Other days

100 YEARS AGO

Jan. 14, 1921

■ Legislation which will inflict a severer punishment for robbery than for first degree murder is proposed in the measure introduced in the Senate yesterday by Senator W. A. Jackson to make robbery punishable by death. The measure defines robbery as the willful and felonious act committed by an armed person who enters any bank, banking institution, place of business or dwelling house at any time of day or night and forcibly takes away property.

50 YEARS AGO

Jan. 14, 1971

■ The fight over congressional redistricting in Arkansas came into the open Wednesday but it seemed likely that a redistricting plan being pushed by United States Representative Bill D. Alexander of Osceola, reportedly with the acquiescence of the other congressmen, would be enacted. Alexander’s plan was filed in both houses of the General Assembly. However, Senator Bill Walmsley of Batesville filed an alternate plan that was identical to the other version except that it would assign Arkansas County rather than Walmsley’s home county of Independence to Alexander’s First Congressional District.

25 YEARS AGO

Jan. 14, 1996

■ Legislators, political scientists and political consultants believe Arkansans want an improved highway system. But no one is ready to predict that an alternative to Gov. Jim Guy Tucker’s highway construction proposal will be offered soon. On Tuesday, 87 percent of Arkansans voted against Tucker’s plan to issue $3.5 billion in bonds. The governor said those bonds would have financed $4.8 billion in highway construction. Approval of the bond issue would have triggered a half-cent increase in the state sales tax and a 6.5 percent excise tax on gasoline at the wholesale level.

10 YEARS AGO

Jan. 14, 2011

FAYETTEVILLE — Administrators and the faculty at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville want new ways to keep students from cheating in online courses, faculty members said Thursday. The search for improvements comes after university administrators investigated a cheating case in the fall of 2009 in which several students were accused of paying another student to take their online math quizzes. “We’d be stupid not to look and try to use technology for teaching,” said Tom Senor, who teaches an online philosophy course. This fall, the university offered more than 125 online courses. A push is under way to expand the course offerings, but many professors remain wary.