Daniel Breen

The five members of the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to accept an outside consulting group's scores for marijuana dispensary applications. 

With two new commissioners present, the commission effectively ended two years of regulatory setbacks that waylaid the implementation of the state's medical marijuana amendment, which Arkansas voters approved in Nov. 2016. 

With cultivation licenses already awarded, officials say medical cannabis will likely be available for purchase by the state's nearly 7,000 approved patients by April of 2019. 

Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are partnering to fight package theft in Arkansas this holiday season.

Dubbed "Operation Porch Pirate," police forces in Little Rock, Sherwood and Fort Smith are teaming up with federal prosecutors and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to seek federal charges for mail thieves.

That could mean up to five years in federal prison with no parole, according to U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas Cody Hiland.

The Arkansas Department of Human Services says it's expanding an existing "helpline" to allow certain recipients of the state's Medicaid expansion program to report their 80 hours of work or work-related activity per month. 

DHS announced the change Wednesday after more than 12,000 enrollees in the program, known as Arkansas Works, lost their health insurance coverage for failing to comply with the work requirement for three consecutive months. 

Beginning Dec. 19, beneficiaries can report work hours and seek help with reporting by calling (855) 372-1084.

Companies selected to grow medical marijuana in Arkansas are on track to have their product ready for consumption by next April.

Representatives of the five companies approved to cultivate medicinal cannabis spoke to members of the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission at a commission meeting Wednesday. Of the five companies, two say they expect to harvest their first batch of marijuana by early spring.

In March 2017, Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced his intention to seek a waiver allowing a work requirement for certain recipients of the state's expanded Medicaid program, known as Arkansas Works. The requirement, because of which over 12,000 Arkansas Works recipients have lost coverage so far this year, is the first of its kind in the country. 

When he's not on the air as co-host of the country's most-listened-to radio news program, NPR's Steve Inskeep is something of a historian.

His 2015 book Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and A Great American Land Grab focuses on the contentious relationship between Cherokee leader John Ross and the nation's seventh president, all while analyzing the conditions leading up to the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the subsequent Trail of Tears.