Latest Arkansas Headlines
All the headlines from our Arkansas Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Order Issued to Protect Workers in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Projects
Feb 3 2017 // The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has issued a consent administrative order against the city of Pine Bluff and its parolee- and prison-labor demolition program that was shut down last year. The Arkansas...
Attorneys to Receive $1.9M in Arkansas Marlboro Lights Case
Jan 27 2017 // Lawyers who won a $45 million settlement for Arkansas Marlboro Lights smokers will now receive a $1.9 million payment for the case. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox approved the...
Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Named Vice-Chair of Two National Task Forces
Jan 26 2017 // Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr has been named vice-chairman of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) Workers’ Compensation and Examination Oversight Task Forces. The mission of...
Arkansas Has Lowest Auto Insurance Rates in South Central Region
Jan 25 2017 // Arkansas has lower auto insurance rates than the neighboring states of Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, the state insurance department reported. The Arkansas Insurance Department says a study by the National Association of...
Arkansas Had More than 1,200 Wildfires Last Year
Jan 23 2017 // Arkansas forestry officials say 2016 was a relatively quiet year for wildfires, but the fires still burned nearly 30 square miles in the state. The Arkansas Forestry Commission says there was a total of 1,248 wildfires...
Arkansas Commissioner Tapped for NAIC Committee Leadership Post
Jan 19 2017 // Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr has been named vice-chairman of the Market Regulation and Consumer Affairs (D) Committee of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). In a statement released by...
Arkansas Judge OKs $29.1M Payout in Cigarette Lawsuit
Jan 19 2017 // More than 21,000 Marlboro Lights smokers and their attorneys will receive a portion of $29.1 million from a lawsuit settlement fund approved by an Arkansas judge. A Pulaski County Circuit judge approved the payment on Jan....
Arkansas Jury Awards $2M to Former Railroad Engineer
Jan 16 2017 // An Arkansas jury has ordered Union Pacific Corp. to pay a former engineer $2 million for injuries he suffered in a 2013 train crash. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that nine of 12 Pulaski County jurors decided...
Arkansas Man Gets Five Years in Prison for $1.6M Insurance Fraud
Jan 13 2017 // A Fort Smith, Ark., man has been sentenced to five years in federal prison plus three years of supervised release for defrauding insurance customers, federal authorities say. Kenneth Elser, United States Attorney for the...
Fire Destroys 20 Transit-System Buses in Northwest Arkansas
Jan 12 2017 // A transit system serving four counties in northwest Arkansas has restricted its service after an early morning fire destroyed nearly all its buses. Ozark Regional Transit says the fire broke out on Jan. 10 in a bus canopy...
Census: Work-Related Deaths Increase in Arkansas
Jan 10 2017 // A recent census shows a majority of Arkansas’ work-related deaths in 2015 were linked to transportation. The Arkansas Department of Labor’s census shows the state had 74 work-related deaths in 2015. That is up...
Hot Springs, Arkansas Settles Whistleblower Lawsuit for $87.5K
Jan 9 2017 // The city of Hot Springs, Ark., has settled a 2015 civil rights/whistleblower lawsuit alleging the deputy city manager fired a city employee for corroborating a female coworker’s sexual harassment claim against...
South Central Regulation Report Card: Texas’ Grade Rises, Arkansas’ Drops
Jan 9 2017 // No South Central state had the best score and none had the worst in a report recently released by a conservative-leaning research organization that annually assesses the effectiveness states’ insurance regulatory...
Annual Fee to Grow Medical Marijuana in Arkansas: $100K
Jan 6 2017 // A state commission has decided that Arkansas residents hoping to grow medical marijuana will have to pay an annual fee of $100,000 to operate a cultivation facility. The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission set the fee...
Truck Crashes on Steep Arkansas Road Lead to More Warning Signs
Jan 3 2017 // The state highway department plans more warning signs on a steep, hilly road in the Arkansas Ozarks after several wrecks involving large trucks. In the past 21/2 years, seven trucks have wrecked on a 2-mile stretch of...
South Central Regulation Report Card: Texas’ Grade Rises, Arkansas’ Drops
Dec 22 2016 // No South Central state had the best score and none had the worst in a report recently released by a conservative-leaning research organization that annually assesses the effectiveness states’ insurance regulatory...
Extreme Divide Marks Approach to Healthcare in Arkansas, Texas
Dec 14 2016 // The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is highly unpopular in both Texas and Arkansas, but the sharply different approaches the states have taken is evident in the availability and cost of health care — in the span of a...
U.S. Approves Modified Arkansas’ ‘Private Option’ Medicaid Expansion
Dec 9 2016 // Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says federal officials have approved a number of changes the state wants to make in a Medicaid expansion program known as “Arkansas Works.” The governor said that the Department of...
NTSB: Crew Fatigue Main Cause of Deadly 2014 Arkansas Train Crash
Dec 8 2016 // Crew fatigue brought on by irregular work schedules and a moderate form of sleep apnea is the primary reason behind a middle-of-the-night train crash that killed two Union Pacific workers and injured two others in northern...
$122.5M Award Upheld in Imprisoned Arkansas Doctor’s Bombing Case
Dec 5 2016 // A former Arkansas doctor has lost his appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court of a $122.5 million jury award stemming from case that encompasses a suspended license to practice medicine, overprescribing of pain medications,...
