• The final story/interview in our "In the Weeds" series on the GOP Senate race is up today, with 1st District Congressman Bradley Byrne featured.
• From early on in the campaign, Byrne's theme has been that he is a fighter for the conservative cause. That continued throughout the last year, morphing into a fighter in defense of President Donald Trump during impeachment, and now it's his closing argument as the campaign is in its final week.
• There's plenty in Byrne's record to back up his claim to be a fighter. His fights over the years have been famous, both the ones he's won and lost.
• Now he's fighting off attacks that his comments in 2016 undermine his loyalty to the president.
• But get him beyond the talking points and ask about policy, and the pragmatic lawmaker in Byrne is revealed. The one well known to those who have been following Alabama politics for a while.
• I think we got a little of both in our interview.
• Read my full story including a transcript and audio of our interview HERE.

• Raise your hand if you like being dead last in math? How about 49th in reading?

• Just what I thought. We’re NOT ok with that. So let’s change it.

• We’re one of the last states in the U.S. to elect its school boards.

• On Tuesday March 3rd, Vote YES on Amendment One to change that.

• Our 2-year college system did the same thing a few years ago, and it’s changing for the better.

• Vote YES on Amendment One, March 3rd.

• Democrats unleashed a roaring assault against Bernie Sanders and seized on Mike Bloomberg’s past with women in the workplace during a contentious debate Tuesday night that tested the strength of the two men at the center of the party’s presidential nomination fight. 
• As the undeniable Democratic front-runner, Sanders faced the brunt of the attacks for much of the night, and for one of the few times, fellow progressive Elizabeth Warren was among the critics. The Massachusetts senator pressed the case that she could execute ideas that the Vermont senator could only talk about.
• “Bernie and I agree on a lot of things,” she said. “But I think I would make a better president than Bernie."
• A group of moderates, meanwhile, fought to emerge as the chief Sanders alternative.
• Read the top takeaways of the Democratic debate from Bill Barrow and Nicholas Riccardi HERE.

• SARALAND, Ala. (AP) — This winter’s relentless rains across the South are still draining into rising rivers, leading to ongoing flooding in some communities.
• In south Alabama, the Bayou Sara is forecast to crest at 8 feet by Wednesday evening and remain near that level through the weekend, the National Weather Service reported Tuesday. That means water has already invaded some homes in the Mobile suburb of Saraland, WALA-TV reported. The projected crest still hasn't hit the area, so that water isn’t going away anytime soon.
• In northern Mississippi, recent rain and backwater flooding from the rising Mississippi River is turning neighborhoods into islands in the small community of Tchula. Some cars have been submerged, and people have constructed makeshift walkways over the water to get in and out of their homes.
• “I have seen alligators, snakes and all different insects,’” resident Jennie Jefferson told WLBT-TV.
• Officials there say water can’t drain out of the area because the Mississippi River and backwater levels are high, the station reported.

• BRANTLEY, Ala. (AP) — An escaped Alabama inmate was captured Tuesday after more than a week on the lam. 
• Dustin Joel Morton, 34, was arrested Tuesday in the south Alabama town of Brantley, according to a release from the Department of Corrections. He escaped from the Elba Work Release Center about 20 miles away on Feb. 17.
• Morton was serving a 15-year sentence for obstructing justice and using a false identity in Marshall County. He was sentenced in September 2017. 
• The corrections department said Crenshaw County sheriff's deputies and state prison officers captured Morton without violence.

• TUSCUMBIA, Ala. (AP) — Police officers in Alabama shot and killed a person who opened fire at them as they responded to reports of suspicious activity in a neighborhood early Tuesday, the police chief said.
• Tuscumbia officers were dispatched to an apartment complex just before 4 a.m. Tuesday on a call about someone banging on doors, police Chief Tony Logan confirmed. Officers spotted a suspect they believed was involved, and the person fired shots and ran away. 
• The suspect was hit and killed in an exchange of gunfire with officers after a short foot chase, Logan said. 
• No officers were seriously injured, the chief said. The suspect and officers involved haven't been identified. 
• The Alabama Bureau of Investigation and Colbert County district attorney's office are reviewing the case.

• TROY, Ala. (AP) — Johnny M. Long, a leading U.S. music educator and the longtime leader of Troy University's band, has died, the school said Tuesday. He as 94.
• Long died at home in Troy after a brief illness and had been in declining health for more than a year, an announcement said.
• Long was a past president of the American Bandmasters Association and is a member of the organization's conductors hall of fame. He served as Troy's director of bands for more than three decades beginning in 1965, and the school's marching band performed at two presidential inaugurals during Long's tenure.
• Troy's current director, Mark Walker, said Long built the band into one of national prominence.
• "He has produced thousands of band directors and musicians who have gone on to careers throughout the United States in all areas of music and music education," Walker said in a statement.
• Long, an Alabama native, entered music education after serving as an Army band member in World War II.