HIGH POINT, N.C. — One man’s efforts to help rebuild Afghanistan involve a few rounds of golf.

Paul McNeill Jr. briefly returned home to High Point to pick up shirts for the new Kabul Golf Club.

‘‘The main goal is to show people things are better under a modern democratic lifestyle,’’ said McNeill, chief of administrative services for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. ‘‘You fight that on many fronts — education, jobs. My little piece of that is recreation.’’

During his time in Afghanistan, McNeill helped de-mine and renovate a course built in 1967, which was abandoned when the Soviets invaded the country in 1979.

Sounds like the

guards needed the coffee

EAST BROOKFIELD, Mass. — While jurors deliberated the fate of a man accused of selling a stolen gun to a pawn shop, the defendant went out for a cup of coffee.

A week later, Peter J. Leo, 32, of Worcester is still is on the run.

According to court records, Leo was being tried on charges of larceny, carrying a firearm without a license and receiving stolen property. His lawyer, Christopher Loconto, said Leo was accused of selling a pistol that did not belong to him to a pawn shop in 2002.

After listening to closing arguments, jurors left to begin their deliberations. Leo and his girlfriend also left the courtroom, saying they were going for coffee, a court officer told The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester.

The jurors returned to the courtroom a short time later to deliver their verdict, but Leo was not there to hear he had been found guilty.

He’s keeping the

faith...and the keys

MARION, Ind. — Grace Missionary Baptist Church wants the pastor to quit preaching to the choir — and everybody else. And the church’s trustees are going to court to stop him.

The Rev. Ed McDowell Jr., who served at the church for more than 13 years, was fired in December after a vote by both the trustees and members.

But McDowell, 63, continues to preach there because he says the vote was invalid. He has changed the locks remaining at the church and has tried to fire church officials himself, court records said.

Church leaders have asked for a restraining order that would force McDowell to return church property, remove his personal belongings and block him from using church funds for his legal defense.