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• "This proposal will at least keep rural post offices open and providing service," Johnson said in a statement. "The Senate has passed bipartisan legislation that provides structural reforms that should help the Postal Service with its struggling financial situation. Now the House should pass it."
• Under the emerging strategy, no post office would be closed. But more than 13,000 rural mail facilities could see reduced operations of between two and six hours.
• The Postal Service in

tends to seek regulatory approval and get community input, a process that could take several months. The new strategy would then be implemented over two years and completed in September 2014, saving an estimated half billion dollars annually.
• U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., applauded the agency for finding alternatives to keep rural post offices open.
• "There is no question the Postal Service must make adjustments to deal with the realities of an increasingly digital world, but I appreciate its efforts to ensure savings can be achieved in a way that doesn't jeopardize service to rural America," Noem said in a statement.
•

• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- A state Health Department official says that nearly 20 percent of South Dakota's expectant mothers smoked during their pregnancies in 2010.
• Colleen Winter, state director of health and medical services, used the numbers

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