Business

Driver turnover at large truckload carriers dropped 13 percentage points last year — the first decline since 2001 — while it rose by an identical percentage at smaller truckload carriers, according to a survey produced by American Trucking Associations.

New home sales fell last month to the lowest level in almost seven years, the Commerce Department reported Monday.

Average U.S. retail gasoline prices rose 5.6 cents in the past two weeks to about $2.61 a gallon, according to the latest Lundberg Survey of filling stations released Sunday.

Ethanol and biodiesel production is expected to surge in the next few years as government officials in Europe and the United States set higher targets for consumption and maintain subsidies for producers, a panel of experts predicted at a forum on biofuel policies and trade organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Paccar Inc., the parent of Kenworth Truck Co., will temporarily shut down production at Kenworth’s Chillicothe, Ohio, plant, the Chillicothe Gazette reported.

Truckload carriers Western Express and Smithway Motor Xpress Corp. said Friday that Western would acquire Smithway for $10.63 per share, in a deal worth about $90 million.