Austin Gelder

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Legislature reins in LEARNS voucher spending on horseback lessons, other extracurriculars

1 week ago | arktimes.com | Austin Gelder |Benjamin Hardy

“Educational Freedom Accounts,” the propagandic euphemism for Arkansas school vouchers, will be slightly less free under a bill on its way to Gov. Sarah Sanders’ desk. Senate Bill 625 passed the full House Wednesday morning with 74 votes, after which the Senate voted to concur in a minor amendment. It will tweak the Arkansas LEARNS Act, the 2023 law championed by Sanders that created the voucher program.
Best bites of March

3 weeks ago | arktimes.com | Rhett Brinkley |Stephanie Smittle |Daniel Grear |Benjamin Hardy |Austin Gelder

As March comes to a close, we’re looking back at some of the best restaurant dishes the Eat Arkansas team came across over the last four weeks. Send us your favorite bites and food selfies over the last month as we plan our April dining schedules. Pad thai curry with yellow curry (off menu) at Bangkok Thai CuisineI’ve been eating at Bangkok Thai Cuisine in the River Market’s Ottenheimer Hall for years, alternating mostly between their pad thai and yellow curry, depending on my mood.
Arkansas Times Recommends: Apple Bottom Edition

2 months ago | arktimes.com | Daniel Grear |Milo Strain |Austin Gelder |Stephanie Smittle

Arkansas Times Recommends is a series in which Times staff members (or whoever happens to be around at the time) highlight things they’ve been enjoying this week. “ekekekkekkek”Does the word “ekekekkekkek” mean anything to you? In short, it’s the internet’s best attempt at putting into language that super strange chirpy rattle chatter thing that cats get up to whenever they’re looking out the window and a bird suddenly comes into view.
Sorry, Jimmy! It's Trump time in the USA

Jan 15, 2025 | arktimes.com | Austin Gelder

It’s customary for flags to fly at half-staff for 30 days upon a president’s passing, and one might even expect extra days to be tacked on for Jimmy Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at the perfect age of 100. But sullen displays are not how we’re making America great again around here. RIP, Jimmy, but it’s Trump’s turn now. After the president-elect reportedly complained about Carter posthumously stealing his thunder with those doleful, low-hanging flags, MAGA nation made a change of plans.
Fayetteville native and UAPB alum Leon Jones III lands big-deal Schwartzman Scholarship

Jan 15, 2025 | arktimes.com | Austin Gelder

Leon Jones III, former class president at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff who went on to study media advocacy at Northeastern University in Boston, now heads to Beijing on a prestigious scholarship aimed at training the next generation of global leaders. Jones, whom we proudly claim on the Arkansas Times writers roster, is among this year’s class of 150 Schwarzman Scholars.
Gov. Sanders makes cameo in NYT story about attacks on the free press

Jan 14, 2025 | arktimes.com | Austin Gelder

While attacks on the First Amendment from a second Trump regime remain hypothetical at this point, I think we all have a pretty good idea what we’re in for. Expect the president and his supporters to claim that a mythical monolith comprising all the newspapers and cable TV they don’t like is conspiring to bring down America and freedom, using only the power of fake news.
Sanders' first ad for 2026 governor's race is 100% fake news

Jan 13, 2025 | arktimes.com | Austin Gelder

Facts, shmacts, who cares? Chumps who stick to verifiable truths on the campaign trail are chumps who lose. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders knows this better than anyone. A DJ for many of Trump’s first-term hits, Sanders has gone on to spin plenty of fibs of her own. Case in point: Sanders dropped her first TV spot of her 2026 gubernatorial campaign Monday, 30 seconds of apocryphal nonsense we can debunk in three easy steps.
Another Arkansan aims for DNC leadership

Jan 6, 2025 | arktimes.com | Austin Gelder

Quintessa Hathaway, who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. French Hill for his seat in Congress in 2022, has thrown her name into the hat to become chair of the Democratic National Committee. She’s the second Arkansas Democrat with designs on a national party leadership role. Chris Jones, Arkansas’s Democratic nominee for governor who lost to Sarah Sanders in 2022, is competing for a vice chair position.
Big Pic: Can you dig it?

Jan 6, 2025 | arktimes.com | Austin Gelder

Roughly 15 years in the making, Arkansas’s own big dig project is set to be all finished and ready for action by the time the legislative session starts Jan. 13. First conjured in the aughts, the subterranean passageway between the Arkansas Capitol and the Multi-Agency Complex building (aka Big MAC) was nixed by Gov. Mike Beebe in 2009 for being wildly expensive and completely extraneous. How hard is it really to walk 50 yards from door to door?
Heartfelt remembrances pile up for beloved woman murdered on New Year's Day

Jan 3, 2025 | arktimes.com | Austin Gelder

Mary Ann Hansen, the victim of a deadly New Year’s Day stabbing, is being remembered by former students and fellow thespians, singers and runners. Hansen died Wednesday in an incident on South State Street in Little Rock. Details are still scant, but Hansen and another woman were stabbed, and a blood-covered suspect was fatally shot by police after he refused to drop his knife. The other victim’s condition and identity has not been publicly shared.