Here’s the open line and today’s video. Also:
* LOCKHEED MARTIN: It will protest being beat out on a Pentagon contracto for a new generation of military vehicles by Oshkosh. Lockheed would have built the vehicles in
Arkansas.
* CLEAN AIR: The Sierra Club asked a federal court today for a summary judgment in the lawsuit aimed at cleaning up air in national wilderness areas and other federal land in Arkansas and Missouri. The haze is largely caused by coal-fired power plants. The suit says the EPA hasn’t moved swiftly enough and the state has failed. Glen Hooks, Arkansas director of the Sierra Club, said nothing started happening until the Sierra Club suit, which the attorney general’s office has recently moved to resist. Hooks said without a federal plan such areas as the Upper Buffalo River will lack protect.
* AMENDMENTS: The attorney general today made some small revisions but otherwise approved the form of a proposed constitutional amendment by Frederick Scott of Maumelle to to reduce from three to one the number of constitutional amendments that may be proposed by the Arkansas legislature every two years.
* READING VOLUNTEERS: AR Kids Read is looking for volunteers to train and place with children in the Pulaski public school districts to improve their reading skills. The program has helped hundreds before and has a $70,000 matching grant to help in the work this year. The goal is to find 600 tutors willing to take a one-hour training session and volunteer one hour a week for 10 weeks with students in grades 1-3. Interested, go to www.arkidsread.org.