Other days

100 YEARS AGO May 15, 1920

• R.K. Sutton, white, 818 West Capitol avenue, and Robert Huff and Ernest Davis, negro taxicab drivers, were arrested last night on charges of violating federal liquor law. Sutton is charged with having liquor, which does not bear the government stamp, while the negroes are charged with bootlegging. According to the officers making the arrests, they bought liquor from both Huff and Davis, while Sutton supplied the negroes. When the negroes told where they got the moonshine, the officers went to Sutton’s home and, after searching the house went to the barn, where they say they found 20 gallons of “mountain dew.”

50 YEARS AGO May 15, 1970

PINE BLUFF — Jefferson County authorities Wednesday discovered about 150 marijuana plants in an abandoned barn in the western section of the county. The discovery was made a fourth mile from where officers Tuesday found an acre of marijuana plants. Sheriff E.F. (Buck) Oliger said the newly found plants were less than two weeks old. Workmen under the direction of the Pine Bluff-Jefferson County Health Department sprayed chemicals on the marijuana field Wednesday to destroy the crop.

25 YEARS AGO May 15, 1995

have much in common — except for anger at a legal system they believe treats them like second-class citizens. “I would have done something illegal to find my mother if I had to,” insists Chris Persons, 28, who found his mother seven years ago after a three year search. “In my opinion, adoption ought to be in the public domain it’s not national security.” Persons is one of a growing number of adoptees who aggressively oppose adoption laws they claim are unfair. Those laws make it nearly impossible for courts in most states, including Arkansas, to release identifying information about birth families. A 1985 Arkansas law makes it possible for adult adoptees and biological family to meet, but only if they express mutual interest beforehand. Adoptees say that’s not enough.

10 YEARS AGO May 15, 2010

• The Internal Revenue Service is auditing more than 30 colleges and universities around the country after sending surveys to 400 public and private colleges and universities in October 2008. “These examinations focus primarily on unrelated business income and executive compensation issues,” the IRS said in a statement accompanying a roughly 75-page interim report on the surveys. Some schools did not respond to the surveys, which asked for information from 2006, and are among those being audited, the IRS said.