The USPS will not be implementing zone pricing for Marketing Mail and Outside County Periodicals in January. The USPS has released guidance regarding what they are likely to propose for the July 2026 round of rate hikes. Continued mill closings are leading to higher prices in the paper market. And the trucking industry is bracing for the potential impacts of the recent federal ruling limiting the eligibility of foreign nationals to obtain commercial driver licenses.

This year’s edition highlights the challenging environment that motor carriers dealt with in 2024, but in the end the industry still delivered more than 72% of all domestic freight tonnage in the U.S. Among the key findings in this year’s report: Trucks moved 11.27 billion tons of freight in 2024, down from the 11.41 billion tons hauled the previous year.  In 2024, the industry saw revenues at $906 billion, down from $1.004 trillion in 2023.  Trucking employed 8.4 million people in industry-related jobs, including 3.58 million professional drivers in 2024.  The industry remains one made up of small businesses, with 91.5% of carriers operating 10 or fewer trucks and 99.3% operating fewer than 100 power units.  Trucks moved 67% of surface trade between the U.S. and Canada, and 85% of goods across the Mexican border in 2024.

Retailers should prepare for record traffic on “Super Saturday” as consumers rush to complete their holiday shopping. An estimated 158.9 million consumers plan to shop on December 20, the last Saturday before Christmas, according to the annual survey released by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. The figure is up from 157.2 million shoppers last year and surpasses the previous record of 158.5 million in 2022. (Black Friday and Super Saturday are generally regarded as the two busiest shopping days of the holiday season.) Super Saturday shoppers are expected to embrace multiple channels this year, with nearly half, or 71.6 million (45%), planning to shop both in-store and online, up from 69.5 million (44%) in 2024. For those who plan to shop a single channel, 29% will do so exclusively in-store, while 26% will shop online only.