Home, sweet home: Several colorfully painted homes in Spanish Town have landed the Baton Rouge neighborhood among 60 finalist cities vying for recognition in the Paint Quality Institute’s “Prettiest Painted Places in America” contest. Visit Baton Rouge nominated the homes. Along with Spanish Town, neighborhoods in Texas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma—as well as two other Louisiana locales—are up for the top spot in the South Central region. A dozen national winners will be named later this month. See all the finalist neighborhoods here.
Hedging: CBS Sports has decided to use a six-day option to decide which SEC game to broadcast at 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 20, when LSU is scheduled to travel to College Station to take on Texas A&M. Following this week’s games—which include LSU taking on South Carolina at Tiger Stadium; kickoff at 7 p.m.—the network will decide between LSU at Texas A&M, South Carolina at Florida, or Alabama at Tennessee. ESPN will televise the two games not selected by CBS Sports for the 11 a.m. and primetime (sometime between 6 and 6:45 p.m.) slots.
Weight watchers: Allstate insurance company says overweight Americans are thwarting the auto industry’s efforts to improve fuel-efficiency by adding extra pounds to their lighter-weight cars. The auto insurer says 1 billion extra gallons of gasoline were burned each year between 1960 and 2002 because of our growing girth, citing a report by Entrepreneur.com. Americans are weighing in 20 pounds heavier than they did in 1990. For every additional 100 pounds, a vehicle’s fuel economy drops by as much as 2%, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The Houston Chronicle has the full story here.
