It was a good week for …

TAKING TO THE STREETS. Thousands of new Americans marched in Little Rock and Springdale, among others, to demonstrate the importance of immigrants in daily life.

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NON-SMOKERS. The state Board of Health adopted a tough schedule of fines to apply if businesses or smokers ignore the new state ban on smoking in most public places.

STRAWBERRIES. The Arkansas crop is in. It’s big and it’s good.

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It was a bad week for …

ELECTIONS. The big company, Election Systems & Software, that has a huge contract here and in many other states to upgrade voting machinery, is way behind on its job. Voting troubles seem likely to lie ahead.

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The UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS. A new study shows that Arkansas, which is near the top of the SEC in coaching pay, is near the bottom of the conference of major Southern universities in faculty pay, is top-heavy on administrators and has growing, not decreasing, class sizes. Woooooo, Pig!

The LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT. The School Board appears to have begun a move to limit, if not end, the role of the Classroom Teachers Association in negotiating teacher contracts. Students would be better served by a peaceful healing of the divide between the board and teachers, but that’s not what Superintendent Roy Brooks wants. He prefers unquestioned top-down governance – and the certain bitter harvest.

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LITTLE ROCK. Minutes after city officials held a news conference to outline strategies for coping with a surge in homicides, the police were called to a shooting just a few blocks away, the 25th homicide of the year.

GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE. He cut the Arkansas Times off his office e-mail list for news releases and news conference notice and apparently has instructed staff to no longer answer press questions. The good news is that only eight-plus months remain in the tenure of the incredible shrinking governor, a truly little man.

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