With the clock ticking on the special session, a state Senate worked over the weekend to push to the floor a one cent sales tax to go towards filling the $940 million dollar mid year budget deficit. The panel changed the sunset date of the additional penny from 18-months to five years. New Orleans Senator JP Morrell says an 18-month sunset won’t help their current budget problems, because it couldn’t be used for ongoing expenses like higher education…:
Cut 13 (08) “revenues”
The full House is set to take up so called sin tax measures today. Natchitoches Representative Kenny Cox, says increases on cigarettes and alcohol would stave off cuts to higher ed…:
CUT 8 (07) “that much”
The proposed increase on the cigarette tax is 22 cents. The alcohol tax hasn’t been raised since 1948.

The Louisiana National Guard at Jackson Barracks in New Orleans opens a Desert Storm exhibit today to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the conflict. Louisiana National Guard Historian Rhett Breerwood says 16 of the guard’s units were mobilized and nine were sent to the war zone. He says the Boots in the Sand exhibit honors multiple units, one being the 527th Engineer Battalion out of Bossier City…:
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Breerwood says as visitors tour the exhibit, they can expect to see original equipment, uniforms and pictures taken by soldiers overseas from 1990 to 1991.

Ahead of Super Tuesday primaries, GOP presidential candidates are using the endorsement of former KKK leader and Louisiana gubernatorial candidate David Duke for front-runner Donald Trump to hammer the billionaire businessman. Trump asserts he doesn’t know anything about Duke, which prompted Marco Rubio to tell supporters that the Republican party can’t be one that refuses to condemn white supremacists and the KKK.