News Briefs - Dec. 20
The Latest Headlines:
- Lott Resigns as Senate Majority Leader
- U.S. Postal Service to Hand-Sort Some Letters
- Daimler Expects to Beat Sprinter Sales Goal
- Ryder Forecasts Better 2003
- OPEC Officials Warn of Potential Shortfall
- U.S. Postal Service to Hand-Sort Some Letters
Lott Resigns as Senate Majority Leader
Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) resigned his position as Senate majority leader after weeks of mounting pressure after comments he made about segregation, the Associated Press reported Friday.In a written statement, Lott said he was leaving “in the interest of pursuing the best possible agenda for the future of our country.”
Soon after Lott’s resignation, Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) announced his candidacy for the job of majority leader, AP reported.
U.S. Postal Service to Hand-Sort Some Letters
In an effort to speed the delivery of holiday mail, the United States Postal Service is using postal workers to interpreters to decipher addresses written on thousands of letters a day, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.Last Monday, the service had workers at 20 hard-to-read mail centers across the country examined more than 9,300 letters, highlighting information like bad ZIP codes or incorrect addresses, the Journal said.
Even so, more than 85% of addresses on first-class mail can be, and is, read by electronic scanners. Before the scanners, all mail had to have addresses and ZIP codes manually, the Journal said.
The paper said that over the last seven years it has grown its service – sending 12% more mail to more than 12 million additional addresses. Transport Topics
Daimler Expects to Beat Sprinter Sales Goal
DaimlerChrysler AG said that is beat its sales goal in its first year of selling modified Mercedes-Benz vans under the Dodge nameplate as delivery companies United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. drove demand, Bloomberg reported.The company had a modest sales target of 8,650 Sprinter vans, but the German automaker now expects to beat that estimate by an unspecified amount, Bloomberg said.
Daimler is negotiating more orders with UPS and FedEx, both of whom already have purchased 2,000 Sprinters in 2002.
The Sprinter will replace the Dodge Ram van that Chrysler will stop building in 2003. Some Sprinters are being sold as Freightliners now, but after 2006, all North American versions of the van will be Dodges, Bloomberg reported. Transport Topics
Ryder Forecasts Better 2003
Ryder System Inc. said Friday that its sees its 2003 earnings to be in the range of $1.95 to $2 per share – an increase of about 12% over its current estimates for 2002.For the current year, the Miami-based firm said that its is projecting earnings of between $1.74 and $1.78 per share. For the final quarter, Ryder is expecting earnings to be at the low end of its previous estimate of between 48 cents and 52 cents per share.
"We expect continued softness in 2003 with prospects for modest improvement during the second half of the year," said Gregory T. Swienton, Ryder’s chief executive officer. "Therefore, we are conservatively forecasting Ryder's overall 2003 revenue to remain essentially unchanged from 2002, despite some expected improvement in certain areas of the business such as commercial truck rental and the Company's European operations."
Ryder is ranked No. 4 on the 2002 Transport Topics 100 listing of the largest trucking companies in the United States and Canada. Transport Topics
(Click here for the full press release.)
OPEC Officials Warn of Potential Shortfall
Officials with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said the cartel wouldn’t be able to pump enough oil to meet demand if output should cease in Iraq as well as Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.Currently, output has been stalled from the South American oil producer because of a general strike against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Iraq could also stop producing oil if there is a military conflict with the United States, the Journal reported.
OPEC President Rilwanu Lukman told the paper that OPEC’s production capacity "has its limits."
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil for January delivery closed at $30.56 a barrel on Thursday, up 12 cents from the previous close. The price has risen nearly 20% since the beginning of the strike in Venezuela, the Journal reported. Transport Topics
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