Governor John Bel Edwards has unveiled his plan for resolving a $304-million midyear budget deficit. The governor’s Communications Director Richard Carbo says the proposal calls for using money from the rainy day fund, a large cut to the Department of Health’s budget, and state elected officials would also make cuts to their budgets, but…
Cut 13 (08) “and family services”
The Governor’s deficit elimination plan will be debated in the special session that begins next week.

The man accused of killing former NFL star Joe McKnight in an apparent road rage incident is slated to be arraigned today. 55-year-old Ronald Gasser is charged with second-degree murder. The suspect’s lawyers say their client was acting in self defense, but legal analyst Chick Foret says there are still a lot of unanswered questions:
Cut 15 (11) “defense team”

A class action lawsuit filed today claims Governor Edwards and the state public defender board are doing a poor job funding public defenders. The suit states Louisiana relies mostly on court fees to fund public defender legal services, which includes a fee assessed against indigent defendants. One of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, Mark Cunningham, says that means public defender offices receive more funding for losing cases than winning.
cut 11 (11) “to intercede”

State Education Superintendent John White says increasing the benchmarks for a school to achieve an A in the state’s rating system is one way to raise expectations and help the state comply with a federal education law. He says currently, students only have to earn basic math a literacy test scores for a school receive an A rating.
Cut 6 (11) on the ACT”