Joel Engelhardt and Carolyn DiPaolo | Stet News

For the first time, the 12-month passenger count has topped 7.9 million, as traffic rebounds from the pandemic shutdown. The growth is behind the decision to move forward with a controversial effort to create a parallel runway capable of supporting commercial jets.

The recommendation on spending nearly $150 million in opioid settlement money over 20 years received a warm — and sympathetic — reaction from the Palm Beach County Commission.

Palm Beach County commissioners gave the go-ahead April 16 to embark on a 10- to 12-year effort to extend the parallel runway at Palm Beach International Airport to 8,000 feet.

The chancellor of the private Nashville, Tenn., school has scheduled meetings April 1 with Palm Beach County commissioners to talk about bringing a university satellite campus to downtown West Palm Beach.

The city is asking voters to extend the residency requirement for city commissioners to one year from six months and to keep any future mayor from engaging in outside employment.

After 36 years at the Gardens Mall on PGA Boulevard, Sears has closed. The decision came suddenly last week as Sears’ successor continued to argue in court that the mall and the city conspired to block the store from making money.