Norfolk Southern clearly wants John Orr as its next chief operations officer very, very much. The freight railroad is paying rival Canadian Pacific Kansas City a one-time $25 million fee to waive his non-competition agreement with the carrier, the WSJ’s Dean Seal reports, one sign of the crucial role Orr will have as Norfolk Southern addresses its operations while a fight for control of the company heats up. The move comes as Norfolk Southern battles activist investor Ancora Holdings, which is seeking to oust Norfolk’s board and top executives, saying it launched a proxy fight because the railroad has inefficient operations and failed to meet financial targets. Orr is a rail veteran who was chief transformation officer at Canadian Pacific Kansas City, where Norfolk Southern says he helped turn around that railroad’s Mexico operations. Norfolk Southern told shareholders this week that Ancora’s proposed overhaul would destroy the company’s long-term value.

The U.S. government is dramatically ramping up its financial stake in rebuilding a semiconductor supply chain in the country. The U.S. will give Intel up to $8.5 billion to help fund new chip plants in four states, the WSJ’s Asa Fitch and Annie Linskey report, part of a broader effort to fund a resurgence of U.S. manufacturing to respond to Covid-era supply-chain disruptions and address growing geopolitical tensions with China. The money will go toward new factories and expansion projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon, with Intel’s total investment in U.S. projects expected to exceed $100 billion in the next five years. The viability of such investments has come under growing pressure in the past two years amid a downturn in the chip market. Chip makers have also encountered difficulties in building on their U.S. footprints, including hiring workers to meet the sophisticated production demands.

There’s an effort underway to put the time that truckers spend waiting outside freight terminals to use—at least for drivers of electric trucks. An Israeli startup has started projects in several cities around the world, including one in Michigan, to test roads built with embedded devices to charge vehicles as they travel. Electreon executive Stefan Tongur tells the WSJ’s Danny Lewis that the idea grew from frustration that Swedish truck makers Scania and Volvo have with the big batteries needed to electrify trucks. “Why don’t we charge these vehicles while they drive?” says Tongur. He says the company is looking at sites where vehicles spend time idling, including port queues and loading docks, before turning to driving corridors. For instance, says Tongur, the roads from ports to warehouses. The technology has been tested on electric buses in Detroit, and plans are to stretch out the distances.

• A study sponsored by trucking groups says it would cost nearly $1 trillion to upgrade charging infrastructure and electrical grids for electric trucks. (FleetOwner)
• Indian steel producer JSW and Chinese carmaker SAIC Motor are launching a joint venture to build and sell electric vehicles in India. (Financial Times)
• The Biden administration is giving the auto industry more time to comply with strict new tailpipe emissions standards. (WSJ)
• Metallica will use battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell-powered trucks on the European leg of the rock band’s tour this spring. (Jalopnik)

Federal Reserve officials still expect to cut interest rates three times later this year. (WSJ)

Temu owner PDD more than doubled its quarterly revenue to about $12 billion. (MarketWatch)

Swiss life-sciences company Lonza is buying a manufacturing facility in the U.S. from Roche for around $1.2 billion. (WSJ)

Authorities say shipping executive Angela Chao had nearly three times the legal limit of alcohol in her system when she drove a Tesla into a pond and drowned. (WSJ)

Honda will help parts suppliers improve cash flow by switching to lump-sum payments rather than protracted installments. (Nikkei Asia)

A South Korean-flagged tanker carrying acrylic acid capsized off Japan, killing at least eight crew members. (BBC)

The spread between container shipping spot rates and contract rates in Asia-to-U.S. West Coast lanes is the largest since September 2021. (CNBC)

Container terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are coping with a backlog of rail shipments following a surge in import volumes. (Journal of Commerce)

South Carolina’s port authority is buying a former paper mill site to expand container handling capacity at the Port of Charleston. (Charleston Business)

Scandinavian airline SAS expects to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection soon after a U.S. court approved its restructuring plan. (MarketWatch)

Owners of an office complex in Orange County, Calif., are razing the site to build warehousing. (Los Angeles Times)

Professional services firm Accenture acquired Dutch supply chain consultancy Flo. (DC Velocity)

Last-mile delivery provider Point Pickup Technologies ceased operations​ and is seeking a sale. (Supply Chain Dive)

Paul Page is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Reach him at paul.page@wsj.com.

Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team: @PaulPage, @bylizyoung and @pdberger. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report on X at @WSJLogistics.