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Trucking companies weighing investments in information technology often have two choices: do-it-yourself or outsourcing the job to someone else. But new firms are cropping up that offer services on an as-needed basis.

In the news this morning: British protests slow as other countries tackle fuel issue; feds hit DaimlerChrysler with penalty; International, DaimlerChrysler to lay off workers; and more to come.

This afternoon's headlines: Oil prices fall as Clinton considers tapping U.S. reserve; Burlington restructures, cuts back in truck division; L.A. transit strike deadline looms; and more to come.

Today's technology headlines: FCC enters debate on broadband Net access; Toshiba to launch Bluetooth PCMCIA card; Verisign exec says regulation is creeping into Internet policymaking; and more.

Average retail diesel fuel prices jumped 7.3 cents last week to another all-time high, and skyrocketing crude oil prices promise that prices at the pump will continue to rise.

Surging oil prices could bring catastrophic bankruptcy rates to trucking within nine months, according to a stock analyst who has studied the historic correlation between changes in fuel prices and company failures.

The House failed to override President Clinton’s veto of the estate tax bill that would have provided relief to family-owned trucking companies beginning next year.

Associates First Capital Corp., one of the nation’s largest suppliers of credit for trucking equipment purchases, will become a subsidiary of financial titan Citigroup, the two companies announced Sept. 6. he deal is a stock swap valued at $31.1 billion.

To hear vendors speaking at press conferences and trade shows, you would think that new information technologies grow on trees. But their would-be customers in trucking know that to every piece of software, scanning product and communications device on the market there is a dollar sign attached.