Arkansas

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — In the aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, governors around the country vowed to take steps to ensure their students would be kept safe.

Months later, as students return to classrooms, money has begun to flow for school security upgrades, training and other new efforts to make classrooms safer.

But the responses have often reflected political divisions: Many Republicans have emphasized school security spending, while Democrats have called for tighter gun control.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday said Arkansas can’t enforce its ban on transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judge’s ruling temporarily blocking the state from enforcing the 2021 law. A trial is scheduled for October before the same judge on whether to permanently block the law.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas lawmakers began a special session Tuesday to take up tax cuts and a school safety grant program, spurred by the state’s $1.6 billion surplus.

The House and Senate convened for the session called by Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Hutchinson said the tax cuts are needed because of inflation and the state’s record surplus.

The cuts include accelerating reductions in individual and corporate income taxes that the majority-Republican Legislature approved last year.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Based on the barrage of television ads and mailers leading up to Tuesday’s primary election in Arkansas, it’s obvious who the most influential Republicans in the state are.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — At home, two-term Republican Sen. John Boozman is known as an unassuming figure who talks almost in a whisper and is more comfortable chatting about policy or the University of Arkansas Razorbacks’ football record than giving fiery speeches.

But you wouldn’t know that if you turned on the television lately.

(AP) --- A line of severe storms packing isolated tornadoes and high winds ripped across the Deep South overnight, toppling trees and power lines and leaving homes and businesses damaged as the vast weather front raced across several states.

At least two confirmed tornadoes injured several people Wednesday, damaged homes and businesses and downed power lines in Mississippi and Tennessee after earlier storm damage in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas.

CABOT, Ark. (AP) — A former Arkansas deputy was convicted Friday of negligent homicide and sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting an unarmed white teenager whose death last year drew the attention of national civil rights leaders.

Jurors acquitted Michael Davis of the more serious offense of manslaughter while finding him guilty of the misdemeanor charge in the death of 17-year-old Hunter Brittain during a June 23 traffic stop outside Cabot, a city of about 26,000 people roughly 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock.

MONETTE, Ark. (AP) — At least two people were killed Friday night when a reported tornado ripped through an Arkansas nursing home, and emergency crews in southern Illinois were also responding to reports of injuries at an Amazon warehouse after a roof collapsed amid storms there.

Craighead County Judge Marvin Day told KAIT-TV that at least five others were injured and 20 people were trapped after the tornado struck the Monette Manor area in northeast Arkansas. A call by The Associated Press to the county office wasn’t immediately returned.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Sarah Sanders, Donald Trump’s former chief spokeswoman, announced she’s running for Arkansas governor at a time other Republicans are distancing themselves from the former president facing an impeachment charge that he incited the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

But the former White House press secretary, who left the job in 2019 to return to her home state, ran the other direction with an announcement Monday that embraced Trump as much as his rhetoric.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The FBI on Friday arrested an Arkansas man who was photographed sitting at a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office following the storming of the Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters, authorities announced.