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Budget committees in Congress have approved draft versions of spending-revenue plans for next year that reject an Obama administration proposal to remove the firewalls that have traditionally protected the Highway Trust Fund and other transportation-related funds.

PHOENIX — As an Arizona highway patrol officer for 14 years in the 1970s and ’80s, Dick Landis chased illegal immigrants, drunken college students, speeding motorists and even hardened drug dealers up and down just about every strip of concrete slicing through the state’s scalding, lonely desert.

The Department of Transportation will develop a proposal to reopen the United States to trucks from Mexico before President Obama visits President Felipe Calderon there later this month, a spokeswoman told Transport Topics.

Less-than-truckload carrier Con-way Freight will take over the final leg of express shipments from Europe under a new partnership with Dutch transportation and logistics firm TNT.

Manufacturing in the U.S. improved in March but showed contraction for a 14th straight month, the Institute for Supply Management said Wednesday.

Daimler AG plans to cut its labor costs by 2 billion euros, or about $2.7 billion, by trimming hours and wages for 73,000 non-production workers in Germany and by delaying a pay increase, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Manufacturing activity in the Chicago region showed contraction in March for a sixth straight month, the Institute for Supply Chain Management-Chicago said.

American Trucking Associations is reorganizing its Safety & Loss Prevention Management Council and Security Council to form two new councils.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — China International Marine Containers introduced the first trailer it is marketing in the United States under its own name, a refrigerated unit it said contains a proprietary insulation system that will eliminate the 3% to 7% in condensation weight that typical reefers build up in a year.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Despite the drop in attendance and the number of exhibitors at the Mid-America Trucking Show, the aisles of the Kentucky Exposition Center’s three main halls — containing the products of nearly 1,000 vendors — included an astounding array of new products and updated equipment.