Baton Rouge Update—04/29/09

Here’s a good rundown of what’s been breaking in the last 24 hours.

Reuters is reporting that Baton Rouge-based Albemarle Group’s profits dropped 60% for the first quarter as a direct result of the contraction of the consumer electronics, automobile and construction industries. Recently, we featured the Albemarle group in our Forbes Fortune list article.

Chelsea’s—a local restaurant and bar that has been operating around the LSU area for the past 20 years—is being threatened by the state alcohol licensing board for some, allegedly, fraudulent accusations of business misconduct. While the Baton Rougean has never reviewed Chelsea’s—we should get on that—, they have been a valued business member for quite some time. To revoke their liquor license would, in effect, kill their business. The full story is here.

Today was the opening session to the State Legislature’s Regular Session. You can view Bobby Jindal’s opening address to our legislative body on YouTube: part 1 and part 2. This is a highly crucial moment in our state as they rework the Governor’s proposed budget.

As always, we’ll keep you informed of further breaking news.

Also, we unveiled the Baton Rougean’s weather feed this week. It posts the daily forecast every night and also updates for any breaking NOAA emergency bulletins (such as advisories, watches, or warnings). It updates live and runs 24/7/365. I’d recommend subscribing to its updates via text from Twitter (I do) to stay updated on the go. You can catch it on Twitter @btrweather.

We also got our hands on some interesting data we’d like to analyze. If anyone has a background or any experience working with statistics or some other analysis, please contact me.