Construction has begun on the two projects that will complete the Bella Vista Bypass. State and local officals broke ground on the final 2.4 miles of the interstate that will take drivers to the Missouri line. That should be completed by the end of 2020. An interchange that will replace the roundabout on Walton Boulevard should be done in 2022.

The owners of Jen's Kitty Rehab, a nonprofit cat rescue, and professors at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith have teamed up to count the number of stray cats in Fort Smith. Their goal is to figure out how big the problem is, so they know what kind of resources it would take to trap, neuter and release them. A volunteer seminar is going to be held Friday, Oct. 18, at noon in room 101 of the UAFS Math and Sciences building.

Some entities in Arkansas, including the state Department of Emergency Management, are participating in the Great Central ShakeOut Earthquake Drill Thursday morning.

Harold Cruse was born in Petersburg, Va. in 1916 and would become one of the most important Black historians of the 20th century. He served in the Army during World War II, and attended City College of New York for a short time. In 1967, he published The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual , a collection of essays that criticized Black and Jewish intellectuals of the time. The attention from the published work gained Cruse a teaching job and later a full professorship at the University of Michigan

We continue our series of conversations about health and aging with Jon Rubenow, an associate professor psychiatry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' Northwest Arkansas campus. He explains seasonal affective disorder.

The next seven days offers a wide variety of live music, from instrumental surf-rock and funk to rockabilly, jazz and more. Wednesday, Oct. 16 Lost in the Attik, Honey Collective, Makin' Loaf at George's Majestic Lounge (Fayetteville) - 8:30 p.m. Nadia Larcher w/ Ensemble Ibérica at Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall (Fayetteville) - 7:30 p.m. Ben Harris at Six Twelve Coffeehouse (Fayetteville) - 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17 Flatland Cavalry at George's Majestic Lounge (Fayetteville) - $15.00, 9:30 p.m

Come October, Ozark wild black walnut trees shed large bright green nuts, which, when hulled, can fetch up to $16 per hundred pounds at regional collection sites including Curran Feed Store in Gentry. The whole nuts are then transported to Hammon Products Company in Stockton, Missouri for shelling, packaging and world-wide sale.

The Washington County Quorum Court's County Services Committee voted Tuesday to move forward on securing funds for a new $8.5 million emergency communications system. The current system is obsolete and at risk for failure, says John Luther, county emergency services director.

The new four-story, multi-million dollar Cherokee Nation outpatient health center, set to open in phases Oct. 21, is located on the W.W. Hastings Hospital campus in Tahlequah. The new faciltiy will offer critically needed health services to hundreds of thousands Cherokees and other tribal members.

John Brummett, political writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette , talks with Roby Brock, from our partner Talk Business and Politics , about the weeks that were for the Arkansas legislature and Razorback football.