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Proposed USPS Fix: End Door-to-Door Service

We may end up getting our mail from neighborhood boxes

(Newser) - Rep. Darrell Issa says he has a potential solution to the Postal Service's money problem: Mail carriers could stop delivering your items right to your door. The House Oversight Committee is poised to vote on the proposal—potentially affecting 37 million homes and businesses—today. It could cut costs...

Feds Are Keeping an Eye on Your Snail Mail, Too

USPS has two main tools for law enforcement, says New York Times

(Newser) - Creeped out by all this talk of metadata and Big Brother and the fear that your emails aren't as private as you thought? Well, at least there's good old snail mail, right? Not so much, reports the New York Times . It looks at two programs the US Postal...

USPS Won't Cut Saturday Mail After All

Post Office says Congress left it no choice

(Newser) - The US Postal Service says it will delay plans to cut Saturday mail delivery because Congress isn't allowing the change. As expected , Congress "has left [USPS] with no choice but to delay implementation" of the five-day-a-week plan, the agency's Board of Governors said in a statement today.

No Saturday Mail? 4 Reactions
 No Saturday Mail? 4 Reactions 
OPINIONs

No Saturday Mail? 4 Reactions

Reaction ranges from a shrug to 'big mistake'

(Newser) - A few early reactions to the Postal Service's decision to scrap mail on Saturdays :
  • Eh, who cares: "I don’t really consider this a big change," writes Ed Morrissey at Hot Air . "After all, what I don’t get on Saturday, I’ll still get on
...

$8.6K Rembrandt Lost in the Mail

Norwegian gallery used postal service to save money

(Newser) - So much for saving on postage. A Norwegian art gallery shelled out for a Rembrandt etching worth $8,600, then sought to have it delivered through the regular mail service—rather than a courier—to save cash. The plan backfired: The piece was lost in the mail, Reuters reports, and...

How a 1909 Law Is Holding Back the Post Office

Senate moves to OK booze-by-mail 103 years later

(Newser) - The Senate has an idea to help save the Postal Service: Let people mail alcohol. After all, FedEx and UPS carry the stuff all the time. But a law from 1909—established 10 years before Prohibition came into effect—bars the Postal Service from shipping "all spirituous, vinous, malted,...

Post Office Closing 223 Processing Centers

35K jobs at stake, delivery will slow

(Newser) - The US Postal Service is closing or consolidating almost half of its mail processing centers nationwide as part of a $15 billion cost-cutting plan. Some 223 centers will go, in a move that puts 35,000 jobs at risk and will slow down first-class delivery, AP reports. The agency, which...

Stamps Might Hit 50 Cents
 Stamps Might Hit 50 Cents 

Stamps Might Hit 50 Cents

Postal Service cites need for quick action from Congress

(Newser) - 50-cent stamps, anyone? That's one of the changes the postmaster-general wants Congress to act on quickly if the service is to survive, reports the Wall Street Journal . That increase of a nickel for a first-class stamp is actually one of the minor proposals from Patrick Donahoe. He also laid...

USPS Has Dismal Holiday, Loses $3.3B in Quarter

Decline in regular mail more than offsets gift shipping bump

(Newser) - The US Postal Service had a jaw-droppingly ugly holiday quarter, losing $3.3 billion despite a better-than-expected surge in gift shipments, the agency announced today. That's $3 billion worse than its figure for the same period in 2010, the AP reports, and at this rate the agency expects to...

Post Office to Slow Mail, Kill Next-Day Letter Delivery

Half of USPS mail processing centers to shut down this spring

(Newser) - Get ready to wait an extra day for the next DVD of The Wire: The mail is going to slow down. As part of its plan to save $3 billion, the cash-challenged US Postal Service will be closing roughly half of its 500 mail processing centers as soon as next...

Stamps Going Up a Penny
 Stamps Going Up a Penny 

Stamps Going Up a Penny

It will cost 45 cents to mail a first-class letter in January

(Newser) - Given the dire financial straits of the Postal Service, this shouldn't be a huge surprise: The price of a stamp is going up a penny to 45 cents in January, reports the Washington Post . The first hike in more than two years is expected to pull in an extra...

Capitol Hill Buried in Avalanche of Angry Mail

One office seeing 1,422% more mail than in 2002

(Newser) - Could the USPS' last great hope be angry Americans? An avalanche of letters and emails are pouring into Congress, with offices reporting that they're dealing with, in one case, as much as 1,422% more constituent-penned correspondence than they did in 2002. Politico reports that House offices are seeing...

USPS Teeters on Brink of Default

Huge labor costs, declining usage have deficit at $9.2 billion this year

(Newser) - With a $5.5 billion payment due Sept. 30, the US Postal Service's longstanding financial woes are about to come to a head—in fact, if Congress doesn't do something soon, the agency might have to shut down entirely this winter, reports the New York Times . The USPS...

How to Save the Post Office Big Bucks? Slower Mail

Study says move would save $1.5B per year

(Newser) - Postal service may be enshrined in the US Constitution, but the clause doesn't say anything about how fast that service needs to be. Now, with revenues plummeting, US Postal Service officials are thinking about slowing delivery speeds for first-class and Priority Mail, a move that a new study says...

America's Future: Mail Delivery Just 3 Days a Week

At least, that's what the postmaster general predicts

(Newser) - We live in the age of instant communication, thanks to Skype, Twitter, smartphones, and three-day-a-week mail delivery? That could be our odd reality in as few as 15 years, according to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. In comments made to USA Today , Donahue explains that the Postal Service is anticipating an...

Man Busted After Cocaine Delivery—by Mail

Jersey City felon arrested minutes after opening package

(Newser) - Word to the wise: You'll probably want to set up a more sophisticated way to have your cocaine delivered than the US postal service. That's what a Jersey City man allegedly did—and was busted by police minutes after accepting a package containing 2 kilos of the drug, the Star-Ledger...

Why I'll Always Love Snail Mail
 Why I'll Always Love Snail Mail 
OPINION

Why I'll Always Love Snail Mail

Meghan Daum: Email's great, but the real stuff can be 'magical'

(Newser) - News that the postal service has to cut back even further has Meghan Daum feeling a little glum about her beloved snail mail. "This love affair began decades ago, back when the 'snail' qualifier wasn't necessary," she writes in the Los Angeles Times . She'd sort the mail as...

Dive-Bombing Bird Stops Mail in Canadian Town

(Newser) - Residents of a Calgary suburb will have to pick up their own mail, since it seems that a hawk in the area has a personal grudge against the local mail carrier. The bird, identified as a Swainson's hawk, started terrorizing the post office worker in June, once diving with such...

Raising the Price of Stamps Is Smart
 Raising the Price 
 of Stamps Is Smart 
opinion

Raising the Price of Stamps Is Smart

Businesses have to get smarter about snail mail

(Newser) - The Postal Service's proposal to raise the price of stamps to 46 cents has set off the usual complaints, but Daniel Gross at Slate thinks it's a smart move. The current system is way too bloated, and a price increase might once and for all force junk mailers and department...

20,000 Letters Found in Missing Mailman's Garage

Some of the undelivered mail dates back to 1997

(Newser) - When a Philadelphia mailman didn't show up for work several days in a row last month, postal officials got worried. So they paid a visit to his home, little suspecting what they'd find there: roughly 20,000 undelivered and unopened pieces of mail, some dating to 1997. Paychecks, bills, and...

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