Anzila Wong

citizens who live in the states from census numbers that the 14th Amendment says must include the, quote, whole number of persons in each state.

Those numbers are used to determine each state's share of congressional seats and electoral college votes.

The Trump administration's census test plans are now waiting for approval from a White House agency.

Anzila Wong, NPR News.

The U.S.

Postal Service has usually prioritized big businesses like Amazon when offering special rates for delivering packages nationwide to their final destinations.

But the mailing agency is now accepting bids from smaller businesses, too, for access to what USPS calls its last mile network.

The move comes after Postmaster General David Steiner warned the agency's financial situation is unsustainable.

USPS generally receives no tax dollars and relies on shipping and stamp fees to keep running.

In the past fiscal year, the Postal Service had a net loss of $9 billion.

USPS says it's now trying to boost revenue by taking bids from both large and small businesses.

Some shipping industry experts say the move could push bigger shippers to stop relying on USPS, and that could further destabilize the agency.

Anzila Wong, NPR News.

Many legal experts are expecting a Supreme Court ruling that further weakens the Voting Rights Act.

For decades, in places where voting is racially polarized, that landmark law has helped ensure that districts are drawn in a way that gives racial minority voters a chance of electing their preferred candidates.

NPR has found that if the Supreme Court weakens the Voting Rights Act Section 2 provisions in redistricting, it could put at risk at least 15 U.S.

House districts in the South currently represented by a black Democratic member of Congress.

It's not clear how many of those districts Republican-led states would try to eliminate.

but the loss of a handful of those districts could fuel a record drop in the number of Black representatives in Congress.

The current record of a loss of four Black-represented districts was set in 1877 at the end of Reconstruction.