Lagrange, Ohio

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Postal Service will close or consolidate operations at 140 mail processing sites through February 2013, a postal official said on Thursday. USPS Chief Operating Officer Megan Brennan said the agency's two-phase process would also involve shutting or consolidating operations at an additional 89 facilities beginning in February 2014. (Reporting by Emily Stephenson; Editing by Jackie Frank)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The former trainer to Roger Clemens will undergo more key cross-examination in the baseball star's perjury trial on Thursday, with the defense expected to attack inconsistencies in the trainer's story. Clemens' former trainer Brian McNamee underwent sharp questioning from the pitching great's defense lawyer on Wednesday as he probed for holes in McNamee's testimony about Clemens' alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs. McNamee's cross-examination is perhaps the core part of the trial in U.S. District Court. ...

GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Reuters) - Attorneys are scheduled to give their closing arguments on Thursday in former U.S. Senator John Edwards' federal campaign finance trial on charges he accepted excessive political funds to conceal his extramarital affair while he ran for president. The trial is winding down after 3 1/2 weeks of testimony in a case that legal experts have said could expand the scope of what qualifies as campaign contributions. Edwards' defense wrapped up its case in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Wednesday. ...

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday named Rafael Reif, an electrical engineer born in Venezuela who has been the university's provost since 2005, as its 17th president. Reif, 61, replaces Susan Hockfield, the first female president of MIT, who announced in mid-February that she was stepping down after almost eight years leading one of the most prestigious universities in the United States. Reif will take up his post at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, university on July 2, the first MIT president not to be a native English speaker. ...

(Reuters) - Veteran Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a liberal stalwart who lost his primary race after redistricting forced him to run against another Democratic incumbent, said on Wednesday he had ruled out a congressional bid in Washington state. Kucinich, 65, had said after he was defeated in March by Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, that he was considering the possibility of relocating to Washington state to run for Congress anew. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York and Boston may strike many as more intellectual but Alexandria, a small urban area in Virginia just outside Washington, D.C., is the most well-read city in the United States. Alexandria was one of three Virginia cities on the Amazon.com list of the 20 most well-read cities. It topped Cambridge, Massachusetts, the home of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Berkeley, California to take the top spot. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The family of a Hollywood executive reported missing more than two weeks ago called off on Wednesday a major search planned for this weekend after consulting with authorities. Relatives of Gavin Smith who had initially asked the public to help look for him also canceled a round of media interviews they had been scheduling for Friday. Smith, 57, a film distribution executive for 20th Century Fox, was last seen on May 1 driving away from a friend's home in the community of Oak Park, north of Los Angeles, in his black Mercedes. "After consultations between the L.A. ...