Michael Hibblen

A federal judge has ruled a drug recovery program and a company owned by an Arkansas state lawmaker violated labor laws by requiring participants to work full-time without getting paid. It’s considered an alternative to jail time, but U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks said the two entities manipulated the labor market for their own benefit.

Arkasnas Business reporter Mark Friedman wrote about that in this week's issue:

Over the next week we’ll learn who will be running for political office in Arkansas during the 2020 elections. The candidate filing period begins Monday at 12 p.m. in the state Capitol Rotunda, running through Tuesday of next week.

Among the races to be decided next year are all four of the state's representatives in the U.S. House, as well as Sen. Tom Cotton’s seat. In the Arkansas legislature, 17 seats in the Senate will be decided along with all 100 members of the House.

Arkansas civil rights attorney and state lawmaker John Walker has died. He was 82. The Pulaski County Coroner’s Office says he died Monday at his home in Little Rock. A cause was not immediately reported.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has been awarded a $5.6 million grant to advance technology with the potential to regenerate bones. The funding from the U.S. Department of Defense goes toward work on an implantable medical device known as NuCress scaffold, which has been in development since 2006.

It holds the promise of helping people with what have been considered untreatable injuries experience bone regeneration in places where parts of a bone are missing. In particular, researchers say it could help people avoid having limbs amputated because of injuries.

A new report from the state says Arkansas is making major progress toward improving its child welfare system, which drew praise from Gov. Asa Hutchinson Wednesday. A few years ago the state had a disproportionate number kids in foster care, workers with unmanageable caseloads and partners who said they weren’t getting the support needed.

The 2019 Arkansas State Fair kicks off Friday, running through Sunday, Oct. 20. At the fairgrounds along Roosevelt Road in Little Rock, rides are being assembled and game booths set up. General Manager Doug White says several new rides will be among the more than 60 rides on the midway.

Last year, six days of rain hurt attendance, he said. The fair typically averages 400,000 to 450,000 people each year. This year, White is hoping to exceed that.

As President Donald Trump’s administration blocked a U.S. diplomat from testifying in the impeachment investigation regarding Ukraine, Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson reiterated Tuesday that there are "legitimate questions that have been asked based upon a whistleblower’s complaint."

Hutchinson served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1990s and was one of the Republican impeachment managers who led the investigation of President Bill Clinton.

Private colleges and universities in Arkansas are having to change their strategies for recruiting students amid a reduction in prospective students. A number of factors are forcing the schools to rethink their business plans and marketing. The top factor is simply that Americans are having fewer children.

Arkansas Business Editor Gwen Moritz wrote about that for a story in this week's issue:

The new executive artistic director for the Arkansas Repertory Theatre is getting settled into his new position. In January it was announced that Tony Award-winning Broadway producer Will Trice, who is a Little Rock native, had accepted the position. But he had to spend several months in New York wrapping up affairs there before moving back to Arkansas.

A two-day hearing begins Thursday at 8 a.m. for former Little Rock police officer Charles Starks who is appealing his termination for the shooting death of a suspect in a stolen car. On the eve of the hearing, relatives of Bradley Blackshire delivered an envelope to City Hall which they said contained petitions signed by over 2,000 people who are opposed to Starks being reinstated.

A new Arkansas law taking effect is allowing local governments, agencies and schools to partner with third-party companies to building solar projects. Arkansas Business reporter Kyle Massey writes in this week’s issue about what’s coming together to make this possible.

Rick Vance is regional director for Entegrity Energy Partners LLC of Little Rock, one of several Arkansas solar providers riding the wave as local governments, agencies and schools plunge into a new solar mainstream.