Agency aims to erase robot-car barriers
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is considering eliminating regulations that currently block self-driving vehicles designed without steering wheels, brake pedals or other driver controls from hitting the road.
The agency, in a document posted online, said it will soon ask automakers and technology companies to identify "any unnecessary regulatory barriers to automated safety technologies."
The move is an early signal that President Donald Trump's administration plans a formal effort to reshape auto safety regulations to accommodate self-driving vehicles. Companies including General Motors Co. and Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo LLC are racing to develop self-driving car technologies that need no human intervention, which could one day lead to vehicles with radically different designs such as loungelike cabin configurations.
That's currently impossible due to dozens of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. The first standards date back the 1960s, and many act as de facto requirements that automakers design cars, pickups and SUVs for a human driver. One, for example, requires that vehicle brakes be operated by a driver's foot.
The comments will be used by the agency to determine what changes are necessary to "safely lay a path for innovative automated vehicle designs and technology," it said in a summary of rule-making posted on the Transportation Department's website.
-- Bloomberg News
4 energy rigs go offline; 909 are active
HOUSTON -- The number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. declined by four this week to 909.
That's up from the 557 rigs that were active a year ago.
Houston oil-field services company Baker Hughes said Friday that 737 rigs sought oil and 172 explored for natural gas this week.
Among major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas gained five rigs and Oklahoma and Wyoming each increased by one.
Louisiana lost three rigs, North Dakota and West Virginia each declined by two and Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Pennsylvania each lost one.
Arkansas, California, Ohio and Utah were unchanged.
-- The Associated Press
IPhone X orders quickly back up weeks
Apple Inc. began accepting early orders for its iPhone X at 12:01 a.m. in California on Friday and within minutes shipping times quickly lengthened to as much as six weeks in the U.S., signaling supplies will likely remain tight as the new device goes on sale Friday.
Around the world, Apple fans posted images and comments online Friday about how they were planning to get their hands on one of the $999 phones. In Hong Kong, the phone appeared to sell out less than half an hour after ordering began in the midafternoon, with the online store there showing the phone "currently unavailable." It was a similar story across Asia.
In the U.K., the device sold out within minutes. By midmorning, customers were being told they would have to wait four to six weeks before the phone became available. And if New Yorkers didn't stay up all night, they were likely out of luck. By early morning on the East Coast, Apple's website was already registering a wait of as much as six weeks.
"We can see from the initial response, customer demand is off the charts," Apple said in an emailed statement.
Loup Ventures co-founder Gene Munster, in a note to clients, wrote, "We believe the iPhone X will reach global supply-demand equilibrium sometime in the March quarter, or 3-4 months after launch."
-- Bloomberg News
Texas cotton, cows hardest hit by storm
COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Cotton farmers poised to harvest a bumper crop were the hardest hit when Hurricane Harvey ravaged Texas, with cattle industry losses following closely behind.
Texas A&M University AgriLife Extension Service economists announced Friday that Harvey's total agriculture losses topped an estimated $200 million.
Half was cotton losses, while $93 million was in cattle that drowned and associated ranching infrastructure. Rice and soybean farmers suffered $8 million in losses.
Harvey sparked catastrophic flooding in counties home to 1.2 million beef cattle, a fourth of Texas' herd -- meaning ranching damages could have been worse.
Hurricane Ike in 2008 caused $13.3 million in Texas cattle losses, $11 million in rice losses and $23 million-plus in destroyed hay and fencing. Ike's impact on state agricultural, seafood and forestry producers was nearly $435 million.
-- The Associated Press
Business on 10/28/2017