Business

For the fifth straight meeting, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept the benchmark U.S. interest rate at 5.25%.

FedEx Corp. said Wednesday it completed its previously announced acquisition of Indian firm Prakash Air Freight Pvt. Ltd. Terms were not disclosed.

Saia Inc. said Wednesday its fourth-quarter net income fell to $5.2 million or 35 cents a share, from $10.7 million or 73 cents for the previous fourth quarter.

TSA Awards TWIC Contract to Lockheed Martin • Canada Passes Border Security Bill • Railroads to Get More Safety Scrutiny • EU Customs Chief Criticizes Cargo-Screening Measure

Hino Motors Ltd., Japan’s largest maker of heavy-duty trucks, saw its fiscal third-quarter profit drop 45% as the company spent more to develop new models and expand production, Bloomberg reported.

Click here to write a Letter to the Editor.WASHINGTON — Shippers would like to see a switch to larger trucks, and U.S. safety inspectors monitoring size-and-weight rules could have more technology at their disposal in the coming years, according to a Transportation Research Board panel discussion here.

U.S. construction spending fell 0.4% December, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

The National Association of Purchasing Management-Chicago’s manufacturing index fell in January to the first contraction since April 2003, NAPM said Wednesday.

The U.S. economy expanded at a 3.5% annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, the strongest since last year’s first quarter.

The Surface Transportation Board ruled that freight railroads not calculate their fuel surcharges as a percentage of their base rates.