A provision that would permit trucking companies to use twin 33-foot trailers nationwide will be included as part of a Senate funding bill.
The Senate Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment to the 2016 bill for the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development with a 16-14 vote Thursday. The provision would give companies like Fort Smith-based ABF Freight and Harrison-based FedEx Freight the ability to use 33-foot tandem trailers instead of the current limit of 28 feet.
Proponents believe that extending the length of twin trailers will give the less-than-truckload sector the ability to haul more freight while decreasing the number of trucks on the road. Opponents believe that it would be detrimental to highway safety because of the added length of the twin trailers.
The provision still must be considered by the full Senate, but American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves applauded the Appropriations Committee for moving the bill forward Thursday.
Goodwill chief leads international panel
Brian Itzkowitz, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Arkansas, was recently made chairman of the Goodwill Industries International board of directors. He took the one-year post during the group's annual board meeting of executives and board members in San Diego.
Itzkowitz, 48, became president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Arkansas in 2008. Since then, the organization has tripled its annual revenue from $9.8 million in fiscal 2008 to an expected $30 million in fiscal 2015, which ends Tuesday, said Rebecca Brockman, public relations and community engagement manager.
Goodwill Industries of Arkansas has increased its annual client base from 1,100 to more than 15,000 under Itzkowitz's leadership. The number of people who found work through Goodwill has risen from 89 in 2008 to more than 4,200 last year, and some 550 jobs were created internally, the group said in a release.
Average 30-year mortgage rate ticks up
WASHINGTON -- Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates were mixed this week, but remained close to high levels for the year.
Mortgage giant Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage edged up to 4.02 percent this week from 4 percent a week earlier. The rate on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages slipped to 3.21 percent from 3.23 percent.
Mortgage rates have increased in recent weeks, in the midst of the spring home-buying season, as the economy has shown signs of improvement.
A year ago, the average 30-year rate was 4.14 percent; the 15-year rate was slightly above its current level, at 3.22 percent.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., surveys lenders across the country at the beginning of each week. The average doesn't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for a 30-year mortgage was unchanged from last week at 0.7 point. The fee for a 15-year loan rose to 0.6 point from 0.5 point.
-- The Associated Press
Whole Foods: Coerced by NYC agency
Whole Foods Market Inc. says it hasn't seen any evidence that it overcharged customers at its New York City stores and is "vigorously" defending itself against accusations from the city's Department of Consumer Affairs.
Whole Foods had been working with the department since December, but it abandoned the talks after the agency made "grossly excessive monetary" demands to settle the investigation, company spokesman Michael Sinatra said.
"We disagreed with the amount and a short time later the investigation became public," Sinatra said.
Abby Lootens, a spokesman for the consumer agency, declined to comment on Whole Foods' allegations, saying it doesn't discuss details of negotiations.
The agency announced an ongoing investigation into Whole Foods on Wednesday after finding what it said were "thousands" of potential overcharging violations in a survey of 80 different types of packaged products. The consumer agency reviewed other grocery chains as well, determining that more than three-quarters of 120 supermarkets had overcharged customers.
-- Bloomberg News
General Mills plans to cut 675-725 jobs
NEW YORK -- General Mills expects to cut 675 to 725 jobs as it wrestles with sluggish sales.
The maker of Cheerios, Yoplait and Progresso said Thursday that it will record pretax costs of about $57 million to $62 million, mostly for employee-termination benefits.
Along with other packaged-food-makers like Kellogg and Campbell Soup, General Mills Inc. has cut costs to offset slowing sales growth. Net sales rose barely 1 percent last year, and the Minneapolis company expects core sales to grow at a "low single-digit rate" this year.
General Mills said its current restructuring should be complete by early fiscal 2017, generating annual savings of about $45 to $50 million.
-- The Associated Press
U.S. corn glut seen rising to 1988 level
U.S. corn inventories are forecast to rise to the highest level in almost three decades after two straight years of record harvests, cushioning livestock and ethanol producers against crop losses after excessive rain in June.
Domestic stockpiles as of June 1 probably climbed 18 percent to 4.557 billion bushels, according to a survey of 27 analysts by Bloomberg News before a government report due Tuesday. That would be the highest for the date since 1988. Bigger supplies will push prices down 21 percent by September, according to AgResource Co.
Adding to the glut, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that world inventories will jump 13 percent to a 27-year high before North American farmers start harvesting this fall. Expanding stockpiles are providing a buffer after too much rain threatened some Midwest crops.
"We are in an oversupplied global market," Jeff Hainline, the president of farm and grain-elevator consultant Advance Trading Inc. in Bloomington, Ill., said by telephone Wednesday.
-- Bloomberg News
Flexjet to expand international flights
Flexjet, the private aircraft flight-share company sold by Bombardier Inc. in 2013, is seeking to break the lock Warren Buffett's Netjets has on international private flights.
Having just gotten its first Gulfstream G450s, and with G650s -- the longest-flying business jet -- to be delivered next year, Flexjet is doubling the number of planes by 2016 that have range to fly to Europe to more than 40, said Chairman Kenneth Ricci.
"This is all part of a plan of ours to really move Flexjet out of the domestic markets and into the international market," Ricci said. "Right now, Netjets kind of has that space all to themselves."
The opportunity for fractional operators overseas is large, Ricci said. There are about 110 fractionally owned aircraft abroad competing for at least 800,000 flight hours a year. That compares with about 700 aircraft chasing 1.2 million flight hours in the U.S., he said.
"The U.S. has somewhat flattened out, but the worldwide market is still just beginning," Ricci said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
Netjets, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is the largest fractional operator with about 700 aircraft in its fleet, followed by Flexjet with 150. With fractional jets, customers buy a share in the plane that the companies control, maintain and provide pilots and other services for. That differs from jet charters in which individuals own aircraft and allow management companies to book flights on them.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 06/26/2015