Briefs: Truckers can stay 11 hours on road

WASHINGTON -- U.S. long-haul truck drivers can continue to spend as much as 11 hours a day behind the wheel, after a federal agency refused to return to lower limits sought by safety advocates. The U.S. Transportation Department, in an interim rule issued Tuesday, sided with the trucking industry and upheld a 2004 increase in daily driving time to 10 hours.

Do-not-call bill moves to Senate

WASHINGTON -- The House voted to make permanent the do-not-call registry, a program limiting telemarketing calls. The bill still needs Senate approval. After Congress in 2003 created the do-not-call registry shielding millions of people from those dinnertime interruptions from telemarketers, the Federal Trade Commission wrote rules requiring consumers to re-register their phone numbers every five years. The new legislation would eliminate that requirement by making the list permanent.

H&R Block hit by bad mortgages

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- H&R Block Inc., the nation's largest tax preparer, delayed its second-quarter earnings Tuesday to give its new auditors time to review the numbers. But it said it expected a much larger loss as the company's mortgage business continues to drag it down. A preliminary report said H&R Block expected a net loss of $502.3 million, or $1.55 per share, for the quarter ended Oct. 31, compared with a loss of $156.5 million, or 49 cents per share, during the same period a year ago.