Down the bayou: A months-long review of former Terrebonne Parish sheriff Vernon Bourgeois’ administration has turned up allegations of financial mismanagement. The (Houma) Courier reports the draft report details more than a dozen “audit concerns,” including allegations that could run afoul of the law. Among allegations in the draft report, Bourgeois and a deputy used a parish credit card to fuel a borrowed RV they took to Talladega Superspeedway for a NASCAR race. The full story can be found here.
Help wanted: The average number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits over the past month fell to the lowest level since March 2008, a sign that the job market is healing. The Labor Department reports this morning that weekly applications dropped 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 350,000 in the week ended Dec. 22. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell to a nearly five-year low of 356,750. Still, the Christmas holiday may have distorted the figures, as many state unemployment offices were closed Monday and Tuesday and could not provide exact data. More details in the full story can be found here.
The screen scene: On the heels of Apple releasing a list of what it considers to be the best iOS apps of 2012, Google on Wednesday named the best apps to land on the Google Play Store in 2012. As consumer electronics weblog SlashGear notes, the apps range to ones that probably everyone has installed on their Android device to ones that will be relatively unknown to the mainstream crowd. “So you could potentially use Google’s list to discover your new favorite app,” SlashGear says. Check out the list here.
