State briefs

Negligent homicide charges filed in deaths of two children

LITTLE ROCK — Negligent homicide charges have been filed against a 30-year-old man in the deaths of two young children who drowned after the truck they were in rolled into a pond.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports charges were filed against Jonathan Daniel Welborn in the deaths of 2-year-old Sofia Welborn and 6-month-old Zane Welborn.

Welborn and 26-year-old Brittany Nichole Hairston also face counts of first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor.

Saline County authorities say deputies were dispatched Wednesday night to a house where they found a truck submerged with its lights on in a pond across the road. Officials found the children still strapped in their car seats.

Deputies learned that Welborn and Hairston were playing pool inside the house when the truck rolled across the highway and into the pond.

State submits request for hybrid Medicaid plan changes

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas has asked the federal government to approve new limits the state wants on its hybrid Medicaid expansion that would move 60,000 people off the program and impose a work requirement on some participants.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Friday submitted the proposed changes to the program, which uses Medicaid funds to purchase private insurance for low-income

residents. The program was created in 2013 as an alternative to expanding Medicaid under the federal health overhaul.

Lawmakers in May approved the proposed changes, which include lowering the eligibility cap from 138 percent of the poverty level to 100 percent. Those moved off the program would be eligible for subsidies to purchase plans through the insurance exchange. A state Department of Human Services spokeswoman said the agency expects a response within 90 days.