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The U.S. trade deficit shrank by 4.9% in April as a drop in imports more than offset the first exports decline in five months, the Commerce Department said Friday.

U.S. retail diesel prices declined for the eighth straight week as trucking’s main fuel fell 5.1 cents more to a national average of $3.846 a gallon, according to the Department of Energy.

A major coalition of freight stakeholders and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) have urged Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to create a high-level intermodal freight office with a director who reports directly to him.

Faced with increasing criticism from the trucking industry, federal regulators are giving motor carriers more time to comment on how changes in new safety rules could affect their safety-measurement system scores, a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration spokeswoman said last week.

LANDOVER, Md. — Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance inspectors spent 72 hours in stepped-up trucking safety enforcement last week, pulling over trucks and buses on highways and at inspection locations throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Federal regulatory “guidance” issued last week restricted the number of oil and gas well truck drivers who can extend their workdays beyond the 14-hour federal limit under the oil-field operations exemption to hours-of-service rules.

SAN DIEGO — By pulling together broad swaths of diverse data through a predictive modeling tool, carriers can uncover safety risks that probably would have gone unnoticed otherwise, fleet safety officials said.

Motor carriers should be required to review 10 years of driving records for each new driver they hire, the National Transportation Safety Board said last week, citing its investigation of a 2011 bus crash that killed 15 people.

Navistar International Corp. last week reported a $172 million loss in its second quarter, partly triggered by what its top executive said was “a lot of noise and speculation” about Environmental Protection Agency approval of its 13-liter engine, and reshuffled top management in a bid to restore profitability.