Industry News

The CDC says upwards of 1,600 individuals afflicted by the parasitic diarrheal illness reported eating at a Taco Bell in those five states before falling ill. Taco Bell said Thursday that it was immediately and indefinitely removing lettuce provided by an unnamed supplier authorities have linked to the outbreak.

Companies are moving away from traditional seasonal ocean shipping patterns, Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said during a July 15 media briefing. In June, imports drove the Port of Los Angeles to process over 1 million TEUs, marking the best June in the port’s 118-year history, Seroka said. This is due to several factors, including trade policy and what happens with Section 122 tariffs set to expire July 24.

The Unified Agenda of the Department of Transportation (DOT), and in particular that part of it that applies to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, is a laundry list of ongoing processes and aspirational goals that leaves significant room for interpreting what the department and FMCSA’s priorities are for the coming months and year. Maybe too much so: Lawless said of the items on the list, and their projected dates for hard action such as publishing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) by the end of this month, “There’s no way you’re going to get all of these things out and done. That reference was to the fact that the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency also has items in the Unified Agenda to deal with the issue of autonomous vehicles.

The Small Business in Transportation Coalition (SBTC) has sharpened its legal arguments in its effort to force the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to decertify the commercial driver’s license (CDL) programs of New York and California. In filings submitted July 10 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, SBTC argued that federal law requires the U.S. Department of Transportation to decertify any state found in substantial noncompliance with federal commercial driver’s license regulations and asked the court to compel the agency to act. “It would certainly be a unique event for a court to force the DOT to take action as SBTC has requested,” Reed said.

Freight shipments backed up in June but expenditures, led by higher truckload rates and fuel surcharges, continued to advance, according to a monthly report from Cass Information Systems. The multimodal shipments component of the Cass Freight Index fell 4.1% year over year in June, a downward acceleration from the 1.2% y/y dip logged in May. SONAR: Outbound Tender Rejection Index (OTRI.USA) for 2026 (blue shaded area), 2025 (yellow line), 2024 (green line) and 2023 (pink line).

The June performance also marked the first time since August 2024 that Mexico’s heavy-duty vehicle industry recorded year-over-year growth simultaneously in wholesale sales, production, exports and retail sales, according to Anpact. Freightliner was the top truck producer and exporter in Mexico in June, producing 9,379 trucks, a 9.6% year-over-year increase. The truck maker’s exports rose 6.7% year-over-year to 3,685 units during the month.

The apparel brand recently migrated its Asia and Beyond Yoga business operations to a single platform that it first rolled out in North America. Please let us know if you have feedback. Levi Strauss & Co. expects to complete the transition to a unified enterprise resourcing planning system across its global operations by mid-2027, executives said on a July 8 earnings call.

A person walks down a hallway at Renfro Brands' Winston-Salem, North Carolina, office. Renfro Brands plans to expand its use of Inspectorio's AI-powered supply chain platform to streamline regulatory compliance and improve network visibility, according to a recent press release. The sock and legwear maker already uses Inspectorio’s quality risk management software and plans to start leveraging technology for responsible sourcing, regulatory compliance and traceability, Inspectorio said in the June 17 release.