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The United States Postal Service said it planned to largely eliminate next-day delivery for first-class mail as part of its push to cut costs and reduce its budget deficit. Currently, more than 40 percent of first-class mail is delivered in one day. The agency said the slower delivery would result from its decision to shut about half of its 487 mail processing centers nationwide. The move is expected to eliminate about 28,000 jobs and increase the distance that mail must travel between post offices and processing centers. It would be the first reduction in delivery standards for first-class mail in 40 years. Seven Massachusetts mail processing facilities are on a list scheduled for closing next year under a budget-cutting plan by the U.S. Postal Service. The facilities are in Boston, Brockton, Lowell, North Reading, Shrewsbury, Waltham and Wareham. The postal service is proposing to close more than 250 processing centers around the country and lay off about 30,000 workers to trim $3 billion and avoid bankruptcy.

Current standards call for delivering first-class mail in one to three days within the continental United States. Under the planned cutbacks, those delivery times would increase to two or three days, potentially creating problems for clients of Netflix, the popular DVD-by-mail service, who hope that their next episodes of “Mad Men” will arrive in a day, or procrastinators who like to pay bills as late as possible. The agency had announced on Sept. 15 that it would begin studying plans to close 252 of its mail processing centers.

Patrick Donahoe, the postmaster general, said in a phone interview. “In 2000, 5 percent of people paid bills online. Now it’s 60 percent. The problem is we’ve lost so much volume in blue-box mail, we can’t hold out for next-day service anymore.” The Postal Service lost $5.1 billion last year. Donahoe released a long-awaited “post office study” of nearly 3,700 potential closings in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. “The Postal Service of the future will be smaller, leaner and more competitive and it will continue to drive commerce, serve communities and deliver value,” Donahoe said. Donahoe said that this and other moves, such as a proposal under consideration to reduce service to five days a week, are necessary to close a $20 billion gap in revenue by 2015. The closings announcement came as no surprise, since the service announced plans last January to shut down thousands of stations and branches as part of an effort to stem steep losses.   Donahoe has said that by 2015, he hopes to cut $20 billion from the agency’s annual costs, now about $75 billion. He has called for closing up to 3,700 of the nation’s 32,000 post offices, reducing deliveries to five days a week from six and cutting the agency’s work force of 653,000 employees by more than 100,000.

United States Postal Service Station Branches Identified For Full Study
The Postal Service has marked 677 post offices nationwide for possible closure or consolidation, according this listing provided to Congressional staffers by the U.S. Postal Service.

District    Station/Branch Name    City/State
Baltimore    Eastpoint Mall    Baltimore MD
Baltimore    Fells Point Station    Baltimore MD
Baltimore    Franklin Station    Baltimore MD
Baltimore    Mt. Washington Station    Baltimore MD
Baltimore    Towson Towne Center    Baltimore MD
Capital    Columbia Heights Finance    Washington DC
Capital    Derwood    ROCKVILLE, MD
Capital    Fort Davis    Washington DC
Capital    Friendship Heights    BETHESDA MD
Capital    Landover Hills    HYATTSVILLE, MD
Capital    Ledroit Park    Washington DC
Capital    Naval Research Laboratory    Washington DC
Capital    Navy Annex    Washington DC
Capital    Northeast    Washington DC
Capital    Petworth    Washington DC
Capital    Randle    Washington DC
Capital    Silver Spring Center    SILVER SPRING, MD
Capital    Woodridge    Washington DC
GSC    Capital    COLUMBIA SC
GSC    Edgewood    COLUMBIA SC
GSC    Federal Station (Fin) Greenville    GREENVILLE SC
GSC    Harbison    COLUMBIA SC
GSC    Pinehaven    CHARLESTON SC
GSC    Pinewood (Fin)    SPARTANBURG SC
Mid Carolinas    ASH-Oteen Finance Station    ASHEVILLE NC
Mid Carolinas    CLT-30th St    CHARLOTTE NC
Mid Carolinas    CLT-Arrowood    CHARLOTTE NC
Mid Carolinas    CLT-Derita    CHARLOTTE NC
Mid Carolinas    CLT-Eastway Finance    CHARLOTTE NC
Mid Carolinas    CLT-Freedom    CHARLOTTE NC
Mid Carolinas    Fayetteville Haymont    FAYETTEVILLE NC
Richmond    Bellevue    RICHMOND, VA Read the rest of this entry »

Intelligence indicates that North Korea is moving ahead with building its first road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile, an easily hidden weapon capable of hitting the United States, according to Obama administration officials. The intelligence was revealed in a classified Capitol Hill briefing last month. Its existence was made public in a letter to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta from five House Republicans. “As members of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces …, we write out of concerns about new intelligence concerning foreign developments in long-range ballistic missile development, specifically ballistic missiles capable of attacking the United States,” the Nov. 17 letter said. “We believe this new intelligence reiterates the need for the administration to correct its priorities regarding missile defenses, which should have, first and foremost, the missile defense of the homeland.”

Officials familiar with the intelligence said government analysts believe the missile could be a variant of North Korea’s new Musudan intermediate-range missile, first disclosed publicly in October 2010. The CIA assesses that North Korea also has a substantial arsenal of chemical weapons. North Korea was a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but withdrew in 2003, citing the failure of the United States to fulfill its end of the Agreed Framework, a 1994 agreement between the states to limit North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, begin normalization of relations, and help North Korea supply some energy needs through nuclear reactors.

On October 9, 2006, the North Korean government issued an announcement Read the rest of this entry »

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