rock. The retirement of Ross, a fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrat, will put another seat on the table for the 2012 elections. Ross has been considered a likely candidate for Arkansas governor in 2014, and said that while he wouldn't officially...

LITTLE ROCK - U.S. Rep. Mike Ross, the only Democrat among Arkansas' four House members, announced Monday he won't seek re-election next year. Ross, who has expressed interest in running for governor in 2014, said in a statement that he wants to spend time with his family and explore "new opportunities here at home in Arkansas." Ross is serving his sixth term representing Arkansas' sprawling 4th District, which gained some counties from traditionally Republican territory in the northwestern part of the state during this year's redistricting process. The move wasn't expected to hurt a Ross re-election bid, but it could...

I went to my first Republican State Committee Meeting that was held at the Little Rock Peabody. I was able to record some of the speeches. Most of the meeting was about rules and how to operate the Republican Party of Arkansas. After a lunch break, they had some training sessions. I confirmed that Republican County Committees can refuse funds and support for a Republican who acts like a liberal. With things like Teague-Gate, another Republican US House Bill stabbed in the back by a Republican US Senate "Gang", and no punishment from state or national GOP leadership, when is...