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The U.S. economy expanded at a 2.8% annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday.

Consumer confidence rose in January to the highest level in almost a year, according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index released Friday.

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it was not likely to raise the record low key interest rate until at least 2014.

President Obama in his State of the Union address Tuesday cited the need for more infrastructure, saying that “so much of American needs to be rebuilt.”

WASHINGTON — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will move forward with a host of developing rules and regulations regarding trucking this year, Administrator Anne Ferro said Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration has awarded $77 million in grants to 22 universities to conduct research on a range of issues, including shared rail corridors, innovations in multimodal freight and infrastructure, bridge inspection methods and reducing roadway fatalities and injuries.

The federal government’s chief truck overseer defended her agency’s controversial changes to the 34-hour restart provisions of the hours-of-service rule and vowed to continue efforts to cut the hours drivers may be behind the wheel.

Trucking groups are divided whether a proposal to restrict companies’ abilities to pay civil penalties to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration while denying guilt would increase safety or bog the agency down with unnecessary litigation.

Retail diesel prices increased for the second week in a row, rising 2.6 cents to $3.854 a gallon, the Department of Energy reported last week.