USDA storm loans offered in 37 counties
Emergency loans are available to farmers in 37 Arkansas counties for physical losses caused by floods, hail, high winds, lightning and tornadoes since April 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Tuesday.
The loans are for eligible farmers and ranchers to repair or replace damaged or destroyed physical property, including livestock losses, the USDA said. Examples of property commonly affected include essential farm buildings, fixtures to real estate, equipment, livestock, perennial crops, fruit- and nut-bearing trees, and harvested or stored crops and hay.
Farmers may contact local offices of the Farm Service Agency, a division of the USDA.
The physical loss notification was issued for producers in Arkansas, Baxter, Benton, Boone, Carroll, Clay, Cleburne, Conway, Craighead, Cross, Drew, Faulkner, Fulton, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Lawrence, Lonoke, Madison, Marion, Mississippi, Newton, Perry, Phillips, Poinsett, Prairie, Pulaski, Randolph, St. Francis, Searcy, Sharp, Stone, Van Buren, Washington, White, Woodruff and Yell counties.
Farmers in another 21 Arkansas counties contiguous to the designated disaster area also are eligible.
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture last week estimated that floods in May alone caused some $175 million in crop losses, especially in rice fields in northeast Arkansas.
-- Stephen Steed
Sears moves to push back debt payment
Sears Holdings Corp. plans to extend parts of its $4.2 billion debt load, giving the retailer some breathing room in efforts to make a comeback.
The company will have another six months to repay $400 million of its $500 million secured loan facility, which was originally due in July, with the option to extend it further to July 2018, Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based Sears said in a statement Tuesday. Chief Executive Officer Eddie Lampert, who has thrown the company many lifelines before, is one of the lenders of the facility with JPP, along with Bill Gates' Cascade Investment LLC.
Sears also said it will pass off $515 million in pension obligations to MetLife Inc., making the largest U.S. life insurer responsible for payments to about 51,000 retirees. Sears expects the deal to have an "immaterial impact" on the funded status of its total pension obligations, while reducing volatility and expenses, helping the company reach its target to cut debt and pension obligations by $1.5 billion this fiscal year.
Sears didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. MetLife didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.
Once the country's largest retailer, Sears has fallen into a debt spiral, racking up more than $8 billion in red ink over the past five years amid a broader department-store slump.
-- Bloomberg News
New-home sales plunged 11.4% in April
WASHINGTON -- U.S. sales of new homes last month registered the biggest drop in more than two years.
The Commerce Department said Tuesday that new-home sales skidded 11.4 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 569,000. It was the biggest monthly drop since March 2015. Economists had expected a more modest retreat from March sales of 642,000, which were the highest since October 2007. Sales in April were still up 0.5 percent from a year earlier.
Economists were inclined to view the April reading as a one-month blip. Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, called last month's drop "a correction from the March cycle high, not a warning sign. ... We expect sales to rebound somewhat in May, and to return to the March high, at least, over the next few months."
A healthy job market is expected to give Americans confidence to buy homes. Employers added a solid 211,000 jobs last month, and the U.S. unemployment rate is at a decade-low 4.4 percent.
But last month, new-home sales fell in every region, led by a 26.3 percent plunge in the West, the biggest drop there since October 2010.
The median sales price of a new home slid 3 percent to $309,200.
There were 268,000 new homes for sale in April, the most since July 2009.
-- The Associated Press
Target to pay $18.5M in lost-data suits
Target Corp. has agreed to pay $18.5 million to settle state lawsuits over a 2013 hack of its database, in which personal information of millions of customers was stolen, according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
It's the largest multistate accord stemming from a data breach in history, Schneiderman said Tuesday.
About 40 million credit and debit card users' information was stolen in the breach, which occurred over two weeks in December 2013 and January 2014, and compromised the home and email addresses of as many as 70 million people.
Target later said customers were reimbursed for fraudulent charges by the card issuers, but shoppers claimed they were subjected to expensive account freezes, late payment fees and other costs.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 05/24/2017