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In recounting his first year as general president of the Teamsters union, James P. Hoffa last week cited success in winning better contracts and recruiting new members. He also took the opportunity to speak out against the recently approved China trade agreement.

Trailer shipments during the first three months of 2000 have pulled even with the same period in 1999 after running behind for the first two months of the year.

A federal judge in Arizona last week ordered an insurance company to pay more than $3 million to a computer firm for business lost as a result of a power outage.

A full year after CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railroad began to dismember and divide Conrail, both companies are still battered and bruised in recovering from a debacle that damaged their reputations, their customer relations and their bottom lines.

Fast delivery of vehicles is a relative concept. Buyers of medium-duty walk-in parcel delivery vans are accustomed to a two- to three-month wait for delivery from the time of order. But one company wants to shorten that to four weeks.

In the news this morning: Canadian Teamsters protest for better hours rules; Circle International expands in L.A., Dallas, N.J. and Madrid; and Overnite Transportation unit expands into Texas.

The American biodiesel industry, responding to a report that a Belgian study found biodiesel detrimental to the environment, said its soy-based product does not contain harmful ingredients.

A law mandating an exit as well as entry visa for aliens crossing land borders of the United States is doomed without ever being implemented after the House and Senate voted to strip out part of a 1996 immigration law.

Truckers tooling down the highway should expect to see an extra flourish of activity by roadside inspectors starting June 6, as the annual North American safety blitz gets under way.