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Members of the Arkansas National Guard, along with guardsmen from Oklahoma, Indiana, Louisiana, and Texas are conducting emergency training in Oklahoma to prepare in case a major earthquake strikes the region. 

The exercise called "Vigilant Guard" will be held Wednesday at the Camp Gruber Training Site near Braggs in northeastern Oklahoma. The guardsmen are to hold the training that simulates a 7.7-magnitude earthquake occurring along the New Madrid fault in Northeast Arkansas and northward into other states.

Arkansas plans to put prisoners to death with a drug that experts say has never been used in a U.S. execution. 

The state Department of Correction told The Associated Press on Tuesday that it plans to use phenobarbital, along with lorazepam, to kill condemned prisoners.

It’s been more than two weeks since the ExxonMobil Pegasus Pipeline burst in May Flower, spilling around 5,000 barrels of heavy crude oil into a residential subdivision while endangering local wetlands and wildlife. Local officials have begun to call for a portion of the pipeline, which runs through the Lake Maumelle Watershed, to be relocated.

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request by convicted evangelist Tony Alamo to hear an appeal of a civil lawsuit in which Alamo was ordered to pay millions to two men.

The court denied the appeal in a brief order dated Monday.

Alamo was ordered to pay Seth Calagna and Spencer Ondrisek $33 million each after a federal jury in Texarkana, Ark., found that he abused the two when they were children growing up in Alamo's ministry. The amount was reduced to $15 million each by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Arkansas is set to provide a new steel company with $125 million in financing and tax breaks to build a mill in the northeast part of the state now that the Legislature has given final approval to the plan.

The Arkansas House has approved a package of proposals that would cut state income taxes, capital gains taxes, and reduce taxes paid by manufacturers.

The measures approved by lawmakers Tuesday are part of the estimated $100 million in total tax cuts that legislative leaders say they want to pass this session. The vote came several hours after the House approved the Medicaid 'private option' bill that Gov. Mike Beebe says would provide the savings to fund some of the proposed tax cuts.

To honor the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” over 200 6th graders from Horace Mann Magnet Middle School in Little Rock participated in special programs at the Clinton Presidential Library. 

King’s letter challenged white church leaders in Birmingham and people across the nation to confront and end racism. Kathleen Pate, the library’s education specialist, says students learned more about the history surrounding the letter and analyzed the meaning behind King’s words. 

The Arkansas Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is filing a federal lawsuit challenging a new abortion law that is among the most restrictive in the country. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Dr. Louis Jerry Edwards and Dr. Tom Tvedten, who provide abortions at a Little Rock clinic.

By a vote of 77 to 23, the Arkansas House passed a bill that would allow funding to a plan to take federal money intended for Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and use it for private insurance for the state's adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

The funding bill must still me approved by the Senate. It requires a 3/4 majority in both chambers to pass. A bill laying out the plan has passed both the House and Senate with smaller majorities than required for the appropriation bill required to implement the plan.

More than three-dozen Arkansans were registered to run in the Boston Marathon, where two explosions were set off near the finish line following the race. 

According to the race's website, 37 runners in Monday's race had listed Arkansas as their home state. Their ages were listed between 21 and 71 years of age. It wasn't immediately known whether any of the Arkansas people were among the scores injured in the attack.