Local & Regional News

Arkansas' governor says the state's parole system needs review after a parolee was charged in a Little Rock murder.

Darrell Dennis was charged with aggravated robbery, kidnapping and capital murder in the May 10 death of 18-year-old Forrest Abrams.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that Dennis had been arrested 14 times since being released on parole in 2008 following an aggravated robbery conviction - and that he skipped parole revocation hearings.

Officials say Arkansas plans to consider using different drugs in lethal injections after the state lost its account with a pharmaceutical company that supplied it with drugs earlier this year.

State Department of Correction spokeswoman Shea Wilson told The Associated Press Monday that the agency no longer has a supplier for the drugs listed in its current lethal injection protocol.

So, Wilson says the department plans to look at other drugs and to rewrite its protocol.

Several counties along the White River are opposing a national designation that names the White River a National Blueway.

County leaders opposed to the measure say they're worried the national designation could mean limitations for landowners and farmers.

But Emily Beyer of the U.S. Department of Interior says the National Blueways System is not regulatory, nor does it affect private property rights or governmental authorities.