News Briefs - Dec. 13
The Latest Headlines:
- UPS Gets EU Approval to Buy Menlo Worldwide
- Business Inventories, Sales Rise in October
- Vermont Fines Trucking Company for Spill
- Hastert to Seek Funds for Projects Left Out of Spending Bill
- Speed Limit Lowered in Highways Near Phoenix
- Mitsubishi Delays Probe Result Until March
- Business Inventories, Sales Rise in October
UPS Gets EU Approval to Buy Menlo Worldwide
UPS Inc. won approval from the European Union to buy Menlo Worldwide Forwarding, a unit of CNF Inc., for $150 million, Bloomberg reported. The deal included the assumption of $110 million in debt.Menlo Worldwide Forwarding arranges air and ocean shipments and operates in 175 countries. UPS said the deal would help add more overnight and two-day air shipments.
UPS is ranked No. 1 and CNF is No. 4 on the Transport Topics 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian trucking companies. Transport Topics
Business Inventories, Sales Rise in October
Business inventories in the United States rose 0.2% in October, while sales jumped 1.2% the Commerce Department said Monday.October's increase brought the value of all U.S. inventories to a record $1.26 trillion and followed no change in September. Analysts said strong consumer spending helped keep business inventories low and efforts to restock could spur production, Bloomberg reported.
When inventories and sales are growing, it usually means trucking is seeing additional demand to deliver goods and restock shelves.
Stockpiles at retailers fell 0.6% and motor vehicles and parts stockpiles fell 2.3%, Commerce said. The inventory-to-sales ratio fell to 1.3 months, matching the record low reported in May, from 1.31 months in September. Transport Topics
Vermont Fines Trucking Company for Spill
The state of Vermont fined J. P. Noonan Inc., a Massachusetts-based trucking company that delivers fuel, $18,000 for a fuel spill, the Associated Press reported.A fully loaded Noonan truck flipped over and spilled 3,800 gallons of fuel oil of Sept. 5, 2003, at the intersection of Vermont Routes 64 and 12. Lawyers for J. P. Noonan told AP it was an accident.
However, an investigation by Vermont's Agency of Natural Resources found the truck driver was traveling too fast and the brakes of the vehicle were out of adjustment.
Although the agency credited the company for acting swiftly to contain the spill, it said the company was responsible for between 420 and 1,010 gallons of fuel oil that were not recovered, according to AP. Transport Topics
Hastert to Seek Funds for Projects Left Out of Spending Bill
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has promised to seek funds in 2005 for highway projects left out of the recently passed spending bill, the Washington Post reported Monday.Rep. Ernest Istook Jr. (R-Okla.), who chairs the Appropriations Committee panel that oversees spending on roads, rejected the projects sought by some lawmakers after they defied him by signing a letter calling for a doubling of Amtrak funding, the Post said.
House-Senate negotiators increased funding for Amtrak to $1.2 billion in the final version of the omnibus spending package that Congress approved Nov. 20, more than the $900 million President Bush had asked for.
And as he threatened, Istook did not include most of the road projects sought by the pro-Amtrak contingent, the Post said. Transport Topics
Speed Limit Lowered in Highways Near Phoenix
The Arizona Department of Transportation has lowered the speed limit to 65 mph along short stretches of Interstates 10 and 17 just outside Phoenix, the Associated Press reported.I-10 is a major east-west transcontinental thoroughfare, and I-17 runs north and south and links I-10 with another major east-west highway, I-40.
Agency spokesman Doug Nintzel told AP the changes should improve safety along the freeway segments, which are seeing higher traffic flows.
The affected areas are I-10 between Dysart Road and Cotton Lane and I-17 between Happy Valley Road and Carefree Highway. The stretches are each about five miles long and had posted speed limits of 75 mph, AP said. Transport Topics
Mitsubishi Delays Probe Result Until March
Japan car and truck maker Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said it was postponing the announcement of its internal investigation of what brought about the cover-up of vehicle defects to March 31 from Dec. 31, Bloomberg reported.The delay came after the similar move made by Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp. on Dec. 8. Fuso was a wholly owned unit of the automaker until January 2003.
In June, Mitsubishi Motors admitted it found more cases of hidden vehicle defects as early as 1970s even after declaring that it revealed all of them in July 2000. Transport Topics
