Post Offices

It's fair to say that any business losing almost $1 billion a month needs to rethink it's game plan. And that's what the U.S. Postal Service says it's doing. The Postal Service lost $3.2 billion in the quarter ended March 31, a hefty increase from $2.2 billion in red ink a year earlier. The cause is obvious: Mail volume is plunging as electronic communications become the norm. A record loss of more than $14 billion is forecast for the entire fiscal year. That's a huge chunk of change for a federal agency that receives no tax money.

WASHINGTON - TheU.S. Postal Servicebacked 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 close its post office, although they could chose to do so and opt instead for home delivery.

The Senate passed a bill aimed at salvaging the United States Postal Service, which is hemorrhaging millions of dollars a day as fewer people send letters and conduct business by mail. The legislation would allow the postal service to reduce its pension and retiree benefit costs and pave the way for service changes. The bill passed by a vote of 62 to 37 Wednesday, after two days of voting on amendments. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of the bill's sponsors, said it would put the postal service back on course to financial health.

Pop star Rihanna has sold her Beverly Hills Post Office-area home for $5.03 million. The house had been listed at $4.5 million in November, substantially less than the $6.9 million she paid two years earlier. The listing describes the house as a "major fixer" with "extensive damage from moisture and water intrusion" at the roof, windows, doors and balconies. Despite the condition, there were four offers on the property. The 8,520-square-foot, three-story contemporary contains a den, media room, breakfast area, three fireplaces, eight bedrooms and 10 bathrooms.

Ringing like a Salvation Army bell, more Christmas-themed outrage is in the air. This time, it's a kerfuffle over some holiday carolers being ejected from a post office in a Maryland suburb outside Washington. It seems that the carolers, dressed like something out of Dickens, ran afoul of a federal law that prohibits organized groups from assembling on post office property. It's likely no one would have heard about it, except that J.P. Duffy, a spokesman for the influential conservative advocacy group the Family Research Council, was among the dozens of patrons at the post office in Aspen Hill, Md, on Saturday.

Police said Sunday they had arrested a U.S. citizen who planned to bomb police cars and post offices and kill U.S. servicemen returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to protest the American military presence in those countries. Jose Pimentel, 27, a convert to Islam, had been under surveillance for two years but seemed to have stepped up his bomb-making activities and plotting after the Sept. 30 killing by U.S. forces of Anwar Awlaki, a radical U.S.-born cleric who was living in Yemen, authorities said.

A U.S. citizen who learned bomb-making on the Internet and considered changing his name to Osama out of loyalty to Osama bin Laden has been arrested on charges of plotting to blow up post offices and police cars and to kill U.S. troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, authorities said Sunday. Jose Pimentel, 27, a Dominican-born convert to Islam, was on the verge of testing his homemade explosives in a mailbox when he was arrested Saturday in a Manhattan apartment, New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said.

Pop star Rihanna has listed a Beverly Hills Post Office-area home at $4.5 million, substantially less than the $6.9 million she paid two years ago. The listing describes the house as a "major fixer" with "extensive damage from moisture and water intrusion" at the roof, windows, doors and balconies. The home's water problems are the subject of a lawsuit the singer filed this summer in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The property will not qualify for bank financing, according to the listing, so potential buyers will need cash, a contractor and perhaps an umbrella, to borrow the title of one of Rihanna's early hits.