The news from the Arkansas Department of Health is one of the things we didn’t have on our news bingo card for 2023: A locally acquired case of malaria in the Benton area. It is rare, but not unheard-of, for Americans who have traveled abroad to come back with malaria. But now, a person in Saline County – who has not traveled – has come down with a virus that’s typically spread by mosquitoes. Somewhere in the Benton area, there are mosquitoes spreading malaria. The new Arkansas case joins other locally-acquired malaria cases in Texas and Maryland, and five in Florida. Modern Americans have no coping skills for malaria. Malaria can kill you. It’s one of those diseases that if it doesn’t kill you, you wish it did. This case should ring the alarm for people to pay attention to simple anti-mosquito precautions. Use insect repellant. Keep your body well covered in areas with high mosquito populations. The major preventative measures include making sure there’s no standing water around homes. This eliminates mosquito breeding areas. Keeping grass cut and exposing normally damp areas to sunshine also helps. Malaria mosquitoes are something we can see and attack.
We have recorded 1.78 inches of rain in October, raising the year-to-date total to 59.12 inches.
The cold front that pushed through on Thursday has brought us our first real fall weather. Lows will be in the mid 40s through the weekend. Saturday’s high will only reach the mid 60s.
Domtar Corp.’s fluff pulp was named the winner of the 2023 “Coolest Thing Made in Arkansas” contest. The company’s Ashdown plant produces fluff pulp as the absorbency material that goes into baby diapers and bed pads, among other things. Also reaching the final four in the contest was Magnolia-made swirl tables, manufactured at Southern Aluminum.
Our advice to Waldo’s $100,000 Powerball winner: Keep it secret. Keep it safe. But we are tickled to death for you.
This is our weekly reminder to readers and voters that the following South Arkansas members of the Arkansas General Assembly, all Republicans, voted to weaken the state Freedom of Information Act at the insistence of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. They are Senators Steve Crowell, Matt Stone and Ben Gilmore, and Representatives Wade Andrews, Matthew Shepherd, Lane Jean, Sonia Barker, Howard Beaty Jr., Carol Dalby, DeAnn Vaught, Danny Watson, Jeffrey Wardlaw, Richard Womack, Mike Holcomb and Justin Gonzales. The FOI was written in 1967, with support from Republican Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller and a legislature dominated by Democrats, to guarantee your access to information about government operations no matter which political party was in the majority. Last week, we moved State Sen. Jimmy Hickey (R-TexARKana) into the “mostly atoned” category on this vote for being the only one of 135 legislators to ask the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee for a probe of the lectern scandal, and all matters involving Gov. Sanders and her office made confidential by an act passed by the legislature during the session.
Five years ago, we reported that a Lafayette County man who had been missing for a week had been found alive in Missouri. CLICK HERE to see the story.
Bugle call.
Magnolia schools will be closed on Monday for staff development training.
Mike McNeill is publisher and editor of magnoliareporter.com. Email him at news@magnoliareporter.com or call him at 870-904-3865. Opinions expressed in this column are his own.
