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“The home price appreciation we’ve been seeing is unsustainable. It needs to moderate over time or we risk inflating another housing bubble.”

Stan Humphries, Zillow chief economist Article, 1D

Russia allows pork from 3 U.S. firms

Russia has removed temporary restrictions and will again allow U.S. pork to enter the country.

Three U.S. businesses were among those approved to export pork products.

Russia will accept only U.S. pork that was raised without beta agonists, such a Ractopamine, a food additive that the country has deemed unfit for human consumption.

Virginia-based Smithfield Packing Co., North Carolina based Carolina Cold Storage, and Cloverleaf Cold Storage facilities in South Carolina, Virginia and North Carolina were approved for export.

Before the temporary restrictions were put into place, Russia accepted pork exports from more than 100 U.S. facilities, including products from Tyson Fresh Meats Inc.

Arkansas Best exec Keenan to retire

Jim Keenan, Arkansas Best’s senior vice president, is retiring after 33 years with the Fort Smith trucking and transportation company.

Keenan earned $734,581 in 2013, according to a proxy statement filed earlier this month by Arkansas Best. Over the past year, Keenan worked to coordinate supply-chain services offered by Arkansas Best segments ABF Freight, ABF Logistics and Panther Expedited Services.

Throughout his tenure with the company, Keenan has worked in sales, pricing and marketing roles. He joined Arkansas Best in 1981 when the company acquired East Texas Motor Freight.

A search for Keenan’s replacement is “ongoing,” a company spokesman said.

Tax bitcoins as property, IRS rules

The Internal Revenue Service announced Tuesday that bitcoin must be viewed and taxed as property, giving a little clarity to the shifting regulatory landscape of virtual currency.

Despite the fact that many users treat bitcoin as a regulated currency, “it does not have legal tender status in any jurisdiction,” the agency said.

That means that employers who choose to pay wages in bitcoins will have to report those wages just like any other payment made with property, and bitcoin income will be subject to the normal federal income withholding and payroll taxes.

Bitcoin, the computer-driven virtual currency that has gained momentum since it first popped up in 2009, has presented challenges for regulators. It has attracted a growing following of users and merchants, but it has no central bank and no government oversight.

Dallas rail project ahead of schedule

DALLAS - Work on Dallas Area Rapid Transit rail service to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is several months ahead of schedule.

Transit agency officials on Tuesday announced that the 5-mile extension of the Orange Line will open Aug. 18.

The $152 million extension had been scheduled to open in December, but agency officials said the rail station will open early and under budget.

Rail service will be offered via the airport’s Terminal A. An agency statement said the connection will lengthen the nation’s longest light-rail system to 90 miles.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit is the state’s largest municipal rail system, serving Dallas and a dozen surrounding cities.

U.S. Steel says S. Korea flouting law

U.S. Steel Corp., the largest U.S. producer of the metal by volume, said South Korea is dumping steel pipe and tubes in the U.S.

South Korean steel-makers created a network of related companies to evade U.S. trade laws on so-called oil country tubular goods, which are pipes and tubes used by oil and gas drillers, Mario Longhi, chief executive officer of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, said in remarks Tuesday to the U.S. Congressional Steel Caucus.

“The evidence in this case clearly shows that OCTG products are being illegally dumped in what remains the most open and attractive market in the world at prices below fair value and in ways designed to circumvent our trade laws,” Longhi said in his testimony.

U.S. Steel, the biggest domestic producer of pipes and tubes sold to drillers, is among steel-makers that say they have been unfairly harmed as imports of the products are sold more cheaply than domestic producers can make them. Sales of the products represented 48 percent of U.S. Steel’s 2013 operating income.

Startup airline aims to lease used jets

Eastern Air Lines Group Inc., the startup carrier named after a company that shut down in 1991, is shopping for as many as 10 used jets and looking at new models as it plots its debut as a charter operator.

Talks are underway with lessors for secondhand aircraft and with Boeing Co. and Airbus Group NV about new narrow-body models, Chief Executive Officer Ed Wegel said. Joining Wegel at Miami-based Eastern are investment managers and several former airline-industry executives.

Wegel said the company hopes to have decided on leasing opportunities in the next 30 to 45 days. The charter effort would start with a single Airbus jet and grow to three planes in its first year, according to its Jan. 28 application with the U.S. Transportation Department.

  • Bloomberg News

Business, Pages 26 on 03/26/2014

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