Government

LOS ANGELES — Uber, Lyft and other app-based ride-hailing and delivery services spent $200 million in a winning bet to circumvent California lawmakers and the courts to preserve their business model by keeping drivers from becoming employees eligible for benefits and job protections.

The U.S. trade deficit fell in September after hitting a 14-year high in August as exports outpaced imports.

Algeria, which this year holds the OPEC presidency, said that both Saudi Arabia and Russia were pressing fellow members to prolong the current oil-supply cuts into next year, rather than tapering them as planned. Algeria supported the proposal, the first country to publicly do so.

Volvo Trucks North America announced it, and other industry associations and companies, helped facilitate the modification of California utility rules to give private entities the ability to sell electricity as a motor fuel at publicly accessible charging stations for medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles.

Before the federal government’s revised hours-of-service rules went into effect Sept. 29, suppliers of electronic logging devices were busy updating their software.

U.S. stocks rose as a gust of optimism swept through global equity markets as millions of Americans headed to vote. The dollar weakened and crude oil increased by the most in a month.

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport remained one of the nation’s busiest airports in recent months as disrupted shipping patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic fueled soaring cargo activity.

The national average price of diesel dropped 1.3 cents, according to the Energy Information Administration’s weekly data released Nov. 2. The decline, which comes amid tumbling oil prices, is the eighth in the past nine weeks.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced plans to submit an Information Collection Request associated with a project to learn more about trucking industry representatives’ opinions of automated driving systems.