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The number of westbound 40-foot equivalent ocean containers available in Chicago and Kansas City surged in early April, another sign the West Coast container logjam has broken and the Chinese New Year reprieve is over.

Large, diversified truckload carriers found detours around the "soft patch" in the U.S. economy during the first quarter, with most increasing revenue and profit. A lack of drivers may have held back some companies.

Encouraged by a ruling late last year that found drivers at a Southern California drayage company were misclassified as independent contractors, a Teamsters-affiliated group is calling for a strike vote on Saturday by drivers throughout the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex.

A former employee of U.S. mainland-Puerto Rico carriers Sea Star Line and Trailer Bridge has been charged with defrauding the companies of $2.1 million by submitting phony invoices for container and equipment decals and inspection and transportation of containers and equipment.

Horizon Lines said it expects to complete its sale to Matson by the end of Horizon’s second quarter in late June. The deal received clearance from U.S. antitrust regulators this week.

A graduated licensing program for commercial drivers is needed to bring younger people into the trucking industry, ATA executives said.

Zim Integrated Shipping Services announced the launch of a new service between Asia and the U.S. East Coast via the Suez Canal at the end of May.

Orient Overseas Container Line reported falling volumes and revenue in the first quarter with the trans-Pacific and intra-Asia trades placing a drag on the carrier’s performance.

Navios Group has acquired a further 14 ships at risk of bankruptcy from HSH Nordbank in the second deal between the NYSE-listed Greek shipowner and the German bank in the past two years.

Shippers should expect more blanked sailings and service disruption as the carriers try to raise freight rates that have tumbled to unprecedented levels on the Asia-Europe trades, a major forwarder has warned.

Hyundai Merchant Marine will become the first carrier to call at the port of Incheon’s new Sun-Kwang terminal when the Hyundai Tokyo ties up in mid-May as part of an Asia-U.S. G6 Alliance service.

External contractors for Hongkong International Terminals have agreed to pay an above-inflation 5.5 percent increase in basic salary for dockworkers in the coming year, averting a threatened strike that would have heaped further misery on the struggling port.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Trucking Associations is increasingly optimistic a long-term highway bill will pass this year, following another short-term funding extension.

Union Pacific Railroad on Thursday appeared to downplay the idea that U.S. West Coast port congestion has changed its expectations that a low- single-digit share of cargo might shift to East Coast when the Panama Canal opens next year.

European shippers are stepping up their scrutiny of shipping alliances by launching their own review of the massive vessel-sharing agreements.

Thousands of independent Brazilian truckers in Brazil are wracking shippers’ supply chains by holding blockages in five states across the country in protest of what they deem are low wages.

Canadian transportation and logistics firm TransForce is increasingly looking to tap cross-border trade growth after acquisitions and a weaker Canadian dollar propelled its net income and revenue in the first quarter.

In an attempt to lure more container cargo, India’s Mumbai Port Trust has extended its previously introduced trade incentive schemes for another year, ending in March 2016.

U.S. intermodal volume last week hit the second-highest point ever, potentially signalling an acceleration of cargo backlogged at U.S. West Coast ports moving inland.

The Teamsters union lost another round in its terminal-by-terminal organizing battle with Con-way Freight, the second-largest U.S. less-than-truckload carrier. To date, the union has three victories and six losses — not counting two terminals where the Teamsters withdrew an election petition.

APM Terminals, the Maersk group’s port operating arm, will officially open the world’s first fully automated container terminal in Rotterdam Friday.

The harbor trucking licensing program at Port Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, took a hit after a federal judge ruled the port’s selection process was unfair and that rejected applications need to be reconsidered.

Cargo interests had much to complain about at a listening session convened Wednesday by Los Angeles and Long Beach port leaders. They suffered through four punishing months of labor slowdowns at West Coast ports, but their biggest concerns centered on problems that were present even before the coastwide contract negotiations began last May — cost and reliability.

Hamburg Sud remained in the black in 2014 even as falling freight rates on its key South American routes and a weaker dollar depressed revenues.

Container shipping lines cannot get out of the large vessel arms race and excess capacity will be a permanent problem, according to Orient Overseas International Ltd. chairman Tung Chee Chen.

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said Wednesday Southern California port and political leaders are continuing a dialogue with the Obama administration to develop a plan that will ensure U.S. commerce will never again be crippled because of problems encountered during labor negotiations.

Progress is being made to protect the U.S. maritime industry from cyberattacks that could sabotage a container terminals cranes and allow organized crime to import illegal drugs undetected.

The Cass Truckload Linehaul Index rose 5.1 percent year-over-year in March and climbed 2.3 percent from February, a sign of healthy freight demand at the end of the first quarter.

Amid investors’ furor over the decline in crude shipments hauled by Canadian Pacific Railway in the first quarter were signs that the railroad’s domestic intermodal push is gaining traction and CP is emboldened to make a stronger play for ocean container business.

Wilmington port is on track for a record year in container volume, due in part to a slew of new services connecting North Carolina to Asian markets and some diversions from the U.S. West Coast.

Werner Enterprises easily passed a slow-moving economy in the first quarter, increasing trucking revenue 6 percent and net profit 61 percent. Freight demand remains strong in April, the company said.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has removed the last major obstacle to the breakup and sale of Horizon Lines and a major restructuring of domestic ocean services between the West Coast and Hawaii and Alaska.

Panalpina’s earnings jumped 10 percent in the first quarter as a market-beating increase in ocean container volumes more than offset sluggish growth in air freight.

The U.S. Maritime Administration has reminded U.S. shipbuilders they must use U.S.-flag ships to carry at least half of the foreign-sourced components they use to build vessels with aid from federal loan guarantees.

Kansas City Southern Railway is scaling back its outlook for intermodal growth this year after service and equipment issues slowed first-quarter growth in domestic and cross-border traffic.

Rail freight transport has ground to a halt across Germany as a strike by locomotive engineers against Deutsche Bahn, the state-owned railway, enters its second day.

Japan posted a monthly trade surplus for the first time in nearly three years in March, as exports grew on the back of a weaker yen, led by robust U.S.-bound shipments, while imports tumbled due largely to lower oil prices.

India and Bangladesh agreed to extend an earlier protocol dealing with “inland water transit and trade” cooperation between the two countries, with provision for automatic renewal in line with a proposed amendment to the Bangladesh-India trade agreement, the Indian Ministry of Shipping said in a written statement.