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Manufacturing activity improved in July and shrank at the slowest pace in nearly a year, the Institute for Supply Management said Monday.

A bill introduced in the House of Representatives would provide up to $3,000 in tax credit for fleets to purchase auxiliary power units.

Truckload carrier P.A.M. Transportation Services reported a second-quarter loss of $2.4 million, or 25 cents per share, compared with a loss of $1.3 million, or 14 cents, a year ago.

I differ from the “Reregulation, Please” letter writer’s view that small carriers are offering transport service prices that are too cheap. Yes, there are some shoestring trucking operations hauling for very low freight rates, but there also are large carriers doing the same.

There were no surprises in the new federal rule designed to improve the braking power of a standard, fully loaded, tractor-trailer by almost one-third.

Navistar Inc.’s 2010-compliant engines will sell for $6,000 to $8,000 more than its previous generation of engines, the company said last week.

Truckers who text from the driver’s seat are about 23 times more likely to have a crash, or at least a close encounter, than are drivers who are watching the road, according to a Virginia university study for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

A sharp drop in intermodal business helped to drag down second-quarter earnings for the largest North American railroads.

Finance and leasing industry officials said a proposal to reclassify equipment leases as a form of debt or asset, rather than an expense, would be difficult and costly for most companies to comply with.