It was a good week for…

ARKANSAS STATE FOOTBALL. The Red Wolves defeated the Kent State Golden Flashes in the GoDaddy.com Bowl 17-13. ASU finished its season 10-3.

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A MEA CULPA. Attorney General Dustin McDaniel was contrite in a press conference on Tuesday during which he took questions about his admission of an extramarital affair with Hot Springs attorney Andi Davis. Key point, from McDaniel: “I continue to hear that rumors are swirling about whether some other shoe will drop. There is no other shoe to drop. There are no other women. No litigation was ever compromised. No rules of professional conduct were violated. No state resources, dollars or personnel were used for personal purposes.”

THE CASE FOR MEDICAID EXPANSION. The RAND Corporation released a study, commissioned by the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, on how implementation of the Affordable Care Act will affect the Arkansas economy. The main takeaways: Various health program expansions will save 2,300 Arkansas lives a year. The act will mean 6,200 jobs, a half-billion in economic stimulus annually and insurance for 400,000 more Arkansans, against the alternative possibility of a half-million losing coverage.

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SEN. JEREMY HUTCHINSON. He settled his self-reported campaign finance violation with the state Ethics Commission. He got a $500 fine and a warning letter, but no criminal prosecution, for the unreported expenditure of at least $2,700 in campaign money on his former girlfriend, Julie McGee.

NORTH LITTLE ROCK. New North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith announced plans to settle a legal fight between the city and the North Little Rock School District over a Tax Increment Finance District former Mayor Pat Hays tried to create to annex school property taxes for downtown development.

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It was a bad week for…

REP. TOM COTTON. In his first week as a U.S. congressman, he voted against a bill authorizing flood insurance payments to Hurricane Sandy victims and, in the course of making a CNN appearance to express his opposition to President Obama’s nomination of Republican Chuck Hagel as Defense secretary, Cotton allowed that he not only supported the war in Iraq but that he still believes the “evidence is inconclusive” on whether Iraq and Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11. That notion has been ditched by all but the most deluded.

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