Daily printout: Dec. 17, 2024

The Postal Service has announced more stamp releases for 2025:

• Freshwater Fishing Lures, five stamps that will feature brightly detailed photographs of five lures;

• Battlefields of the American Revolution, a pane of 15 stamps that will mark the 250th anniversary of the start of the revolution;

• Powwows: Celebrating Native American Culture, four stamps that will showcase the Native American social and ceremonial gatherings that feature music and dance;

• Spiral Galaxy, a Priority Mail stamp that will show an extremely high-definition image of a spiral galaxy 32 million light-years from Earth; and

• Star Cluster, a Priority Mail Express stamp that will show a star cluster approximately 1,000 light-years from Earth.

USPS announced the stamps Dec. 16. The designs are preliminary and may change.

In November, the Postal Service announced other 2025 stamps, including releases honoring Betty White, Allen Toussaint, a Love stamp featuring artwork by Keith Haring and Year of the Snake, next year’s Lunar New Year release.

The Postal Service is reminding employees of federal ethics rules concerning group gifts and office gatherings.

Here’s some general guidance:

• Employees can pool their contributions for a group gift for someone — but only for special, infrequent occasions such as a retirement, transfer, marriage or the birth of a child.

Group gifts are generally not permitted for birthdays or winter holidays because these are regularly occurring occasions.

• Employees can pool their contributions for food and refreshments to be shared in the office, including for winter holidays and other regularly occurring occasions.

Teams can hold secret gift exchanges if the gifts are noncash and cost $10 or less, and participation is voluntary.

• When employees are planning a group gift or shared refreshments, contributions toward the gift or refreshments must be voluntary.

Contributions cannot exceed $10 a person, unless the contributor is in a superior position to the gift recipient. Also, a nonsupervisory employee should collect the money.

• There are no limits on gifts from supervisors to subordinate employees, but gifts should be appropriate to the occasion, and all supervised employees should receive similar gifts.

Employees who have questions should email the USPS Ethics Office or call 202-268-6346.

The Thrift Savings Plan has launched a campaign called “Grow with the TSP” to remind participants of the value of compound interest when investing and saving for retirement.

The Postal Service matches employee contributions to the TSP up to 5 percent of basic pay. Participants must contribute at least 5 percent of their pay to receive the full match.

Employees who wish to enroll in the TSP or change their contribution amount can do so through PostalEASE on the MyHR website.

The TSP website has more information.