Opinion

We are delighted to welcome our 14th association and 16th state to be represented in the Column Partner Program — the Arkansas Press Association. The Column team will be working with the APA on a redesign of their statewide public notice website, making critical improvements to the accessibility of their site as well as adding improved search and alert functionality for the public.

ROGERS — The American Red Cross initiated the distribution of emergency supplies today those areas affected by the severe weather this week. Emergency supplies include items to help clean up after the tornado such as trash bags, work gloves, shovels, rakes, mold prevention and bottled water.

Recently, Ukraine has been arming their citizens with AK-47 rifles and plenty of ammo. Does armed militia ring any bells? At this time, Ukraine families are escaping death by traveling to Poland and other safe zones. The men then tell their wives and children that he must return to Ukraine to defend his country. Needless to say, many will not return.

On Monday of this week, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees met jointly with the Charitable, Penal, and Correctional Institutions subcommittee of the Arkansas Legislative Council. Members reviewed reports from the Department of Corrections concerning the current prison population and recidivism rates.

Little Rock – The recidivism rate for Arkansas prison inmates is 46.1 percent, a rate which the head of state prisons called unacceptable. Prison officials appeared before a joint meeting of legislators to discuss estimates of growth in the state’s inmate population.

In the 21st century, most of the systems and operations we depend on for everything from personal financial activity to the community-wide distribution of information and resources is built within and around the internet.

One hundred-fifty years before I took office, Arkansas was home to so many black bears that we were known as The Bear State, but by the early years of the last century, enthusiastic hunters had thinned the population to the point that the General Assembly outlawed bear hunting.

Little Rock – Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and a coalition of 20 states today filed a lawsuit against President Biden’s face mask mandate on planes, trains, buses and in their respective hubs. The complaint challenges the mask mandate issued on February 1, 2021, which requires any person traveling by plane, train or bus to wear a mask, on the grounds that it exceeds federal authority and is otherwise arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.

This should make Americans ask the fundamental question: what is the difference between what a public non-profit utility company provides and what a private for-profit oil company provides? After all they both sell energy to all United States citizens.