Post Office Weighs Hundreds of Branch Closings

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 run out of dough by October. The problem is that traditional mail delivery continues to plummet—it fell 6% in the first fiscal quarter, which ended Dec. 31. More»

Farmers, postal processors, switchboard operators face job loss

(NEWSER) - Unemployment may be easing , but certain jobs seem to be sliding into the dustbin of history. The Huffington Post lists 10 on the skids, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

1. Farmers and ranchers: expected to lose 96,100 jobs by 2020. Mechanized farming is taking over.

Letter carrier who threatened to 'go rogue' allowed to don red suit

(NEWSER) - After getting some bad publicity, the US Postal Service has decided not to prevent a kindly, bearded man from wearing a red hat and jacket as he makes his mail deliveries. For the last decade, letter carrier Bob McLean had worn a Santa hat and jacket during the holiday season, but after a colleague this year complained that he was violating the dress code, supervisors told McLean to leave the get-up at home, the Los Angeles Times reports. Management relented after the story got nationwide attention and McLean threatened to "go rogue" and wear the Santa suit anyway. More»

But also some heroism ...

(NEWSER) - The Washington Post checks out a watchdog report about the nation's 574,000 mail carriers and finds some doozies:

• A Maryland carrier admitted to burning piles of mail in an abandoned lot and was sentenced to six months in jail.
• A carrier in Cincinnati stole $10,000 in cash and $1,000 in gift cards and pleaded guilty to mail theft.

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 March, a move that could bring new meaning to the term "snail mail," the AP reports. The plan will make next-day delivery of first-class mail a thing of the past, and deal a serious blow to things like time-sensitive magazines, mail-order prescription drugs, and Netflix. More»