Status quo: While most of LSU’s south Louisiana hospitals are set for privatization, the head of the LSU hospital system says its facility in Tangipahoa Parish will stay under university control for the foreseeable future. Frank Opelka, LSU’s vice president for health affairs and medical education, says he hasn’t been able to find a “community partner” that would be a good fit to run Lallie Kemp Regional Medical Center in Independence.
Without a paddle: Freight barges were idled today among some 50 vessels lined up along a normally bustling stretch of the Mississippi River that was closed as crews worked to clean up leaking oil spilled in a weekend barge accident. Workers have been skimming oily water around-the-clock near Vicksburg, Miss., since a barge carrying thousands of gallons of oil struck a railroad bridge and began leaking before dawn Sunday. The accident forced the closure of a 16-mile stretch of the lower Mississippi. The full story is here.
That uneasy feeling: American consumer confidence plunged in January to its lowest level in more than a year, reflecting higher Social Security taxes that left Americans with less take-home pay. The Conference Board says that its consumer confidence index dropped 8.1 points in January from December to a reading of 58.6, the lowest since November 2011. More details can be found here.
