On the road: Gov. John Bel Edwards is spending the next few days in Iowa, meeting with fellow governors from around the country. The Associated Press reports Edwards, in office since January, headed to Des Moines on Thursday for the National Governors Association summer meeting. According to the meeting agenda, discussions are scheduled on trade, agriculture, renewable energy, opioid addiction, attracting foreign investment, and computer science and technology education for children.
Good news: U.S. airlines posted a better on-time rate for May, and complaints dropped compared to the same month last year, The Associated Press reports. The Department of Transportation says today that 83.4% of domestic flights arrived on time in May, up from 80.5% a year earlier, although down from April. The figures cover flights on the 12 largest airlines. Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines had the best on-time ratings, while Spirit Airlines and Virgin America had the worst. Complaints are down 24% from a year earlier. Air travelers filed 1,134 complaints with the government in May.
Upping the ante: Bayer AG raised its offer for Monsanto Co. in a bid that values shares of the U.S. company at $54.7 billion, a 2.5% rise that came after being rebuffed in its initial efforts to combine operations and become the world’s biggest supplier of farm chemicals and seeds. Bloomberg News reports the proposed price was increased to $125 a share in cash, and Leverkusen, Germany-based Bayer also offered an “antitrust break fee” of $1.5 billion, according to a statement on Thursday. Monsanto has a manufacturing plant in Luling and recently green-lighted a $975 million expansion of the St. Charles Parish plant to produce the chemical dicamba, a key ingredient in its Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System.
