Mails

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend and I are in our 20s and have been dating for five years. We're renovating a home that we will live in once it's completed. We have never lived together before. During the renovation, I have come to the house to find that he has opened packages that were addressed to me. The first time, I didn't say anything because I thought he might have thought it was his. After the second and third times, I mentioned - nicely - that they weren't his to open. He claims he "knew" they were things for the house, which is why he opened them.

A truck carrying mail this morning lost its load on Route 611 in Warrington, Bucks County. The accident at Rout 611 and Bristol Road occurred shortly after 7 a.m. and during the start of rush hour, hampering local traffic. Only one lane was getting by as crews at the scene worked to remove the truck and gather the mail. Hundreds of pieces of the multi-colored envelopes and other mail scattered across several lanes.

With the U.S. Postal Service losing tens of millions of dollars a day, neither snow nor rain - nor the required congressional approval, it seems - has stopped the agency from finally delivering on its threat to end the mailman's Saturday rounds. The announcement last week by Patrick R. Donahoe, the postmaster general, prompted understandable protests, but also shrugs from millions of Americans. After all, some have long since switched from affixing stamps to hitting the send button on an e-mail or text message to speed their personal greetings on their way. In this era of electronic communication, first-class mail volumes have declined by nearly a third.

The Secret Service is investigating a hacker's apparent theft of a trove of personal e-mails and photos belonging to the Bush family after they were posted late Thursday by the Smoking Gun website. A report by the Smoking Gun said the e-mails covered the period from 2009 to 2012, and that a total of six accounts appeared to have been compromised. Among those hacked were Dorothy Bush Koch, daughter of President George H.W. Bush and sister of President George W. Bush; as well as sportscaster Jim Nantz, a Bush family friend.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Postal Service lost $1.3 billion in the final three months of last year, despite a blizzard of campaign advertising for the fall political elections and a big holiday mail and shipping season. The loss announced Friday was far less than the $3.3 billion in the comparable quarter the previous fiscal year, but still showed the effects of a continued decline in first-class mailing as customers continue to flock to the Internet for e-mailing, bill paying and the like.

A Tredyffrin Township man has been cleared of charges that he used software to spy on his wife. While the couple were divorcing, Jay Anthony Ciccarone, 39, allegedly installed the program Web Watcher on her computer to read her e-mails. His attorney, Ellen Brotman, argued that prosecutors could not prove why Ciccarone used the software. At a pretrial proceeding last Friday, Chester County Judge James P. MacElree II dismissed charges of unlawful use of a computer, intercepting communications - both felonies - and unlawfully accessing stored communications, a misdemeanor.

THE TREASURY Department has a March 1 deadline to get millions of people who receive benefit payments by mail to move to electronic delivery. Affected are those receiving Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Veterans Affairs, Railroad Retirement Board or Office of Personnel Management benefits and other nontax federal payments. The government has been gradually phasing out paper checks to save money. It costs 92 cents more to issue a paper check than electronically depositing the benefit money.

While I'm away, readers give the advice. On snooping: I've seen so many letters about reading a significant other's texts or e-mails. I've even read a few columns that suggested a cheater who has promised to reform should give their spouse or partner all their passwords. What never seems to come up is that you are also violating the privacy of everyone who writes to the person whose accounts are now open books. I've accepted there is a certain amount of slippage when it comes to things I tell friends in long-term relationships, but I find it offensive that someone who is dating a friend of mine and suspects her or him of cheating could easily access e-mails that are about deeply personal issues I'd rather not share with them.

In a surprising conclusion to a case that has spanned nearly five years and included two trials, a Delaware County mother and son pleaded guilty Thursday in the death of the family's patriarch. Parth Ingle, 26, and Bhavnaben Ingle, 53, both admitted playing a role in the killing of Arunkumar Ingle, 55, who was found beaten and stabbed in a bedroom of the family's Middletown Township home in January 2008. Parth Ingle pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was immediately sentenced to 33 to 44 months in state prison, followed by eight years of probation.