Big winner: Through the first seven months of the fiscal year, the Louisiana Lottery Corporation has transferred $87.7 million to the state treasury, a 2% increase over the same period in fiscal 2008. For February, the lottery posted revenues of $34.1 million and sent $11.9 million to the state.
Looking for a new leader: The first meeting of a committee charged with finding a new executive director for Pennington Biomedical Research Center will be Thursday afternoon. The committee is looking for a replacement for Dr. Claude Bouchard, who announced Wednesday he was stepping down after 10 years as executive director in order to make room for new leadership and go back to research full-time.
Can’t get no lower: If you’re holding off on buying a house in the hopes of getting a lower mortgage rate, the Wall Street Journal says you should probably give up. Lenders are quoting 4.75% on 30-year-fixed rate mortgages, down from about 6% in November. Economists told the newspaper that the rates should stay around that for the rest of the year, for borrowers with good credit. A decline in the number of small mortgage lenders will keep rates from going lower, as well as a reluctance from big banks to give deeper customer bargains. Read the story here. (Registration required)
