The Tennessee Trucking Association is ready for the state’s Super Bowl of safety, and reigning Grand Champion Phil Shelton of Walmart Transportation is returning to defend his title.

Walmart has begun expanding the scope and capabilities of its private fleet, taking over store distribution from dedicated contract carriers at facilities in Maine, Indiana and Ohio, while also adding a new intermodal service using a proprietary container design and company drivers to provide drayage service.

In India, an unfavorable e-commerce ruling is likely to crimp the growth for Walmart Inc. In China, the retailer says an economic slowdown has shoppers tightening their purse strings. And now in the U.K., a deal to reduce Walmart’s exposure to the slowing market there is on life support.

Walmart Inc. finally gave the U.S. retail sector some good news. The company brushed off the industry’s disappointing December sales with its best holiday quarter in at least a decade, soothing concerns about the sector’s outlook for 2019. Comparable sales for Walmart stores in the United States — a key performance barometer — rose 4.2% in the quarter that included Christmas, beating analysts’ estimates by a full percentage point.

Walmart Inc. is big in almost every way — 4,755 stores, 1.5 million employees and $380 billion in revenue in the United States alone. But one part of the world’s largest retailer remains minuscule. “We have a tiny ad business,” CEO Doug McMillon told investors in October. “It could be bigger.”

Amazon.com resurrected thousands of suspended product listings in India by selling much of its stake in top local venture partner Cloudtail, a hastily arranged deal intended to comply with stringent new e-commerce regulations that upended the market.

Amazon.com’s and Walmart Inc.’s grand plans for India were thrown into chaos Feb. 1 after the country implemented new e-commerce regulations, which could cut their growth in the market by as much as half this year.

Walmart Inc. is making sweeping changes to its employment policies this month, granting paid sick leave to hourly workers in the United States, and, at the same time, possibly making it easier to fire those who miss too many shifts.

Walmart Inc. has quietly withdrawn from one of Google’s marquee efforts to challenge Amazon.com in e-commerce.

Walmart is raising trucker salaries in its push to hire 900 more drivers this year across the United States, including Texas, where it has a big concentration of large distribution centers where empty trucks get filled.