News Briefs - Oct. 1
The Latest Headlines:
- August Construction Spending Tops $1 Trillion
- Frozen Food Express Sells Unit, Buys Back Stock
- Intermodal Loadings Set Second Consecutive Weekly Record, AAR Says
- Russia Approves Kyoto Protocol, Times Says
- Frozen Food Express Sells Unit, Buys Back Stock
August Construction Spending Tops $1 Trillion
Construction spending rose 0.8% in August, double the expected increase to a record high level of $1.02 trillion, the Commerce Department reported Friday.After an adjustment of July's rate to 1.1% from a previously announced 0.4%, it was the seventh consecutive month of rising spending, the department said.
Private nonresidential spending rose for a second consecutive month, by 0.8% on the heels of a 2.2% jump in July, Commerce said. Private construction and residential construction hit new record highs, as private building rose 1.4% to $777.7 million, it said.
Frozen Food Express Sells Unit, Buys Back Stock
Frozen Food Express Industries Inc. said late Thursday it sold one of its non-freight businesses and repurchased 154,000 shares of its common stock.Dallas-based FFE said it sold certain assets and liabilities of Compressors Plus Inc., which remanufactures, sells and services refrigeration compressors and had incurred modest losses in recent periods.
Separately, the company said that 154,000 of its shares had been repurchased on the open market as of September 29, following an Aug. 12 decision by its board approving a plan to repurchase up to 750,000 shares of its common stock.
FFE, a truckload and less-than-truckload carrier which includes refrigerated transportation and airfreight subsidiaries, is No. 44 in the Transport Topics listing of North American for-hire carriers.Transport Topics
Intermodal Loadings Set Second Consecutive Weekly Record, AAR Says
The Association of American Railroads said Thursday that intermodal loadings set a record for a second consecutive week.Intermodal volume of 231,025 trailers and containers during the week ended Sept. 25 broke the record set the previous week by 1,986 units and was up 10% from the same week last year, AAR said. Container volume was up 11.6% from last year while trailer volume rose 5.4%.
Railroad volume is considered an important economic indicator. Intermodal traffic, which tends to be higher-valued merchandise than bulk commodities, uses trains for the long haul and trucks for the shorter distance at either end of the trip.
Through the first first 38 weeks of the year, intermodal volume totaled 7.9 million trailers or containers, up 9.5% from last year, AAR said.Transport Topics
Russia Approves Kyoto Protocol, Times Says
Russia's cabinet endorsed the long-delayed Kyoto Protocol on global warming Thursday, and the Russian parliament was expected to approved the emissions-reduction measure, the New York Times reported Friday.The Kyoto treaty would require 36 industrialized nations to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases by 2012 by more than 5% below 1990 levels, with different targets for individual countries, the Times said.
But the treaty would not cover the United States, which has rejected the treaty, or fast-growing China, because it is considered a developing country, the paper reported.
In 1990, the United States accounted for 36.1 % of emissions from industrialized countries, and Russia 17.4%, the Times said. Greenhouse gas emissions come largely from the burning of coal and oil, including gasoline and diesel fuel.Transport Topics
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