News In Brief

CAN YOU DO PALM TREES, TOO?

The newest construction project in the fast-growing Phoenix suburb of Fountain Hills is a couple of giant cactuses. Wait a minute: Cactuses grow naturally, don't they? Not these. The town has asked AT&T to disguise its new cellular-phone transmission towers as saguaros so they'll blend with the landscape. They will be made of Fiberglas, will have little holes in them to resemble woodpecker burrows, and will be built on ridges so they only have to be 25 feet high. Why go to so much trouble? Because residents think plain towers look, well, plain ugly.

HEY, THANKS, OFFICER

In Des Moines, Iowa, police decided to cut a break for two men stopped for a traffic violation because they spoke no English. So, although the offenders' station wagon was impounded because it was registered to a third party, they were freed without being cited. Later, the cops got around to looking inside the car and found $60,000 worth of marijuana stashed in a travel bag.

Move over; it's Mississippi's turn in the job spotlight

The service sector of the US economy spawned 6.4 million new jobs - more than half of all those created - between 1992 and 1997, says the Census Bureau. But it wasn't a place like Silicon Valley leading the surge. According to data the agency compiled and released recently, Mississippi had the biggest increase during that time period - because of its hotel and amusement industries, an analyst at the bureau says. Three other Southeastern states also scored in the survey's top 10. The list, by the percentage of growth in service-industry jobs between 1992 and 1997, according to census data:

1. Mississippi 66.2%

2. Arizona 63.1%

3. Georgia 50.5%

4. Utah 50.1%

5. Colorado 43.5%

6. North Carolina 43.0%

7. North Dakota 42.3%

8. Oregon 41.1%

9. South Dakota 40.0%

10. South Carolina 39.6%

- PR Newswire

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