The Filter: The Postal Service Moves to End Saturday Mail

(March 2) -- With so many news aggregators out there, who can keep up? AOL News filters the filters to steer you to the headlines that really matter.

Skip Those, Read This: The Slatest leads with a Washington Post report on Donald Kohn, the No. 2 at the Federal Reserve Board, announcing his retirement. Kohn's departure will leave a third seat open out of seven Fed governors, giving President Barack Obama a lot of flexibility in defining the body. "Obama's picks to the Fed so far have been governor Daniel K. Tarullo, a banking law expert who advised his campaign, and Ben S. Bernanke, reappointed as chairman," the Post notes. The paper says Bernanke "led efforts to make the Fed's bank oversight more effective and focused on broad risks to the economy that arise out of banks' decisions." Over at The American Prospect, economist Dean Baker, a frequent Post critic, takes issue with that assessment. "This would be like saying Bernie Madoff was working to ensure integrity in finance, without mentioning that he had pulled off the biggest financial scam in history," Baker writes, noting that Bernanke backed Fed Chairman's Alan Greenspan's decisions that helped build up the housing bubble.

Crashing Camrys: The Daily Beast leads with a New York Times investigation that reveals that some pre-2007 Camrys, which were not subject to the recent 6 million-vehicle recall for Toyota models with sticky gas pedals, suffered the same problem. "During 2004, 125 crashes reported to the highway safety agency were linked to speed control. About 80 of those involved Camrys," the Times reports. "All told, from 2000 through 2009, Toyota had one speed-control crash complaint per 20,454 vehicles sold in the United States. Ford had one complaint per 64,679 vehicles. Honda had one per 70,112, and GM one per 179,821." Toyota says it has addressed problems in earlier Camry models.

Looting in Chile: Everyone picks up news of looting in Chile following Saturday's 8.8-magnitude earthquake. An ABC report, picked up by The Slatest, says looters are targeting stores despite a government-ordered curfew and the presence of thousands of army troops. Meanwhile, The Huffington Post picks up an interesting Bloomberg story that says the quake was so powerful it likely shifted the Earth's axis and shortened the day.

Catch of the Day: The Daily Beast links to a Detroit Free Press article about the U.S. Postal Service's plans to switch to five days of delivery per week rather than six. The service has borrowed $10 billion from the Treasury, and Postmaster General John Potter says ending Saturday delivery, a move Congress would have to approve, would help cut costs.

Ford Folds: Harold Ford, the former Tennessee congressman who was contemplating a U.S. Senate bid against New York incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand, said he won't run, The New York Times reports via The Daily Beast. Ford said he believed he could beat Gillibrand in the Democratic primary but wouldn't have enough funds for the general election. But while many Democrats are lukewarm about Gillibrand, Ford also had detractors, who cited his recent move to New York, in 2006, and his aristocratic temperament. The man gets pedicures, after all.