It’s closing time: FeBe Clothing, which has been located on Corporate Boulevard in Towne Center since 2005, is closing its doors in May, Ron Jones, manager of the boutique’s Metairie store, tells inRegister. “It was time to renew our lease, and we decided not to renew,” he says. “We’re going to focus on the Metairie location.” The ladies’ apparel shop has all its inventory marked down to 50% off, with some items reduced beyond that. Nothing is excluded. “We’re trying to move as little as possible,” Jones says. He also says he hopes Baton Rouge customers will make the drive out to Metairie once the Towne Center store is officially shuttered.
On file: The Louisiana Department of Revenue says it has discovered a number of attempts to file fraudulent income tax returns for the 2014 filing season, adding it has reason to believe the fraudulent filings originated from data compromised through Intuit/Turbo Tax software. “To our knowledge, all information in the state’s tax computer system remains secure and has not been compromised,” LDR says in a release, adding that to date, it has flagged 2,011 returns filed through TurboTax software. LDR says Louisiana taxpayers who have concerns about the security of their personal information provided to TurboTax should contact them at 1-800-944-8596. LDR has more details on today’s announcement.
One and done: Oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. says the number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. plunged by 87 this week to 1,456 amid depressed oil prices. The Houston firm says in its weekly report, released today, that 1,140 rigs were exploring for oil and 314 for gas. Two were listed as miscellaneous. A year ago 1,771 rigs were active. Louisiana’s rig total dropped by one from 108 last week to 107 this week—50 of which are inland, nine are located in inland waters and 48 are offshore. Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas’ count plummeted by 41, North Dakota dropped 11, New Mexico was down nine, Colorado fell eight and Oklahoma seven. Kansas and West Virginia each lost four, Ohio and Utah were down two apiece. The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.
