David Wallace

The famed Senior Walk at the University of Arkansas that contains names of graduates dating back almost 140 is incomplete and will have to be redone.

More than 30 graduates in the class of 2012 who had signed up to be included among the engraved names on the campus sidewalk the university advertises worldwide were inadvertently left off.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the oversight is attributed to the conversion from paper graduation applications to online submissions.

Former Presidential candidate and lion of the U.S. Senate John McCain said in Little Rock Friday night President Obama’s resistance to arming freedom fighters in Syria was “shameful.”

McCain spoke as part of the Clinton School of Public Service’s Public Programs series. 

“I’m not here to bash the President of the United States,” said the one-time war prisoner of the North Vietnamese, “but this is one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country.” 

No more disruptive outbursts in Pine Bluff City Council meetings. 

That’s the message of Mayor Debe Hollingsworth, who has grown tired of interruptions and loud cross-talk, not only by members of the audience, but by aldermen themselves.

Friday, she announced plans to hire a Sergeant-at-Arms and a Parliamentarian to be on duty during council meetings. She said at the meeting Friday she won’t hesitate to have someone removed if they’re disrupting the proceedings.

Governor Beebe met House Speaker Davy Carter’s deadline of Friday to submit a draft of legislation to   expand Medicaid to about 250-thousand more residents.

Both the Speaker and the Governor’s office call the rough draft just a "framework" for the bill they hope to eventually hammer out.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports it calls for establishing an Access Assurance Program—a system for diverting to private insurance companies the new Medicaid money that will flow to the state next year as part of the Affordable Care Act.          

State Surgeon General Dr. Joe Thompson praised the Medicaid expansion provisions of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in a telephonic townhall Tuesday night sponsored by the Arkansas Hospital Association. Whether or not to accept an expansion of the low-income health insurance program to people making up to 138 percent of the poverty level is currently being debated in the state general assembly.