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This afternoon's headlines: Oil prices break $30 mark amid conflicting inventory reports; Western wildfires hamper freight moves; truck accidents kill three this week in Tennessee; and more.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will hold three roundtable discussions in the Washington, D.C., area on the proposed hours-of-service rules, but safety and other groups greeted the news with some skepticism.

Today's technology headlines: FedEx upgrades its online logistics offering; Verizon purchase plan complicates talks with strikers; shippers, carriers urged to use e-commerce; and more.

Disaster struck John Miller the last week in June. The St. Louis-based owner-operator leased to PBX Inc. collapsed after pulling his trailer up to a loading dock in Raleigh, N.C. Fellow drivers helped him back into the cab of his truck and called 911.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration wants to open informal discussions on its proposed reforms in the truck driver hours of service in hope of resolving issues that have generated a great deal of opposition. The agency, however, is not considering a negotiated rulemaking to iron out differences.

Four national trucking companies have agreed to participate in what is believed to be the first comprehensive study into the impact of diesel exhaust emissions on the health of truck drivers.

Mexican truck and bus manufacturer Consorcio G. Grupo Dina announced a major corporate shakeup last week, inspired in part by Freightliner’s plan to purchase Western Star Truck Holdings.

Truckers and shippers last week crafted a tentative solution to a disagreement that has stalled approval of a code of ethics on treatment of truck drivers.

Navistar International Corp. said it is not planning to respond to demands from an investor group that it sell all or part of its holdings to counter the company’s flagging stock price.

Second-quarter earnings reports show that the nation’s truckload carriers limped through the spring, as rising revenue failed to offset expenses that accelerated even more rapidly.