Other days
100 YEARS AGO April 12, 1924
■ A contract for the asphalt paving of the new Main Street bridge, to be laid after the street car tracks are put down, was awarded yesterday to the Southern Construction Company of Little Rock, and tentative plans for the inscription on the memorial tablet to be placed on the bridge were agreed on at a meeting of the Board of Commissioners. The contract price is about $11,000.
50 YEARS AGO April 12, 1974
LUXORA — Thirty armed police officers — resembling an undersized infantry platoon — captured four escapees from the Mississippi County jail here and freed a hostage they were holding in a field near the jail today. Mississippi County Sheriff George Ford led the police officers as they moved in on the armed escapees at 11:40 a.m. today. Ford said that officers fired at least once as they moved in on the men, severely wounding at least one of the escapees. Police and the escapees had faced each other across the open field at a standoff since the 7:30 a.m. jail break. Using a tobacco can fashioned into a knife, five men escaped from the jail this morning and took jailer Thomas Dunn as hostage.
25 YEARS AGO April 12, 1999
■ Almost a decade after Jacksonville city employees’ pay last triggered an evaluation of salaries, a consulting firm is tackling the issue again. Representatives
from Public Sector Personnel Consultants of Scottsdale, Ariz., began orientation meetings with city employees Tuesday to explain the study and goals, said Steven Ward, city personnel director. The $40,000 study aims to ensure that salaries compete with those of similarly skilled municipal employees and employees elsewhere, Ward said. He said it will take two to 21/2 months to complete. The City Council last year approved three police pay initiatives that voters endorsed in the Nov. 3 general election. The council extended the pay benefits to other city employees.
10 YEARS AGO April 12, 2014
■ Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel filed notice Friday that the state will appeal a federal judge’s March 14 ruling striking down the part of a state law passed last year that would have outlawed most abortions at or after 12 weeks of pregnancy. … U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright’s ruling nullified one-third of the law, Act 301 of 2013, by declaring the 12-week ban “clearly unconstitutional,” but she said the two remaining parts of the law could stand on their own. One part requires women seeking an abortion in Arkansas to undergo an abdominal ultrasound before the procedure to see whether a fetal heartbeat can be detected. If a heartbeat is detected, the other part requires doctors to notify the woman in writing, along with an estimate of how likely the fetus is to survive if not aborted.