The day a letter is mailed at a U.S. Post Office may no longer be the day it is postmarked

A USPS postmark is now stamped at regional facilities.
(Adobe Stock photo)

Few ink stamps are as crucial to meeting modern deadlines as the U.S. Postal Service postmark; however, at the end of last month, USPS changed its transportation and stamping processes, potentially delaying when mail is physically postmarked.

Beginning on Dec. 24, a postmark "no longer shows the date you deposited a piece of mail with the U.S. Postal Service," reports Esther Fung of The Wall Street Journal. Instead, mail will be postmarked when it's processed at a regional facility, which could be days after it's mailed locally.

The USPS changed its postmark rule "as part of long-running efforts to modernize and cut costs," Fung writes. "Reducing postal-truck runs between processing facilities and local post offices can cut costs and emissions."

While the USPS doesn't classify postmarking as part of "its services," many systems and people, including the Internal Revenue Service, legal professionals, election officials and health insurers, use postmarks as evidence that something mailed met a set deadline.

The best way to ensure an important piece of mail gets postmarked on time is to go to the post office where it can be manually stamped. Fung adds, "Yet, that could be hard for people living in rural areas far from a post office."

For deadline-mandated postmarks on items such as taxes, college applications, and health insurance appeals, experts recommend mailing documents several days in advance, so the mail has time to reach the processing facility for its official postmark.

Analysis: College degrees remain good investments, but universities need to foster job preparedness and creativity

On average, college graduates earn $30,000 more salary per year than
high school graduates. (Getty Images photo via The Conversation CC)

Even as more Americans believe that earning a college degree isn't worth the time and expense, research shows that college degrees still offer multiple benefits, including higher lifetime earnings and greater job security.

In her newly released book, Invent Ed, professor and global strategist, Caroline Field Levander argues that "people have lost sight of two factors that made universities great to begin with: invention and creativity," writes Amy Lieberman, an education editor, at The Conversation U.S.

Lieberman asked Levander to share her breakdown on why graduating from an American college or university still benefits degree earners throughout their lifetime. An edited version of Lieberman's Q & A with Levander is shared below.

Lieberman: How can we measure the value of a college degree?
Levander: The average high school graduate over a 40-year career earns $1.6 million, according to 2021 findings by Georgetown University. The average college graduate earns $2.8 million over this same 40-year period. That $1.2 million difference amounts to around $30,000 more salary per year.

Levander points out that U.S. college graduates tend to remain employed and replace a lost job more quickly than high school graduates. "The unemployment rate for people with a high school degree was 4.2% in 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. By contrast, 2.5% of people with a bachelor’s degree and 2.2% of people with a master’s degree were unemployed in 2024."

Lieberman: Do any of these benefits extend beyond individual students?
Levander: Colleges and universities are major employers in their communities – and not just professors and administrators. Higher education institutions employ every trade and kind of worker.

Lieberman: Some people are questioning the value of a degree. What role can universities play in reassuring them of their relevance?
Levander: I believe universities need to teach something else [beyond job force preparation] that is equally valuable: They also need to build creative capacity and an inventive mindset into undergraduate education, as a fundamental return on the investment in education. . . . Employers report that creativity is the top job skill needed today."

Lieberman: What can faculty and students easily do to encourage creativity and innovation?
Levander: Professors can build what I call a 'growth mindset' in the classroom by focusing on success over time, rather than the quick correct answer. . . . Students could also consider committing to trying new courses in areas where they haven’t already been successful. They could approach their college experience with the idea that grades aren’t the only marker of success.

Long Canadian Pacific trains bring a small town's busy Main Street to a standstill each day

A westbound Canadian Pacific train makes its way into Jackman, Maine.
(Photo by Linda Coan O’Kresik, Bangor Daily News)

In Jackman, Maine, drivers waiting to cross Main Street can spend 30 minutes idling as Canadian Pacific Kansas City trains pass through the heart of town. Daniel O’Connor for The Maine Monitor reports, "More than 3,000 cars and trucks pass through the railroad crossing every day."

Doubling as U.S. Route 201, Jackman's Main Street and the railroad that divides it connects Quebec with "southern Maine and the rest of the Northeast," O’Connor explains. "Trains passing through town sometimes exceed 200 railcars, stretching for more than two miles in length. . . .That’s longer than 90% of North American freight trains operated by companies like CPKC." Some of the wait time can be blamed on aging rail lines and increased traffic.

Jackman, Maine, is 16 miles from the Canadian
border. (Northern Outdoors map)

Locals tried to avoid Main Street during the hours when trains were scheduled to cross, but train schedules varied too much. Waits can be extended when an international border scanner, which checks trains for illegal goods from Canada, notifies Customs and Border Protection that additional scanning is needed.  

For Jackman residents and Route 201 travelers, the long and unpredictable daily train waits are frustrating and pose a potential danger. O'Connor explains, "With the town split in half for part of the day and ambulances on one side of the track, trains could delay responses during an emergency."

Maine’s border shares seven rail crossings with Canada, but Jackman’s border crossing "is the only one to see a clear increase in shipping year-over-year," O'Connor reports.

CPKC has made rail improvements to "upgrade the rails in the area since it acquired the route in 2020, but said border security caused slowdowns in Jackman," O'Connor adds. "Many in town seemed to accept that the long trains were just part of life up north."

Southern Florida orange farmers turn to other tropical fruit trees to diversify crops

U.S. grown mangoes may taste better.
(Graphic by Adam Dixon, Offrange)

Florida's famed orange production started in the 1830s, when farmers began shipping their citrus nationwide by rail. The state's orange industry continued to flourish until the mid-2000s, when Huanglongbing, a bacterial disease, decimated groves throughout the state. Since then, orange growers have been working to diversify their crops by replacing orange trees with other tropical fruits that thrive in the region's hot, humid climate.

The work of botanists at the University of Florida's Tropical Research and Education Center (TREC) is helping citrus growers go beyond oranges by teaching farmers how to grow other tree crops. "South Florida can support the kinds of fruits usually only found in the tropics," reports Diana Kruzman for Offrange. Consumer interest and advances in plant breeding have the region's tropical fruit business "booming."

Even with the steep dip in crop yields, oranges remain Florida's top fruit crop, but the "tropical fruit industry, which consists of higher-value crops like avocados and mangoes, as well as more niche fruits like starfruit and guava, isn’t far behind," Kruzman explains. TREC researchers are "working to introduce other varieties of tropical fruits, such as papayas and dragonfruit."

Meanwhile, farmers are tasked with developing bigger consumer markets for their growing list of exotic fruits. "So far, many customers have come from immigrant communities around the U.S. who already know about niche tropical fruits and are willing to pay a premium to ship them quickly," Kruzman adds. 

Domestic mango growers already have one marketing advantage -- their mangoes are likely to taste better because they aren't subject to USDA fruit screenings. Kruzman explains, "All mangoes shipped into the U.S. must be disinfected to prevent foreign pests or diseases from entering the country. . . .That process involves either boiling the fruit or zapping it with radiation, which tends to leach out nearly all of its flavor."

Get ready for the 2026 bird-counting party! The annual Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up Feb. 13-16

Northern Cardinal, Red-vented Bulbul, Black-capped Chickadee (Macaulay Library photos)

Feathers, beaks, chirps, songs and plenty of bird community fun return during the 2026 Great Backyard Bird Count Feb. 13–16.

Participation can take just 15 minutes: Open a window or step outside, and spend some time counting and trying to identify your feathered friends. Then, submit your counts using one of the tools on the GBBC website to tally all the birds you see or hear. Backyard birders help scientists better understand and protect birds all around the globe.

If you're new to bird watching and have a smartphone, GBBC experts recommend using the Merlin Bird ID app to enter your first bird. It is free and considered easy to use. For more experienced bird lovers, using the free eBird Mobile app is a fast way to enter your bird lists in real time.

For more social bird counters, communities across the world will be hosting group count events. Click here to see if there's a flock near you to join.

Illustration by Stephanie Fizer Coleman,
Peachtree Publishers

The Great Backyard Bird Count is an opportunity for parents and children to do something outside that brings joy and helps nature. To get kiddos on the path to counting greatness, many local libraries have books about the count. Other bird-oriented books for younger readers include stories about watching, drawing and feeding birds.

The count is sponsored by the ornithology lab at New York state's Cornell University, the National Audubon Society and Birds Canada. The sponsors say counting birds has become more important, and note that scientists recently reported a decline of more than one in four breeding birds in the U.S. and Canada since 1970. To sign up, click here.

The 2025 GBBC yielded some incredible results. Together, birders from 217 countries or eBird subregions found 8,078 species of the world’s known species -- 158 more than in 2024. To participate in this year's momentous count, click here.