State and National News

As Syria continues its violent crackdown, Hoover Institution senior fellow Fouad Ajami argues that the U.S. has forsaken Syria and its people and provided the regime with a lifeline. In the Wall Street Journal, Ajami writes that "everyone is waiting on Washington's green light and its leadership."

Since Arizona passed SB 1070 in 2010, five other states signed similar legislation into law: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah and Indiana. Some of those laws are on hold pending court rulings, but lawmakers in say they've already seen successes, as well as unforeseen consequences.

Some of the world's most renowned musicians recently gathered in Paris and New Orleans to celebrate the first annual International Jazz Day. UNESCO, the U.N.'s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has set April 30 as a day to raise awareness of jazz music's significance and potential as a unifying voice across cultures.

In spite of the celebrations, though, in the U.S. the jazz audience continues to shrink and grow older, and the music has struggled to connect with younger generations.

Planet Money pal Charlie Wheelan has a nice piece in the WSJ under the headline "10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won't Tell You."

Here's one that rings true:

Former President Jimmy Carter was no doubt minding his own business, which these days usually means being some place in the world doing good works, when his name came up in the 2012 presidential campaign, and not in a good way.

Talking to reporters Monday in New Hampshire, the unofficial GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, uttered Carter's name in defending himself against Democratic attempts to raise doubts about whether Romney, like President Obama, would have ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

A horrible car accident Sunday in the Bronx, which killed seven people from one family, happened on a "cursed" section of the Bronx River Parkway where six people died in a terrible 2006 accident, New York's Daily News reports.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez may be once again headed to Cuba for cancer treatment.

The masterful power-pop band Fountains of Wayne makes its second appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live in Charleston, W.V. The band's latest album, 2011's Sky Full of Holes, is its first in five years, and features plenty of crunchy, guitar-driven pop.

Natural gas pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners is buying Sunoco in a deal valued at about $5.3 billion.

The acquisition would give Energy Transfer the capability to transport crude and other liquid hydrocarbons that are being produced in greater quantities thanks to the boom in shale drilling. Sunoco's pipelines crisscross the country, connecting the Great Lakes and Northeast to America's refining center along the Gulf Coast.

One of the Environmental Protection Agency's top officials resigned yesterday.