FAYETTEVILLE -- Fayetteville has announced a two-day avenue closure downtown as the city celebrates America's 250th birthday and hosts the BITE at the Ramble. North West Avenue between West Dickson and West Spring streets will be closed at 8 a.m. in preparation for the events and will reopen by noon Saturday, according to a news release from the city. The America250 Celebration and BITE at the Ramble festivities will take from 6-10 p.m. Friday at the Upper Ramble, the release states.

In deep red Arkansas, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been accusing businesses of being controlled by the People's Republic of China. But Sanders, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is making such accusations without proving them first. And in a scathing late June editorial, Arkansas Business' editorial board takes her to task for favoring 'performance art' over meaningful governance. "Gov.

RAISE US secures $500M backed by tech giants while the federal safety net for displaced workers sits empty The companies that have attributed more than 50,000 American layoffs to artificial intelligence in the past year and a half have now committed more than $500 million to help the workers they displaced find new jobs -- and the structure of what they built may matter as much as the money. On June 25, former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb launched RAISE US, a nonpartisan nonprofit with a mandate to retrain American workers for the AI economy.

For James Brandenburg, president of U.S. operations for JVS Export, a family-owned textile manufacturer headquartered in India, the hardest part of his job isn't selling home textiles to Walmart, Target and Hobby Lobby -- it's everything he can't control. "The operating environment is constantly changing because of global politics and conflict at this point, whether it's tariffs, war or regulatory changes," he said.

Kelly Kemp-McLintock, former chief advancement officer at the Jones Center in Springdale and a consultant for the Peel Compton Foundation in Bentonville, has been named executive director of the Bentonville Library Foundation. The foundation on Monday (June 29) announced the hiring, noting that Kemp-McLintock has nearly 25 years of nonprofit leadership and fundraising experience. As a consultant for the Peel Compton Foundation, she led the 150th Anniversary Year Endowment Campaign to ensure the preservation efforts of the Peel Museum and Botanical Garden.

The country music legend opened the first location of her Tennessean Travel Stop in Cornersville, Tennessee. * Buc-ee's opened its first Arizona location, marking the chain's furthest expansion west. * The travel center chain now operates 56 stores across 13 states, with more planned through 2031. * Buc-ee's plans to open two more stores in Tennessee by 2027, bringing the state's total to four. Buc-ee's opened its first Arizona location on June 22, marking the Texas-based travel center's furthest move west to date. The Goodyear store, located in a suburb of Phoenix, spans 74,000 square fe

In recent years, Republican propaganda has quietly moved away from loud condemnation of the gay community to focusing the most overt hate on trans people. Donald Trump even has a few token gay men in his closest circles, such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has two children with his husband. Marriage equality was legalized in all 50 states by the Supreme Court 11 years ago in Obergefell v.

Ole Miss has added a blue-chip wide receiver to its 2027 recruiting class. Alvin Mosley is the newest Rebel commitment. The Texas product announced his plans to play for Pete Golding's program during a public ceremony on Saturday. Out of Rosharon (Texas) Crawford High School, Mosley is listed as measuring 6-2 and 190 pounds. On the 247Sports Composite, Mosley is rated 4-stars, the No. 26 wide receiver, No. 31 player in the state of Texas and No. 190 prospect overall in the Class of 2027. As one of the top wideouts in the Lone Star State, Mosley drew notable interest on the recruiting trail.

The beloved family-hangout chain is in trouble. To survive, it's trying a rowdy, adults-only solution. Shortly before midnight near the edge of the Inland Empire, a woman hoisted a bulbous Labubu mascot atop her head, took a stranger's hand, and led a conga line to the pulse-quickening tune of a Vengaboys "We Like to Party" remix. Twentysomethings clad in Deftones and Pikachu tees, Dodgers caps, and beaded bracelets joined the procession, snaking from the dance floor through the bar area and back down again.

The freedoms to live and thrive in a safe environment, to be educated and healthy without falling into debt, and to simply be able to put food on the table are all consistent with the freedom to marry or not, to procreate or not, to affirm one's gender, and to love anyone one chooses. This June, some Republican-led states are rebranding Pride Month with staid-sounding faux morality. Instead of celebrating the rights and dignity of its LGBTQ+ communities, Utah and Arkansas are choosing to label this month "Fidelity Month." They may as well come out and say queer people are "infidels." Tennes