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The first highway in the country to boast a speed limit of 85 miles an hour for cars and trucks opened last week in Texas.

Navistar Inc. has completed a definitive agreement with Cummins Inc. for the engine maker to supply heavy-duty power plants and aftertreatment systems for its International brand trucks.

Parcel carrier UPS Inc. said its third-quarter net income fell 56.3% to $469 million from a year earlier due to a one-time charge on pension funding, but its upbeat forecast for the fourth quarter led its stock to jump 3% immediately following the company’s Oct. 23 report.

U.S. retail diesel prices declined 3.4 cents to $4.116 a gallon last week, dipping after reaching the highest levels in more than four years a week earlier, the Department of Energy reported.

The makers of aerodynamic add-ons for truck trailers are focused on more than just improving fuel economy. They also must cut down fleets’ maintenance costs so fuel savings are not eaten up in the repair shop, manufacturers and carrier executives have said.

Trailer orders inched up 1.8% in September from a year ago to 16,990, ACT Research reported, and manufacturers said they expect order intake to continue growing in the final months of the year.

Truck tonnage in September continued to rise above year-ago levels, but at the slowest pace since December 2009, posting a 2.4% increase that illustrates continued economic weakness, American Trucking Associations reported.

It’s no secret that underinflated tires consume more fuel. Given that the price of diesel is rising more often than falling these days, today’s fleet maintenance managers must check tire pressure more regularly — and then actually do something about the results.

The “fiscal cliff” lurks as a major potential danger, and not far down the road. The danger is to us all, in the form of higher taxes, spending cuts in vital areas and what a failure to act might mean to the country’s psyche.

Hurricane Sandy, a large storm tracking toward landfall on the East Coast early next week, could become the worst storm to hit the Northeast in 100 years, Bloomberg reported.