Must Reads: See how USPS cuts could delay mail in your Zip code

Trump's 'severe' covid infection, how ranked-choice voting works and 'queer quarantine' photos. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Introductory offer: Get one year of digital access for just $40.  Sign up for this newsletter Read online Compelling, ambitious stories you can't afford to miss.       By T.J. Ortenzi  Email Jacob Bogage wasn't sure he was reading the numbers correctly.  The business reporter covers the U.S. Postal Service, and if he was correctly interpreting data that he had discovered in regulatory filings, it signaled a major shift at the agency.  So he reached out to experts and soon confirmed what he had suspected: The Postal Service intends to cut costs by slowing down its delivery times, something that has been off-limits until now. With help from Graphics editors Kevin Schaul and Reuben Fischer-Baum, Bogage was able to see how the proposed slow-downs would affect most of the country's 41,692 Zip codes, and it wasn't pretty — a third of mail in 27 states could soon be delayed, intentionally, by these changes. (You can search yours to see.) Bogage called it a "historic step" for the Postal Service, one that's at odds with the mission and messaging it has traditionally pursued.  "Throughout their entire history, they've pretty much said 'We need to go faster, we need to go faster, we need to go faster,'" Bogage said. "And this is a very public retrenchment on that ethos." He became The Post's expert on the Postal Service last year, after moving to the Business desk from Sports. The coronavirus had put athletics on hold and the economy was spiraling when an editor asked him to cover the mail carrier's latest funding crunch.  While reporting that first story, Bogage scored a scoop — a Democratic congressman told him then-President Trump was threatening to veto the Cares Act if it included funding for the Postal Service. A few months later, Bogage was part of the team to discover that the agency was warning state election officials that it might not be able to meet mail-in ballot deadlines for the 2020 presidential election.  The Postal Service affects all Americans, whether we know it or not, because of its sheer size, Bogage said. He wonders what could happen if lawmakers continue to let the agency's financial shortfalls drag on. "I don't know that our democracy runs well when we decide that the crises that we're experiencing are somewhere in between resolved and unresolved," he said. He pointed to some staggering facts about the "gargantuan" agency that he believes should be covered like "another army."  The U.S. Postal Service employs roughly 644,000 people, 500,000 of whom are unionized. It maintains about 31,000 post offices around the country — "not sorting facilities, not processing facilities, but post offices." It maintains one of the largest civilian fleets of vehicles in the world. See how your mail could be delayed by proposed cost-cutting changes by the U.S. Postal Service and the widespread repercussions. 1. DeJoy's USPS slowdown plan will delay the mail. What's it mean for your Zip code? The Postal Service's plans will delay a third of mail in 27 states, according to a Washington Post analysis. By Jacob Bogage and Kevin Schaul ●  Read more »   2. Inside the extraordinary effort to save Trump from covid-19 An excerpt from the book 'Nightmare Scenario' details how Trump's illness was far more severe than the White House acknowledged. Advisers thought it would alter his pandemic response. They were wrong. By Damian Paletta and Yasmeen Abutaleb ●  Read more »       3. As school shootings surge, a sixth-grader tucks his dad's gun in his backpack The pandemic waned, classrooms reopened and gun violence soared at the nation's primary and secondary schools. By John Woodrow Cox and Steven Rich ●  Read more »       ADVERTISEMENT   4. The rising cost of being in the National Guard: Reservists and guardsmen are twice as likely to be hungry as other American groups "The Year of the Guard": A rise in deployments has led to extreme food insecurity among National Guard and Reserves By Laura Reiley ●  Read more »       5. Inside the 'shadow reality world' promoting the lie that the presidential election was stolen Wealthy allies of former president Donald Trump have spent millions on films, rallies and other efforts to tout falsehoods about the 2020 vote. By Rosalind S. Helderman, Emma Brown, Tom Hamburger and Josh Dawsey ●  Read more »       6. The Queer Quarantine Eleven photographers and one writer on how the pandemic altered lives in the LGBTQ+ community. By Debbie Millman, Karly Domb Sadof, Chloe Coleman, Olivier Laurent and Audrey Valbuena ●  Read more »   7. How ranked-choice voting could change the way democracy works More places are adopting ranked-choice voting. Why? By Harry Stevens ●  Read more »       8. Three days after becoming a U.S. citizen, she'll run to become a U.S. Olympian Weini Kelati emigrated from Eritrea seven years ago. After she became a citizen in the nick of time, she will run Saturday's 10,000-meter race for a shot at Team USA. By Adam Kilgore ●  Read more »   ADVERTISEMENT   9. End of a late-night era: 28 years of memorable Conan moments As Conan O'Brien's late-night run comes to an end, 30 of his writers, producers and funniest celebrity guests share their favorite memories over the years. By Emily Yahr ●  Read more »       (Jenna Schoenefeld for The Washington Post) 10. What we eat at the beach The beach food on display on a recent Saturday in Santa Monica was a microcosm of America in all its crass, cosmopolitan, contradictory complexity. By Richard Morgan ●  Read more »         Photo of the week (Zack Wittman for The Washington Post) Officials say 159 people are missing and at least four people are dead after a Florida condominium partially collapsed Thursday in Surfside, Fla. Teams of rescuers continue to comb the rubble for survivors, but authorities are braced for bad news of more deaths.  Here's what we know about the tragedy: The building collapsed in less than 30 seconds, according to a Washington Post examination of videos, photos and audio. The building recently underwent a routine inspection that's required when structures hit the 40-year mark, according to an attorney for the building's condominium association. Nothing pointed to issues of structural integrity, according to the lawyer. Families of the missing have gathered at a reunification center, where photographers have captured emotional scenes.  See more of the week's most striking images.    We think you'll like this newsletter Check out The 5-Minute Fix for a weekday afternoon cheat sheet on the biggest story in politics — that can be read in 5 minutes or less. Sign up »

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