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The Virginia Department of Transportation will close 18 of the state’s highway rest areas later this month, but the truck parking spaces lost will be replaced at other rest areas, the Associated Press reported.

The U.S. economy’s service sector improved last month, showing the smallest level of contraction in nine months, the Institute for Supply Management said Monday.

Grocery retailer Safeway Inc. said it will begin inflating its truck and trailer fleet tires with nitrogen instead of compressed air.

Now that the federal government is taking over big businesses, it is time to reregulate trucking industry rating structures. We need price stabilization of rates so we can purchase equipment and train our personnel properly.

In a vote divided largely along party lines, the House last week narrowly passed an energy bill that calls for the United States to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 and includes a controversial cap-and-trade provision. The vote sends the measure to the Senate, where it likely faces a tough and long battle.

A leading Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee proposed taxing speculative oil trades to kill two birds with one stone: Boost highway funding and reduce the effect of speculation on fuel prices.

A 3.2% rise in American Trucking Associations’ truck tonnage index during May from weak results in April may indicate that the worst of the recession could be over, even though the index was 11% below year-ago levels, industry experts said.