Smaller cars like the Civic and Corolla easily outsold the traditional pacesetters, the Ford F-series and Chevrolet Silverado pickups, last month.

Shifting its focus to smaller cars as consumers abandon trucks in response to high fuel prices, G.M. is closing four truck plants and weighing a sale of Hummer.

The Toyota Camry and Corolla sedans each outsold the traditionally top-selling Ford F-series truck in May, a sign of the rapid shift in customers’ preferences.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced steps including a demand for more information on investors to determine whether they are driving up food prices.

Ford said its car sales were up 3 percent and its pickup and S.U.V. sales dropped 24 percent, part of a larger trend in the industry.

The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, signaled on Tuesday that further interest rate cuts were unlikely because of concerns about inflation.

The regulators will look more closely at investors to determine whether they are evading market limits on speculation and artificially driving up world food prices.

The deaths of six hospital patients who received a blood-based drug at a hospital in Jiangxi Province has prompted an unusually swift response from authorities.

Orders for manufactured goods posted a surprisingly strong increase in April as demand rose across a number of industries.

G.M. announced the moves in response to slumping sales of pickups and S.U.V.’s brought on by high oil prices.