Graduation day: Gov. John Bel Edwards will deliver the keynote address at LSU’s spring commencement ceremony taking place on Friday, May 12, in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Edwards, who’s in his second year as governor, is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the LSU Law Center. The university says there will be open admission to the commencement ceremony, which will begin with an academic procession at 7:45 a.m. with the main ceremony following at 8 a.m. Diploma ceremonies will follow at locations around the campus. Get more information.
Off the table: Though Louisiana continues to face budget shortfalls, state legislative leaders aren’t proposing to cut their own agencies. As The Associated Press reports, lawmakers are instead seeking to boost legislative spending next year to levels before they took any reductions. A panel of legislative leaders today backed a more than $98 million financing proposal for the House, Senate and other legislative agencies in the budget year that begins July 1. If supported by the full Legislature, that would be well above the more than $88 million budget approved for those agencies this year. Senate President John Alario says the Legislature needs to have the money to do its job properly, adding that the House and Senate have absorbed the costs of three special sessions over the last two years while also coping with increased retirement and health costs.
Up slightly: The U.S. economy expanded at a modest-to-moderate pace between mid-February and the end of March, but inflation pressures remained in check despite more difficulties in attracting and retaining workers, the Federal Reserve says. As Reuters reports, the U.S. central bank notes that prices did rise modestly, and firms mostly expected price growth to be mild to moderate over the coming months. The Fed raised its benchmark interest rate in March for the second time in three months, and many policymakers appear bullish on the prospects of more tightening this year with the nation near full employment and inflation slowly rising. There is, however, still debate within the Fed about just how rapid and sustained the pickup in inflation will be given that it has struggled to reach the central bank’s 2% target over several years. Read more.
