LOUISIANA

“Louisiana college students shouted Wednesday from the State Capitol steps and took turns pleading with members of a key legislative budget panel to avoid potentially catastrophic cuts to higher education funding in the coming year.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“Yesterday, only a handful of University students showed up on the steps of the State Capitol to protest budget cuts to higher education in an event organized by the Council of Student Body Presidents.” – LSU Reveille

“The Louisiana governor’s 527, the American Future Project, has a new digital director: Bradley Engle, who worked over the last five-plus years at Purple Strategies and National Media in Alexandria, Va. His resume includes recent campaigns for Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the NRCC and RGA, as well as corporate clients. GOP digital veteran Blaise Hazelwood is also on board for Jindal as a senior adviser who will have a large role handling technology and innovation.” – POLITICO

“As if lawmakers didn’t have enough budget worries with next year’s $1.6 billion shortfall, state senators learned this year’s budget is short an estimated $56 million.” – NOLA.com

“Using stuffed pink unicorns to dispel what they call myths about Common Core, officials of a group that backs the standards said Wednesday that they are launching a marketing campaign to defeat legislative efforts to repeal the overhaul.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“A St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s deputy was shot three times Thursday morning, with one bullet penetrating his lung, authorities said. He is in stable but guarded condition at LSU Interim Hospital in New Orleans.” – NOLA.com

“There are nearly 6,000 apartment units that planned to be built in metro Baton Rouge by the end of the year, a number that has one person who tracks the multi-family housing market concerned. ‘We could end up with a glut of units,’ said Wesley Moore, with Cook, Moore & Associates.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is getting two new non-stop flights to Birmingham, Ala., and Pensacola, Fla.” – NOLA.com

“A blanket of fog lifts, exposing a band of rainbow sheen that stretches for miles off the coast of Louisiana. From the vantage point of an airplane, it’s easy to see gas bubbles in the slick that mark the spot where an oil platform toppled during a 2004 hurricane, triggering what might be the longest-running commercial oil spill ever to pollute the Gulf of Mexico.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“The plight of the west side sits in stark contrast to the thriving habitat on the east side of the Mississippi, where Lambert recently conducted a mudboat tour to show how sediment diversions are actually creating new land and a thriving ecosystem.” – Louisiana Sportsman

NATIONAL

“Over the course of my six years with the TSA, the leveraging of rules and surveillance tools to abuse passengers was a daily checkpoint occurrence. Has the TSA screener searching your luggage suddenly decided to share with you the finer points of official bag-search procedure just as your final boarding call is being announced? There’s a good chance that he or she just doesn’t like you. Or in some cases, as we’ve seen, it may be that the screener finds you attractive and wants to use the TSA rules as an excuse to get his or her hands on you.” – TIME

“Which brings us to the recent ‘front-bumper takedown‘ employed to great effect by Officer Michael Rapiejko. Video of the Feb. 19 incident was just released, revealing how the tactic of running down and armed man with a police car, though unorthodox, was entirely justifiable and indeed preferable to other types of force that might have been considered.” – Jack Dunphy/PJ Media

“Al-Qaida seized control of a major airport, a sea port and an oil terminal in southern Yemen on Thursday, consolidating its hold on the country’s largest province amid wider chaos pitting Shiite rebels against forces loyal to the exiled president and a Saudi-led air campaign.” – AP

“Fierce fighting has engulfed Ramadi, which lies only about 70 miles (113 kilometers) west of Baghdad and is the capital of Anbar province, Iraq’s Sunni heartland.” – CNN

“The early days of American political campaigns are always marked by a certain pantomime absurdity, but one could be forgiven nevertheless for wondering whether Hillary Clinton’s confused, staccato launch has been especially daffy.” – National Review

“The church sign was also broken and letters removed and the front entrance to the church was egged and sprayed with silly string. One spray-painted message on the church door reads, ‘God loves (expletive)!!! He hates you!’ Another said ‘Gay’s ok!'” – IJ Review

“The Internal Revenue Service has placed a tax lien on Melissa Harris-Perry and her husband, James Perry, for about $70,000 in delinquent taxes, according to a notice filed in Forsyth County Hall of Justice earlier this month, according to The Winston-Salem Journal.” – WGHP

“Hillary Rodham Clinton’s immigrant grandparents turn out not to have been immigrants, just as Elizabeth Warren’s Indian ancestors turn out not to have been Indians, though Mrs. Clinton was one-quarter truthful about her ancestry, which is a hell of a lot more than Senator Warren can say.” – Kevin Williamson/National Review

“British Comedian Ricky Gervais probably knew exactly what he was doing when he stirred up a whole lot of hate by tweeting a picture of a Utah hunter posing next to a freshly killed giraffe.” – BizPAC Review

“On several occasions during the roundtable event, Clinton revealed herself as a true ‘triple threat’ by demonstrating an array of crucial skills that, when deployed correctly, can make even the most out-of-touch politicians appear somewhat human.” – Washington Free Beacon