Interstate shooting leaves one dead, two injured in NLR

NORTH LITTLE ROCK — One teenager was killed and two others were injured early Saturday in an interstate shooting in North Little Rock. At approximately 3:45 a.m., Arkansas State Police (ASP) responded to Arkansas Children’s Hospital, where a 20year-old Little Rock man had transported three teenagers who had been shot while traveling in the vehicle he was driving westbound on Interstate 40 near Protho Junction.

A 17-year-old Little Rock boy who had been shot multiple times succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead. An 18-year-old and a 17-year-old had also been shot. One was treated and released and the other remains hospitalized. Two other passengers, 16 and 18, were not injured.

The deceased will be transported to the Arkansas State Crime Lab. The investigation is ongoing.

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LAKELAND, Tenn. — On Dec. 26, a joint law enforcement operation apprehended Tiffany Baldwin, 38, in connection with a homicide in Lakeland, Tennessee. The arrest occurred in Earle while executing a search warrant in the 100 block of State Street.

The operation involved the ASP, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office Fugitive Apprehension Team and the U.S.

Marshals Service. Baldwin was taken into custody without incident around 1 p.m.

She faces charges of seconddegree murder related to the death of Timm Rudolph, 58, from Lakeland, which occurred on Dec. 19 at a campground in Lakeland.

Baldwin has been transported to the Crittenden County Detention Center, where she awaits extradition.

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ASP CID investigates crash and gunfire after high-speed pursuit

LITTLE ROCK — The ASP Criminal Investigation Division (CID) is investigating a high-speed pursuit and shooting that occurred on Dec. 27 at approximately 4:30 a.m. in Little Rock.

The incident began when troopers located a Dodge Ram 1500 that had previously fled from Little Rock Police officers. The suspect vehicle fled east on Baseline Road at speeds exceeding 100 mph.

The pursuit ended when the vehicle crashed at the intersection of Baseline Road and Arch Street Pike.

As troopers approached the vehicle and ordered the occupants to exit, a single gunshot was heard from inside the truck cab. Troopers found the driver, a 28-year-old man from Heber Springs, with what is believed to be a selfinflicted gunshot wound.

The passenger, a 44-year-old woman from Little Rock, sustained injuries from the crash. Both occupants were transported to UAMS for medical treatment. The driver is reported to be in critical condition, while the passenger remains hospitalized.

During a search of the vehicle, investigators discovered a 9mm handgun, an AR-15 rifle, and illegal narcotics.

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Troopers seize 248 pounds of illegal marijuana in Christmas

Eve traffic stop

LONOKE — On Dec. 24, around 6:50 p.m., ASP troopers stopped a white 2021 Ford F150 on Interstate 40 near the 165-mile marker in Lonoke County for a traffic violation.

Troopers searched the bed of the pickup and discovered 207 vacuum-sealed packages

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of illegal marijuana in six large suitcases. Each package weighed approximately 1.2 pounds for a total weight of 248 pounds.

The driver, Xiong Ren, 53, of Chickasha, Oklahoma, was arrested and transported to the Lonoke County Detention Center, where he was booked on felony charges of possession with intent to deliver and unauthorized use of another person’s property to facilitate a crime.

Ren told investigators he was traveling to Wisconsin for Christmas.

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Arkansas rice suffers low milling yields after strong start

LITTLE ROCK — With only 20 minutes to summarize the Arkansas research findings and rice crop outlook for those in attendance, Jarrod Hardke, extension rice agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, began his address to the 2024 USA Rice Outlook Conference like so: “Profitability isn’t in the 2025 vocabulary,” Hardke said.

The conference, held at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock on Dec. 8-10, came at the end of a season for Arkansas rice growers that was as baffling as it was disappointing. As early as March, the state was flirting with record early planting across more than 1.4 million acres of rice, bumping up against Arkansas’ generally acknowledged capacity for the crop.

“We had the majority of the rice crop in the ground by the third week of April. It was incredible,” Hardke said. “But around that third week of April, periodic rains began to develop and continued all the way into June, and everything stalled out.”

As growers struggled to take their rice plants to flood in May, many struggled to fall back from “plan A” to “plans B, C and D, just trying to deal with wet soils and get things done,” Hardke said.

Grower sentiment hit another high point in June and July, when the rains receded and temperatures rose. Concerns that the crop might have lost significant nitrogen fertility due to the saturated soils proved dissipated, the higher nighttime temperatures appeared not to have impeded grainfill and weed escapes proved minimal.

“By July, we felt this was a really good-looking crop, and the conditions were really good,” Hardke said “We were on track for an early planted crop to be harvested early.”

While one Arkansas grower did manage to claim bragging rights for kicking off his rice harvest on July 31 — an unusual feat in any year — a temperature drop led many of the state’s rice producers to pause.

“The crop just didn’t look ready to many growers,” Hardke said.

“It was another full week before most producers began their rice harvest,” he said.

“Frankly, more growers should’ve started on that earlier date. Grain moisture began to fall, and the big story became that Arkansas had planted so much rice that we wouldn’t be able to harvest it fast enough.”

The rising August temperatures, combined with the rapidly falling grain moisture, led to lower milling yields.

Hardke said he began receiving calls from growers and consultants early in the harvest, looking for answers and hoping for a turnaround.

“We thought we were beginning to see a little improvement as we neared September, but over Labor Day, we saw a weather pattern shift, bringing rains through the state,” Hardke said. “That began to cause some rewetting and drying of the grain that was out there, which started pulling milling yields down further.”

When remnants of Hurricane Francine pushed through the Mid-South, making landfall over Louisiana on Sept. 11 shortly before being downgraded to a tropical storm on Sept. 12, Arkansas growers still had about one-third of the state’s rice crop in the ground. While Arkansas was spared the worst of the storm’s direct effects, the wind and rains throughout the Delta region only compounded Arkansas rice’s woes.

“The milling yields on everything after the hurricane came through were just junk,” Hardke said. “Ridiculously bad. We’re now looking at what will be one of the lowest milling yields ever recorded in Arkansas, if not the lowest we’ve ever had.”

Ironically, forecasts for overall rice yield and production are at near-record levels.

While U.S. Department of Agriculture numbers haven’t been finalized, Hardke said he believes the state’s grain yield will be very near those of 2021, when average yield exceeded 7,630 pounds per acre across more than 1.2 million harvested acres. With such widespread low milling yields, however, the profitability of the 2024 crop remains in doubt.