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TTNews.com will be closed Friday and Monday in observance of the Christmas holiday. Please check back on Tuesday, Dec. 26, for the latest trucking and freight transportation news.

The National Transportation Safety Board is preparing to ask the Department of Transportation to tighten regulations on physical exams for drivers, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Swift Transportation Co. stunned the truckload sector of the industry last week when it announced it would acquire rival M.S. Carriers for $383 million, making it the third-largest carrier in that market.

The 106th Congress gave the trucking industry a reprieve by putting the hours-of-service rules on hold in September, but federal lawmakers were unable to reach a similar consensus on ergonomic regulations as their post-election session drew to a close.

Exhaust Gas Recirculation. Learn the term, if you don’t know it already, because of all the new emissions technologies being discussed, EGR looms closest.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed standards for heavy-duty diesel engine emissions in 2007 have produced an argument that has bounced back and forth for months among engine manufacturers, the makers of antipollution devices and oil refiners.

As the winter solstice approaches, the sky darkens earlier and the lights at the FedEx Ground distribution hub here burn longer so that gifts adorned with impersonal bar codes can speed along cold conveyor belts toward their final destination at a rate of 540 feet per minute.

The fabled Santa may drive a sleigh, but for South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, he’ll be hauling gifts in an 18-wheeler.

The price of diesel fuel dropped 4.5 cents per gallon last week — to its lowest level in 15 weeks — and might have fallen even more if it were not for the high price of natural gas, a market analyst says.