SUMMARY: At intersections, Arkansas State Police Captain Brad Land clarifies common driving mistakes. When turning left, drivers must always yield the right of way, a rule often misunderstood. Additionally, drivers should turn into the closest lane—right turns go into the nearest lane, and left turns should not cross into the right lane. Failing to follow these can lead to crashes or tickets. Drivers should also be cautious with green arrows and red lights, knowing who has the right of way. Captain Land recommends reviewing state guidelines for a refresher on these basic traffic rules to ensure safer driving.
One of the most misunderstood rules of the road is who has the right of way when turning at a light. Arkansas State Police are helping clear up the confusion.
Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva plans to recommend a Level 5—Intensive Support classification for the Blytheville School District due to ongoing academic and administrative challenges. The district struggles with declining enrollment, low student achievement, and leadership instability, with no permanent superintendent since last August. Many teachers are unlicensed, though on licensure pathways, and state support has been extensive. Internal dysfunction and a lack of governance plague the district, prompting Oliva to seek a special board meeting for community input. A Level 5 classification could lead to sanctions including state takeover, aimed at addressing persistent failures.
Arkansas’ education secretary notified the state education board Thursday of his intent to recommend a Level 5 – Intensive Support classification for the Blytheville School District due to ongoing academic and administrative challenges.
Education Secretary Jacob Oliva said, with the board’s support, he’d like to schedule a special board meeting in Blytheville in the next two to three weeks so they can hear from community members and formally recommend increasing the district’s current Level 4 classification to the highest level of state support.
“This is a school district where there’s opportunities for students and families to be very successful. There is no reason that this school district should continue to be the failure factory that it is,” Oliva said. “And it’s becoming more and more apparent the reason they’re in the state they are is because they do lack governance and leadership.”
The State Board of Education visited Blytheville in August after being alerted to concerns with the Northeast Arkansas district last July. The district has struggled with declining student enrollment over the last decade, according to Deputy Commissioner Stacy Smith, who provided an overview of Blytheville’s situation to the board at its monthly meeting Thursday. The district has 1,260 students this year, about half of its 2014 enrollment.
Students are struggling academically, according to last year’s statewide testing scores, which showed more than half of students in English language arts and science and 76% of students in math scored in the lowest achievement level, Smith said.
About half of Blytheville’s teachers are unlicensed, but the education department has helped them all get on licensure pathways, she said.
Arkansas Department of Education and Crowley’s Ridge Education Service Cooperative staff have provided about 100 and 185 days, respectively, of onsite support and training, Smith said.
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There’s been a “dance of inconsistency” at the district, which was making progress but now appears to be backsliding, she said. While staff members seem receptive to making changes, Smith said there’s dysfunction between the central office and the Blytheville School Board because “we don’t have the right people in either place.”
Since 2018, the district has had two full-time superintendents and three interim superintendents. Jennifer Blankenship was appointed as the current interim superintendent on June 12, 2024. She also served in the interim role from July through December 2021.
After the previous superintendent was officially terminated last August, the board reviewed candidates in late November and decided to keep Blankenship. A consulting firm hired in February presented two of 13 applicants in late April, but the board declined to interview them and reposted the position.
“Our biggest concern at this point is we are in May and we have no superintendent, and we have walked with this district for an entire year providing lots of support,” Smith said.
Though the board unanimously agreed to reject the superintendent candidates, Smith said there’s a “lack of coherence” and dysfunction within the board.
“When we were there before, much of the public comment in the meeting was about the dysfunction of the board, it wasn’t about what was happening in the school,” she said. “It was about this public image of the board.”
State education board members expressed support for Oliva’s request for the special meeting, including Blytheville native Randy Henderson who said he was “very disappointed” in the situation. Fellow board member Jeff Wood cautioned his colleagues that upgrading Blytheville’s classification to a Level 5 isn’t something that should be taken lightly.
“Level 5 intervention rarely has the celebratory results that we’re looking for on the backside of Level 5; it is not an answer in itself,” Wood said. “There is still a long road of work ahead even after Level 5 consideration. I would hope for a strong plan, decisive plan, quick action plan because one thing I learned in the Level 5 I lived through is just the slow process of it didn’t work.”
Wood was appointed in 2016 to serve on the Little Rock School District’s Community Advisory Board when ADE took over that district. When the district was returned to local control in November 2020, Wood was elected to serve on the district’s new school board.
The process of considering the classification change must begin with written notification to the Blytheville School District about the intent to recommend the Level 5 classification, Smith said. The district has the right to appeal and ask for a hearing, or the board can make the recommendation without a hearing, she said.
If the classification is approved, the board can determine what sanctions go along with it, such as dissolving the local board or approving a state takeover of the district.
Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
The article appears to report on the educational challenges faced by Blytheville School District and the state’s response without overtly promoting a particular political agenda. The tone of the article is primarily factual, focusing on the issues of academic performance, administrative difficulties, and lack of leadership within the district. While it highlights the state’s efforts to intervene with increased support, the language used, particularly the criticism of the district’s governance, reflects a concern for systemic improvement. The report is neutral, but the implicit critique of local leadership and emphasis on state intervention leans slightly toward a Center-Left perspective, focusing on governmental responsibility to correct perceived failures.
www.thecentersquare.com – Tim Clouser | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-05-08 13:53:00
The article reports on a subcommittee hearing where Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was questioned by Senator Patty Murray about the alleged politicization of federal disaster relief funding. Murray raised concerns that Republican-led states were receiving quicker disaster relief responses than Democratic-led states, citing the denial of disaster aid to Washington state and other Democratic-led areas. Noem denied any political bias, insisting that funding was not being prioritized based on political affiliation. The article touches on FEMA’s handling of disaster relief under President Trump’s administration and the President’s proposed budget cuts, which include reductions to FEMA programs.
(The Center Square) – As red and blue states face rejection amid recent disasters, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem denied claims on Thursday that her department prioritizes relief in Republican-led areas.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., begged the question during a subcommittee hearing on the Department of Homeland Security’s 2026 budget request. Much of it centered on immigration enforcement, but Murray grilled Noem over the alleged politicization of federal relief funding.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which supports Americans in the face of natural disasters, falls under the oversight of DHS. Since President Donald Trump took office, FEMA has denied funding requests from at least one Republican-led and two Democratic-led states.
“Disaster relief has been politicized,” Murray claimed Thursday. “DHS is making it a lot harder to qualify for relief, something people in my home state of Washington are experiencing firsthand.”
FEMA rejected Washington state funding last month without providing a clear reason why.
Gov. Bob Ferguson released a statement that the state had met all the criteria after a windstorm hit Washington state last November. According to reporting by KUOW, an NPR station out of Seattle, FEMA has also denied relief funding to Arkansas, California, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
“Multiple requests from governors have been rejected in recent weeks, including a request from our state, and we haven’t been given any response about this,” Murray said. “I’m watching this, and I’m thinking, has President Trump directed you to prioritize funding for Republican states?”
“Absolutely not,” Noem immediately responded.
Murray claimed that Republican states are getting responses to their requests much faster than Democratic-led states, which “are being forced to wait. Trump has repeatedly criticized FEMA and suggested that the federal government should give the funding directly to the states.
The president’s “skinny budget” proposal for next year asks Congress to cut non-defense spending by $163 billion, a 22% reduction, some of which targets “wasteful and woke” FEMA programs.
“Have you directed your staff to prioritize funding to Republican-led states over Democratic states?” Murray pressed again.
“Absolutely not,” Noem told Murray. “There will not be any politicization of support, relief, FEMA assistance or grants given based on politics. Every single person will be treated the same; it’ll be very different than the Biden administration.”
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Right
This article reports on a tense exchange between U.S. Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, a Republican, during a subcommittee hearing on FEMA’s handling of disaster relief requests. The article sticks primarily to factual reporting, detailing the accusations made by Murray and Noem’s denials. The language used in the article is relatively neutral, recounting specific actions and claims without overtly taking sides. However, the mention of President Trump’s criticism of FEMA, as well as Noem’s responses defending the department’s actions, aligns the article slightly with a Center-Right perspective due to the overall framing of Noem’s defense and the portrayal of Democratic-led states’ complaints as politicized. There is no clear endorsement of either party’s perspective, but the piece subtly highlights the ongoing tension between political factions on the issue of disaster relief funding, with a slight inclination toward portraying Noem’s stance more favorably.
Arkansas lawmakers passed a handful of bills during the 2025 legislative session to address environmental concerns, such as the application of industrial biosolids to farmland and a moratorium on medium and large swine farms in the Buffalo River watershed.
Rep. Brad Hall, R-Van Buren, rallied legislators to pass Act 1009 overwhelmingly in both chambers, after months of complaints by Crawford Country residents of noxious odors from a waste lagoon and fields where Denali Water Solutions, a waste disposal company, stores and applies waste from chicken processing plants to farmland as fertilizer.
The bill requires the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment’s Division of Environmental Quality to levy the maximum penalty allowed under state law when those permitted to apply industrial biosolids either over-apply or apply industrial biosolids near a rain event.
It also authorizes DEQ to write rules specifically “to authorize no-discharge land application permits of industrial waste.”
Hall said he made it clear to company representatives that the odor from its operations, which he described as smelling “like death,” was unacceptable to him.
“I’m tired of people living like that,” Hall said. “It’s ridiculous. I mean, it’s obscene. They [Denali] don’t have to live like that where they live, so they shouldn’t expect everybody else to live like that.”
Hall’s bill went through numerous substantive amendments. Its final form, he said, was prompted because Denali promised it would shut down the open-air waste lagoon in Crawford County by Jan. 1, 2026.
A Denali spokesperson said they “have not committed” to a specific shutdown timeline.
“The Crawford County storage facility remains a critical storage asset, particularly during periods of inclement weather when land application is restricted,” Denali spokesperson Nancy St. Pierre wrote in an email. “Denali will continue to use the site through the remainder of 2025 as we work to continue developing alternative storage capacity and long-term infrastructure solutions throughout the region.”
St. Pierre said obtaining permits and permit modifications from DEQ were “critical” in order to shut down the lagoon.
Hall said “you better have your popcorn ready” if Denali doesn’t abide by the agreement he said they made and the situation has to be addressed again during the 2027 legislative session.
DEQ fined Denali $19,800 earlier this year after numerous incidents where the company was documented applying waste to farmland within 24 hours of a rain event — defined as when there is a 50% chance or greater of precipitation.
Such application practices are prohibited in the company’s permits. A letter last year from Denali to state regulators stating its intent to violate its permits to apply during those periods while self-imposing requirements on itself earned a sharp rebuke from the head of DEQ’s Office of Water Quality, Stassie Wassel, who wrote that Denali had “a duty to comply” with the requirements “explicitly set forth” in its permits.
“DEQ does not recognize the legitimacy of ‘self-imposed requirements’ and will not rely upon any assertions from the May 8 letter as mitigating factors for future enforcement actions relating to non-compliance on behalf of Denali,” Wassel wrote in a letter dated May 2024.
Buffalo River permit moratorium
Perhaps the most visible piece of environmental legislation that made it into law this year was Senate Bill 290, now Act 921.
SB 290 in its original form would have stripped away a decade-old moratorium that prevented medium and large concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, from obtaining certain water permits necessary to operate within the Buffalo River watershed, while setting new hoops for agencies to jump through if one wanted to institute a watershed-based permit moratorium in the future.
Aided in their cause by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Buffalo River advocates expressed relief that the final form of Act 921 ultimately preserved the moratorium for the Buffalo watershed in its current form.
They also said that it never should have reached the 11th hour the way it had.
“We were pretty crestfallen after the three heads of three state agencies got in there and had their say, and in spite of that, the committee still voted to support SB 290 before it was amended,” said Gordon Watkins, president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance. “And then we were, needless to say, we were happy to find out that the governor subsequently stepped in and twisted some arms and amended it to a more acceptable level.”
Even with the protections for the existing moratorium, Watkins said his organization is still opposed to the legislation as a whole. He said he felt “sorry for the rest of the state that’s going to be under these onerous requirements” if other watersheds end up needing a similar moratorium in the future.
Thompson also emphasized that his organization was “extremely grateful” to Sanders for her role in preserving the existing swine farm moratorium.
“It was a tough position for her to take,” Thompson said. “Still though, the fact that the agencies will have to jump through additional hoops down the road is unfortunate, but we did get a big part of what we wanted, so we were pleased. We owe it to the governor.”
Other environmental laws
Senate Bill 427 / Act 945 of 2025: Sponsored by Sen. Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, and Hall, the act creates the Arkansas Wind Energy Development Act, “to minimize any adverse effect upon the environment” or upon Arkansans’ quality of life as a result of wind turbine construction, operation and decommissioning. It creates a requirement that the construction, operation or redevelopment of a wind turbine be permitted by the Arkansas Public Service Commission and local governments if there are specific local regulations regarding wind turbines.
House Bill 1681 / Act 812 of 2025: Sponsored by Rep. DeAnn Vaught, R-Horatio, and Sen. Joshua Bryant, R-Rogers, the act creates a matching grant program for water and sewage utilities for use in infrastructure and improvement projects. Vaught has been vocal about the deterioration of utility infrastructure, especially in rural areas of the state.
Senate Bill 421 / Act 578 of 2025: Sponsored by Hester and Rep. Howard Beaty, Jr., R-Crossett, the act reauthorizes the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission to borrow money via general obligation bonds “for the development of water, waste disposal, and pollution abatement projects.” The measure will require approval by voters either during the 2026 general election or via a special election called by the governor before bonds can be issued.
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Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This content presents a focus on environmental legislation and the challenges faced in regulating industrial practices, emphasizing accountability and environmental protection. It highlights legislative efforts to address pollution, regulate industrial waste, and protect natural resources, portraying government actions and environmental advocates in a favorable light. The article criticizes corporate non-compliance and underscores the importance of environmental safeguards, aligning with themes commonly associated with center-left perspectives on governance and environmental policy. However, it maintains a balanced tone without strong partisan language, positioning it moderately on the center-left spectrum.
