The Leader

War on terror begins right here at home
Little Rock Air Force Base will once again send several hundred men and women overseas for the war on terror.
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Big George Brock still packs a punch
Big George Brock is a 74-year-old former heavyweight boxer who still packs a double punch as a powerful harmonica player and blues singer. His new CD, Round Two (Cat Head Records), follows last year’s successful Club Caravan, which was nominated for a Handy award.
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Lawsuit aims to stop group
Members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., were again busy this week picketing funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, but lawsuits filed by families who have lost their loved ones could stop the church group from taunting grieving relatives.
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Sheikh, rattle and roll as war goes on
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, didn’t do the Lebanese any favors when he picked a fight with Israel. He’s still firing rockets into Israel, but look at the price he’s paying: Hundreds of his fighters dead, thousands more Lebanese civilians killed and injured and much of his country in ruins.
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Beware: Lines are signs of WWIII
You can tell from the long lines of cars outside Little Rock Air Force Base that the nation is at war. Security is extremely tight, as it is throughout the country and at all U.S. military installations around the world.
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Huckabee pardons another drunk
Gov. Huckabee blundered twice this week: He leased a brand-new Suburban at taxpayers’ expense for nearly $900 a month, the gold-plated version, no less, even though he has only six months left in office. What was wrong with the old one?
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Down in Bentonia
For Sam Myers, 1935-2006 Down in Bentonia, Miss., deep in the Delta, a couple of fast-fingered bluesmen strummed their guitars and sang in a haunting falsetto, creating the Bentonia blues sound.
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AUG. 26 2006

Former Lonoke Police Chief Jay Campbell (middle) and his attorney Jeff Rosenzweig talk to a reporter before Friday’s hearing in Lonoke.

Judge is reluctant to hold big trial
IN SHORT: Nov. 8 court date set for Campbells and others, but it may be difficult to try them together. [FULL TEXT]

Prosecutor criticized
IN SHORT: Defense attorney in war of words with Lona McCastlain. [FULL TEXT]

Jail tax seen as a safety solution
IN SHORT: Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines says funds would reduce area crime.
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CJHN classes are delayed until Sept. 5
IN SHORT: First day of classes for seventh and eighth graders are put off until after Labor Day.
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Girl who alerted district to fire is praised as hero
IN SHORT: School officials honor Brittany Musich and emergency responders for their efforts in fighting the blaze that destroyed Cabot Junior High North on Aug. 10. [FULL TEXT]

Suspect in attack arrested
IN SHORT: Cabot fugitive is apprehended in Richland, Miss. [FULL TEXT]

Irrigating farms tops Berry’s list
IN SHORT: Berry blasts Bush, pledges support for bio-fuels and nearby demonstration farm. [FULL TEXT]

Jacksonville’s Justin Akins is brought down by a gang of North Little Rock defenders in Thursday night’s scrimmage game.

Panther running game dominant in scrimmage
IN SHORT: Cabot’s football team ran almost at will against Lake Hamilton Tuesday evening. [FULL TEXT]

Devils close to big plays
IN SHORT: Jacksonville didn’t score, but showed promise in its scrimmage against Wildcats.
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NP ladies drop opener
IN SHORT:The North Pulaski Lady Falcons started off their 2006 volleyball season with a hotly contested, five-set loss to the Pulaski Robinson Lady Senators Thursday night at the PR gym. NP had a 2-1 advantage before Joe. T swept the final two sets. [FULL TEXT]

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Previous Issues

More choices for voters
Jim Lendall, the copiously bearded former state representative, is not going to be the next governor of Arkansas, and he doesn’t expect to be.
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Judge sees the light
It does not speak especially well for judicial reflection, but Pulaski Circuit Judge Jay Moody reversed himself yesterday afternoon and ruled that the Bryant School District could close the little Paron High School immediately and educate the youngsters in schools that can offer them more education for much less of the taxpayers’ money.
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Beebe wants it both ways
Attorney General Mike Beebe, doing his best Bill Clinton imitation, tried to have it both ways when the state newspaper asked him about intelligent design, the theory that a supreme being created the universe.
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Inheritance for superrich
Sen. Mark Pryor’s vote against the omnibus bill that tied an increase in the minimum wage to the virtual repeal of the estate tax did not strike us as a politically dangerous act, but it apparently worried him.
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Candidates pandering
Voters know by now not to invest much confidence in what a candidate for governor says about taxes during a heated campaign. The budget realities a year from now will determine what he does about taxes.
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College bonds: They're baack!
Gov. Huckabee signed a proclamation last Thursday putting $250 million of college construction debt on the ballot again, less than a year after its defeat at a special election.
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‘Good,’ ‘bad’ governors
Economic statistics can prove to be so perverse, but rarely to such an extreme as the report card that the Arkansas Policy Foundation issued the past week on the job-creating performance of Arkansas governors since World War II.
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The Fed does nothing
After 17 straight periods in which it raised benchmark interest rates, the Federal Reserve yesterday lay doggo. Equity exchanges, bond markets, traders and economists everywhere waited for that news and then, their prayers answered, didn’t know what to make of it. The indexes fluctuated wildly and then finished, very oddly, lower across the board.
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Casinos Royale
By winter, Arkansas will have casinos at Hot Springs and West Memphis, the first since Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller shut down the illegal ones at Hot Springs in 1968.
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Adios, Paron
Should anyone by now have any doubts, the seven justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court let it be known this week that they are serious about finally requiring the state to follow the state Constitution’s 130-year-old mandate that it provide a good education to every child, equally and efficiently.
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Huckabee in Frisco
Gov. Huckabee pops up nowadays in the most unusual venues, newspaper offices, as he plies his unofficial campaign for president.
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Special election is ill adviced
Pulaski County, which is too broke to afford to house hardly any new prisoners, is about to get $100,000 deeper in debt and be out of jail options because of the quorum court’s ill-advised decision to hold a special election.
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Internet disputes
Every-thing’s up to date in Arkansas this week, with a pair of high-tech news items grabbing our attention.
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We'll pay piper twice
Did you catch the numbing remark in the state newspaper this week about the land value of the rugged slopes south of Lake Maumelle that the water utility for central Arkansas is trying to buy to keep your water safe?
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