Hansi Lewong

With people sending a lot less mail compared to decades ago, Postmaster General David Steiner told Congress back in March that the U.S.

Postal Service was on track to be out of money and have to stop deliveries within a year.

But the acting chair of the Postal Regulatory Commission, Robert Taub, now tells a House Oversight Subcommittee that regulators have suspended requirements for USPS to make around $15 billion in retirement payments over the next few years.

USPS is a financial supporter of NPR.

Hansi Lewong, NPR News.

And you're listening to NPR News.

The Census Bureau says it's preparing to ask households in parts of Alabama and South Carolina to fill out an online survey that's not related to the actual census.

Households that don't may be interviewed in person starting in June by census workers or letter carriers.

It's a kind of move that a government accountability office study in 2011 said would not be cost-effective.

This test census asks, is this person a citizen of the United States?

Research shows that's likely to hurt the accuracy of numbers used to redistribute political representation and federal funding.

This test comes as the Trump administration signals in a court filing that it may soon formally propose to exclude U.S.

residents without legal status from counts that the 14th Amendment says must include the, quote, whole number of persons in each state.

Hansi Lewong, NPR News.

A panel of three federal judges recently rejected a challenge to the congressional voting map by California's GOP and the Trump administration.

The Republicans claimed that race and not partisan politics was the main driver of the map's redrawing.

That new map could help Democrats pick up five more U.S.

House seats in this year's midterm election.

California voters approved the new districts last year to offset the new Texas map that President Trump pushed for to help Republicans.

Last month, the Supreme Court decided to allow Texas to use it for the midterms.