One more: Gubernatorial candidates Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards and Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter have agreed to a second TV debate during the runoff election. The Shreveport Times reports that Edwards’ and Vitter’s campaigns confirmed Tuesday they will participate in a Nov. 10 debate coordinated by Louisiana Public Broadcasting and the Council for a Better Louisiana. It will be televised statewide by LPB. Already scheduled is a debate at 6 p.m. Nov. 16 at The Dunham School in Baton Rouge. It will be coordinated by Nexstar Broadcasting Group’s WVLA-TV in Baton Rouge and broadcast statewide. The election is Nov. 21.
On the rise: American businesses added a solid but unspectacular 182,000 jobs in October, according to a private survey. The Associated Press reports that payroll processor ADP also revised September job creation numbers down to 190,000 from an originally reported 200,000 in a report released this morning. ADP reported that factories shed 2,000 jobs in October on top of a loss of 17,000 jobs in September. The government will issue its official jobs report for October on Friday, which economists forecast will show employers added 180,000 private sector and government jobs, and the unemployment rate stayed at 5.1% for the third straight month. The ADP survey covers only private businesses and frequently diverges from the official figures.
More money: The National Institutes of Health has awarded $1.2 million in grants to three Louisiana-Monroe faculty members in the School of Pharmacy’s Department of Basic Pharmaceutical Sciences. The Associated Press reports Karen Briski, professor and BPS department head, will use the money to investigate neural mechanisms that are responsible for suppressing reproduction during energy deficiency. Amal Kaddoumi, associate professor of pharmaceutics, received a grant for a project that seeks to identify therapeutics that will target the blood-brain barrier in an effort to prevent and/or slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Seetharama D.S. Jois, associate professor of medicinal chemistry, received a grant to support his research to identify pharmacotherapeutic tools to combat lung cancer.
