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Second wave of overnight winter weather covers Arkansas roadways early Sunday | Arkansas Democrat Gazette

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Second wave of overnight winter weather covers Arkansas roadways early Sunday | Arkansas Democrat Gazette


Check the Arkansas winter weather page for complete storm coverage.

Snow and ice continued to blanket roadways in Arkansas as a second wave of winter weather moved through the state Sunday, halting some of the road-clearing progress made on Saturday.

“We did lose a little bit of ground overnight,” Dave Parker, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Transportation, said in a text to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Sunday morning. “The second wave gave us another heavy amount of sleet and snow, almost ast much as the first round. So I think it is fair to say any progress we made yesterday has been slightly lost.”

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Winter weather layers were still active on the IDriveArkansas map as of 7 a.m. Sunday.

“Overnight, the temps dropped and we received more sleet and freezing rain across the state,” a Facebook post from the Arkansas Department of Transportation said Sunday morning. “Please be careful and stay home if you can.”

Parker said the department’s teams still had good morale and were pushing forward to make good progress Sunday.

“We are not going to see much sunshine until Wednesday, and that will be very little, so melting will be slow,” he said. “We are using mostly super brine today.”

Super brine is a combination of salt brine and beet juice, Parker told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette earlier this week. Salt brine lowers the freezing temperature to about 25 degrees, whereas beet juice can help bring the freezing temperature even lower. He said that they can adjust the ratio of beet juice so the brine works in single digit temperatures.

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“Our goal is to have a passable lane on the primary routes,” Parker said.

Accident numbers on state roads have been low, according to the Parker. Sunday morning there was an accident on Interstate 40 near West Memphis involving a tractor trailer, “but that’s been about it thus far,” Parker said.

Overnight accumulation

More snow, sleet and some freezing rain fell across most of the state overnight Saturday and early Sunday morning.

Colby Pope, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in North Little Rock, said that from midnight to 6 a.m. Sunday, an additional 1.8 inches of snow and sleet combination fell at the office. That brings the total amount of winter precipitation fallen at the office to 10.6 inches.

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“During round two of the winter storm, a lot of places experienced mostly sleet with some snow also falling in parts of Northwestern Arkansas,” Pope said Sunday morning. Some areas in northwestern parts of the state saw an additional inch of snowfall.

For Central Arkansas, forecasters are mostly looking into sleet accumulation, which cut into snowfall totals, he said.

“We’d rather have sleet than freezing rain,” the forecaster said. “it does a number on the roads but it doesn’t stick to powerlines like freezing rain does.”

While the weather office had yet to receive reports about overnight snow and sleet totals from Central Arkansas as of 7 a.m. Sunday, Pope said it was likely residents in the area saw another inch or two overnight.

“There might be slightly higher accumulations in areas a little farther south and east because of a small burst of snow that fell Saturday evening that missed most of the Metro area,” he said.

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Pope said they hadn’t received any reports yet Sunday morning from southern Arkansas but forecasts showed the area had mostly received freezing rain, with highest amounts from Saturday falling around a quarter of an inch.

As it gets closer to noon on Sunday, Central Arkansas is expected to see less than an inch more of sleet and snow accumulation.

“We will continue to see this second wave impacting Arkansas as more sleet falls. The winter precipitation is forecast to turn into snow briefly before the system moves out of the state, Pope said.

Pope said the system is forecast to end abruptly as it moves out of the state, especially in Central Arkansas, by early Sunday afternoon.

Temperatures are expected to remain below freezing, the forecaster said.

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“We are only getting temperatures up into the middle teens by noon. We’re going to be lucky to get to 19 degrees, almost 20 degrees today,” he said.

Pope said the state might not see temperatures above freezing until Tuesday, and even then it might be only for a few hours.

Over 4,400 customers in Arkansas were without power, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks over 1.6 million customers in the state.

Over 2,000 of the reported outages are in Miller County and just over 1,000 outages were reported in Little River County as of 7 a.m. Sunday.

Pulaski County was only reported to have 88 outages as of Sunday morning.

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Arkansas to honor Nolan Richardson with statue outside arena

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Arkansas to honor Nolan Richardson with statue outside arena


Former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson, who led the Razorbacks to the 1994 national title, will be immortalized with a statue outside Bud Walton Arena, the school said Wednesday.

Richardson was on the court at halftime of No. 20 Arkansas’ 105-85 win over Texas in the team’s regular-season home finale Wednesday night when athletic director Hunter Yurachek surprised him and told him the school had commissioned a statue to commemorate his achievements.

Per the school’s announcement, work on the statue is set to begin soon.

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“Coach Richardson’s impact on the game of basketball and our state is immeasurable,” Yurachek said in a statement. “He represented Arkansas with a toughness and intense work ethic that endeared him to our fans while changing the lives of numerous athletes, coaches and staff under his direction. His ’40 minutes of Hell’ changed college basketball and led to the 1994 national championship that changed Arkansas and our university forever. Coach Richardson will stand tall outside the arena for the rest of time.”

Richardson coined the phrase “40 Minutes of Hell” in reference to the ferocious, full-court defense his Arkansas teams played during his tenure (1985-2002). Between Arkansas and his first Division I job at Tulsa, Richardson amassed 508 wins (389 with the Razorbacks), reached the Final Four three times and secured Arkansas’ only national title.

Richardson also was a member of the Texas Western (now UTEP) teams that preceded the school’s victory over Kentucky in 1966, when five Black players started an NCAA championship game for the first time and won. That game paved the way for Black players to compete at schools that had previously rejected them.

Richardson, one of six SEC coaches to win a national title since 1990, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.

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After Wednesday’s game, current Arkansas coach John Calipari joked that he’s contractually obligated to clean the statue once it’s finished.

“Which I will do in a pleasant way because I love it,” he said. “He’s been so good to me since I’ve been here.”

Richardson and Arkansas were not on good terms when they divorced in 2002. But the two sides have repaired the relationship over the years. The university renamed the floor at Bud Walton Arena “Nolan Richardson Court” in 2019. Richardson praised Calipari’s hiring in 2024 after he left Kentucky, and he has been around the program since Calipari’s arrival.

“He should have been had a statue, I think,” said Trevon Brazile, who finished with 28 points on his senior night Wednesday. “They won the national championship.”

Added Darius Acuff Jr., who finished with 28 points and 13 assists against the Longhorns: “It’s great to see that for sure. Coach Richardson is a big part of our team. He’s been to a couple of our practices, so it’s always good to see [him]. He’s a legend.”

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Autopsies rule Arkansas mothers death a suicide; twin children’s deaths homicides

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Autopsies rule Arkansas mothers death a suicide; twin children’s deaths homicides


According to our partners at 40/29 News, autopsies show that Charity Beallis died by suicide, and her six-year-old twin children died by homicide.

Beallis and the children were found on December 3, 2025, in their home in Bonanza. All three had gunshot wounds.

Records show that Beallis and her husband were in the process of divorcing when the murders happened. 40/29 reports that Beallis’ son has asked that their divorce be considered final, while her husband, Randall Beallis, has asked the court to dismiss the divorce proceedings.

The news release listed the following evidence:

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— An examination of the transcripts of the deposition of Mrs. Beallis in the divorce/custody case and the final hearing on the case on 12-2-2025, reveal that she wished to be reconciled to her estranged husband, which did not happen. Mrs. Beallis, after being represented by four different attorneys, represented herself in the contested divorce/custody hearing. At the conclusion of the hearing, Mrs. Beallis was ordered to begin joint custody of her children with her estranged husband.

–Mrs. Beallis’ estranged husband was a driver of a Tesla electric vehicle at that time. Tesla has compiled location data on Tesla vehicles, and according to the information provided by Tesla, Mrs. Beallis’ estranged husband’s vehicle was not near the residence in Bonanza on the night in question. Also, the estranged husband’s phones did not “ping” any of the cell towers proximately related to Ms. Beallis’ location.

–Information from the home security alarm company shows the alarm was deactivated by Mrs. Beallis by her phone (she had exclusive access to the security system) at around 10 pm on the night in question. Even though deactivated, the alarm company was able to provide information showing no doors or windows to the home were opened during that time. When law enforcement arrived after 9:30 am on 12-3-2025, there were no doors or windows open, and they had to use a key to enter the home. SCSO rigorously tested the functioning of each door and window and found them to be operating properly.

The court released an order on Wednesday stating that it does not have jurisdiction to rule on those motions regarding the divorce. Beallis’ body has been released to her son, while the children are with Randall Beallis.



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Frightening times for Hannahs in Israel | Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

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Frightening times for Hannahs in Israel | Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette


Wally Hall

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Wally Hall is assistant managing sports editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. A graduate of the University of Arkansas-Little Rock after an honorable discharge from the U.S. Air Force, he is a member and past president of the Football Writers Association of America, member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, past president and current executive committee and board member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, and voter for the Heisman Trophy. He has been awarded Arkansas Sportswriter of the Year 10 times and has been inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame and Arkansas Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame.

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