State finds ash borer in 3 more counties
The Arkansas Plant Board is reporting that the emerald ash borer has turned up in traps set in three more Arkansas counties.
Calhoun, Union, and Bradley counties were already included in the 25-county quarantine area imposed last fall on wood products such as all hardwood firewood as well as green ash lumber and nursery stock in an effort to stop the spread of the insect, an invasive species from Asia. The bug targets ash trees for food, eventually killing them.
The borer's presence was originally confirmed in Clark, Columbia, Dallas, Hot Spring, Nevada and Ouachita counties in 2014. Other counties were included in the quarantine zone to act as buffers.
Wood items subject to the quarantine include hardwood firewood of any species as well as products derived from ash trees, including nursery stock; green lumber with bark attached; living or dead ash tree materials such as logs, pulpwood, stumps, roots, branches, mulch and compost; and chips larger than 1 inch.
Quarantined items can be moved within quarantine counties, but they cannot be taken outside the quarantine area.
More information is available from the board at (501) 225-1598 or via email at eab@aspb.ar.gov. Information is also available online at plantboard.arkansas.gov.
-- Glen Chase
Japan to release U.S. exec, report says
TOKYO -- The American Toyota executive who was arrested last month on suspicion of drug law violations is expected to be released today without being prosecuted, according to Kyodo News service.
Kyodo did not identify the source of its information. Tokyo prosecutors declined to comment Tuesday. Toyota Motor Corp. said it had no information.
Julie Hamp, 55, who was the highest-ranking female executive at the Japanese automaker, was arrested June 18 on suspicion of trying to bring oxycodone, a narcotic painkiller, to Japan. The drug is tightly controlled in Japan.
Hamp, who resigned from Toyota last week, has not been available for comment. But police said she has denied trying to import an illegal drug into Japan. Toyota Chief Executive Akio Toyoda has said he believed Hamp had no intention of breaking the law.
The drug was found by Japanese customs in a package that was sent to Hamp by mail from the U.S., police said.
-- The Associated Press
Sears' real estate spinoff's stock debuts
NEW YORK -- Seritage Growth Properties, the real estate spinoff of Sears Holdings Corp., made its debut Monday on the New York Stock Exchange and estimated that it had raised about $1.6 billion from the offering.
Sears, which is dealing with slumping retail sales, formed the real estate investment trust to extract more revenue from its properties. It plans to sell and lease back about 235 properties, most of them Sears and Kmart stores, to the trust.
Sears expects to raise $2.6 billion in proceeds from the trust buying those properties.
Seritage is trading under the symbol SRG. It shares rose 63 cents, or 1.7 percent, to close Tuesday at $37.73.
-- The Associated Press
IMF sees risk in high U.S. stock prices
WASHINGTON -- The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that American stock prices are high and U.S. insurers and mutual funds are vulnerable to financial shocks. It also urged Congress not to weaken financial regulations passed in 2010.
The IMF said American banks are stronger but that risk has risen elsewhere. Its previous assessment of the U.S. financial system was conducted five years ago.
Overall, banks and insurance companies have increased their capital defenses against losses.
But the IMF expressed concern about risks outside the banking sector.
It warned the U.S. stock prices "are approaching levels that may be hard to sustain given profit forecasts" and the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will raise short-term interest rates later this year.
Mutual funds could "act as amplifiers" of a panic if jittery investors cash out, forcing funds to dump risky investments into a collapsing market.
-- The Associated Press
SpaceX: Charting failure by millisecond
Elon Musk said SpaceX is pinning down the events that led to its Falcon 9 rocket disintegrating shortly after a June 28 launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
"We are putting together a super-detailed timeline and making sure we have a precise sequence," he said Tuesday at the ISS R&D Conference in Boston, a gathering devoted to scientific research on the International Space Station. "In this case the data does seem to be quite difficult to interpret. Whatever happened is not a simple, straightforward thing."
The Space Exploration Technologies Corp. unmanned rocket, topped with a Dragon cargo spacecraft with supplies for the space station, broke up 2 minutes and 19 seconds into the mission. The blast was in the craft's upper-stage liquid-oxygen tank, moments before the main booster was set to separate after takeoff.
Musk, SpaceX's chief executive officer, said in a Twitter post Sunday that he expected preliminary conclusions on the flight by the end of this week. The company's engineers have been evaluating the available data to determine the cause and are creating a timeline by the millisecond, he said Tuesday.
SpaceX's mishap failure marked the third failed resupply mission to the space station in eight months.
-- Bloomberg News
Shipping glut to zap profit, analyst says
A glut of new vessels entering service, coupled with shrinking demand and aggressive pricing, means container-shipping lines will struggle to make money this year, according to London-based maritime consultants Drewry.
The "toxic mixture" of negative forces means the industry "will be lucky to break even this year," Drewry analysts said in a report Tuesday, after earlier forecasting annual earnings for the industry of about $8 billion.
With overcapacity on all major routes, carriers lowering prices in "rate-war mode" should take more radical action and curb available volumes, Drewry said. As many as 129 ships accommodating at least 8,000 20-foot boxes will enter service in the second half, reducing capacity utilization to an average 80 percent to 85 percent from 90 percent or more, it said.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 07/08/2015