A bridge, a virus, vote suppression and crime on today's news roundup.

The COVID count jumped sharply today.

Resssurances but few specifics on a timeline marked today's briefing on the I-40 bridge.

Three-week trial in offing in bribery case.

The Natural State remains at the bottom of the list for most things, but ranks near the top for violence. Too bad lawmakers were too busy hating on transgender children to do anything about it. Priorities.

Payroll Protection Program fraud included bogus small farms.

The terrible legislative session did some of its worst damage in aiming to make it harder to vote.

A belated blast at the NCAA's empty defense of a minority group.

Lots of news today, including acknowledgment of highway department failures in bridge inspection.

A slow start to the week in all categories.

Live theatre returns to Arkansas this month and, while there’s not a full contingent of performances in the offing, it is a start. Here's how a few of the city's theatre companies are tackling a virus that’s turned their worlds upside down. 

Jukes has been a creative dynamo since he escaped from the clutches of North Little Rock’s Northeast High School in the early 1970s, and he’s been making compelling music and comics ever since, all without achieving what famous Arkansas recluse Charles Portis called “escape velocity” from Arkansas. That is not to say Jukes didn’t try.

First up in "The Rep Outdoors" series: "Marie & Rosetta," playwright George Brant's 2017 play about Cotton Plant, Ark. native Sister Rosetta Tharpe and her relationship with contralto Marie Knight.

Warehouse Liquor on Main St. has a 50 Cent special today.

Get out the projector (or turn on the TV); Central Arkansas Library System's Made in Arkansas Film Festival is going virtual this weekend.

The very word “play,” Lynett points out, is one we should learn to take more literally; theater exists to surprise, and one way to do that is to upend expectations or to get the audience to “laugh first” — two words which serve as a hallmark for Lynett’s eponymous theater company.

More gallery space, more programming, more culture on tap.

Strategies for the Ant Invasion of 2021, painted rocks, the gospel of "Sasquatch" and more.

The 1979 record, laid down on tape for an Arkansas label called Symplex Records, was re-released in late January on Athens of the North, an Edinburgh, Scotland-based record label that specializes, its website reads, “in reissuing and officially licensing long lost, rare — and, above all, amazing — soul, disco, funk records.”

"A full-circle moment for sure,” Arkansas Symphony Orchestra Interim Artistic Director Geoffrey Robson said of the programming.

Petit & Keet is celebrating its fourth anniversary on May 18 by bringing back the dishes that made Jacques and Suzanne one of the premier spots for fine dining in Little Rock in the '70s and '80s.

Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co. announced in an email today that it will be adding a second brick and mortar location in West Little Rock in the former Panera space located in the Pleasant Ridge Shopping Center at 11525 Cantrell Road.

After being shuttered for over a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Capital Hotel is reopening along with the Capital Bar & Grill on Mon. May 17.

The Emerging Leaders, a young professionals group supporting Arkansas’s oldest nonprofit, Centers for Youth and Families, has adapted its annual BrunchFest to BrunchFest Passes that contain coupons to more than 30 area eateries.

The Cheesecake on Point food truck will open a new brick-and-mortar location this Saturday at 9809 W. Markham in the shopping center that houses Andy's Restaurant and Fuller & Sons Hardware.

Mother's Day is Sunday, so it's time to start making reservations, planning your picnic and scrambling for locally-made gift ideas.

Al fresco all the time.

Ottenheimer Hall, the River Market's public food court-style market, which has been shuttered for over a year, is welcoming back vendors and the public this Saturday.

Rock Town Distillery, whose bourbon is distilled in Little Rock with Arkansas corn and wheat, was awarded a prestigious Double Gold medal for its Single Barrel Bourbon at the 2021 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Saracen's premier high-end restaurant, Red Oak Steakhouse, will be one of the 38 restaurants licensed in the U.S. to serve authentic Kobe beef, an elusive breed of pure-blood Tajima Wagyu cows that are born, raised, slaughtered and processed in Japan's Hyogo Prefecture.