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The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says. In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the service is expected to say the Saturday mail cutback would begin in August. The move accentuates one of the agency's strong points -- package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010, officials say, while the delivery of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of email and other Internet use.

"government lawyer’s attempt to get dismissed nearly $700 in traffic tickets given to the U.S. Postal Service is being met with a hearty and humorous, no. In a Jan. 22 letter sent to both the city of East Cleveland, Ohio, and the company that operates the city's photo-enforcement program, Postal Service attorney says two school-zone speeding citations and five red-light infractions by postal trucks in December should be ignored. “In providing mail service across the country, the Postal Service attempts to work within local and state laws and regulations, when feasible,” wrote Breslin, after reminding “To Whom It May Concern”...

The head of the financially struggling U.S. Postal Service said the agency must be allowed to ease the terms of prepayments into a retiree health-care fund and eliminate general mail delivery on Saturday. Patrick Donahoe told "CBS This Morning" the agency isn't asking Congress for money. He said, "I think most people don't realize, we're 100 percent self-sufficient. We pay our own way." But the postal chief notes the agency is losing $15.9 billion this year. Donahoe says the post office needs to refinance retirement health fund payments to $1 billion a year instead of $5 billion. He said the...

Ten current and former postal workers launched a more than 3-day hunger strike Monday to protest looming cuts and closures at the U.S. Postal Service. Drastic? Yes. But organizers say desperate times call for desperate measures. The hunger strikers want the Postal Service to shelve its July plans to start closing or consolidating 48 mail processing plants. By the end of 2014, when the plan to shrink the postal network is completed, 229 plants will be consolidated or closed and 28,000 jobs will be gone. They also want Congress to eliminate a mandate that has been a major financial drag...

The U.S. Postal Service is offering buyouts to 45,000 mail handlers, part of the struggling agency's efforts to shed staff and cut costs. The $15,000 buyouts, pro-rated for part-time staff, are available to nearly all of the Postal Service's mail handlers, excluding around 2,000 who aren't career employees Mail handlers work at post offices and mail processing centers sorting mail, transporting it within their facility and loading and unloading trucks. "The Postal Service is adjusting the size of its network to adapt to America's changing mailing trends," USPS spokesman Mark Saunders said in an email Friday. The Postal Service wants...

DETROIT (WJBK) -- Police say a man and his friend are in a lot of trouble for what they did to a Detroit postal worker. "Our postal carrier was in his vehicle, and two African-American males approached him. One had a gun," said Wiley Christopher with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. The incident happened on May 1 around the same time you would expect to see a lot of government checks and food stamps in the mail. Police say the guys didn't get away with anything, but there is still an award for information leading to an arrest. "We find...

ORLANDO, Fla. — A postal worker says a mysterious leaking package from Yemen has left him seriously ill, but the U.S. Postal Service denies the package ever existed. The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, in a story printed in Sunday's Miami Herald and The Ledger of Lakeland, reported that Jeffrey A. Lill suffers from extreme fatigue, tremors, and liver and neurological problems. The symptoms are consistent with toxic exposure, problems that he said began after he handled the leaking package on Feb. 4, 2011. The center tracked down co-workers who said that they saw and smelled the package and that...

The U.S. Postal Service backed off from a proposal to close thousands of rural post offices, opting instead to cut opening hours in a bid to stem devastating financial losses. The postal service estimates that the new plan will save $500 million a year once it is fully implemented in 2014. The previous proposal would have closed more than 3,000 rural post offices to save $200 million a year. Under the plan outlined Wednesday, 13,167 post offices will open for two to six hours a day. A spokeswoman for the postal service said that no community would be required to...

A NYT article on the financial difficulties of the Postal Service concluded with a comment from Art Sackler, the chairman of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service: "They haven’t had a good track record when it comes to developing new lines of business." This organization is identified as "a mailing industry group that includes companies like FedEx, said the Postal Service." It might have been worth reminding readers that FedEx and UPS have in the past used their political power to limit the ability of the Postal Service to compete with them.

Technology’s rapid advance over the past few decades has brought an era of unprecedented communication among Americans. With video chat, people separated by thousands of miles can interact as if they’re in the same room. Small business owners can pay bills with the click of a mouse. The original online communications technology—e-mail—has become so much more. And there’s a government agency that is not happy about this The U.S Postal Service is in crisis. Mail volume peaked in 2006, and they have been losing business—and more importantly, money—ever since. As an arm of the federal government, taxpayers should be worried...

The nation's largest mail-carriers union wants the U.S. Postal Service to raise stamp prices and expand mail delivery. In a report to be released Tuesday, it sharply criticizes the agency's own rescue plan and argues the Postal Service will become profitable only if it restructures itself like a business. Labor groups, for instance, generally oppose cuts to service. The mailing industry opposes higher postage fees. Many legislators say the Postal Service needs to close facilities—but not in their district. And a Republican-led bill set to be heard by the full House looks askance at any proposal that would allow the...

The U.S. Postal Service wants small businesses to send more direct mail, a.k.a. junk mail, to help the beleaguered agency expand its revenue stream by hundreds of millions of dollars. In a campaign called "Every Door Direct Mail," the Postal Service is touting a year-old online tool to help small businesses micro-target direct mail. The Web tool allows firms to tap customers by neighborhood or zip code without names or addresses. The Postal Service reported a $5.1 billion loss for the year ended Sept. 30. The loss was caused by an ongoing decline in its core revenue driver, regular letters...

The U.S. Post Office, facing financial losses of up to $18.2 billion a year by 2015, wants to charge more for postage, more for services, and to suspend Saturday delivery.

Senate Democrats divided over deep cuts to U.S. Postal ServicesBy Alexander Bolton - 02/05/12 06:00 AM ET Senate Democratic lawmakers from rural states are balking at legislation from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that would let the U.S. Postal Service close thousands of offices. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has convened meetings of Senate colleagues and staffs to overhaul the bill, which he believes could lead to the eventual privatization of the postal service. The postal reform bill crafted by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) was expected to reach the Senate floor as soon as next week....

A gunman with a rifle opened fire at a Southern California Edison office in Irwindale on Friday, killing two employees and wounding two others before taking his own life. One of the victims died at the scene and the other died on the way to the hospital. The conditions of the two other victims were not immediately available, said Capt. Michael Taylor of the Baldwin Park Police Department, A source said the gunman was also an employee at the Edison building who worked as as systems analyst. His name was not released. At least some of the victims were supervisors...

Stressing that the United States Postal Service will run out of money to deliver mail by next summer, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a proposal to help rescue the postal service. “We are not crying wolf here,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said today. “The postal service literally will not survive unless comprehensive, legislative and administrative reforms are undertaken.” Along with Collins, Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., Scott Brown, R-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., revealed their plan, actually a melding of two plans, today at a news conference. It calls for a fundamental restructuring of the postal service, including cost-saving changes...

Ian Robinson, 43, had to leave his job after developing arthritis, but the authorities have ruled he is not entitled to disability benefits and he must now try to survive on Jobseeker's Allowance. Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/877955-naked-ex-postman-superglues-himself-to-desk-in-job-centre-protest#ixzz1bjoZJJnJ Mr Robinson decided to demonstrate how angry he was about the decision by staging a bizarre protest in front of shocked staff at Bridlington Job Centre. 'When I started taking my clothes off, a man said "You can't do that in here", so I went over and glued myself to his desk. Nobody tried to stop me, it was too late by that point,'...

WASHINGTON (AP) — It'll cost a penny more to mail a letter next year. The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday that it will increase postage rates on Jan. 22, including a 1-cent increase in the cost of first-class mail, to 45 cents.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - Some workers at a Sioux City mail processing center could be paid even if they don't work after the facility closes. The U.S. Postal Service is closing the center on Friday and transferring the work to Sioux Falls, S.D. Spokesman Richard Watkins said that about 100 workers have taken other mail jobs and 40 others are on standby status. Those standby workers will have to take other postal service jobs before their contract expires in 2015. In the meantime, Watkins said, they could be asked to report to the Sioux City post office and sit in...

The United States Postal Service has spread the alarms. It has run through a $12 billion federal loan that has kept itself afloat for the past two years and it is now looking for a bailout. It cites declining revenues because of the internet, the inordinate cost of its pension program and the inability to control labor costs because of no-layoff provisions in its union contracts. It wants to cut service to 5 days a week, possibly more and it is planning to slow the delivery of first class mail. It has talked about reductions in force of 120,000, but...