| Good Morning, About 36 hours after a news leak showed that a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court justices favored abolition of abortion protections – leaving states to decide the issue for themselves – the hard-right male members of a Louisiana House committee advanced legislation that would allow the state to prosecute for murder a mother who terminated her pregnancy. House Bill 813 would define life as beginning at conception and at that moment all legal protections of a person would apply. The news went viral nationally and internationally. Louisiana lawmakers have talked of little else since. The full House is slated to debate the matter on Thursday. In other news, about 1,400 students will be able to graduate high school this month after a last-minute decision by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, the state’s top policymaking body for public schools. More than 2,400 students statewide couldn’t meet the qualifications largely because of the hardships of remote learning and infrequent classes during the pandemic. But BESE didn’t want to use the pandemic as a reason for granting waivers. Instead, students from the 25 parishes hit by the Category 4 Hurricane Ida will get the opportunity. That means 59% of the students who were not in line to get high school diplomas last week now have new options for qualifying, including through a score of 17 on the ACT, which is supposed to measure college readiness, or a 17 on the subject that blocked their graduation through the traditional route. Last week, a legislative effort to ban paddling in public schools fell two votes short of the 53 needed to pass the full House and move to the Senate for consideration But it was 4 p.m. Thursday and some lawmakers already were starting their long weekend early. A dozen representatives didn’t vote on the measure. Because of the closeness of the vote, state Rep. Stephanie Hilferty, the Metairie Republican who sponsored House Bill 649, can ask for another vote. She is hoping to do that today when the House convenes at 2 p.m. As always, check throughout the day for the latest Louisiana political news at theadvocate.com/politics or NOLA.com/politics and on Twitter at @MarkBallardCNB, @tegbridges, @samkarlin, @blakepater, @WillSentell. Here are a dozen articles, commentaries and editorials that will catch you up for the week to come. One last item: Thank you to our subscribers. Your support means a great deal to us. If you're not yet a subscriber, we’ve got a special offer you can check out here. – Mark Ballard | 