Arkansas

It started with a teacher who saw an opportunity to do a living history project and wound up volunteering to keep up the site at Amache for 30 years. Today, historians, survivors, and archaeologists are fighting to preserve the history there.

Ruth Coker Burks has no medical training but has spent decades caring for people with AIDS. "I've buried over 40 people in my family's cemetery," she says, "because their families didn't want them."

The election is still 15 months away, but the negative ads are already flying as Sen. Mark Pryor tries to hold on to his seat. His GOP challenger, Tom Cotton, is a freshman congressman who is hoping to help the Republicans take control of the Senate.

During the first half of 2013, more than a dozen states enacted 45 separate provisions restricting access to abortion. High-profile battles continue in Texas and North Carolina. The restrictions range from bans to stricter regulations of clinics.

Florida's Department of Transportation ordered a new sign for Interstate 95. Both times the word Florida was spelled wrong. The sign manufacturer in Arkansas made the mistake.

News outlets in Louisiana and Texas report that the wife of the man who had been a "person of interest" is under arrest. They were reportedly going through a divorce. She had told authorities her husband might have sent the letters to President Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

There have been tornadoes in Missouri and Arkansas. More severe storms are expected in parts of the southern mid-Atlantic and Southeast. Meanwhile, Minnesota and other places in the upper Midwest are bracing for another foot of snow. Where's spring?

More than half of the nation's pipelines were built before 1970. In fact, ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline, which burst Friday in Mayflower, Ark., is 65 years old. According to federal statistics, pipelines have on average 280 significant spills a year. Most aren't big enough to make headlines.

The pipeline ruptured in the town of Mayflower on Friday, causing the evacuation of 22 homes. Crews have recovered about 4,500 barrels of oil and water, Exxon said Saturday. Officials are also monitoring air quality.

Arkansas is proposing to enroll people newly eligible for Medicaid in the same private insurance plans available to individuals and small businesses. It's caught the attention of several other Republican-run states that had been holding out on the Medicaid expansion.