After working for eight years under a series of contract extensions, less-than-truckload carrier YRC Freight and its two regional operations have opened contract negotiations with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Taino’s arrival gives Jacksonville a fourth cargo ship powered by natural gas for Puerto Rico shipments, putting the port at the vanguard in using a fuel source that only recently became tried and tested in cargo ships. Jacksonville-based Crowley Maritime owns two of the ships.

Truck driver Justin Osborne pulled up to a house in the Dallas suburbs last month and started unloading an oven, a dishwasher and a microwave. His mission: Help J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. win the battle for new delivery riches spurred by e-commerce.

For online retailers, one of the challenges with the reverse logistics process is knowing what to do once items are returned. Some products could be returned to a finished goods warehouse whereas defective ones could go to a location to refurbish or recycle the product.

As the continued rise of e-commerce increases the number of product returns, retailers and shippers are working to ease the returns process to boost customer satisfaction. They’re doing so by turning to logistics providers for technology and services that can optimize their reverse logistics networks and keep costs low.

Union Pacific Corp. surged the most since 2009 after hiring a protege of railroading legend Hunter Harrison to guide the company’s shift to a new efficiency strategy.

President Donald Trump expressed optimism that U.S.-China trade talks in Beijing are progressing well, as Chinese authorities planned to give a statement after the latest round of negotiations.

After a 2018 that saw record-setting levels of freight-hauling demand and driver pay as tonnage levels reached a 20-year high, the trucking industry is expected to remain strong in 2019 but undergo a bit of a cool-down, economists say.