Government

Top congressional leaders are closing in on an agreement on a long-delayed COVID-19 relief package, hoping to seal a deal as early as Dec. 16.

The challenge of ensuring equitable distribution of the coronavirus vaccine is one of global scale, and the city of Miami provides a backdrop for the social and economic divides that the medical community must overcome.

Retail sales fell 1.1% in November, the biggest drop in seven months, as Americans held back on spending at the start of the holiday shopping season.

Oil surged to the highest mark in nearly 10 months in New York alongside a broader market rally as breakthroughs on U.S. stimulus talks combined with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout stoked optimism around a demand revival.

It’s going to take $2.5 trillion in spending over the next decade to get the U.S. on a path to a carbon-free economy, but the transition will help to pay for itself, Princeton University researchers say.

The Federal Railroad Administration has issued a final rule requiring states to develop, or in some cases, update action plans for highway-rail grade crossings.

Pete Buttigieg, the former Democratic presidential candidate and onetime mayor of South Bend, Ind., was tapped to lead the U.S. Department of Transportation under the Biden administration, according to the Biden-Harris transition team.

As lawmakers work on legislation that will provide additional relief funds to the transportation sector, the trucking industry is asking Congress to include provisions that ensure liability protection for motor carriers on the front lines of the coronavirus relief effort.

As the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine begin to ship, trucking experts on the ground level of the distribution effort said the logistical elements are in place for a successful rollout of an estimated 50 million doses of the vaccine between now and the end of January.

The president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reiterated that the oil producers’ cartel shouldn’t rush to increase output early next year and said energy demand was still fragile with the coronavirus raging across parts of the world.