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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina s congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Myorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Postal Service Uses Birthday Bash to Fight Privatization

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Friday, July 25, 2014   

PORTLAND, Ore. - It's birthday cake and protest rallies for U.S. Postal Service employees in Oregon and across the country.

The Postal Service is 239 years old on Saturday, and letter carriers had their convention this week in Philadelphia.

Oregon's Jamie Partridge was there. A retired carrier, Partridge has dedicated himself to fighting privatization of mail delivery. He said the mood is upbeat as workers discuss ideas to modernize the Postal Service. One of them is to offer limited banking services, such as small loans and check cashing.

"Thirty-eight percent of ZIP codes have no banks, but they have post offices," he said. "These are mostly rural towns, but there's also a lot of inner-city neighborhoods where people are un-banked and they rely on these predatory check-cashing places and payday loans."

Partridge said these types of services once were available at post offices, from the early part of the 1900s into the 1960s. But the idea of bringing them back already is getting pushback from some banks and credit unions that see it as competition.

For the last six quarters, Partridge said, the Postal Service has managed to turn a profit. But the letter-carriers' view is that the Postmaster General is in the camp of those who want to privatize mail service - and has quietly found ways to reduce services and service hours, particularly in rural areas.

"What we've been trying to do at this point - with some success, but not enough - is to get our congressional delegation to put pressure directly on the Postmaster General to stop the cuts and closures," Partridge said. "He has closed half the mail processing plants."

At noon Saturday at the main post office on N.W. Hoyt and Broadway in Portland, another rally will call attention to a deal between the Postal Service and Staples stores. Partridge said that, under public pressure, the two organizations have changed the name of a plan to open postal facilities inside the retail office-supply stores. But Postal Service workers still oppose it because they'd be staffed by lower-paid Staples employees.


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