Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Senators chase deal to end standoff, travel disruptions
WASHINGTON — Travel disruptions deepened Tuesday as senators raced to salvage a proposal to end the Homeland Security shutdown by funding much of the department, including airport workers going without pay, but excluding immigration operations that...
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ICE at airports leads to feelings of unease
NEW YORK — Armed federal immigration officers in tactical gear moved through terminals at some of the busiest U.S. airports Monday, standing near security lines and checkpoints after President Donald Trump ordered their deployment during a partial...
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Bigger tax refunds to be offset by high gas prices
WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy was supposed to start the year with a bang, fueled by an unusually large jump in tax refunds from President Donald Trump’s tax cut legislation. Yet spiking gas prices are on track to eat up those refunds, leaving most...
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GOP runoff set for secretary of state
Paper ballots, endorsements and “salty language” are some of the issues that have come to define the Republican primary for secretary of state. With early voting beginning Tuesday, Bryan Norris and Kim Hammer are locked in a heated runoff battle to...
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Iran threatens tourism sites around world
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Three weeks into an escalating war in the Middle East, Iran threatened Friday to expand its retaliatory attacks to include recreational and tourist sites worldwide, as the U.S. announced it was sending more warships and...
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Israeli strikes pound Tehran
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israel pounded Tehran with airstrikes Friday as Iranians marked Nowruz, or the Persian New Year, in the midst of a war that has sent shock waves through the global economy and risked drawing Iran’s Arab neighbors directly...
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Stocks slump as worries rise after inflation report
NEW YORK — U.S. stocks slumped Wednesday after a report said inflation was primed to worsen even before the war with Iran caused oil prices to spike. That and comments from the head of the Federal Reserve pushed Wall Street to see less chance of...
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Israel kills 2 Iranian officials
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israel killed two senior Iranian security officials in a major blow to the Islamic Republic’s leadership as it faces its greatest test in decades, and Iran responded Wednesday with renewed missile and drone attacks on its...
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Sleeping it out
A man sleeps in the baggage claim area of Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., on Monday.
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SEC Tournament champs
No doubt the debate heated up Sunday after Darius Acuff Jr., the SEC Freshman of the Year and Player of the Year, scored 30 points — 18 in the second half — to lead the Arkansas Razorbacks to just their second SEC Tournament championship. Acuff, who...
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Tehran urges people to flee ports in UAE
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran urged people Saturday to evacuate the Middle East’s busiest port and two others in the United Arab Emirates, openly threatening a neighboring country’s non-U.S. assets for the first time as its war with the U.S. and...
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Sites on island key to Iran oil exports struck
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Donald Trump said the U.S. bombed military sites Friday on an island vital to Iran’s oil network, while an American official said 2,500 more Marines and an amphibious assault ship are being sent to the Middle...
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Iran’s leader offers remarks
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s secretive new leader issued his first public statements Thursday, resolving to keep fighting, promising more pain for Gulf Arab states and threatening to open “other fronts” in a war that has already disrupted world...
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Open Turning Point clubs, Sanders urges state’s schools
Calling its late founder an inspiration to the state’s youth, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a proclamation Wednesday calling on every high school and college in the state to open a chapter of Turning Point USA. Sanders signed the proclamation at...
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US says 16 Iran vessels destroyed
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. said it took out more than a dozen mine-laying Iranian vessels Tuesday, and the Islamic Republic vowed to block the region’s oil exports, saying it would not allow “even a single liter” to be shipped to its...
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Trump: War to end ‘very soon’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he plans to waive oil-related sanctions, have the U.S. Navy escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz and predicted the war with Iran would resolve “very soon” as he confronted mounting economic and political...
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Iran assembly names choice for new leader
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran’s late supreme leader, has been named his successor, Iranian state TV announced early Monday, as the war that began a little over a week ago with his father’s killing took a dramatic...
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State’s tenant farmers anxious over rising cropland rent prices
A steady increase in cropland rent prices has added a challenge for the state’s tenant farmers, who already are weathering commodity price pressures and soaring production expenses. In Arkansas, 31% of farmers own none of the land they farm, according...
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Trump refuses any deal until Iran surrender
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. President Donald Trump said he would not seek a deal with Iran without the country’s “unconditional surrender” as Washington warned of a forthcoming bombing campaign that officials said would be the most intense of...
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Israel strikes Tehran, Beirut
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Intense Israeli airstrikes pounded the capitals of Iran and Lebanon early Friday as the U.S. apparently struck an Iranian drone carrier at sea, intensifying its campaign targeting the Islamic Republic’s fleet of...
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Iranian missiles fired at Israel
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran launched missiles at Israel early Thursday as aerial attacks in the Middle East commenced for a sixth day as the Islamic Republic continued to threaten the destruction of military and economic infrastructure across...
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Hill handles primary challenge, will vie with Jones for US House
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. French Hill easily survived a challenge in Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District Republican primary on Tuesday, as Democrats picked Chris Jones to represent their party in the general election contest. Hill’s victory means...
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Attacks widen across Mideast
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israel and the United States pounded Iran in an escalating campaign that U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday would likely take several weeks. Tehran and its allies hit back across the region, striking Israel and a...
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Iranians express hope, fear amid bombardment
CAIRO — Some of the jubilation was open and even raucous — people dancing in Iranian streets, honking car horns in celebration and screaming joyfully from windows and rooftops over the killing of the country’s supreme leader. But as bombardment by the...
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US, Israel strike Iran, kill leader
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, a top security adviser and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were killed in American-Israel airstrikes on the country, state media reported Sunday. The state-run IRNA news...
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Clinton: ‘Nothing wrong’ in Epstein ties
WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton told members of Congress on Friday that he “did nothing wrong” in his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and saw no signs of Epstein’s sexual abuse as he faced hours of grilling from lawmakers over his...
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Rubio defends Maduro ouster at summit
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts and Nevis — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday defended the Trump administration’s military operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, telling Caribbean leaders, many of whom objected to that move, that the...
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Trump speech aims to soothe economy fears
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declared during Tuesday’s State of the Union that “we’re winning so much,” saying he’d sparked a jobs and manufacturing boom at home while imposing a new world order abroad. His main objective in the...
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Arkansas natives staying safe amid cartel violence
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico — Fayetteville resident and artist Misha McQuillen Gardner just wanted to show her friend a good time for her birthday. The two Arkansas natives, both originally from Van Buren, arrived in Puerto Vallarta on Wednesday and were...
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Portis inked columns before lauded fiction
Charles Portis wrote about hypnotizing chickens. He also wrote about how chickens perch on poles in hen houses all facing the front, like they’re riding a bus or an elevator. Portis first documented these avian observations in the pages of the...
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Small Delta towns struggling with poor, aging water systems
TALLULAH, La., and COTTON PLANT, Ark. — The water running from the tap looked like coffee. Even simple chores like laundry and dishwashing became nearly impossible, the water running like a medium-roast brew from the faucet into the sink of Donald...
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Legal alternatives remain for Trump’s use of levies
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump still has options to keep taxing imports aggressively even after the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs he imposed last year on nearly every country on earth. The court didn’t support the president’s sweeping...
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Former Prince Andrew arrested on Epstein ties
LONDON — The former Prince Andrew was arrested and held for hours by British police Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to his links to Jeffrey Epstein, an extraordinary move in a country where authorities once sought to shield...
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Investigator is hired to probe petition fraud
Volunteers canvassing for a pair of constitutional amendments were caught off guard Friday when a state official approached them and asked to see their ID. The man in question, Patrick Hall, was not a voter looking to sign one of their petitions, but...
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Early voting in state begins
Arkansans trickled into the polls on Tuesday, the first day of early voting in the March 3 primary and nonpartisan judicial election. In some areas, voter turnout was higher than in previous midterm primaries, election officials said, pointing to...
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Sanders signs order to speed up permitting
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order Monday that she said will speed up permitting in Arkansas, cutting “unnecessary red tape.” The executive order requires state agencies to review their processes around permitting and then submit a...
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DHS shutdown lingers; talks at impasse on oversight push
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Lawmakers and the White House offered no signs of compromise Sunday in their battle over oversight of federal immigration officers that has led to a pause in funding for the Department of Homeland Security. A partial government...
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Educators warn state’s kids set to repeat grade
John Crawford is sounding an alarm he fears some parents aren’t heeding: Thousands of third graders in Arkansas could be forced to repeat the grade next school year. A mixed response “tells me that some of my parents don’t understand the...
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Judge favors campaigners on ballot law
A Pulaski County circuit judge ruled Friday that a 2023 state law requiring ballot campaigns collect a minimum number of signatures from at least 50 counties is unconstitutional. The lawsuit, filed by the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, is a...
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D.C. air crash hearing
Key senators and the families of the 67 dead in an airliner collision with an Army helicopter near the nation’s capital are convinced that advanced aircraft locator systems recommended by experts for nearly two decades would have prevented last year’s...
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US reports jobs added in January at 130,000
WASHINGTON — U.S. employers added a surprisingly strong 130,000 jobs last month, but government revisions cut 2024-25 U.S. payrolls by hundreds of thousands. The unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, the Labor Department said Wednesday. The report included...
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NLR authorizes selling $1.5M lot for $200,000
The North Little Rock City Council approved a resolution authorizing an agreement with a $200,000 purchase option for a property in Argenta that the city purchased less than three years ago for $1.5 million. The resolution leases the property at 200...
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Cuba: Fuel unavailable across island’s airports
HAVANA — Cuban aviation officials have warned airlines that there isn’t enough fuel for airplanes to refuel on the island, the latest step in its moves to ration energy as the Trump administration cuts the Caribbean nation off from its fuel...
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Federal official urges measles vaccinations
WASHINGTON — A leading U.S. health official on Sunday urged people to get inoculated against the measles at a time of outbreaks across several states and as the United States is at risk of losing its measles elimination status. “Take the vaccine,...
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Prosecutor, deputy used taxpayer funds for trips
Before admitting to an extramarital affair with his chief deputy, Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Will Jones went on 11 overnight training trips with her at taxpayer expense. On a July 2024 junket, Jones sat beside Kelly Ward on flights to and...
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LR Central students march to the Capitol to protest ICE
The students streamed down the steps of Little Rock Central High School as the bell closed out third block. Ninth grader Joseph Green was one of them — and he carried an American flag over his shoulder. “We’re fighting for Americans,” Green said of...
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Trump’s drug portal launches
NEW YORK — The Trump administration Thursday launched TrumpRx, a website it says will help patients buy prescription drugs directly at a discounted rate at a time when health care and the cost of living are growing concerns for Americans. “You’re...
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Senate Democrats lay out demands for DHS funds
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats said Wednesday that they would put forth legislation by Thursday to codify their conditions for continuing to fund the Department of Homeland Security, moving quickly to lay out their demands for new restrictions on...
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Trump signs end to shutdown
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a roughly $1.2 trillion government funding bill Tuesday that ends the partial federal shutdown that began over the weekend and sets the stage for an intense debate in Congress over Homeland Security...
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Lingering ice disrupts parking in LR, NLR
The good news in Little Rock and North Little Rock is that driving conditions since last week’s snow and ice storm have improved greatly. The bad news is that parking conditions are still a major challenge in some parts of the cities. In downtown...
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Palestinians in Gaza await reopening of Rafah crossing
CAIRO — Palestinians in Gaza watched with hope and impatience Sunday as workers laid the groundwork to reopen the territory’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt, its lifeline to the world. Israel says the crossing is scheduled to resume Monday as its...
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LR park project plans stagnate
When Little Rock officials decided to close War Memorial Golf Course in 2019, golfer Chris Jenkins and others assumed the city would repurpose the course. More than six years later, a series of improvements envisioned to provide new opportunities for...
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DOJ releases new batch of records on Epstein
NEW YORK — The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young...
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Roads improve as ice melts
Arkansas roads continued to improve on Wednesday as sunshine helped melt ice and snow from a winter storm that dumped a foot of snow on some parts of the state over the weekend. It’s got Ouachita County Judge Robbie McAdoo thinking ahead to the Camden...
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State roads still hazard despite melt
Ice and snow will melt during the day Wednesday, but it’s still dangerous on Arkansas roads, particularly at night after it refreezes. A Union Pacific train derailed Monday in Van Buren and an LSU team bus slid off an icy road in rural Polk...
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Winter storm tied to 2 ATV deaths in state
The winter storm that dumped a foot of snow on parts of Arkansas and encased much of the state in ice apparently contributed to two deaths. Both fatalities involved all-terrain vehicles, according to the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management. A...
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State remains blanketed in snow, ice
Snow and ice remain on the ground after a winter storm blew through Arkansas over the weekend, clogging roads and closing businesses and government offices. The storm also brought sub-freezing temperatures, with Little Rock, which had about 11 inches...
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Storm dumps snow, sleet, ice on state
As a winter storm came into Central Arkansas on Friday, 46-year-old Paulisha Thomason faced a choice: go to the North Little Rock Community Center or stay outside amid frigid temperatures and significant snowfall. So Thomason decided to go to the...
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State braces for winter storm
A severe winter storm began moving into Arkansas late Friday, bringing sleet, snow, freezing rain and brutally cold temperatures. Northwest Arkansas could see as much as 15 inches of snow, the National Weather Service said in its Friday afternoon...
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Icy conditions a worry for LR, NLR residents
With much of Little Rock being hilly and snow being relatively rare for the area, the city can be a tough place to drive in the kind of inclement weather forecast for this weekend. Little Rock and North Little Rock both have plans for the snow that...
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Trump outlines his plan for more homeownership
President Donald Trump’s plans for bringing homeownership within reach of more Americans involve pushing for lower interest rates on home loans and credit cards, and banning large institutional investors from buying single-family homes. In his address...
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UA law school students protest
FAYETTEVILLE — University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, law school students protested Tuesday what they contend is the university’s apparent capitulation to political pressure in rescinding an offer for Emily Suski to become dean of the law school. Suski...
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Paying a visit
As communities across the country on Monday hosted parades, panels and service projects for the 40th federal observation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the political climate for some is more fraught with tensions than festive with reflection on the...
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European nations condemn tariff threat over Greenland
BERLIN — The eight European countries targeted by U.S. President Donald Trump for a 10% tariff for opposing American control of Greenland blasted the move Sunday, warning that his threats “undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward...
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Panel OKs voucher funds addition
State lawmakers approved $32 million in additional funding for Arkansas’ Educational Freedom Account program Friday, bringing the total funding for the program to roughly $309.4 million. A divided Arkansas Legislative Council authorized the request by...
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LR data plant confirmed as Google facility
Google is the company developing a $1 billion, 300,000-square-foot data center at the Port of Little Rock, sources confirmed this week. Google has not formally announced its involvement in the project. The internet search giant, a subsidiary of...
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ICE protest continues
A federal agent deploys pepper spray at a protester Tuesday in Minneapolis.
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Federal agents in Minneapolis ram door of home, arrest man
MINNEAPOLIS — Federal agents carrying out immigration arrests in Minnesota’s Twin Cities region already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman rammed the door of one home Sunday and pushed their way inside, part of what the Department of Homeland...
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Minnesota governor insists on state’s role in probe
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota must play a role in investigating the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, Gov. Tim Walz insisted Thursday, pushing back against the Trump administration’s decision to keep the...
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24 Venezuelans said killed in US operation
CARACAS, Venezuela — At least 24 Venezuelan security officers were killed in the dead-of-night U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face drug charges, officials said Tuesday. Also Tuesday, in a late...
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Maduro enters innocent plea
NEW YORK — A defiant Nicolás Maduro declared himself “the president of my country” as he protested his capture and pleaded innocent Monday to federal drug trafficking charges the Trump administration used to justify removing him from power in...
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Rubio restates Venezuela role
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested Sunday that the United States would not govern Venezuela day to day other than by enforcing an existing “oil quarantine” on the country, a turnaround after President Donald Trump announced a day...
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US troops capture Maduro Cotton, Crawford applaud ouster
WASHINGTON — The chairs of Congress’ intelligence committees voiced support for the United States’ military operation against Venezuela, saying the Trump administration made the correct decision to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power. The White...
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