Polymarin Composites of the Netherlands announced plans to locate a blade manufacturing facility in the old Levi Strauss facility off I-530 south of Little Rock. The company has committed to investing $16 million to renovate the structure and said it plans to employ up to 630 people within four years.

Wind Water Technology, a Polymarin supplier, will also be locating a facility in the same building. It plans…[more]

LITTLE ROCK - After heavy spring rains and flooding delayed planting, then hurricanes damaged crops late in the season, the weather has generally been good as Arkansas farmers begin wrapping up a stressful year. They’re working long hours to get crops out of the field.

“We’ve had really good weather, and farmers have started picking cotton hard and heavy,” said Dr. Tom Barber, extension cotton specialist with…[more]

By negligently discarding plastic items, especially plastic water bottles, fishing gear and plastic bags, people are unknowingly causing the deaths of millions of mammals, fish, birds and reptiles each and every year. We defile the face of the earth with plastic refuse creating waterway contamination. Since the invention of plastic earlier this century, it has become a popular material used in a wide variety of unique and innovative applications. Plastic…[more]

The Little Rock Zoo is proud to announce that reptile keeper Randal Berry will appear on Monday night’s episode of “Extreme Forensics” at 9 p.m. CST on the Investigation Discovery channel.

The episode, entitled “Silent Witness,” features a segment with Berry about the mysterious death of a Scottish business man named Garrick Wales who was found dead in his car parked near the Little Rock National Airport in…[more]

Arkansas State Auditor Jim Wood has kicked off the state’s annual Great Treasure Hunt, a quest to find the owners of unclaimed property collected by the state.

Last year alone, Arkansas officials received $23 million in unclaimed property but the total amount held by the state is closer to $115 million. Wood said that 54,000 Arkansas residents have been added to the roll of people who have money…[more]

Chesapeake Energy Corp. will be transporting 375 million cubic feet of natural gas from its Fayetteville Shale operations to a distribution site in Mississippi. Chesapeake signed a 10 year deal for a 187 mile long pipeline to be known as the Fayetteville Express Pipeline.

The deal is pending regulatory approval, but Chesapeake expects to begin using the 42 inch pipeline by late 2010 or early 2011, immediately after…[more]

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas has increased its sustainability score in just two short years from a D to a B minus, according to the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, an organization that evaluates campus and endowment sustainability activities at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. In the Southeastern Conference, Arkansas was tied for second along with Auburn University in scoring. Only the University of…[more]

LITTLE ROCK– Friday, in the face of Hurricane Ike, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel raised concerns about price gouging at the gas pumps. In an effort to address that concern, General McDaniel asked Arkansans to send his office photographs and other documentation of what they believe to be unreasonable gas prices. Arkansans quickly responded to the call to action.

Since Friday, the Attorney General’s office has received over 1450…[more]

Ike delivered a fresh blow to Arkansas producers trying to pick up the pieces left by the remnants of Hurricane Gustav.

“We need some sun,” said Scott Monfort, extension plant pathologist for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Rice, corn and some soybeans are ready to be harvested, but Ike “is doing nothing but slowing that down.”

Hurricane Ike was downgraded to a tropical storm…[more]

Arkansas, the nation’s number one rice producer with about 1.3 million acres planted this year, could have up to a fourth of its crop damaged as remnants of hurricanes Gustav and Ike blew through the state.

Gustav affected large swaths of rice fields south of Interstate 40, while Ike seemed to save its worst impact north of that highway.

According to rice experts at the University…[more]