Going to California: Baton Rouge-based chicken finger chain Raising Cane’s is making a move into the Golden State, planning to open its first California location this fall in Costa Mesa. Since being founded by Todd Graves in 1996, Raising Cane’s has grown to more than 225 restaurants in 18 states across the nation. A news release from the restaurant today says there are “many more in the pipeline.” The rapidly growing chain was recently named among the top four quick-service restaurant chains in the nation for 2014 in the Sandelman & Associates Quick-Track study, based on food quality, customer service and cleanliness.
Delisted: With deep budget cuts dodged by Louisiana’s public colleges, national credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s has removed five state higher education institutions from a negative credit watch. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration announced the move today. It indicates the institutions aren’t facing the short-term possibility of a rating downgrade. S&P’s decision affects Nicholls State University, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the University of New Orleans Research Foundation, LSU’s Bogalusa Community Medical Center Project and the Delgado Community College Foundation. The credit agency had put the institutions on a negative watch in April.
Outdated: House Speaker John Boehner says he supports a push by U.S. oil companies to ship their crude oil overseas and lift a decades-long ban on exports. The Ohio Republican says the change would be a boon for the economy, creating up to a million jobs and bringing U.S. energy policy into the 21st century. The export ban is a relic of the 1970s, after an OPEC oil embargo led to fuel rationing, high prices and iconic images of long lines of cars waiting to fuel up. Boehner tells The Associated Press those days are long gone, adding a “scarcity mindset” has been replaced by an energy boom that has seen domestic production of oil and natural gas soar, even as renewable energy such as wind and solar power also make gains.
