STATE: School safety panel looks at mental health

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Supreme Court has reaffirmed its strict stance on sovereign immunity, ruling for a second time that legislators can’t pass laws giving residents the right to take state agencies to court.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that the state’s high court on Thursday narrowly dismissed a lawsuit against the state.

Two former state employees filed the lawsuit alleging the Department of Veterans Affairs violated the Arkansas Minimum Wage Act by not paying them for working through lunch and while off the clock.

Similar wage allegations

were made in a January case when justices overturned more than 20 years of precedent that had allowed lawmakers to draft exemptions to sovereign immunity.

Justice Rhonda Wood said Thursday the court already determined the minimum wage law violates the state constitution’s sovereign immunity provisions.

Suspect who fled ASP dies in head-on crash

FORREST CITY — Arkansas State Police say a suspect who fled during a traffic stop by a state trooper was killed in a head-on collision in eastern Arkansas.

Troopers say the 44-yearold suspect was pulled over at 10:37 a.m. Friday during a traffic stop on Interstate 40 in Lonoke County. The suspect fled eastbound on the roadway and was pursued until the trooper lost visual contact with the suspect’s vehicle.

About an hour later, the suspect’s vehicle was observed traveling eastbound in the westbound lanes of I-40 and was involved in a head-on collision involving four vehicles in St. Francis County. Officials say the suspect, who hasn’t been identified, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Troopers say that four other people were injured and one was transported by air ambulance from the scene.