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A year ago, as the pandemic ravaged country after country and economies shuddered, consumers were the ones panic-buying. Today, on the rebound, it’s companies furiously trying to stock up.

OMAHA, Neb. — Even as railroads are operating longer freight trains that sometimes stretch for miles, the companies have drastically reduced staffing levels, prompting unions to warn that moves meant to increase profits could endanger safety and even result in disasters.

The European Union agreed to avoid escalating its dispute with the U.S. over metal tariffs, sparing iconic products such as bourbon whiskey and Harley-Davidson motorbikes from a doubling of EU duties next month.

House lawmakers advanced language authorizing $8 billion for the U.S. Postal Service to buy more electric vehicles as the agency modernizes its aging fleet.

A crack in a bridge over the Mississippi River has stranded more than 700 barges, cutting off the biggest route for U.S. agricultural exports when the critical waterway is at its busiest.

Colonial Pipeline Co. paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers on May 7, contradicting reports earlier this week that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country’s largest fuel pipeline, according to two people familiar with the transaction.

The Biden administration temporarily eased century-old U.S. shipping requirements so a single foreign tanker could transport gasoline and jet fuel to the East Coast, where the Colonial Pipeline outage caused tanks to run dry.

The head of the Transportation Intermediaries Association stressed that the industry is healthy and poised for a return to the kind of camaraderie that existed before the coronavirus pandemic.

Wisconsin officials announced May 6 that $1 million in grant funding has been awarded to support infrastructure at a shipbuilding facility in Marinette.

With a badly aging bridge as his backdrop, President Joe Biden stood in reliably Republican Louisiana on May 6 to pressure GOP lawmakers to support his $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan — and yet express a willingness to compromise on the corporate tax hikes he’s recommending to pay the cost.