Morning Blog News Update: Wednesday Edition

I woke up at 5:40 -- so I slept late today. Thus, the morning blog news update is late, too. I'm going to my son's school performance this morning. I missed his other one because of a speech, so this is a make-up for me. I'll head over there in an hour.

Weather
Today's high will be 81 balmy degrees. There's also a 40% chance of rain. Rain. You know, the wet stuff that falls out of the sky. And there is a 70% of it, too -- even with some lightning and thunder. I know, I don't remember what that is, either.

State Budget funding tight
No real surprise here. Katrina money is drying up, the national economy is predicted to tank and expenses are rising. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee adopted a state revenue estimate of nearly $5.1 billion which is only 2.9 percent more than the current year's estimate. That will make it tough to hand out raises and fully fund everything. Education will probably do OK -- but this isn't an election year. So all bets are off. "To live within this budget is going to mean some real belt-tightening, which I think is going to come as a surprise to a lot of people," Barbour told committee members. "Unfortunately, today, the numbers are a lot lower than what people were hoping for." Hang on, this session will get bumpy.

Pump it up
Despite environmental and fiscal concerns, the Army Corps of Engineers is pushing forward the building of the $220 million Yazoo Backwater Project pump. This pump has been on the drawing board for over 60 years and is designed to reduce flooding of wetlands and other land in the south Delta area -- this is in an area that floods when the gates are closed to prevent the Mississippi River from flooding the Delta.

Report: Blackwater killings were unjustified
From backwater to Blackwater. From the story: The New York Times cited unidentified civilian and military officials in reporting for Wednesday's editions that the killings of at least 14 of the 17 Iraqi civilians shot by Blackwater personnel guarding a U.S. Embassy convoy were found to have been unjustified and violated standards in place governing the use of deadly force.

Robbery suspect eaten by an alligator
In Miami, a robbery suspect jumped into a pond and was eaten by a large alligator.