Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders designated Siloam Springs "Capital for a Day" yesterday, touting education gains, tax cuts and job growth while giving residents direct access to cabinet officials.

Why it matters: Sanders uses these road trips to sell her governing record outside Little Rock while testing how state policy is landing in local communities.

• The visit offered a snapshot of how Sanders wants Arkansans to see her administration heading into her re-election campaign.

Driving the news: The governor visited a coffee shop, the Waters of Oklahoma & Arkansas Whitewater Park and held a meet-and-greet at the family barn of State Rep. Randy Torres (R-Siloam Springs).

The big picture: Sanders said Siloam Springs was chosen because of its "hardest working, most patriotic" residents.

• "We don't want to just show up and give speeches and walk away," Sanders told a crowd gathered at the barn. "We're coming because we want to hear from you."

Zoom in: Sanders leaned heavily on Arkansas LEARNS, her signature 2023 education law, pointing to stronger student performance, teacher raises, Education Freedom Accounts and more public school spending.

• Statewide proficiency across all grades and subjects rose from 36.9% in 2025 to 42.2% in 2026, according to recent ATLAS results.

Reality check: The University of Arkansas Office for Education Policy has said the ATLAS gains are encouraging, but more data is needed to show whether the improvement is broad, durable and tied to classroom changes.

Sanders also tied her agenda to job growth and tax cuts. Arkansas nonfarm employment hit a record high in May, with 1.35 million employed residents, according to the state Department of Commerce.

• Yes, but: The number of unemployed Arkansans was still higher than a year earlier.

She reminded the audience of her fourth income tax cut in May, saying $1.5 billion has been returned to Arkansans.

The bottom line: Sanders framed the visit as part of the harder work of turning conservative policy wins into measurable results.

• "Passing legislation is the easy part," Sanders told the audience. "Implementing correctly and executing is the really hard part."

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The CEOs lost this one: New government data shows that 35% of U.S. workers did some or all of their work at home last year — significantly higher than in the previous decade.

Why it matters: Despite the best efforts of many prominent executives and leaders, we live in a hybrid work world, with more people doing their jobs remotely, and that's led to big societal change.

Flashback: The workplace was permanently altered in the pandemic. In 2019, only 24% of workers did some or all of their work from home. By 2022, that number had risen to 34% and has stayed relatively steady since.

Where it stands: Working from home is mostly for workers with more education.

• 57% of those with an advanced degree did some work at home in 2025, per the data from the American Time Use Survey.
• That's compared with 30% for those with some college or an associate degree.

Between the lines: This helps partly explain the gender divide. Women, who earn a bigger share of college degrees, are more likely than men to work remotely.

The big picture: The rise of remote work has led to profound cultural and workplace shifts.

Zoom in: Proponents argue that it has increased worker productivity.

• For parents, particularly college-educated mothers, it's been life-changing: In a recent New York Times article, parents explained that they were able to have children and sustain an ambitious career, thanks to remote work — which enables far more flexibility than the tether of an office ever could.

Yes, but: Not all employers tolerate remote work. President Trump, for example, ordered government employees to return to working in the office.

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💻 Fayetteville's School Board approved lower daily screen time limits for elementary, middle and junior high students, cutting the cap for the youngest grades to as little as 30 minutes. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

🏥 Community Clinic of Springdale signed a letter of intent to take over operations of Baptist Health clinics in Alma, Fort Smith, Greenwood and Van Buren as Baptist continues to scale back services in the River Valley. (Northwest Arkansas Business Journal)

📱 Arkansas launched a mobile app to help SNAP recipients identify which products remain eligible under the state's new ban on using the program to buy soda, candy and certain other processed foods. (Arkansas Advocate)

Shea Lewis, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, proved his salt in front of his boss yesterday.

• Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and members of her staff cheered and jeered as he checked out the rapids at WOKA Whitewater Park near Siloam Springs.
• Lewis, who said he's floated the lower Gauley in West Virginia, wiped out the first time, but got right back in and stayed upright the second time.