The state of Kentucky is taking a massive step in fighting the problem of porch pirates. Kentucky legislators are taking a stance against the practice of stealing from other people on their porches. They are doing this by making sure that an old statute, having to do with stealing mail, is updated with the new practice of stealing from people’s porches.

Key Takeaways:

• The bill will apply to commercial carriers as they have become much more popular in recent times. The truth is that most of these carriers did not exist when the belt was first made. Therefore, it needed to be updated so that these commercial carriers have the same protections that USPS enjoys. The updated bill aims to make stealing from these organizations much less attractive. People who get caught doing this activity could face up to five years in prison.
• The bill actually passed the committee and now it has been sent to the state Senate. Porch pirates have been relying on the loophole that says that people who steal from porches and commercial carriers can only be charged with minor misdemeanor offenses.
• The bill has passed the committee and is now being sent to the full Senate. It aims to close an inconsistency in the law that prohibits people from being prosecuted only for minor misdemeanor offenses.

Quote: “Under the measure, the felony theft of mail offense would be expanded to include stealing packages delivered by such commercial carriers as Amazon, UPS, and FedEx. Offenders could face up to five years in prison. The law now only applies to mail delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. ” (SCHREINER, 2020)

Link to original article:
https://www.thetimestribune.com/kentucky/kentucky-bill-aims-to-crack-down-on-porch-pirates/article_4fde897c-7fe5-11ec-9e47-c780b0072184.html

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Manufacturers Association of Nigeria raised concerns about the rising cost of shipping, which rose from 20% in the third quarter to 33.5 percent in the fourth quarter of the previous year.

Key Takeaways:

• Manufacturers in Nigeria are very concerned about the shipping costs and their associated rising cost. The Manufacturing Association of Nigeria has found that shipping costs have dramatically raised from 20% in the third former to 35%. The massive problem when you are trying to make a profit. So this is a problem that they are going to have to deal with in the future.
• The article also states a few other negative trends happening in the manufacturing sector. The article states that manufacturing investments actually lost .2 percentage points. The investments were the only thing that went down as they found that utilization of manufacturing capacities actually also declined. The official number of decline is 2%.
• Obviously, if your posting losses like this then the employment rate is probably going to be adversely affected as well. True to form, employment was reduced by 6%. Strangely enough, sales volume actually rose at the same time. Sales volume actually gained 7.3 percentage points.
  
• However, those items cost a lot more to ship. Shipping costs actually increased by 4.5%. Therefore, it swallowed some will profit that would have been made had the sales stayed at the same level and the shipping costs had not gone up as well.
• The article states that the situation may be solved by the government getting involved. They want the government to encourage more investments in the manufacturing industry. If they incentivize the manufacturing industry to grow. They may be able to curb the current trend of shipping costs rising.

Quote: “According to the report, the ranking of issues by CEOs in order of intensity include high cost of local and imported raw materials, insecurity within the industrial areas, shortage of skilled manpower, high cost of transportation, inconsistency in government policies and foreign exchange difficulty. ” (Asu, 2020)

Links to original article: https://punchng.com/manufacturers-lament-as-cost-of-shipping-jumps-to-33-5/

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The EU has stepped in to make sure that two South Korean companies, Daewoo Shipbuilding and Hyundai Heavy, will not be allowed to merge together in order to form one company. The EU regulatory body, named the EU Competition Regulator, has decided not to allow this merger to happen. They decided that the competition level would be too small for these large-type shipment providers. The ships in question are LGN vessels.

Things to take away from the article:

• A lot of people ask whether or not Daewoo Shipbuilding and Hyundai Heavy are actually heavy hitters in this industry. The honest answer is that they combine together to hold 60% of the market share in the world for this type of vessel. A massive problem as a merger would create a monopoly. They would become a difficult organization to compete with in the future.
• In fairness, the EU regulatory body asked the two South Korean companies to offer any kind of solution that they could to alleviate the problem of them becoming a monopoly. However, the two companies were not able to come up with an acceptable answer in the eyes of the EU regulatory bodies.
• How long has this deal been in the works? The answer is that Hyundai heavy actually tried to buy they will shipbuilding in 2019, the exact month was March and 2019. Hyundai Heavy had the idea that they would grow by 22.6% and would finally surpass China State shipbuilding and size.

Quote: “Over the past five years, the worldwide market for the construction of large LNG carriers represented up to €40 billion, with European customers accounting for almost 50% of all orders. ” (Infrahub, 2020)

Link to original article: https://swarajyamag.com/news-brief/eu-blocks-merger-of-shipping-giants-daewoo-and-hyundai-rules-that-combined-entity-will-control-over-60-of-global-market-for-lng-carriers

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Key Takeaways:

FedEx’s part in this treatment was to get lucky back to the Brookfield Zoo. They delivered back to the zoo and Lucky was able to get the treatment he desperately needs in order to have the best chance of survival.

The Brookfield Zoo is happy to have the dolphin back but they, of course, wish that cancer was not the reason he is back in the zoo. However, they have said that the dolphin is cooperating with the treatment. He has been calm during the whole ordeal. It has helped the medical staff deal with this problem. They hope to nurse him back to full health.

Quote: “Lucky has received constant treatments after his treatments from staff – who reward him with an extra-special fish like a large herring or salmon. ” (CBS 2 Chicago Staff, 2022)

Link to original article: https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2022/01/21/fedex-returns-lucky-dolphin-brookfield-zoo/

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The Key Takeaways:

• USPS was determined not to allow the holiday season to overwhelm them. It was this in mind when they began thinking about how to deal with the 2021 holiday season. They found this to be effective as they were able to deliver the number of packages as listed above.
• USPS says that they have a 10-year plan for dealing with increasing mail-based business especially around holiday times. They say that they have made “strategic investments” in order to make sure they can keep up with the ever-growing demand for their services during the regular calendar months and the holidays.
• What did the postal service do? They saw fit to get more employees in their operations. They went out and found 40,000 seasonal workers to help them with the holiday rush. They also used their pre-career employees by turning them into career positions. They actually used 63,000 of these people to do so.
• They also needed space for these employees and the extra packages. They have a plan to lease over 13 million square feet now and into the future. They are planning expansion to keep up with the demand they find themselves under.
• They also installed 112 machines. These machines are sorting machines along with adding more package systems. The final tally of those was 50. The extra machines allowed them to process more mail. The article states that this was 13 million packages each and every day of the holidays.
• Finally, the Postal Service also needed more trailers to aid in their endeavors. They added 3,300 more trailers. They also made greater use of their facilities by adding 1.6 million square feet. They put this area in their surface transfer center. 300 more dock doors were added as well in order to aid the effort.

Quote: “The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.” (Lynn Journal Staff, 2020)

Link to original article: http://lynnjournal.com/2022/01/13/usps-delivers-13-2-billion-mailpieces-and-packages-this-holiday-season/

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Priority Mail Prepaid Flat-Rate Stamped Envelopes are a thing of the past. The US postal service is going to discontinue them. In fact, you cannot buy them on the USPS website. USPS offers no shipping option for them.

What You Should Know:

• Most of us would rather email, text, or call. However, USPS still has its place in the world of communication. Unfortunately, that world is shortening as USPS is taking away one of the primary tools it has by removing prepaid flat-rate stamped envelopes for its consumers.
• The USPS postal service has seen fit to remove the items completely from their inventory. Their website shows no shipping options for the envelopes which renders them incapable of being bought and delivered to businesses and regular consumers as well.
• What about the people who have them now? USPS is telling anyone with remaining stock to use them. However, the caveat is that they have to include additional postage to make sure that the envelopes get delivered. They want to make sure the cost is covered as most of these envelopes no longer carry enough postal to arrive to their intended destinations.
  Why are they doing this in their business? USPS says that these envelopes were not selling as they did in the past. Therefore, it did not make sense to continue to offer them to the marketplace.
  Another truth is that USPS has been in the process of overhauling its shipping offerings. They are actively removing some flat rate boxes. They are also streamlining the size of their Priority Mail Express Tyvek envelopes as it relates to the overall length of the item.
• How soon is this happen? USPS announced a few changes to happen around January 9nth. It is not all bad news as they are changing the cost of large flat-rate boxes for some services like military mail and priority mail. The article states this reduction is 40 cents lower.

Quote: “A spokesperson for the USPS told Linn’s Stamp News customers who want to use Priority Mail Prepaid Flat-Rate Stamped Envelopes will have to add postage, since the imprinted postal price will not reflect the correct pricing of the postal service.” (Coleman Kali, 2020).

Link to the original article: https://bestlifeonline.com/usps-flat-rate-envelopes-news/

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The Key Takeaways:

• Carol Tome, UPS CEO, recently commented that there has been a slight slowdown in the company’s push into the UAV future. Many people had been very bullish on the use of drones to deliver mail autonomously. However, the practice has not been as useful as they thought. They may have to wait for more advancements in the field or some other game-changing event to happen.
• UPS’s CEO gave her comments at a conference. The conference in question was the American Chamber of Commerce’s conference. It is a shame to mention, but it seems no one questioned her line of thinking when she gave the comments. Therefore, no one knows what UPS is thinking as far as the future of drone-based deliveries.
• It is important to mention that this CEO has only been around since 2020. In fact, mid-2020 which makes her fairly new. It is not possible to tell what her plans for the future for the company. However, based on the comments, it might be away from using drones as a delivery method.
• UPS made massive strides in drone delivery when they lessened the contact between them and some of the older population. A thing that needed to happen during the pandemic. UPS was using the drones to make deliveries to hospitals and retirement communities. The use helped lessen contact between humans. Therefore, the spread of COVID-19 was lessened.
• You might ask what UPS uses as their drone tech for these deliveries. The answer is that UPS uses Beta Technology. The company is question makes specially designed drones for this use. They call them cargo delivery drones. They have designated these drones with the tag ALIA250c. The drones are capable of making delivery within 250 miles of the starting point. Of course, you have to factor in the return trip. Yet, this is an impressive feat in of itself.
• The CEO may have given these comments but the truth is that UPS is still in the drone delivery business. It will, likely, continue to do so into the future unless something changes drastically.

Quote: “With that activity continuing to the end of the Year, it’s more likely UPS remains as committed drone deliveries in future operations than it’s been over a half-decade” (2020 Crumley Bruce).

Link to original article:
www.dronedj.com/2022/01/12/ups-unlikely-to-revise-use-of-drones-in-deliveries-despite-ceos-quasi-meh-assessment/

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What you need to know:

• FedEx is worried about the possibility of civilians using portable missile weapons to attack their fleet of airplanes. How much of this is a real worry remains to be seen. However, FedEx sees this as a potential risk and is trying to be prudent about protecting its workers and the cargo they carry. They also are worried about the profit loss from losing a plane and its cargo. FedEx already has the type of laser defense systems they want to use in mind. They only need the go-ahead to start getting serious about adding them to their airplane fleet. They would like to deal with the threat before it comes to them which makes sense from a business perspective. You always want to be ready for the worst-case scenario is totally possible. Obviously, one of the worst-case scenarios for FedEx is for one of these planes to be shot down by a missile. It would be a tragedy for the pilots and their families. It would also be a financial loss of substantial proportions. Finally, it would be a PR nightmare.
• Do you have worries about this action? The FAA would like to hear from you before they make a decision. They will hear the public’s comments about it for 45 days. The aircraft they are looking to outfit with these lasers is the A321-200. Again, if you have concerns, then you need to let the FAA know about it in this 45-day window.
• What is the FAA requiring of FedEx you might wonder? The FAA has asked that FedEx protect the lasers on the ground when they are doing maintenance and ground handling. They want to make sure that FedEx does not allow these to get stolen or damaged. They are also concerned with making sure that these are not modified for use against the general populace.

Quote: “There’s reason for concern. In 2003, a surface-to-air missile slammed into the left wing of an Airbus A330 operating for DHL just after takeoff from Baghdad. The crew returned to the airport unharmed” (2021, Muntean)

Link to the original article: https://abc17news.com/news/2022/01/14/fedex-asks-faa-permission-to-add-anti-missile-system-to-some-cargo-planes/

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Summary:
People do not realize this but the United States Postal Service maintains a lost and found of sorts. In fact, this is usually where undeliverable mail actually goes. The article states that there are 67 million pieces of undeliverable mail that actually end up in this place every year. The reason that this is important is that a company named Motherboard is using the Freedom of Information Act request. The request specifically asked for a list of items that the USPS maintains inside of their lost and found.

Key Takeaways:

• You may ask yourself what does USPS does with all of these pieces of undeliverable mail. The answer is that USPS does what it has to do. In this case, what it does is auction off the pieces of undeliverable mail. The catch is that these pieces of undelivered mail that people buy have to be local or willing to travel and find a way to bring the stuff back with them. It is somewhat of a deterrent. Anything bought from these auctions must be picked up from their Atlanta facility. In fact, these items are probably sitting on pallet racks in those facilities. It is valuable space that the USPS could be using for deliverable mail. USPS will not ship any of the items anywhere in the country. Therefore, someone has to really want something or live locally in order to get the item in question.
• The other catch is that USPS also doesn’t maintain any records about the auctions. All it has is an annual breakdown of all of the auctions between 2015 and 2019. It also knows how many lots were auctioned off. It sounds like this is very similar to buying someone’s storage unit. You never know what you are going to get inside one of these lots.
• Of course, that means there are valuable things inside of these lots. For instance, there have been trading cards that have been found inside of these locks. The auctions also have happened more quickly during the pandemic. This could be because USPS finds itself with a lot more mail than it has in the past. It probably needs that room in order to sort and sift all of the mail it is receiving every day.
• You may be wondering how USPS deals with laptops. The article says that the USPS actually opens the lower-end laptops. The catch to this is that the USPS does not disclose whether or not these laptops actually turn on or not. The article seems to suggest that the reason might mean that if they did disclose if they turned on or off that would make the laptop worth more than $660 in value.
• Finally, you may be wondering how much the average price per lot at these auctions happens to be when you go to them. The article states that the average price of a lot over the last five years of tracking has been around $2,000 in the years closer to 2015. However, more recently, at least in 2019, that price has been lowered to $881.

Quote: “The only information it included in the response was an annual breakdown of 2015 through 2019 of the number of lots auctioned and the total revenue from those auctions. ” (Gordon, Aaron, 2020)

Link to original article: https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgmg9b/post-office-auctions-dollar8-million-worth-of-mail-annually-has-no-idea-what-its-selling

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Summary:
A lot of people do not know that FedEx does not always do its own deliveries and actually hires 3rd party outfits to do the deliveries under their umbrella. It separates its own business amongst entities under its control. One of those businesses is FedEx Logistics. Inside of that business is another business named the FedEx Supply Chain. Each business operates and has its own needs. It is in this case that we see that this particular unit is hiring. It needs people in Edwardsville, Illinois.

Key Takeaways:

• If you are planning to attend then you should know that you need a face mask. However, it looks like you can get one from the event itself. Therefore, you can bring your own but they are making concessions for you in order to have your interview to possibly become one of their employees.
• You should also know that this event is an open hire event. It is going to happen on the 13th and 14th, Thursday, and Friday of Jan. 2022. You should make your plans now if you want to attend and try to become one of these people. You might be asking yourself where you can find this event. The answer is that you can find it at the Best Western Premier Alton. The address of this location is 3559 College Avenue in Alton. Remember to bring your mask and a resume if you have one. You want to do your best to impress them and get this job.
• Lastly, you may be wondering what hours this event runs. The answer is that it runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the location above. You will not be there the whole time. However, there could be a line to have the interview. You should expect to be there 2 to 3 hours just in case. You want to make sure to give yourself plenty of time to interview and not feel pressed for time. You should know that they are looking for people who can operate forklifts. They did not say if the certification had to be current. It is unknown but they may be able to re-certify you or consider you if it has lapsed. You should ask at the event. They have pallet racks that need filling and you may be able to help them.
• Remember, you will be provided face coverings. If you do not have any then you do not have to worry. They will be provided. Do not let that be a deterrent to you applying for these jobs.

Quote: “FedEx Supply Chain will host an open hiring event Thursday, Jan. 13 and Friday, Jan. 14 at Best Western Premier Alton, which is located at 3559 College Avenue in Alton.” (2020, Quinn, Kay)

Link to original article:
https://www.ksdk.com/article/money/personal-finance/career-central/fedex-supply-chain-job-openings/63-ac706fcd-893f-460f-9397-01b4ae3f712a

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