Fourteen rural hospitals received Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield grants totaling $817,000 to fund their connection to a program enabling medical computer systems to talk to each other. The one-year grant will allow all the hospitals to connect to the state-operated State Health Alliance for Records Exchange at the highest level possible, said Blue Cross President and CEO Curtis Barnett.

Super Tax Day, the annual kick-off event for a series of free tax services for low-income workers, is set for Saturday in several Arkansas cities. Entergy Arkansas has been a sponsor of the event since 2011. The energy provider partners with other state entities and the Internal Revenue Service to help promote the Earned Income Tax Credit, which increases the refund for low and middle-income individuals and families.

Arkansas political observers may be cross-eyed by the time all of the legal machinations between optometrists and ophthalmologists are settled.

On Thursday, the Arkansas Supreme Court denied a petition for rehearing of a ruling that allowed Safe Surgery Arkansas to proceed with its efforts to gain ballot access for its proposal to reverse Act 579. That law was passed in the 2019 regular session and expanded optometrists’ scopes of practice, allowing them to perform certain eye procedures that have traditionally been limited to ophthalmologists.

Starting in the next school year, first-year students attending Little Rock’s Hall High School can choose from three coursework tracks focusing on science, technology and the arts.

Officials with the state Department of Education and the Little Rock School District on Tuesday announced plans for re-designating Hall as a magnet school focusing on STEAM, or science, technology, engineering, the arts and math.

LRSD Superintendent Michael Poore told the audience that students from all attendance zones are welcome to apply for the 2020- 2021 school year.

The latest Beige Book report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis indicates a slightly improved economy for the region since the previous report, with some sectors remaining largely unchanged.

Charles Gascon is a regional economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He says since the national economy is growing at a fairly steady pace, those numbers in turn influence regional and state economies. That includes Arkansas.