Business

Retail sales plunged more than twice as forecast in December, falling 2.7% from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

If you wanted to shore up a beleaguered industry, would you do it by creating a new threat? Of course not, but that’s exactly what some U.S. policymakers seem ready to do to the already devastated U.S. trucking industry.

Diesel engine maker Cummins Inc. said Tuesday it will cut at least 800 jobs worldwide by the end of February and will freeze salaries for the year in response to deteriorating economic conditions.

The Environmental Protection Agency, as proposed, has formally required new heavy trucks to have warning lights that indicate when engine emission controls are malfunctioning or deteriorating, starting in 2010.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) is asking the state legislature to fund additional studies on how to replace the traditional gasoline tax with a mileage tax.

Swift Corp. said that Richard Stocking has been promoted to president and chief operating officer of its truckload carrier Swift Transportation Co., effective immediately.

For all the hopeful talk about how President-elect Obama’s stimulus program is going to provide a much-needed boost to the nation’s deteriorating infrastructure, there are growing concerns in transportation circles that the pot of gold may be a lot smaller than originally thought.

The national average price of regular gasoline increased for the first time since early July, rising 11.7 cents to $1.779 a gallon during the two weeks ended Friday, according to the latest Lundberg Survey of filling stations released Sunday.