With the introduction of the iPad, Apple's status as a cultural icon reached new heights. The media's crush on Apple is not just alive and well, but it has gone global. The challenge for Apple, however, with the iPad will be less about improving an established market than building a new one. Full Article. 

A local commercial by two LSU marketing students for Gulf Coast Bank & Trust will air during the Super Bowl.Gagliardi and Balcerowicz’s spot encourages customers to take time to save, highlighting milestones in people’s lives such as early childhood, school, graduation and marriage. Full Article.

Aeroframe Services LLC recently announced it will add 300 jobs to its aircraft maintenance operations at the Chennault International Airport in Lake Charles. Aeroframe already employs 250 people at the air park and will add one production line of 75 people every 45 days to complete the hiring. Full Article.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently lavished praise on the LA system that enables the state to tie student test scores to the teachers who taught them and to the education schools that taught those teachers. But Duncan, in an interview with a roundtable of reporters, said that doesn't necessarily mean that Louisiana is a shoo-in to win the high-stakes competition between states.  Full Article.

Recent government reports indicated that the unemployment rate dropped unexpectedly in January to 9.7 percent from 10 percent while employers shed 20,000 jobs. Labor Dept. Analysts said the rate dropped because a survey of households found the number of employed Americans rose by 541,000.  Full Article.

LA should have only two higher education management boards: one for universities & one for community & technical colleges, the state’s college streamlining commission voted on 2/4/2010. Gov. Jindal supports even strong consolidation into a single board for all higher education. Full Article.

Men and women entrepreneurs are similar, with equivalent education levels, early interest in starting their own business, and similar other advantages, yet no woman has ever been CEO of a Wall Street firm. Kauffman Foundation's analysis of Dun & Bradstreet data showed that women were primary owners of only 19% of the 237,843 firms founded in 2004. Full Article.

Construction recently began on one of the largest sugar cane refineries in the country at Gramercy. The LA Sugar Refining plant, a $190 million project, is a joint venture between Cargill Inc., Imperial Sugar Co. and Louisiana sugar growers. Full Article.

With the economy getting stronger, the Federal Reserve this year can focus on how and when to pull back the stimulus money pumped out to fight the financial crisis. No major changes in rates or economic support programs are expected. Full Article.

Former homeowners learn they might still owe mortgage lenders if there’s a difference between what they owed on their mortgage and what the bank could sell it for at auction. Full Article.

Madden NFL popped into headlines today, predicting a sunny Super Bowl win for the New Orleans Saints, the Colts limping home on Sunday, and all of New Orleans jumping for joy. Madden NFL predictions for the Super Bowl winner were correct for five out of the last six years. Full Article.

Many retailers reported modest sales gains for January, as limited racks of holiday clearance items failed to entice shoppers to spend more freely. Full Article.

A recent Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City report suggests that LA and other energy states will lag behind a national economic recovery because of low prices for natural gas, which would represent a reversal of a historic trend that sees energy states leave a recession first. Full Article.

The news that the US Army Corps of Engineers has put its flood fight program into action comes at appropriate time, as rain falls steadily across South LA. The Corps activated the first phase of flood fight procedures to monitor levees along the unusually high rivers. Full Article.

All the attention on the New Orleans Saints' rise to prominence in the National Football League is putting the state of LA in a favorable national spotlight, bringing an increased awareness of what LA offers and that it has recovered from the hurricanes. Full Article

“Who dat?” is older than us all, but its association with the New Orleans Saints first flowered in 1983, when a former World Series hero teamed with a local studio, a Neville and several Saints players to cement the phrase in the New Orleans lexicon. Full Article.

Following the "sea of red" for employment reports for much of the last two years, U.S. nonfarm payrolls are set to move back into positive territory in 2010, and perhaps as early as January. Full Article.

Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius hybrid cars are under investigation by U.S. auto-safety regulators, following an order to the company by Japan’s government to investigate potential brake defects. Full Article.

Wal-Mart is boxing out Redbox. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has imposed strict limits on the number of DVDs any one customer can buy at a time, making it harder for movie-rental kiosks such as Redbox to get their hands on large numbers of newly released discs. Full Article.