100 years ago
April 24, 1919
BENTONVILLE -- The trial of the Frisco railroad for failure to maintain the train service required by an act of the legislature between Rogers and Bentonville and other points on the Grove (Okla.) branch came up Monday in Circuit Court here. The road was indicted on two counts and was fined $100 on one count and the other postponed until May 21, on the railroad's promise that the service will be resumed. If the service is resumed, it is said that the fine will be withdrawn, and if the service is not resumed the road will be fined on the second indictment for every day that the service has not been given. There is now maintained on the branch one mixed train each way and the uncertainty of the time of arrival or departure is not only an inconvenience, but the mail service for Bentonville and other points is seriously hampered.
50 years ago
April 24, 1969
• Sparks from an acetylene cutting torch ignited some tar and debris about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday at the construction site of the Union National Bank Building on Louisiana Street between Fourth and Capital streets, causing lots of smoke but not much else. Little Rock Fire Chief Jack Davis said a worker was using the cutting torch on the building's ground level above a pit filled with tar and scraps when sparks from the torch set fire to the tar. ... The fire was about midway in the block and about 30 feet from the street. Pumper units from the Central Fire Station and the station at Ninth and Sherman Streets arrived quickly. Firemen extinguished the fire with the hoses connected to the trucks' water tanks.
25 years ago
April 24, 1994
• Federal labor officials filed suit Friday accusing White County of failing to pay minimum wages and overtime compensation to employees. In a suit filed in federal court in Little Rock, the U.S. Department of Labor said the defendants had unlawfully withheld wages from employees since April 1991. The Labor Department also said the defendants had not kept proper records of the hours worked by county employees and the wages paid to them. The department asked that the defendants be barred from violating federal labor laws and that county employees be paid the wages due them.
10 years ago
April 24, 2009
• Little Rock's Housing Authority will soon take control of assets worth millions of dollars from the nonprofit Neighborhood Builders Inc., according to a settlement agreement the Housing Authority's board of commissioners unanimously approved Thursday. The lawsuit, filed by the Housing Authority in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, alleged that four former Housing Authority officials created deals that funneled more than $5 million of public housing money to the nonprofit, which they also controlled. The complaint said the former officials then misused profit generated from housing developments built with the public housing money and unjustly compensated themselves. The Housing Authority sought a judge's order granting it control of the nonprofit's assets and repayment of all public funds granted to the nonprofit and its officials dating back to 1996. The settlement agreement doesn't include any repayment of funds but does transfer mortgages and property held by Neighborhood Builders to the Housing Authority. The value of the assets hasn't been determined.
Metro on 04/24/2019