Senate Majority Leader Reid announced that the Senate will pass the House bill and end the week-and-a-half partial shutdown.

Forty percent of the most-delayed daily flights in the U.S. originate at Newark's Liberty International Airport, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Statistics compiled for the paper by the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics showed that 40 of the top 100 most-often delayed flight numbers were departures from Newark. The two most common were Delta Airlines flights from Newark to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

The flights, Delta Flight Nos. 2743 and 2843, were delayed 60 and 49 percent of the time for an average of 83 and 79 minutes, respectively.

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President Obama will travel to Virginia next week to announce new fuel-economy standards for heavy-duty trucks.

The White House said Thursday that Obama will make the announcement next Tuesday at Interstate Moving Services in Springfield, Va.

“The new standards will provide American businesses, who operate and own these commercial vehicles, tens of billions of dollars in fuel savings, and will dramatically reduce oil consumption and cut pollution,” the White House said in a statement.

President Obama has spoken with House Speaker John Boehner about the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday.

Obama has called the impasse, which led to 4,000 FAA workers being furloughed since July 23, "an example of how undone work here in Washington can have an adverse effect on the economy."

But Carney said Thursday that the president and other members of the administration "are actively engaged in trying to find a solution that will put 70,000 Americans back to work," quoting a figure that counts workers who have been pulled off airport construction projects.

The partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration will likely be resolved before next week, a key lawmaker said.

The focus during the congressional recess so far has been on a spending bill lawmakers did not pass before they left, but a key labor union said Thursday it was going to spend the next month trying to convince them to pass one when they come back.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America said Thursday it was going to use the summer break to tell Congress "it’s time to pass a new Highway Bill that puts people to work and to discard a House GOP plan that would destroy 630,000 good jobs.

“In the debt ceiling debate and in the Federal Aviation Administration shutdown, some Republicans have shown they’re willing to put politics ahead of our economy and the livelihoods of working men and women,” LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said in a statement. “We will not let the Highway Bill be the next victim of that strategy. We need to show that America faces its challenges and doesn’t run away from them.

Your morning transportation speed-read:

The Transportation Security Administration is testing behavior-detection screening at Boston's Logan Airport.

Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne isn't sold on electric cars.

Mid-1990s Hondas are the most stolen cars in the country.

A study shows car owners are struggling to afford major car repairs.

The White House, Senate Democrats and House Republicans ratcheted up their rhetoric over the Federal Aviation Administration shutdown.

President Obama should insist Congress come back into session and end the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, the Airports Council International-North America said Wednesday.

In a letter to the White House, ACI-NA President Greg Principato said that Obama should "call Congress back into session so the FAA is put back in business now, not a month from now.

"Department of Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, in a press briefing at the White House this morning called for Congress to come back in order to put the FAA back in business," Principato wrote. "Airports Council International-North America supports the Secretary’s call for Congress to return, and I am writing to ask that you bring Congress back into session to resolve this issue.