NATION IN BRIEF: Mail delivery costs under review

Postal delivery times might soon change for as many as 50 million addresses on 85,000 urban routes. The U.S. Postal Service is reviewing all its city routes nationwide and changing some of them to cut costs because mail volume is dropping during the recession. Rural routes already get reviewed each year. The route reviews should be completed next month, said Al Eakle, a USPS spokesman for the Indiana District. Nationally, mail volume fell by 9.5 billion pieces, or 4.5 percent, during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The cost of a first-class stamp rose to 42 cents last May and a new increase based on the rate of inflation will occur in May.

Nuke plant power cut after second leak

Vermont’s lone nuclear power plant cut the amount of power it generates by 60 percent after finding a leak of mildly radioactive water. A spokesman for the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant said the system that supplies water for steam generation in the reactor was found to be leaking 60 drops per minute. Spokesman Rob Williams said the leak was unrelated to one in a valve gasket reported Wednesday.

NASA: Keeping shuttle would be expensive

The cost of continuing the life of the space shuttle past next year’s planned retirement is $3 billion a year plus extending the risk of a deadly accident, NASA’s chief said. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told an industry group in Washington that NASA has looked into what it would take to keep flying the aging shuttle past 2010. President George W. Bush wants to replace the shuttle with a new spaceship to go to the moon. But that would mean five years of relying on Russia to get astronauts to the international space station, which has already cost the United States $15 billion. President-elect Barack Obama has proposed delaying the shuttle’s retirement. He and others have expressed concern about the gap between the shuttle’s retirement and the new ship’s maiden launch.

Sex offender custody rule struck down

An appeals court ruled that the federal government cannot hold sex offenders in custody beyond the end of their prison sentences. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond unanimously struck down the federal civil commitment law. The court ruled that the law intrudes on police powers that the Constitution reserves for the states. The 4th Circuit is the first federal appeals court to rule on the issue. The decision upholds a ruling by U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt in Raleigh, N.C. The law was challenged by four federal inmates who remained in custody after their prison terms ended because the government considered them “sexually dangerous.”

Rain, snowmelt make thousands miserable

Floods, mudslides and avalanches in the Pacific Northwest kept tens of thousands of people from their homes, brought freight trains to a standstill and stranded hundreds of trucks along the highways that link Seattle’s busy ports with markets around the country. The flooding —- some of the worst on record in Washington —- was touched off by a combination of heavy rain of 6 inches or more and a warm spell in the mid-40s that rapidly melted the snow in the Cascade Mountains.

Former FEMA chief evacuated during fire

Thousands of evacuated residents, including former FEMA chief Michael D. Brown, were allowed to return to their homes after firefighters partially contained a wildfire near Denver that destroyed two houses and several outbuildings. Brown said his house was spared, but he watched firefighters battle the blaze about a half-mile from his home. Crews expected to fully contain the 3,700-acre fire zone about 25 miles northwest of Denver by Thursday night. The fire blackened mostly grassland north and west of the city of Boulder, an area of scattered subdivisions, farms and ranches along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.