A discount giant is closing the book on a women’s magazine — at least, across its checkout displays. Walmart is removing Cosmopolitan magazine from its checkout lines across more than 5,000 stores. The retailer’s decision is in response to a campaign against sexual violence spearheaded by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. While the women’s magazine will no longer be available in checkout lanes, Walmart will continue selling the publication in its magazine section.

U.S. ad spending continued to rebound in May, according to a new, enriched database from Standard Media Index. The data, which is derived from SMI's expanded pool of actual media buys contributed by major agency holding companies, includes IPG Mediabrands, which announced in February that it was rejoining SMI's cooperative pool, and which beginning this month has been reincorporated. The addition of IPG Mediabrands means that SMI's U.S. database is more representative and less modeled for total media spending volume among the major agency holding companies. The new data, meanwhile, shows the U.S. ad market surged 56% in May, following a 53% gain in April and a 22% increase in March, which was the first to show a year-over-year rebound from the pandemic-influenced advertising recession, which began a year earlier.

FY24 first quarter service performance scores covering October 1 through December 1, included: *First-Class Mail: 87.1 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of 3.9 percentage points from the fiscal fourth quarter. *Marketing Mail: 94.0 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of 1.2 percentage points from the fiscal fourth quarter. *Periodicals: 83.3 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of 2.8 percentage points from the fiscal fourth quarter.