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The Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled to mark up a bill Wednesday that would impose stiffer regulations on the speculative trading of commodities, but would exempt trades from legitimate commercial hedgers like trucking companies.

The huge ash cloud hanging over Europe from last week’s volcano eruption in Iceland is hampering global air freight and causing a shift in European cargo from planes to trucks, news services reported.

An index of leading economic indicators improved by 1.4% in March by the most in 10 months, the New York-based Conference Board said Monday.

Several notices pointing toward recovery in trucking and the economy at large are one pleasant side of the news last week.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration likely will not meet a deadline to issue a more expansive rule requiring fleets to use electronic onboard recorders, according to a new report.

U.S. consumer confidence held fell this month to its lowest level in five months, according to the latest Reuters/University of Michigan monthly consumer sentiment index released Friday.

Manufacturing levels in the Philadelphia region expanded in March at the fastest pace in four months, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said Thursday.

The U.S. economy improved in most of the Federal Reserve’s 12 districts in March, with the transportation sector improving in most areas, the Fed said.

The Department of Transportation’s freight transportation services index for February fell 2% from a year earlier but rose from January, DOT said.

The New York State Department of Transportation told a transportation task force that it will no longer pursue efforts to restrict trucks from using certain rural routes in the Finger Lakes area, American Trucking Associations said.