The Daily Press http://bentoncourier.com http://bentoncourier.com/apfeed.xml--1 Copyright The Daily Press 2013-06-19T14:14:19-04:00 urn:publicid:dailypress.com:80322013-06-19T14:14:19-04:002013-06-19T14:14:19-04:00The Saline CourierBenton, ARNo author availableSaline County Regional Solid Waste Management District board to meet todayNo source availableurn:publicid:dailypress.com:8032Change0Usable2013-06-19T14:14:19-04:00 urn:publicid:dailypress.com:80312013-06-19T12:59:45-04:002013-06-19T12:59:45-04:00The Saline CourierSources say traffic is starting to clear up, since the vehicle has been moved. Bryant, ARNo author availableAccident affects traffic on Interstate 30No source availableurn:publicid:dailypress.com:8031Change0Usable2013-06-19T12:59:45-04:00 urn:publicid:dailypress.com:80292013-06-19T10:07:45-04:002013-06-19T10:07:45-04:00The Saline CourierThe state Board of Election Commissioners on Wednesday was scheduled to review the rules for enforcing the state's voter ID law, which takes effect next year. Poll workers are currently required to ask for identification, but voters can still cast a ballot if they don't show ID.The Republican-controlled Legislature enacted the voter ID law earlier this year when it overrode Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of the legislation. Associated PressArk. panel reviewing rules on Voter ID lawNo source availableurn:publicid:dailypress.com:8029Change0Usable2013-06-19T10:07:45-04:00 urn:publicid:dailypress.com:80282013-06-18T15:37:07-04:002013-06-18T15:37:07-04:00The Saline CourierTony Zerilli told his lawyer that Hoffa was buried beneath a concrete slab in a barn in a field in suburban Detroit in 1975. The barn no longer exists, and a full day of digging Monday turned up no sign of Hoffa. Federal agents resumed the search Tuesday morning.Zerilli, 85, told Detroit television station WDIV in February that he knew the location of the remains, and his lawyer, David Chasnick, said Zerilli was "thrilled" that investigators were acting on the information."This has finally come to an end. It has been an arduous project to get to this point," Chasnick said. "Hoffa's body is somewhere in that field, no doubt about it."Detroit FBI chief Robert Foley made no mention of Zerilli's claims, merely saying investigators had obtained a warrant to search the field in Oakland Township, 25 miles north of Detroit.Zerilli was convicted of organized crime and was in prison when Hoffa disappeared. But he told New York TV station WNBC in January that he was informed about Hoffa's whereabouts after his release. Chasnick said he is "intimately involved" with people who know where the body is buried.Hoffa, Teamsters president from 1957-71, was an acquaintance of mobsters and an adversary of federal officials. The day in 1975 when he disappeared from a Detroit-area restaurant, he was supposed to be meeting with a New Jersey Teamsters boss and a Detroit Mafia captain.Since then, multiple leads to his remains have turned out to be red herrings.In September, police took soil from a suburban backyard after a tip Hoffa had been buried there. It was just one of many fruitless searches. Previous tips led police to a horse farm northwest of Detroit in 2006, a Detroit home in 2004 and a backyard pool two hours north of the city in 2003.Andrew Arena, who was head of the FBI in Detroit until he retired in 2012, said Zerilli "would have been in a position to have been told" where Hoffa was buried."I still don't know if this was a guess on his part. I don't know if he was actually brought here by the Detroit (mob) family," Arena said. "It's his position as the reputed underboss. That's the significance."Keith Corbett, a former federal prosecutor in Detroit who was active in Mafia prosecutions touching on the Hoffa case, said it was appropriate for the FBI to act on Zerilli's assertions."You have a witness who is in a position to know, who says he has specific information," Corbett said. "The bureau has left no stone unturned."Corbett also defended authorities for repeatedly spending time on what turned out to be dead ends.Benton, ARNo author availableAP: Reputed Mafioso tip triggers new Hoffa body searchNo source availableurn:publicid:dailypress.com:8028Change0Usable2013-06-18T15:37:07-04:00 urn:publicid:dailypress.com:80132013-06-18T15:18:39-04:002013-06-17T10:24:12-04:00The Saline CourierRain and thunderstorms are predicted for most of the state. Forecasters say northwest Arkansas should see rain beginning Monday morning, with the front moving to the central and southern parts of the state Monday afternoon and evening.Forecasters say some isolated storms could be severe, but a widespread outbreak isn't expected. The strongest storms could bring heavy rainfall locally to some areas.The rain chances continue Tuesday as the front stalls over the southern parts of Arkansas. The weather service says scattered showers and thunderstorms will be in the forecast for the rest of the week.No dateline availableNo author availableWeather service predicts rainy week for Arkansas No source availableurn:publicid:dailypress.com:8013Change0Usable2013-06-17T10:24:12-04:00 urn:publicid:dailypress.com:80112013-06-15T20:24:44-04:002013-06-15T20:24:44-04:00The Saline CourierNo dateline availableNo author availableLibrary to host Big Movers storytime party No source availableurn:publicid:dailypress.com:8011Change0Usable2013-06-15T20:24:44-04:00 urn:publicid:dailypress.com:80082013-06-15T14:44:07-04:002013-06-15T14:44:07-04:00The Saline CourierMark Begich of Alaska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina will face voters in 2014 for the first time since voting for the Affordable Care Act — also known as "Obamacare" — three years ago. They aren't apologizing for their vote, and several are pursuing an aggressive strategy: Embrace the law, help voters use it and fix what doesn't work."I don't run from my votes," Begich told The Associated Press. "Politicians who sit around and say, 'That's controversial so I better run from it,' just ask for trouble. Voters may not always agree with you, but they respect people who think about these issues and talk about them."That means, Begich said, reminding voters that as a candidate in 2008 he called for prohibiting insurers from denying coverage based on existing health problems, ending lifetime coverage limits and making it easier for workers to leave a job and still have insurance, an option they'll have under new exchanges that consumers can begin using to buy individual policies this fall."There's a lot of good that people will realize as this all comes online," the first-term senator said.Republicans argue just the opposite — that there's a lot of bad in the sweeping law. More than a year before the elections, they use the law to pummel the four Democrats, three of them from the conservative South and all from states that Republican Mitt Romney carried last fall.Begich highlighted that Senate Democrats have voted to repeal parts of the law: paperwork for businesses and a tax on medical equipment. And he promised aggressive outreach to help constituents use the exchanges and other consumer benefits.Landrieu has gone on the offensive, too, criticizing Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and her state's Legislature for refusing federal money to broaden Medicaid insurance for more low-income Americans. Along with the exchanges, the optional Medicaid expansion anchors the law's insurance coverage extension.With those contentious parts slated to begin next year, Obama's signature legislative achievement is all but certain to be central in the 2014 midterm campaign as Republicans look to hang onto power in the House and gain the six seats they need to win control of the Senate for the final two years of the Democratic president's second term.A Republican-aligned outside group already has aired a TV ad in Arkansas deriding Pryor as "the deciding vote for Obamacare" — a label Republicans can apply to any Democrat since the bill passed with the exact number of votes necessary to avoid a GOP filibuster. The North Carolina GOP regularly hammers Hagan on her choice. And Louisiana Republicans recently tried to link Landrieu to comments from the state Democratic Party chairwoman, who suggested that opposition to Obama's law stems from the fact the president is black.Initially, the law's 2010 passage roused tea party activists, who propelled Republicans to a House majority and Senate gains that fall. The lagging economy and anger over bank rescues, stimulus spending and budget deficits also played a role. Reprising the health care critique as part of their 2012 strategy, Republicans couldn't replicate their success: Obama defeated Romney decisively, and every Senate Democrat who voted for the health care law won re-election.Public support for the law as a whole has never consistently reached a majority, according to most polls; opposition in Romney-won states exceeds 50 percent. Yet many individual provisions already in effect, like those Begich mentioned, have more support in polls.The GOP bets that voters' displeasure will intensify in 2014 as more provisions take hold. Besides exchanges and Medicaid enlargement, businesses with at least 50 full-time employees will have to provide insurance coverage and state insurance regulators will enforce coverage minimums. Many market analysts predict premium increases for individual policies."It's not accidental that President Obama scheduled the most popular provisions to be in effect for his election year," argued Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the national GOP's Senate campaign arm. "He's left a lot of 2014 Democrats hanging out to dry with the unpopular provisions."Democrats say Republicans need Obama's health care overhaul only to rally their core supporters, who are particularly important in midterm elections in which the electorate typically is older, whiter and more conservative.Dayspring said the issue wins independents.John Anzalone, a Democratic campaign consultant and pollster, retorted: "What happens when the boogeyman that's promised never comes?"Anzalone, who counts Hagan among his politician clients, said the best counter for vulnerable Democratic incumbents is to use their office actively to help constituents take advantage of the law. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi outlined the same approach in a 78-page memo to her caucus members last month.Democrats also argue that Republicans ignore their own vulnerabilities and individual state dynamics that could complicate a GOP effort to run a national campaign.The law, Begich notes, established long-term coverage plans for Native Americans. "That's important to Alaska" and lingered in Congress for two decades before finding a place in the act, he said.Landrieu can point to bonus payments she negotiated for Louisiana's Medicaid program to make up for money lost because of several hurricanes. Conservative commentators mocked the arrangement as the "Louisiana Purchase," but Jindal, who asked for the extra money, gladly used it to balance Louisiana's budget in multiple fiscal years.Hagan and her North Carolina colleagues paid special attention to pharmaceutical companies that develop drugs called "biologics." They negotiated 12-year monopolies for those drugs, a win for the biomedical sector that dominates the "Research Triangle" around Raleigh.Veteran North Carolina political observer Gary Pearce, a Democrat, said Hagan also could benefit from the fact that leading GOP candidates expected to challenge her come from the new legislative supermajorities that have pursued a long list of conservative priorities, including rejecting Medicaid expansion that North Carolina hospitals wanted. A Republican primary fight among top statehouse Republicans, Pearce said, could leave Hagan "in a good position to paint Republicans in a right-wing corner."In Louisiana, the GOP may find its health care expert in Rep. Bill Cassidy, who spent several decades as a hospital physician in Baton Rouge and has served among leading GOP congressional critics of the law. But as a congressman, Cassidy voted with his caucus to repeal the law in full more than three dozen times.Justin Barasky, Senate Democrats' campaign spokesman, said those votes give Democrats fodder to argue that the GOP candidate sided with big insurance companies. The same scenario could apply in Arkansas if Rep. Tom Cotton, who's expected to run, ends up as GOP nominee.Landrieu also can use Jindal as a GOP counter on health care. Now chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Jindal has dismantled the state hospital system that Louisiana State University runs, closing some facilities and contracting with private firms to run others. Voters have not embraced the changes.Arkansas Republican strategist Alice Stewart acknowledged that her party has had only mixed success using health care as a national issue, but she said Pryor's eventual GOP opponent can make it resonate."It's not just a generic criticism of Obamacare," she said. "This is part of explaining that Mark Pryor goes to Washington and doesn't represent the values of this conservative state." She recalled then-Rep. John Boozman ousting Sen. Blanche Lincoln in 2010 after her vote for the law."Voters here remember that going from Blanche to Sen. Boozman was an important step," Stewart said. "Mark's in the same boat."No dateline availableAssociated Press2014 Senate Democrats firm up health care support No source availableurn:publicid:dailypress.com:8008Change0Usable2013-06-15T14:44:07-04:00 urn:publicid:dailypress.com:80072013-06-15T20:18:39-04:002013-06-15T14:41:00-04:00The Saline CourierHaskell, Ark.No author availableHaskell Historical Society meeting set for TuesdayNo source availableurn:publicid:dailypress.com:8007Change0Usable2013-06-15T14:41:00-04:00 urn:publicid:dailypress.com:79942013-06-14T13:09:31-04:002013-06-14T13:09:31-04:00The Saline CourierMayors Against Illegal Guns, a group co-founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is holding the rally Friday at Allsopp Park. The event comes as the group is airing ads in Arkansas criticizing Pryor for voting against the background checks measure.The rally will feature survivors of gun violence.No dateline availableNo author availableGun control group to hold rally in Little Rock No source availableurn:publicid:dailypress.com:7994Change0Usable2013-06-14T13:09:31-04:00 urn:publicid:dailypress.com:79912013-06-14T10:50:12-04:002013-06-14T10:39:28-04:00The Saline CourierBenton, ARNo author availableBook-to-Movie Club meets Saturday at the libraryNo source availableurn:publicid:dailypress.com:7991Change0Usable2013-06-14T10:39:28-04:00