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U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said on Monday he had asked the government efficiency team led by Elon Musk for assistance with a number of issues, including a review of the agency’s retail center lease renewals and combating counterfeit postage. In a letter to the U.S. Congress, DeJoy said the U.S. Postal Service needs help with the renewal of leases on its 31,000 retail centers and faces a counterfeit postage that he called a $1 billion problem in need of “additional innovative solutions.” DeJoy also reiterated in a letter to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team that the Postal Service is an independent establishment of the executive branch. “When the DOGE team recently reached out to me to pitch in, I decided to constructively direct their attention to the areas I know we can use any and all help,” DeJoy said. “The fact is that DOGE is the only other game in town that seems oriented toward helping us to achieve our efficiency and cost goals.” DeJoy noted that price hikes in retail center renewals were a key issue, with landlords “well aware of the political difficulties we face when moving or consolidating a retail location,” even though half of retail post offices fail to cover the costs of their local operations. Last week, DeJoy signed an agreement with DOGE to provide assistance to the agency as it works to address “big problems.” USPS, an agency with 635,000 employees that lost $9.5 billion last year, has been exempt from DOGE-directed federal employee reductions. DeJoy said last week that USPS plans to reduce its workforce by 10,000 workers in the next month through a voluntary early retirement program first announced in January. The agency has cut 30,000 jobs since 2021. He cited a number of issues including other government agencies’ management of USPS retirement assets and its workers’ compensation program, unfunded mandates, burdensome regulatory requirements and the government’s calculation of USPS retirement liabilities. DeJoy has not sought DOGE’s help in shrinking the size of the USPS workforce. DeJoy has led a dramatic effort to restructure USPS over the last five years, including cutting forecasted cumulative losses over a decade to $80 billion from $160 billion. The outgoing postal chief has used tactics similar to the DOGE team, including shrinking the workforce and canceling or renegotiating contracts. Two media outlets reported last month that President Donald Trump was preparing to issue an executive order to fire the USPS’ board of governors. The White House denied the plan, but Trump said he was considering merging USPS with the Commerce Department, a move Democrats said would violate federal law. Musk said this month he thought USPS should be privatized. David Shepardson, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Since December, Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has become an internet phenomenon. Both scorned and idolized, his notoriety has given rise to a number of online communities. Some have begun embracing violent rhetoric. A moderator from the long-standing subreddit r/popculture, where discussions about Mangione had been ongoing, was recently suspended for approving a large number of comments (by Reddit standards, that means at least 20) that contained direct calls for violence. This sub has been placed in restricted mode, and the main mod was suspended for approving comments that mentioned Luigi, a post on r/popculture claimed. Apparently, saying Luigi is now against the rules too, even though they never told us. All comments with the word Luigi get flagged as possibly inciting violence. While some users claimed they had been blocked or censored simply for mentioning Mangiones name, a Reddit spokesperson said theres no sitewide filter for the word Luigi or expectation that users stop talking about Mangione. According to the spokesperson, the /popculture moderators suspension was a result of allowing comments that advocated for violencea direct violation of the companys Mod Code of Conduct. Despite the crackdown, plenty of other Mangione-related subreddits remain active on Reddit. r/FreeLuigi, which describes itself as a place to keep up to date on the case involving Luigi Mangione, boasts some 37,000 followers. (Slate recently spoke to one of the r/FreeLuig moderators, who claimed the subreddit was not meant to condone violence against health insurance CEOs. No one in r/FreeLuigi wants anyone to get murdered, and no one is celebrating that a man died, the moderator said.) Reddits safety team recently issued a warning to users that subreddits found promoting or amplifying violent content could face consequences. Today we are rolling out a new (sort of) enforcement action across the site, the alert read. [S]tarting today, users who, within a certain timeframe, upvote several pieces of content banned for violating our policies will begin to receive a warning. (Upvotes and downvotes are core to Reddits algorithm, determining a posts visibility.) The message concluded with a note that, while the system is currently warn only, additional enforcement measures could eventually follow.
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E-Commerce
Trading platform Robinhood on Monday launched a prediction markets hub in its app that allows customers to trade on event outcomes, including the expected upper limit of the Federal Reserve funds rate in May. The company’s shares were last up 6% in afternoon trading. Event contracts have exploded in popularity since the U.S. presidential election. These contracts allow traders to bet on specific outcomes, offering opportunities to profit from predictions on everything, from sports and entertainment to politics and the economy. Robinhood and its peers such as Interactive Brokers have rolled out event contracts in recent months, as they look to cash in on the boom. The company entered the sector with a wildly popular launch of contracts to bet on the U.S. presidential election in October. However, its rising popularity has fueled a heated debate between traders who have embraced the nascent asset class and critics who have likened it to gambling. In February, Robinhood scrapped event contracts allowing users to bet on the Super Bowl outcome just a day after launch, following a request from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Robinhood said it has been in contact with the CFTC in recent weeks and will continue to work with the regulator to “promote innovation in the futures, derivatives and crypto markets”. “We’re excited to offer our customers a new way to participate in prediction markets and look forward to doing so in compliance with existing regulations,” said JB Mackenzie, VP and GM of futures and international at Robinhood. The launch advances Robinhood’s push to become a full-service financial firm, and compete with dominant derivatives brokers. “Businesses and investors can use these markets to hedge against uncertain events and associated risks,” Robinhood said in a recently released policy statement. Robinhood’s prediction markets will initially be available across the U.S. through KalshiEX and eligible customers will be able to bet on the results of the upcoming college basketball tournaments. Manya Saini and Niket Nishant, Reuters
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E-Commerce
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