In brief: Postal Service offering buyouts to workers

Washington – The Postal Service announced Tuesday that is offering up to $450 million to encourage employees to quit their jobs, the latest effort by the financially struggling agency to reduce costs amid a sharp decline in mail volume.

Up to 30,000 employees can take the $15,000 buyout, which the Postal Service describes as a way to save up to $500 million during the next fiscal year, which begins in October.

The offer is available to post office retail clerks, distribution center mail handlers and clerks, and vehicle technicians. Letter carriers are ineligible since the Postal Service is targeting only areas where it has an excess of workers, and the number of addresses grows, on average, by 1.5 million each year, according to the agency.

Eligible employees would receive $10,000 this October and $5,000 in October 2010.

Top U.S. beer makers to increase prices

The nation’s top brewers said Tuesday they plan to raise prices this fall, even as some of their top brands are seeing sales volume drop.

Anheuser-Busch, maker of Bud Light and Budweiser, and MillerCoors, maker of Blue Moon and Miller Light, both say they’re going to raise prices.

But neither brewer would say how big the increases would be.

Pete Marino, a spokesman for MillerCoors, said the increases will be made on a local basis, depending on the market.

Anheuser-Busch said in a statement it plans on raising prices on a majority of its volume in the bulk of its markets this fall too, to cover some increases in its costs.

Sony planning a Kindle rival

New York – Sony Corp. plans to offer an e-book reader with the ability to wirelessly download books, injecting more competition in a small but fast-growing market by adopting a key feature of the rival Kindle from Amazon.com.

Sony’s $399 Reader Daily Edition will go on sale by December, Sony executives said Tuesday at an event at the New York Public Library. The device has a 7-inch touch screen and will be able to get books, daily newspapers and other reading material over AT&T Inc.’s cellular network.