Rising lumber shipments brighten rail outlook

(Reuters) - Railroad shipments of lumber are gaining momentum, signaling a construction upturn that should drive up shipping volume of consumer products from appliances to furniture.

This mounting demand for construction and household goods bodes well for Union Pacific Corp , CSX Corp , Norfolk Southern Corp and Kansas City Southern as they report earnings for a quarter that was crimped by a deep drop in coal shipments.

Auto and intermodal shipping - the movement of goods in containers that can be shifted between modes of transportation such as from train to truck - have more than offset the coal drop triggered by a mild winter and low natural gas prices.

"The implication of stronger lumber shipments is that if homes are getting built then homes are being furnished," said Jeffrey Kauffman, senior research analyst at Sterne Agee in New York. "That is going to drive intermodal volume - furniture, PVC piping, and also auto sales can be related to new homes."

For the first half of this year, U.S. railroads hauled 11.8 percent more carloads of lumber and wood products than the same period a year earlier, the American Association of Railroads (AAR) said.

This was the third biggest gain of any of 20 categories tracked by the group, behind the 38.2 percent jump in petroleum products and 21.6 percent rise in motor vehicles and equipment.

In the same six-month period, carloads of grain fell 11.9 percent and coal dropped 10.7 percent.

Lumber itself represented 2 percent of the $65.3 billion total U.S. rail revenue generated by commodities carloads in 2011, the American Association of Railroads (AAR) said.

But the consumer goods category, which are finished goods including TVs and appliances, drove about 20 percent of the revenue, second only to 24 percent for coal.

Union Pacific's Chief Executive Officer Jack Koraleski, in a July 2 interview with Reuters, said the company has taken some lumber-moving equipment out of storage for the first time since 2008 to handle the increased volume.

The No. 1 U.S. public railroad's lumber carloads peaked at 226,000 in 2006 before plunging 65 percent to 79,000 in 2009 and then rising to 89,000 last year.

"We're not ready yet to declare victory, but by the time we get to the end of the year we'll probably still be somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 percent below our best year ever with lumber," or 113,000 carloads, Koraleski said. "That's better than it has been and headed in the right direction."

IS THE WORST OVER FOR COAL AND HOUSING?

Coal rail shipments are now headed upward, with utilities burning off stockpiles to produce electricity for air conditioning during this steamy summer, analysts agree.

"Coal looks like it has hit the bottom and is starting to come back up," said Koraleski.

The worst may also be in the past for housing, though the recovery will be slow and uneven, according to a Reuters poll published on Friday.

U.S. construction spending in May rose to its highest level in 2-1/2 years.

Sales of new single-family homes jumped to a two-year high as prices also rose in May. Previously-owned home sales declined 1.5 percent in May on the heels of a 3.4 percent jump the prior month, and median home prices rose for a fourth straight month.

Home funding company Freddie Mac this week said average 30-year mortgage rates hit a record low 3.56 percent, which can add incentive for creditworthy borrowers looking to buy a home.

CSX and Kansas City Southern, the No. 2 and No. 4 biggest public railroads, respectively, kick off second-quarter earnings on Tuesday. Union Pacific follows on Thursday and No. 3 railroad Norfolk Southern on July 24.

Cost controls and strength in autos, intermodal, lumber and petroleum shipments are expected to bolster profits for the rails that otherwise were pressured by coal.

"Any large moves off of earnings would in fact be a surprise as the option market reflects limited risk thus far" for the railroads, said Ophir Gottlieb, managing director of Livevol, an options analytics firm in San Francisco.

CSX earnings are seen at 47 cents, on average, up a penny in the quarter from a year ago, with revenue little changed around $3 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Kansas City Southern, less exposed to coal than its bigger peers, is seen posting earnings of 84 cents versus 71 cents a year ago on revenue of about $571 million versus $535 million.

Union Pacific's earnings are seen rising to $1.96 per share from $1.59, with revenue of $5.2 billion versus $4.9 billion. Norfolk Southern's earnings are seen at $1.53 per share from $1.38 on revenue of $2.94 billion versus $2.87 billion.

"The rails appear to be coming out of a nuclear winter largely intact ? passing stress tests that few other industries could survive and underscoring the resilience of these businesses," Jefferies & Co analysts led by Peter Nesvold, wrote in a note.

(Reporting by Lynn Adler, additional reporting by Doris Frankel in Chicago; editing by Patricia Kranz, Bernard Orr)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rising-lumber-shipments-brighten-rail-outlook-190838064--finance.html

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Texas' poll tax in disguise

In 1964, the American people enacted the 24th Amendment, to prevent the exclusion of the poor from the ballot box. In his speech last week at the NAACP convention, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. wasn't indulging in election-year rhetoric when he condemned Texas' 2011 voter photo identification law as a poll tax that could do just that. He was speaking the hard legal truth.

The Justice Department would be right to challenge this new law as an unconstitutional poll tax. The department has temporarily blocked the Texas law under special provisions of the Voting Rights Act that prevent states with a history of discrimination from disadvantaging minority groups. But the

attorney general should go further and raise a 24th Amendment challenge against Texas and other states that are joining the effort to bar the poor from the polls. This exclusionary campaign should not be allowed to destroy a great constitutional achievement of the civil rights revolution.

The 24th Amendment forbids the imposition of "any poll tax or other tax" in federal elections. Texas' law flatly violates this provision in dealing with would-be voters who don't have a state-issued photo ID. To obtain an acceptable substitute, they must travel to a driver's license office and submit appropriate documents, along with their fingerprints, to establish their qualifications. If they don't have the required papers, they must pay $22 for a copy of their birth certificate.

If they can't come up with the money for the qualifying documents, they can't vote. But the 24th Amendment denies states the power to create such a financial barrier to the ballot box.

Texas' violation is particularly blatant. In drafting its law, the Legislature rejected a provision that would have provided free copies of the necessary documents. Rather than paying for this service out of the general revenue fund, it chose to disqualify voters who couldn't pay the fee. This is precisely the choice forbidden by the Constitution.

The 24th Amendment doesn't only invalidate the $22 tax. Texas also can't impose unnecessarily arduous certification procedures. The Supreme Court took up this issue shortly after the amendment was ratified in 1964. The state of Virginia had told its citizens they could avoid its $1.50 poll tax only if they filed a formal certificate establishing their residency. Lars Forssenius and others refused to comply, and a near-unanimous Supreme Court in 1965 agreed with them. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the ruling that the state's administraton of its residency certificate requirement was a "real obstacle to voting in federal elections" that "abridged" the franchise. He emphasized that constitutional end-runs were not permitted. "For federal elections," he explained, "the poll tax is abolished absolutely as a prerequisite to voting, and no equivalent or milder substitute may be imposed."

This broad functional view of taxation is firmly rooted in our constitutional tradition. In his recent opinion in the healthcare case, for example, Chief Justice John G. RobertsJr.adopted the same approach in finding that the "penalty" imposed by the Affordable Care Act was the functional equivalent of a tax.

But in Warren's ruling, the same broad approach to taxation led to a very different conclusion. Unlike Roberts, Warren was not marking out the boundaries of congressional power. He was restricting the power of the states to impose unnecessary administrative barriers that were the functional equivalents of poll taxes.

Applying Warren's approach to the present day has large practical implications. The estimated number of registered voters in Texas without valid IDs ranges from 167,000 (according to the state) to more than 1 million (according to the federal government). The Justice Department also emphasizes that minority groups are disproportionately affected. What is more, 10 other states have passed similar laws in the last two years alone. All these statutes raise fundamental problems under the 24th Amendment.

Curiously, these problems have been overlooked in the escalating wave of challenges to this recent round of exclusionary legislation. Civil rights lawyers have focused instead on more familiar texts such as the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. Though these provisions are important, they were created in response to a host of other issues. The poll tax amendment, in contrast, was focused on the very problem that now threatens again to undermine our democracy: imposing costs on the poor that prevent them from voting.

The attorney general was right to recall the amendment from legal obscurity, and to insist that we remember the determined effort by the civil rights generation to end this disgraceful practice forever.

Bruce Ackerman and Jennifer Nou are coauthors of an article on the poll tax amendment in the Northwestern University Law Review. He is a professor of law and political science at Yale; she is an academic fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/latimes/news/opinion/~3/nzum_M_wZwQ/la-oe-ackerman-texas-poll-tax-20120715,0,5860390.story

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Well-known Afghan commander among 23 dead in blast

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? A suicide bomber blew himself up Saturday in a wedding hall in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 23 people including a prominent warlord-turned-politician and three Afghan security force officials, in an attack that deals a setback to efforts to unify the nation's ethnic factions, Afghan officials said.

Ahmad Khan Samangani, an ethnic Uzbek and anti-Soviet guerrilla leader in the 1980s who later became a member of parliament, was welcoming guests to his daughter's wedding when the explosion occurred in Aybak, the capital of Samangan province.

President Hamid Karzai said 23 people were killed and about 60, including government officials, were wounded in the attack, which he condemned and said was "carried out by the enemies of Afghanistan." He ordered a team from Kabul to fly to the northern province to investigate the bombing.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the blast. But in announcing their spring offensive on May 2, the Taliban said they would continue to target those who back the Karzai government and the U.S.-led international military coalition.

Karzai needs the minority groups ? loosely known as the Northern Alliance ? to back his efforts to reconcile with the Taliban. But minorities already worry that Karzai, a Pashtun, will make too many concessions to their Taliban enemies to achieve a peace deal to end the war. Whatever support for peace talks that Karzai has won from minority groups is likely to erode if militants continue to pick off their leaders one by one.

It was the most recent in a month-long string of deadly attacks around the country.

On June 22, heavily armed Taliban fighters attacked a lakeside hotel north of Kabul and killed 18 people during a 12-hour standoff with security forces. Two days earlier, a suicide bomber killed 21 people, including three U.S. soldiers, at a checkpoint in a crowded market in the eastern city of Khost.

The violence threatens to undermine international hopes of an orderly handover to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

Separately, NATO said one of its service members was killed Saturday in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan. It did not provide further details or release the nationality of the service member. The death brings the death toll among foreign troops to 19 so far this month and a total of 234 so far this year. And in western Afghanistan, Abdul Salam Rahimi, the mayor of Shindand district in Herat province, was assassinated Friday evening by two gunmen on a motorbike, authorities said. A civilian, who was injured in the shooting, later died at a hospital.

Mohammad Nawab Sherzai, criminal investigations director in Aybak who was helping provide security for the wedding, said most of the local guests had already gathered on the second and third floors of the three-story wedding hall when the morning explosion occurred. Samangani and other relatives and elders had moved to the first floor to welcome additional guests arriving from Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of neighboring Balkh province.

"Suddenly, the attacker, who was among the guests from Mazar-i-Sharif, got very close to Samangani. He detonated his suicide vest," Sherzai said. "It was a big explosion. There were bloody bodies all around the first floor. The explosion was so strong. There were people even on the third floor who were wounded."

"Everybody was running in different directions. For about 10 minutes, nobody knew what was happening," he said. "There was dark smoke all around. After about 10 minutes, the people were able to see the bodies and start helping with the wounded."

The three Afghan security force officials killed were Afghan National Police Gen. Sayed Ahmad Sameh, the commander for the western region and a relative of Samangani; Gen. Mohammad Khan, the intelligence chief in the province; and Mohammadullah, an Afghan National Army division commander who uses only one name, which is common in Afghanistan.

The wounded included a lawmaker from Balkh province and a former governor of Sar-e-Pul province.

After the blast, shattered glass, blood and other debris and covered the site and the injured were helped from the scene. Afghan Army helicopters and ambulances ferried some of the wounded from rudimentary medical facilities in Aybak to Mazar-i-Sharif, which has larger hospitals. Dead bodies were piled into the back of Afghan security force vehicles and taken from the wedding hall, which has a facade of pillars painted a festive light green and pink. The wedding never occurred.

Samangani became famous during Afghanistan's fight against the Soviets, who left the country in 1989 after a 10-year occupation. He became a member of parliament last year and was considered a key leader in Samangan and northern Afghanistan. He was a former military commander under Northern Alliance general Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful Uzbek warlord. Samangan, a province with about 350,000 people, has in the past been politically split between ethnic Tajik and Uzbek leaders.

The withdrawal of most foreign troops by the end of 2014 has spawned fears the country will descend into civil war when foreign troops leave.

To prevent that, Karzai needs the Northern Alliance to back his efforts to reconcile with the Taliban. That's because, while Pashtuns make up 42 percent of the population, collectively the minority Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and other smaller groups outnumber them. Without minority support, the country risks a de facto partition into a Pashtun south and a "minority" north.

The Taliban have assassinated a number of Northern Alliance and other minority leaders in recent years.

Gen. Daud Daud, an ethnic Tajik, who oversaw police activities in nine northern provinces, was killed in May 2011 when a Taliban suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew himself up inside a heavily guarded compound as top Afghan and international officials left a meeting. Daud had also served as governor of Takhar province in the north, deputy interior minister for counternarcotics and was a former bodyguard of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic Northern Alliance commander who was himself killed in an al-Qaida suicide bombing two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Other assassinations include the Takhar provincial police chief, Gen. Shah Jahan Noori, who died in the same blast as Daud. Mohammad Omar, the governor of neighboring Kunduz province in the north, was assassinated in October 2010 inside a mosque. Gen. Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili, the provincial police chief of Kunduz province, was killed by an insurgent bomber in March 2011. A month later, a suicide bomber killed Gen. Khan Mohammad Mujahid, who was police chief in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar province in the south, but was aligned with the Northern Alliance.

___

Associated Press Writers Amir Shah, Deb Riechmann and Patrick Quinn contributed to this report from Kabul.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/well-known-afghan-commander-among-23-dead-blast-111422411.html

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PFT: Dolphins ask NFL about changing their logo

Dolphins players will join Dade County officials and locals kids on Wednesday to demonstrate the use of new outdoor exercise equipment at West Perrine Park.

Former Pats DT Jayce Sayler reflects on the three-week span in 2001 in which QB Tom Brady went from being unknown to unforgettable.

Bills RB C.J. Spiller went back to his hometown of Lake Butler, Florida to host a youth football camp.

Jets owner Woody Johnson may or may not have explained the ?shotgun? formation to Dick Cheney at a recent Mitt Romney fundraiser hosted by the former Vice President.

Ravens LB Ray Lewis is selling workout products, including a $75 deck of cards.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin explains his decision to return to Hampton Roads, Virginia, for an annual youth football camp; ?Because it?s home,? Tomlin said.? ?It?s what?s produced me.? I benefited from a lot of people in this community, their insight and lessons they taught me.? I want to impart some of the lessons on the next generation.?

Tony Grossi of ESPNCleveland.com thinks the arrival of WR Josh Gordon could mean the eventual departure of WR Mohamed Massaquoui.

Bengals CB Brandon Ghee is hoping to climb the depth chart higher than second string.

Former Colts and Penn State RB Lydell Mitchell is defending Joe Paterno, despite the findings of the Louis Freeh report.

New Titans G Steve Hutchinson knows from experience that new Titans DE Kamerion Wimbley can get to the quarterback.

The Jaguars new black jerseys have been leaked.

When it comes to season tickets, the Texans have 99 pallets.

The Chargers have announced that they will announce on Monday the 36th member to their Hall of Fame.? In an announcement.

Bucking the league-wide trend, the Raiders have seen attendance increase during each of the past two years.

Broncos CB Tracy Porter is bringing to Colorado his Pick 6 Foundation, which is dedicated to fighting childhood obesity.

Dexter Heyman hopes to be the next undrafted linebacker to win a roster spot with the Chiefs.

Former Redskins QB Sonny Jurgensen is a believer in new Redskins QB Robert Griffin III; ?This is exactly what the Redskins need,? Jurgensen said. ?He?s very gifted.? He?s such a tremendous athlete.? I?ve never seen anyone so quick playing that position.?

In Albany, the Giants? preseason opener will be bumped to a second-tier channel, thanks to the Olympics.

TE John Phillips will have an expanded role for the Cowboys this year.

In a segment for ESPN?s ?My Wish? series, Eagles WR DeSean Jackson helps a young boy write and record a rap song.

Green Bay?s City Council wants to help get former Packers OL Jerry Kramer into the Hall of Fame.

Bears QB Jay Cutler seems to be finally embracing his celebrity status.

FB James Bryant and TE Will Heller could be battling for the same roster spot in Detroit.? (The job possibly will go to whoever gets arrested first.)

Despite lingering concerns about his health, Vikings LB Jasper Brinkley says he?s ?ready to go.?

Buccaneers WR Preston Parker has benefited from his past relationship with RB Earnest Graham, and from his new relationship with WR Vincent Jackson.

Falcons QB Matt Ryan could benefit from the new deal signed by Saints QB Drew Brees, especially since they have the same agent.

Saints interim coach Joe Vitt says he was never worried about the Drew Brees deal not getting done.

Panthers QB Cam Newton recently spoke at a youth basketball camp, urging kids to stay in school, not to drugs, and not charge for their autographs.

A parking dispute between the Cardinals and the City of Glendale, which at one point prompted the team to threaten to sue for $67 million, has been resolved.

Seahawks RB Marshawn Lynch, along with 49ers QB Josh Johnson, gave a $500 scholarship to a gunshot victim in Oakland.? (Why didn?t they just buy him a laptop battery?)

Rams coach Jeff Fisher has imported his celebrity softball game to St. Louis.

The 49ers and franchise-tagged S Dashon Goldson aren?t making progress toward a long-term deal in advance of Monday?s deadline.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/07/13/dolphins-talking-to-league-office-about-a-logo-change/related/

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Yahoo confirms server breach, over 400k accounts compromised

Online account security breaches are seemingly commonplace these days -- just ask LinkedIn or Sony -- and now we can add Yahoo's name to the list of hacking victims. The company's confirmed that it had the usernames and passwords of over 400,000 accounts stolen from its servers earlier this week and the data was briefly posted online. The credentials have since been pulled from the web, but it turns out they weren't just for Yahoo accounts, as Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, Comcast, MSN, SBC Global, Verizon, BellSouth and Live.com login info was also pilfered and placed on display. The good news? Those responsible for the breach said that the deed was done to simply show Yahoo the weaknesses in its software security. To wit:

We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call, and not as a threat. There have been many security holes exploited in Web servers belonging to Yahoo Inc. that have caused far greater damage than our disclosure. Please do not take them lightly. The subdomain and vulnerable parameters have not been posted to avoid further damage.

In response, Yahoo's saying that a fix for the vulnerability is in the works, but the investigation is ongoing and its system has yet to be fully secured. In the meantime, the company apologized for the breach and is advising users to change their passwords accordingly. You can read the official party line below.

At Yahoo! we take security very seriously and invest heavily in protective measures to ensure the security of our users and their data across all our products. We confirm that an older file from Yahoo! Contributor Network (previously Associated Content) containing approximately 400,000 Yahoo! and other company users names and passwords was stolen yesterday, July 11. Of these, less than 5% of the Yahoo! accounts had valid passwords. We are fixing the vulnerability that led to the disclosure of this data, changing the passwords of the affected Yahoo! users and notifying the companies whose users accounts may have been compromised. We apologize to affected users. We encourage users to change their passwords on a regular basis and also familiarize themselves with our online safety tips at security.yahoo.com.

Filed under: Internet

Yahoo confirms server breach, over 400k accounts compromised originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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