便り
たより · tayori · JLPT N3 · noun
news
✉️ Same word as 頼り tayori, reliance: a letter is what you rely on for news
便 is the mail kanji in 郵便 (postal service) and 航空便 (airmail). たより is also written 頼り, meaning reliance. Before phones, a letter from far away was the thing you relied on to hear how someone was doing.
便 — person 亻 + change 更
A semantic compound: 亻(person) beside 更 (to change/replace). The original sense was a person making things easier or more convenient by adjusting them. From 'convenient' it extended to 'then/thereupon' (biàn) and to bodily 'discharge' (as in 大便).