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Tank truck carrier Quality Distribution lowered its earnings guidance for the fourth quarter and full-year 2006, due to lower seasonal demand.

Food-services provider Sysco Corp. said Monday its fiscal second-quarter net income rose 16% to $236.7 million or 38 cents a share, from $204.2 million or 33 cents a year earlier.

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State police said wreckage from a 50-vehicle chain-reaction crash was cleared and a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 90 east of Erie, Pa., was reopened shortly after 3 a.m. local time following a big snowstorm, the Associated Press reported.

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted truck tonnage index jumped 3.9% in December, following a 3.6% downturn in November.

Truckload carrier Swift Transportation Co. said late Wednesday its fourth-quarter profit fell from a year earlier due to a “soft freight environment.”

Ford Motor Co. lost $5.8 billion in the fourth quarter amid slumping sales and huge restructuring costs, pushing the No. 2 U.S. automaker’s s loss for the year to $12.7 billion, the largest in its 103-year history, the Associated Press reported.

Arkansas Best Corp.’s fourth-quarter net income fell to $14.2 million or 56 cents a share, from $30.2 million or $1.20 a year earlier, the company said Wednesday.

President Bush outlined an energy plan Tuesday that would boost the use of alternate fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, and would seek a 20% reduction in gasoline use in the next 10 years, news services reported.

Canadian freight railroad Canadian National Railway Co. reported its fourth-quarter net income rose 16% to C$499 million, with earnings-per-share rising to 95 cents.