The Taunton Press has sold Fine Cooking to Meredith Corporation

FY2022 fourth quarter service performance scores covering July 1 through Aug. 26 included: *First-Class Mail: 93.1 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal third quarter. *Marketing Mail: 94.5 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal third quarter. *Periodicals: 86.7 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal third quarter.

The Postal Regulatory Commission voted unanimously to designate Commissioner Mark Acton as vice chairman of the Commission effective January 1, 2023, succeeding Commissioner Ann Fisher. Agency regulations provide that the commissioners elect a member to serve as vice chairman for a term of one year. Commissioner Mark Acton was reappointed to the Commission by President Barack H. Obama on December 12, 2016, for a third term of continued public service extending until October 14, 2022, and was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 10, 2016. President George W. Bush first nominated Mr. Acton as a postal rate commissioner on November 7, 2005, and he was confirmed by the Senate on August 3, 2006. Prior to his appointments, Mr. Acton served as special assistant to the chairman of the Postal Rate Commission and assisted in managing all aspects of agency operations.

In its Government Reform Plan, the Administration made the case for privatizing the Postal Service, and preparing for an eventual change through recommendations coming in August from the President's Task Force on the Postal System. The business community – mailers and suppliers in the paper, printing and technology industries collectively generating $1.4 trillion in sales annually and supporting 7.5 million jobs – strongly believes privatization is not the answer for a postal system in financial distress. "Our troubled postal system can be fixed in a two-step process that does not resort to a draconian solution unproven at the gigantic scale of the U.S. Postal Service," said Art Sackler, Manager of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal System (C21), which broadly represents the industry. Those two steps would be removing $tens of billions in liabilities to prefund retiree health care imposed on the Postal Service in the short-term, and considering whether and what business model or other changes would have to be made to sustain USPS in the long-term. "The mere prospect of privatization will sow confusion, uncertainty and concern about maintaining mail and package delivery around the country, and stimulating still more volume and revenue loss when the major problem has been a drop off in mail," Sackler added. Click Read More below for additional information.