During the 1800s, there were many failed attempts to build a canal across points in Central America. To trade goods from the Atlantic to Pacific, seafarers had to take a treacherous path around the tip of South America, traveling close to the rough seas near Antarctica. Disease, political strife, a lack of funds and other factors thwarted numerous attempts by multiple countries to build a canal that would be far safer and cut in half the travel routes between the two oceans. The builder of the Suez Canal tried for nine years to build one, but gave up after a myriad of diseases killed at least ..read more

The Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame (AWHOF) has released the names of its eighth class of inductees — seven women and one organization – that have made significant contributions to the state and their respective fields and stand as positive examples for women everywhere. The inductees, who will be honored at a special ceremony on Thursday, August 22nd, at the Statehouse Convention Center-Wally Allen Ballroom in Little Rock, are: Contemporary: JoAnne Bush – JoAnne H. Bush began her public service career 51 years ago as City Clerk of her hometown, Lake Village, Arkansas. In 1991, she was sworn in ..read more

The North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce announced it will launch the Arkansas Latino Hall of Fame (ALHOF), a statewide initiative whose mission is “to foster unity, honor cultural richness, and amplify the voices of those whose stories have woven the fabric of our state.” Nominations for the inaugural 2024 Induction Class are now open. The 2024 Induction Ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, October 24th at the Wyndham Riverfront Hotel. The Arkansas Latino Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony hopes to annually bring together leaders, visionaries, and community members to celebrate the achievements ..read more

Since the beginning of time, people have used some form of payment to purchase goods and services. From the creation of the Mesopotamian Shekel around 2,150 BC, society has always endeavored to design payment methods with fair and equitable values. That is the foundation of a free market economy. The evolution of digital payment by debit and credit cards is no exception. For many years, customer traffic within physical bank branches has declined as technology has provided consumers with improved access to their finances. In essence, digital payment has significantly reduced the amount of cash ..read more

A study conducted by The New Teacher Project says Arkansas has the highest teacher pay in the country, when you figure in cost-of-living factors, but the report is hesitant to draw further conclusions about the improvement of teacher recruiting and retention until more data is available on recent initiatives. Released last week, the TNTP report titled “Moving Up: Promising Strategies to Address Teacher Shortages in Arkansas” is a follow up to a 2021 report titled “Missing Out,” which outlined some ways the state could fix its looming teacher shortage. Some of those recommendations were include ..read more

Arkansas should focus on its strengths, particularly its easily accessible and affordable outdoor spaces, the state’s first gentleman said Wednesday (April 24) at Power Up Little Rock, an economic development series presented by Arvest Bank, at the Clinton Presidential Center. Bryan Sanders, who chairs Gov. Sarah Sanders’ Natural State Advisory Council, said as a political strategist, he looks for his candidates’ unique selling proposition. Arkansas should do the same. “What is it that makes Arkansas unique? To me, it’s our outdoors,” he said. “You look around us in this region of the country ..read more

Lee Wells has been selected as the new JET (Jonesboro Economical Transportation) director for the city of Jonesboro. He will assume the job immediately. Wells has served as the interim director of JET since October 2023, supervising daily operations and ensuring adherence to federal, state, and local laws, while building a work environment for its more than two dozen employees in the department. Wells’ experience in transit dates back to his start as a shuttle driver for Victory Shuttle as well as a bus driver for the Paragould School District. “With the highly-anticipated new hybrid trolleys ..read more

Nearly a half million dollars from the Delta Regional Authority will help fund a new initiative led by the Arkansas Rural Health Partnership (ARHP) to train new medical workers in underserved areas of the state. The ARHP health workforce initiative will be funded in late March 2024 with $450,000 from the DRA to support the training of emergency medical service staff at various career stages. “In rural Arkansas, we have to be strategic in how we recruit and retain the health workforce. We realized the only real way to get ahead of this seemingly never-ending curve was to grow our own local heal ..read more

A project team co-led by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center and Go Forward Pine Bluff has been awarded a $548,492 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2024 Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhood Grant Program. The Pine Bluff project is one of 132 planning or capital projects to be funded through $3.33 billion in grant awards in the 2024 program, and the only one from Arkansas. Project partners for “Neighborhood Revitalization through Retrofit of Highway 63B in America’s Fastest Shrinking City: Pine Bluff, Arkansas” also include the City of Pine Bluff, the South ..read more

Several years ago, a trend began to develop. Consumers wanted to know where their food was coming from and how it was produced. A lot of data would have to be collected in order make that process transparent and meaningful, Riceland Foods Vice President of Government Affairs and Sustainability Adam Shea told Talk Business & Politics. After researching an approach, Riceland partnered with Arva Intelligence, a data collection and analytics firm, to “harvest” this agricultural data and turn it into something that farmers could use to improve crop performance and add an income stream through i ..read more