• Mailman accused of choking 11-year-old girl

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    By Samantha Tata and Robert Kovacik, NBCLosAngeles.com

    Published at 6:20 a.m. ET: An on-duty mailman was arrested Monday after allegedly choking an 11-year-old girl who was supposedly taunting him after the letter carrier inadvertently walked into the women's bathroom at a park, U.S. Postal Service and law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

    Daniel Villasenor, 55, allegedly choked the young girl after she laughed at him when he accidentally stepped into the women's restroom at Bristow Park in Commerce, southeast of downtown Los Angeles, on Monday, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

    Several witnesses corroborated the girl's story, sheriff's officials said. Villasensor was found nearby and arrested.

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    The 31-year Postal Service employee is on unpaid leave while the investigation continues, said Richard Mahe, spokesman for USPS. The incident is also being probed by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

    NBC4's attempts to contact Villasenor's family for comment were declined late Tuesday. But Villasenor's neighbor in Temple City, Calif., Leo Ferraris, described the letter carrier as a "hell of a guy" who never lashed out. accus

    "He'll be barbecuing stuff and he'll say, 'I've got stuff to bring over to you so don't fix dinner tonight,'" Ferraris said.

    Villasenor was jailed on $100,000 bail and had been booked on one felony count of willful cruelty to a child.

    Authorities said they would not be releasing a booking photo of Villasenor.

  • California's Little Saigon post office feels like home to Vietnamese

    By Jacob Rascon, NBCLosAngeles.com

    As email becomes the norm and fewer people use traditional mail, the U.S. Post Office in Westminster, Calif.’s Little Saigon neighborhood is an anomaly.


    Consider it an unofficial hangout of the world’s oldest, largest, most well-established Vietnamese-American community. It’s a place where nearly 10,000 transactions still take place each month and Global Express Service recently outsold every other U.S. Post Office in the country.

    "People feel like this is home," said Raymond Tran, who’s going on his 21st year at the office. "They need help and I’m here to help."

    Here, hundreds of customers skip larger, closer and less-busy post offices across Southern California to connect with the Vietnamese-American community in Little Saigon.

    Read the story at NBCLosAngeles.com

    They send care packages around the world, especially Vietnam, and across the country to their Vietnamese relatives. They also send critical immigration paperwork.

    For Tran, known for his high-pitched, infectious laugh, becoming a postal worker has been a goal since he was a teenager.

    "We left for freedom," Tran said of his escape from Vietnam when he was 14. "We lost communication with my parents, my brother."

    Tran spent a year in a refugee camp in Malaysia wondering if his parents, still in Vietnam, survived. He anxiously waited to hear his name during mail call, hoping for a letter from his parents.

    Few letters arrived. Tran later learned the letters had been lost in the mail, and he decided then to dedicate his life to making a difference.

    "I have a dream in Malaysia that one day I will be a mailman or something to deliver the mail. Everybody happy to get a piece of mail," he said.

    Thirty-five years later, not losing mail remains a priority for Tran, who is married with two adult children who graduated from Southern California universities.

    "Nobody helps me except here," Robert Ho, of Santa Ana, said when asked why didn’t go to a closer post office. "He helped me get my package back. The package lost in the mail was worth $500, and he got it back.”

    Nearby businesses also value the unlikely hangout. Michael Vo moved his insurance business next door 20 years ago and said he has no regrets.

    Tran’s supervisors also laud his performance and have filled his workplace drawers with awards for outstanding service.

    "Customers value the service they get from employees at this office, especially Raymond Tran," U.S. Postal Service spokesman Richard Maher said.

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  • Postal Service reports $5.2 billion loss in 3rd quarter

    CNBC's Hampton Pearson has the details on the latest multi-billion dollar loss from the U.S. Postal Service.

    By Emily Stephenson, Reuters

    WASHINGTON -- 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 be unable to borrow money this fall.

    The Postal Service, which relies on the sale of stamps and other products rather than taxpayer funding, has been struggling for years as Americans increasingly communicate online and as payments for future retiree health benefits and other obligations drain its cash.

    A week after its first-ever default on a legally required payment to the federal government, officials called on Congress to pass postal legislation that would overhaul the mail agency's business model and offer some relief from its dire financial situation.

    Lawmakers, who have said they are committed to helping the Postal Service become profitable, left last week for a month-long recess without reaching an agreement on postal legislation.

    "Congress needs to act responsibly and get on with things so that we can get these things in our rearview mirror," Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said on Thursday.

    While postal officials insist it is unlikely Congress would allow the Postal Service's financial straits to get so dismal as to impede mail delivery, the agency has said it needs a significant restructuring to get back on sound footing.

    The mail agency defaulted last week on a legally required $5.5 billion payment for future retiree health benefits, and its inspector general said the Postal Service could face a $100 million cash shortfall in mid-October.

    Much of the net loss of $5.2 billion in the third quarter, compared to $3.1 billion for the same period in 2011, came from funds the agency must set aside for the retiree benefits payment. Even though the Postal Service defaulted and expects to skip a second payment due next month, it still must account for the payments in its financial statements.

    Even without the payments, a postal official told the agency's Board of Governors on Thursday that the Postal Service lost about $1 billion on normal operations as Americans' ongoing shift to email strangled mail volume.

    The USPS has made a number of cost-cutting moves, slashing operating hours at small post offices, offering buyouts to thousands of workers and launching a plan to consolidate operations at 140 processing sites by February.

    Still, the service projects a net loss of about $15 billion for the fiscal year, which goes through September, said Stephen Masse, acting chief financial officer for the agency.

    Postal officials said Congress needs to step in. They want authority to end Saturday mail, pull employees out of federal health plans and run their own instead, stop making the payments for future retiree benefits and make other changes.

    The Senate passed a bill in April that would let the agency end Saturday mail and tap into a surplus in a federal retirement fund to offer retirement incentives to workers.

    Leaders in the House of Representatives have said that bill does not go far enough, but they left last week for a recess until after the September 3 Labor Day holiday without bringing their version of the postal reform bill up for a vote.

    "I can only hope that as members of Congress are back in their districts meeting with their constituents over the next month, they will hear these concerns about the future of the Postal Service and be persuaded that they cannot continue to postpone passing comprehensive postal reform legislation," said Senator Tom Carper, one of four authors of the Senate bill.

    Shipping services and package delivery were a bright spot, growing 9 percent in revenue compared to the same quarter a year earlier. Email and online bill payments have hurt letter mail volumes, but the USPS's shipping business has benefited from online shopping and sites like eBay.com.

    But mail volume fell 3.6 percent to 38.5 billion pieces, the agency said. Operating revenue during the quarter was $15.6 billion, a decrease of less than 1 percent from a year earlier.

    Postal officials said the agency will face low cash levels in October, when a $1.4 billion payment for workers compensation comes due.

    Masse said officials believe extra revenue from election-related mail could get the agency through the tight period. The cash crisis should improve during the holiday mailing season, typically the best time of year for the Postal Service.

    He also said the agency would prioritize paying suppliers and employees over making obligations to the federal government, but he did not say what payments the USPS might skip or delay.

    Last summer, the Postal Service temporarily halted payments into a retirement system that has surplus funds. The agency's inspector general has said the USPS could do the same this year.

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  • Bye-bye snail mail? Readers weigh in on saving the U.S. Postal Service

    By Jeff Black, Staff Writer, NBC News

    It wasn’t long ago, before texting, instant messaging, email, web chat and cheap long-distance phone calls, that a trip to the mailbox was a highly anticipated event. Letters from family and friends and surprise packages awaited. And sending a check in the mail was one of the only ways to pay your bills.


    That all has changed, of course, with mobile phones, tablets and laptop computers instantly passing around messages and pictures, and online bill paying taking care of much of the rest.

    As the Senate debates the fate of the venerable U.S. Postal Service, many msnbc.com users on Facebook think they could do without “snail mail.” Others say it's become more a delivery mechanism for the advertising fliers, credit-card offerings and sweepstakes invitations that stuff their mailbox each day (and for which no software filter is available).

    Weigh in on Facebook about the Postal Service’s fate

    “If it wasn’t for crap junk mail, I wouldn’t get mail at all,” said Liza Roosa. “Everything I do is online.”

    “All I get these days is junk mail,” lamented Peggy Brent Finnegan.

    And Don Hodge suggested, “Yawn. Turn it over to private enterprise, have advertisers who still believe in direct mail subsidize the whole thing.”

    Other see the winding down of the Postal Service as an inevitable evolution of technology.

    Hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake in the GOP assault on the post office. The Senate took up a bill to postpone the agony of cuts, but it's not a long-term solution. Ed Schultz thinks Democrats should take a page out of the Michele Bachmann playbook on this fight.

    “Cassettes killed Records, CDs killed Cassettes, MP3 players killed CDs and the Internet (and email and online bill paying) killed the United States Postal Service!” said Jorma J. Takala.

    Still, many point out that the postal delivery is a vital lifeline for poor people without Internet service, patients who receive medications through the mail and for those living in rural areas without broadband.

    “There still are people who don't have internet,” Lisa McGee of Allentown, Pa., said on Facebook. “What of them?”

    “I don't know but why would anybody want to get rid of the Postal Service. There are people out there still depend on the mail because of bills and checks that old people received because they don't have computers or they don't have access or don't know to use,” said Paul Thompson.

    One thing is for certain. Many think Congress should be able to figure out a way to save a federal agency that reaches all Americans.

    “The postal service is a vital part of the American economy and it should be kept,” said Annette Pratt Mansaray of Puyallup, Wash.

    “We need our post offices,” said Christy Robin Golden, of Bassett, Va.

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