Christie Matthews

Beginning Monday, the Jonesboro Police Department will launch a tough new speed enforcement blitz for the city under the tagline: “Obey the Sign or Pay the Fine.” The intensified enforcement effort against speeding drivers underscores the severity of the problem both locally and across the nation.

During the “Obey the Sign or Pay the Fine” blitz, officers will intensify enforcement of posted speed limits in Jonesboro. We’ll stop and ticket anyone caught speeding—especially in residential and high traffic areas where most of our speed-related crashes occur.

During this enforcement blitz, officers will be out targeting and ticketing speeding drivers. Our goal is to save lives and we’re putting all drivers on alert - the posted speed limit IS THE LAW. When it comes to speeding: “Obey the Sign or Pay the Fine.”

Allure magazine recently invited their Facebook friends to submit beauty questions to be answered by Taylor Swift! Here’s a couple:

How do you get your red lipstick to stay on all day?—Olga Navarro Davis

“There are tricks I’ve learned from makeup artists on shoots. They put on the red lipstick, then blot it with a tissue, then they put powder over the tissue and sort of press it onto your lips. Then re-apply. It turns it into a stain that lasts much longer.”

What is your nighttime beauty routine?—Sammi Jo

“I take my contacts out, wash my face, put on night cream, and put on my glasses so I can watch Friends. Sometimes I forget to wash off my makeup. Okay—almost all the time.”

Join me for the FOA Follies. July 8th at the Foundation of Arts. It’s an event for the whole family featuring performances by seasoned local performers vying to ” win” the Follies by recieving the most votes of $1 each and raising the most money to support the programming of the foundation. I’ll serve as the emcee that night and our very own Skeeter Nash will be performing. Don’t miss it!

John Rich is the newest Celebrity Apprentice! Donald J. Trump announced Rich as the winner of NBC’s “The Celebrity Apprentice” over runner-up Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin on Sunday night’s LIVE season finale in New York City. John received the $250,000 prize for his charity, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The show’s charity earnings for the season totaled $3,120,852 – the largest amount ever raised by a TV series.

As if it’s not enough torture already to go to a high school reunion, imagine having Carrie Underwood at yours. I mean, no matter how gorgeous of a dress you bought, how high your heels were, how much you spent on highlights and lowlights, how much weight you lost, how natural your spray tan looked and how perfect you made your post-high school life sound, it would be really tough to measure up to Underwood at a reunion. She went back to Oklahoma to attend the 10-year Checotah High Class of 2001 (where she was the salutatorian) reunion this past weekend, and some of her classmates posted pictures on Twitter. One’s a class photo and another shows Underwood with a friend.

You know how sometimes when you see someone scratching , suddenly you find yourself scratching too? Well, you’re not the only one.

The reason I bring this up is because I sat with my daughter last week as she had allergy testing done by our friend Dr. Snodgrass “ The Sneeze Doctor” at the Allergy Clinic.

They marked the inside of her arms with a purple marker and then they proceed to do little pricks of numerous things that she could be allergic to. Then you sit and wait to see what causes a mosquito bite type bump. The thing is, you can’t scratch no matter what. Just watching those bumps made me scratch my own arms.

I know, I was a big help. LOL ! In an effort to help keep HER from scratching we decided to Google and see if there was science to back up the reason I was scratching or if I was just having a mother/daughter connection.

Well guess what, we found that according to a study at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina, itching really CAN be contagious.

The researchers found that when you see someone scratching, your brain instinctively becomes hypersensitive . . . and thinks you have an itch too. So, before you know it, you start scratching.

It’s the same way that yawns are contagious. When you see someone yawn, your brain thinks you’re tired too, so you also yawn. So the next time you see someone scratching, see if you get the urge to scratch too!

I am a real believer in hand sanitizer, washing hands, Chlorox wipes and Lysol. Just ask anyone I work with or who lives with me. I am the “germ police”. I don’t think its an OCD thing. I don’t have to wash my hands 100 times a day, but I do wash them atleast 20 probably. I loathe being sick. When one of my kids get sick and I have to set foot in a doctors office, I literally break out in hives. I envision little germs in the air just waiting to get in me. Don’t laugh… it just truly grosses me out! So, when I read stories like this I want to share.

You know how most grocery stores have a little container of sanitizing wipes next to the grocery carts? For heaven’s sake…. use them to wipe down your cart’s handle before you shop.

We all know grocery cart handles are filthy. But according to a new study by the University of Arizona, they’re even filthier than you could’ve imagined.

In their study, they found that 50% of shopping carts had E. COLI on the handle. In case you’re a little fuzzy on the math there, that’s one out of every two carts. It gets worse: 72% of the shopping carts they tested, quote, “contained a marker for fecal bacteria.”

While some strains of E. coli are basically harmless, other ones can make you legitimately sick. And even if you wash your hands, the E. coli from your cart is still getting awfully close to your food.

Charles Gerba is a professor of soil, water, and environment, and led the study. He says, quote, “There’s more [bacteria] than you find in a supermarket’s restroom.

“That’s because they use disinfecting cleaners in the restrooms. Nobody routinely cleans and disinfects shopping carts.”

So, the next time you grab a cart… remember this story. Most every store has those containers right as you walk in. USE THEM!!! Thank you!