It was a good week for …
REGAINING SENSES. At the request of the parents, a federal court in St. Louis dismissed a lawsuit filed against the Little Rock School District over a student’s failure to make the Central High School cheerleading squad.
EQUITABLE TAXATION. Gov. Mike Beebe called the legislature into special session to raise the puny severance tax on natural gas and use the proceeds to improve highways.
EMPLOYMENT. Unemployment in the state fell from 5.6 percent in January to 5 percent in February, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced. It was the largest one-month drop in unemployment in 30 years. No one seemed to know why it happened.
STAYING EVEN. Arkansas’s per capita income kept up with the national average in 2007, but its growth rate of 5.6 percent was higher than that of only two other states, according to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
REMEMBRANCE. At a meeting in Carroll County, Mormon leaders agreed to seek National Historic Landmark status for the Utah site where 120 Arkansans were killed by Mormons and Indians in 1857. Descendants of the victims had for years been seeking such commemoration of the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
It was a bad week for …
FIRE. Five sisters, aged 5 through 13, died in a fire at their Bentonville home. Authorities suspected a faulty space heater.
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS TUITION. The Board of Trustees voted to raise tuition and fees at most campuses, the increases ranging from 3.9 percent at Pine Bluff to 8.6 percent at Fort Smith.
PROCTOR’S PROBATION PLAN. Attorney General Dustin McDaniel issued an opinion saying the Pulaski County clerk’s office had improperly collected fees for a nonprofit probation program founded by Circuit Judge Willard Proctor Jr. Proctor said fees would be collected another way. The program has been troubled by questions of ethics violations.