ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø

The U.S. trade deficit rose to an all-time high of $61 billion in February, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.

American Trucking Associations said last week it had named John McKinnon regional vice president for the mid-South, comprising North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.

The head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said the agency opposed a congressional measure that would require shippers to pay a fuel surcharge to truckload carriers.

Overall trucking freight volumes fell 2.4% on a seasonally adjusted basis to 115.5 in February, according to an updated American Trucking Associations index released Tuesday.

Members of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee said they had become more concerned about the recent elevated levels of inflation, according to the minutes of the FOMC’s March 22 meeting released Tuesday.

The average retail price of regular gasoline rose 19 cents in the past three weeks to a record $2.29 a gallon as of April 8, according to the latest Lundberg Survey of filling stations nationwide.

Ford Motor Co. late Friday dropped its 2005 earnings forecast by 29%, due in part to slumping truck and sport utility vehicle sales.

TUCSON, Ariz. — Truck renting and leasing giant Ryder System said it would begin testing a series of regulatory-compliant engines during the last quarter of this year, and then establish a working maintenance and pricing plan for the new engines by the time tougher emission standards take effect in 2007.

More public companies are filing their earnings statements late, with some citing the federal Sarbanes-Oxley law that sets strict accounting liability standards, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.