Usps Broke | featured news

The U.S. Postal Service lost $1.3 billion in the October to December quarter, an official said on Friday, days after the beleaguered mail agency announced plans to cut back on Saturday delivery to save money.

Netflix won't miss Saturday mail delivery, even though the weekend service helped keep the company's DVD-by-mail subscribers happy. The U.S. Postal Service's planned shift to five days of home delivery a week instead of six may even make Netflix Inc. slightly more profitable by lowering the costs for sending out its familiar red envelopes with DVDs. That's because subscribers may be able to watch fewer DVDs for the same monthly price.

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 annually, the financially struggling agency says.

Its first-class mail volume dropping, the Postal Service hopes to substitute marketing material, even as consumers seek ways to block the catalogs and credit card applications.

In the midst of the Postal Service's economic problems, CNN visits the nation's only all-volunteer post office.

The U.S. Postal Service's net loss widened to $5.2 billion during the April through June period, and the cash-strapped agency warned on Thursday that without help from the U.S. Congress it will face low cash and be unable to borrow money this fall.

The Postal Service is set this week to default on a giant payment, the latest blow illustrating Congress' slow progress toward fixing the agency's deep financial woes and one that could damage some customers' confidence.

The lack of a decision so far by House Republican to hold a vote on overhauling postal operations means lawmakers are once again likely to pass a short-term stop-gap measure to shore up postal finances, but not address longer-term structural and financial concerns, congressional aides and industry observers said Thursday.

The U.S. Postal Service will move ahead with a plan to shut or consolidate mail-processing facilities as part of its cost-cutting effort but will spread out the closings to maintain overnight delivery of local mail.

The U.S. Postal Service on Thursday reported a $3.2 billion loss for the first quarter of 2012, $1 billion more than during the same period last year.