The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice has cleared Swiss company ABB’s proposed acquisition of Baldor Electric Co. of Fort Smith, the companies announced late Thursday.

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Fort Smith will gain about 600 new jobs at an inbound call center to be located at the north end of the former Phoenix Village Mall.

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ABF Freight System Inc. has filed an appeal to the dismissal of its lawsuit against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and subsidiaries of trucking competitor YRC Worldwide.

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The Arkansas Valley Regional Trauma Advisory Council took its first step toward formation Wednesday during an organizational meeting that drew 50-plus hospital and emergency personnel from nine counti

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Fort Smith home prices, including distressed sales, declined by 3.60 percent in November compared to a year earlier, according to a news release from CoreLogic.

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The mortgage foreclosure rate for the Fort Smith area rose to 1.71 percent in October, an increase of 0.27 percentage points from 1.44 percent in October 2009.

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Arvest Bank in 2010 originated more than $1 billion in new mortgage loans for the eighth consecutive year, according to a news release. Refinanced mortgages made up 70 percent of the year’s total.

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Does anybody care about the Pro Bowl? It’s football. That’s about all you can say about it. What did you get into today? [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

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The Arkansas Democrat Gazette had a good article today on the $4.7 million Arkansas taxpayers spent on travel reimbursements for state legislators in 2010.  Sen. Randy Laverty (D-Jasper) ran up the biggest tab at $59,745.  He told the ADG that they have “done a very detrimental thing to the people of Arkansas in the way [...]

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Here (apropos of nothing) is a great story from the New York Times today about college students celebrating their mixed race identity and making the point that the way we pigeonhole people as “black” or “white” or “hispanic” is essentially absurd. [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

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