A federal court Monday granted Michael Maggio's motion seeking to withdraw his previous request to get out of prison while he challenged his bribery conviction.

The former circuit judge's motion, filed in mid-December, came amid reports that he had been seen in Little Rock and amid speculation that he had begun cooperating with federal investigators in the hope of getting a reduced prison sentence.

The Arkansas Ethics Commission received a record 146 citizen complaints filed against candidates and others during the 2018 election cycle, a 45 percent increase over the 2012 election cycle, an official said Friday.

The increased workload has pushed the agency to "the breaking point," commission Director Graham Sloan warned.

A federal grand jury has indicted former state senator and lobbyist Gilbert Baker on conspiracy, bribery and wire-fraud charges in an alleged scheme involving a nursing-home owner and a now-imprisoned judge.

Baker, 62, of Conway was the only defendant named in the nine-count indictment, handed up Thursday and released Friday.

The charges, which include seven wire-fraud counts, resulted from a criminal investigation that led to former Circuit Judge Michael Maggio pleading guilty to bribery in January 2015. Maggio, 57, later tried unsuccessfully to withdraw the plea and began serving a 10-year prison sentence in July 2017.

COLLIERVILLE, Tenn. — A troubled nursing home in Collierville is getting more complaints but is also seeing some changes with a new owner.

Poplar Oaks Rehabilitation and Healthcare has been fined in the past after regulators found, among many things, the nursing home didn’t property report abuse allegations.

Jo Ann Henderson said she doesn’t have fond memories of being in Poplar Oaks.

“You feel like you’re in prison or something, I don’t know. It’s just not a good feeling," she said.

Henderson said in her month-long stay last year, workers were rough with her and often ignored her.

COLLIERVILLE, Tenn. — A woman contacted police about suspected abuse after her 63-year-old mother was rushed to the hospital overnight from a nursing home with a history of problems….

"Looks like a black eye, like somebody just punched her in the eye," Bernard said, describing what her mother looked like. "And now it's infected and stuff and she can't open it. So I'm like, it's like real bad."

But what Bernard says she found strange was this message left by the nursing home roughly an hour before, saying the situation was not an emergency.

That didn't make sense to Bernard since her mother wound up in the ER, and later, admitted to Methodist Germantown.

By: J.D. Simkins 

There, Derwin Spratling received the shocking news: His uncle needed surgery to remove dead tissue from his genitals, which had been infected with gangrene.

The doctor said "he had never seen anything like that before, especially in this day and age,” Derwin Spratling told the Naples Daily News. “It really freaked us out.”

“Our campaign is disappointed to see Issue 1 taken off the ballot. While we respect that the court had no choice but to remove it because it was written so poorly and was designed to force the voters into one vote on multiple issues, we had hoped that it would stay on the ballot so Arkansans could speak loud and clear to the special interests pushing Issue 1.” said Chad Gallagher, campaign consultant for Protect AR Families. “In recent independent, third-party polling Arkansans were opposed to Issue 1 by a 2-1 margin. We are encouraged that every day working Arkansas families, faith leaders, veterans and others all recognized that Issue 1 was bad for Arkansas because it puts a one size fits all arbitrary price tag on human life and it favors special interests over people. We are so proud of Arkansans for standing up against the swamp politics of corrupt special interests. While the campaign for votes in November ends, we will remain vigilant in working with Arkansans to protect citizen rights and Arkansas values.”

CBS News 8/15/18

A new report found glyphosate, a weed-killing chemical that some health authorities link to cancer, in a number of popular breakfast foods and cereals marketed to children. The study by the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) discovered trace amounts of the most widely used herbicide in the country in oats, granolas and snack bars. Thirty-one out of 45 tested products had levels higher than what some scientists consider safe for children…

"We don't think it does enough in particular to protect children," Faber said. "It is time now for them to step up and do their jobs to ban glyphosate," said Zen Honeycutt, who heads Moms Across America, a group formed to raise awareness about toxic exposures. Her family switched to an organic-only diet after her three sons developed allergies and other health problems. "We want to trust that what is in the grocery store is safe and the shocking reality is that in many cases it's not," Honeycutt said.