Maine Non Profit

 "Resurrection is that process that begins with the self-accusing spirit and does not end until we become one in perfect harmony or peace with Allah and His creation."

MFWF furnished a donation of $12,740 to Undue Medical Debt, a 501(c)(3) group formed by former collections executives, which bought the $1.85 million in debts; such debt is sold at pennies on the dollar.

The recipients, spread all over Maine, were people who live four times below the Federal Poverty Level or for whom medical debt totals more than 5% of their annual income.

"We can't turn back the clock for these people, but we had to do something," Evan LeBrun, MFWF's executive director, said in a statement.

"This is just a drop in the bucket," he added. "Now, it's up to our lawmakers to make healthcare affordable for everyone in our state and to eliminate medical debt."

MFWF has worked on healthcare affordability issues since 2021 and medical debt since last year, a representative told Common Dreams. The group recently released a series of videos on the topic based on interviews conducted around Maine.

Undue Medical Debt formed in 2014 following inspiration from debt cancellation projects undertaken by Occupy Wall Street participants, including activist-intellectuals such as Astra Taylor and David Graeber. The nonprofit, which drew donor attention after it was featured by comedian John Oliver on his HBO show in 2016, has now canceled nearly $15 billion in medical debt, according to its website. Oliver himself made a contribution to the group, which was previously known as R.I.P. Medical Debt.

Nationwide, nearly 100 million people are dealing with unpaid medical bills, according to federal data.

The push for change in the field of medical debt has yielded a series of small victories. Last year, the three major consumer report agencies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—stopped including medical debts below $500 on their credit reports, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In June, the CFPB moved to ban all medical debt from credit reports, drawing praise from progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has pushed medical debt cancellation in her current role and pledged, as part of her economic agenda, to work with states to states to cancel more debt if she wins in November.

A working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in April called into question the premise of Undue's work, finding that recipients of debt relief had no better credit scores or mental health than a control group. A co-author said the results had "disappointed" the researchers.

However, research has shown strong benefits to other forms of debt relief, and a 2023 survey conducted by Undue and other groups did show that medical debt negatively affected mental health for most people and caused 42% to delay further medical care.

Medical debt disproportionately affects people who are poor, Black, or disabled, according to Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. About 3 million Americans have more than $10,000 in medical debt.

One is a woman named Kim, a resident of Old Town, Maine, whom MFWF interviewed in a recent video. She lives off of $26,200 per year and has roughly $2 million in debt, thanks to her fight with Addison's disease, a chronic endocrine disorder.

"I am really hoping that someone sees what is actually happening out there," she said. "God, I hope so."

Efforts to address the issue at the Maine state level have achieved mixed success. A modest reform bill that prevents debt accrual on medical debt did pass in Augusta in April.

43% Wage Hike

 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), ch

After seven weeks on strike, Boeing workers voted Monday to ratify a new contract that includes a 43.65% wage increase over four years—a significant improvement over the 25% increase that the aerospace giant offered in September.

Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Districts 751 and W24 approved the contract in a 59%-41% vote around two weeks after rejecting a tentative deal that called for a 35% pay increase over a four-year period.

The contract approved by workers also includes a $12,000 ratification bonus, improvements to retirement and healthcare benefits, and improved overtime rules.

"Strikes work," labor journalist Kim Kelly wrote in response to the contract vote.

Jon Holden and Brandon Bryant, respectively the presidents of IAM District 751 and W24, said in a joint statement that "working people know what it’s like when a company overreaches and takes away more than is fair."

"Through this strike and the resulting victory, frontline workers at Boeing have done their part to begin rebalancing the scales in favor of the middle class—and in doing so, we hope to inspire other workers in our industry and beyond to continue standing up for justice at work," said Holden and Bryant. "Through this victory and the strike that made it possible, IAM members have taken a stand for respect and fair wages in the workplace."

"Livable wages and benefits that can support a family are essential—not optional—and this strike underscored that reality," they added. "This contract will have a positive and generational impact on the lives of workers at Boeing and their families. We hope these gains inspire other workers to organize and join a union. Frontline Boeing workers have used their voices, their collective power, and their solidarity to do what is right, to stand up for what is fair—and to win."

IAM's international president, Brian Bryant, called the contract "a new standard in the aerospace industry—one that sends a clear statement that aerospace jobs must be middle-class careers in which workers can thrive."

"Workers in the aerospace industry, led by the IAM—the most powerful aerospace union in the world—will not settle for anything less than the respect and family-sustaining wages and benefits they need and deserve," said Bryant. "This agreement reflects the positive results of workers sticking together, participating in workplace democracy, and demonstrating solidarity with each other and with the community during a necessary and effective strike."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and an outspoken supporter of the Boeing strike, congratulated IAM members on Monday "for winning a hard-fought victory."

"I also congratulate Machinists President Jon Holden as well as Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg for working to reach a deal that ensures Boeing will continue to build quality planes that contribute to our country's security and mobility while valuing and respecting the fact that there is no Boeing without the IAM," Jayapal said in a statement.

As did the union leadership in their remarks, Jayapal specifically thanked Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su of the Biden administration for helping secure the deal, citing "skilled leadership" that brought "both parties to the table and to an agreement."

Republicans in Congress

 

 A tax break for millionaires, and almost everyone else.

An end to the COVID-19-era government subsidies that some Americans have used to purchase health insurance.

Limits to food stamps, including for women and children, and other safety net programs. Rollbacks to Biden-era green energy programs. Mass deportations. Government job cuts to “drain the swamp.”

Having won the election and sweeping to power, Republicans are planning an ambitious 100-day agenda with President-elect Donald Trump in the White House and GOP lawmakers in a congressional majority to accomplish their policy goals.

Atop the list is the plan to renew some $4 trillion in expiring GOP tax cuts, a signature domestic achievement of Trump’s first term and an issue that may define his return to the White House.

“What we’re focused on right now is being ready, Day 1,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., after meeting recently with GOP colleagues to map out the road ahead.

The policies emerging will revive long-running debates about America’s priorities, its gaping income inequities and the proper size and scope of its government, especially in the face of mounting federal deficits now approaching $2 trillion a year.

The discussions will test whether Trump and his Republican allies can achieve the kinds of real-world outcomes wanted, needed or supported when voters gave the party control of Congress and the White House.

“The past is really prologue here,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, recalling the 2017 tax debate.

Trump’s first term became defined by those tax cuts, which were approved by Republicans in Congress and signed into law only after their initial campaign promise to “repeal and replace” Democratic President Barack Obama’s health care law sputtered, failing with the famous thumbs-down vote by then-Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

The GOP majority in Congress quickly pivoted to tax cuts, assembling and approving the multitrillion-dollar package by year’s end.

In the time since Trump signed those cuts into law, the big benefits have accrued to higher-income households. The top 1 percent — those making nearly $1 million and above — received about a $60,000 income tax cut, while those with lower incomes got as little as a few hundred dollars, according to the Tax Policy Center and other groups. Some people ended up paying about the same.

“The big economic story in the U.S. is soaring income inequality,” said Owens. “And that is actually, interestingly, a tax story.”

In preparation for Trump’s return, Republicans in Congress have been meeting privately for months and with the president-elect to go over proposals to extend and enhance those tax breaks, some of which would otherwise expire in 2025.

That means keeping in place various tax brackets and a standardized deduction for individual earners, along with the existing rates for so-called pass-through entities such as law firms, doctors’ offices or businesses that take their earnings as individual income.

Typically, the price tag for the tax cuts would be prohibitive. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that keeping the expiring provisions in place would add some $4 trillion to deficits over a decade.

Adding to that, Trump wants to include his own priorities in the tax package, including lowering the corporate rate, now at 21% from the 2017 law, to 15%, and doing away with individual taxes on tips and overtime pay.

But Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, said blaming the tax cuts for the nation’s income inequality is “just nonsense” because tax filers up and down the income ladder benefited. He instead points to other factors, including the Federal Reserve’s historically low interest rates that enable borrowing, including for the wealthy, on the cheap.

“Americans don’t care if Elon Musk is rich,” Roy said. “What they care about is, what are you doing to make their lives better?”

Typically, lawmakers want the cost of a policy change to be offset by budget revenue or reductions elsewhere. But in this case, there’s almost no agreed-upon revenue raisers or spending cuts in the annual $6 trillion budget that could cover such a whopping price tag.

Instead, some Republicans have argued that the tax breaks will pay for themselves, with the trickle-down revenue from potential economic growth. Trump’s tariffs floated this past week could provide another source of offsetting revenue.

Some Republicans argue there’s precedent for simply extending the tax cuts without offsetting the costs because they are not new changes but existing federal policy.

“If you’re just extending current law, we’re not raising taxes or lowering taxes,” said Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the incoming chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, on Fox News.

He said the criticism that tax cuts would add to the deficit is “ridiculous.” There is a difference between taxes and spending, he said, “and we just have to get that message out to America.”

At the same time, the new Congress will also be considering spending reductions, particularly to food stamps and health care programs, goals long sought by conservatives as part of the annual appropriations process.

One cut is almost certain to fall on the COVID-19-era subsidy that helps defray the cost of health insurance for people who buy their own policies via the Affordable Care Act exchange.

The extra health care subsidies were extended through 2025 in Democratic President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which also includes various green energy tax breaks that Republicans want to roll back.

The House Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, scoffed at the Republican claim that they’ve won “some big, massive mandate” — when in fact, the House Democrats and Republicans essentially fought to a draw in the November election, with the GOP eking out a narrow majority.

“This notion about some mandate to make massive, far-right extreme policy changes, it doesn’t exist — it doesn’t exist,” Jeffries said.

Republicans are planning to use a budgetary process, called reconciliation, that allows majority passage in Congress, essentially along party lines, without the threat of a filibuster in the Senate that can stall out a bill’s advance unless 60 of the 100 senators agree.

It’s the same process Democrats have used when they had the power in Washington to approve the Inflation Reduction Act and Obama’s health care law over GOP objections.

Republicans have been here before with Trump and control of Congress, which is no guarantee they will be able to accomplish their goals, particularly in the face of resistance from Democrats.

Still, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has been working closely with Trump on the agenda, has promised a “breakneck” pace in the first 100 days “because we have a lot to fix.”

Shopping on Shein & Temu

 Shopping on Temu can feel like playing an arcade game. Instead of using a joystick-controlled claw to grab a toy, visitors to the online marketplace maneuver their computer mouses or cellphone screens to browse colorful gadgets, accessories and trinkets with prices that look too good to refuse.

A pop-up spinning wheel offers the chance to win a coupon. Rotating captions warn that a less than $2 camouflage print balaclava and a $1.23 skeleton hand back scratcher are “Almost sold out.” A flame symbol indicates a $9.69 plush cat print hoodie is selling fast. A timed-down selection of discounted items adds to the sense of urgency.

Welcome to the new online world of impulse buying, a place of guilty pleasures where the selection is vast, every day is Cyber Monday, and an instant dopamine hit that will have faded by the time your package arrives is always just a click away.

By all accounts, we’re living in an accelerating age for consumerism, one that Temu, which is owned by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings, and Shein, its fierce rival, supercharged with social media savvy and an interminable assortment of cheap goods, most shipped directly from merchants in China based on real-time demand.

The business models of the two platforms, coupled with avalanches of digital or influencer advertising, have enabled them to give Western retailers a run for their money this holiday shopping season.

Software company Salesforce said it expects roughly one in five online purchases in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada to be made through four online marketplaces based or founded in Asia: Shein, Temu, TikTok Shop - the e-commerce arm of video-sharing platform TikTok - and AliExpress.

Analysts with Salesforce said they are expected to pull in roughly $160 billion in global sales outside of China. Most of the sales will go to Temu and Shein, a privately held company which is thought to lead the worldwide fast fashion market in revenue.

Lisa Xiaoli Neville, a nonprofit manager who lives in Los Angeles, is sold on Shein. The bedroom of her home is stocked with jeans, shoes, press-on nails and other items from the ultra-fast fashion retailer, all of which she amassed after getting on the platform to purchase a $2 pair of earrings she saw in a Facebook ad.

Neville, 46, estimates she spends at least $75 a month on products from Shein. A $2 eggshell opener, a portable apple peeler and an apple corer - both costing less than $5 - are among the quirky, single-use kitchen tools taking up drawer space. She acknowledges she doesn’t need them because she “doesn’t even cook like that.” Plus, she’s allergic to apples.

“I won’t eat apples. It will kill me,” Neville said, laughing. “But I still want the coring thing.”

Shein, now based in Singapore, uses some of the same web design features as Temu’s, such as pop-up coupons and ads, to persuade shoppers to keep clicking, but it appears a bit more restrained in its approach.

Shein primarily targets young women through partnerships with social media influencers. Searching the company’s name on video platforms turns up creators promoting Shein’s Black Friday sales event and displaying the dozens of of trendy clothes and accessories they got for comparatively little money.

But the Shein-focused content also includes videos of TikTokers saying they’re embarrassed to admit they shopped there and critics lashing out at fans for not taking into account the environmental harms or potential labor abuses associated with products that are churned out and shipped worldwide at a speedy pace.

Neville has already picked out holiday gifts for family and friends from the site. Most of the products in her online cart cost under $10, including graphic T-shirts she intends to buy for her son and jeans and loafers for her daughter. All told, she plans to spend about $200 on gifts, significantly less than $500 she used to shell out at other stores in prior years.

“The visuals just make you want to spend more money,” she said, referring to the clothes on Shein’s site. “They’re very cheap and everything is just so cute.”

Unlike Shein, Temu’s appeal cuts across age groups and gender. The platform is the world’s second most-visited online shopping site, software company Similarweb reported in September. Customers go there looking for practical items like doormats and silly products like a whiskey flask shaped like a vintage cellphone from the 1990s.

Temu advertised Black Friday bargains for some items at upwards of 70% off the recommended retail price. Making a purchase can quickly result in receiving dozens of emails offering free giveaways. The caveat: customers have to buy more products.

Ellen Flowers, 36, a lifestyle blogger who lives in Dallas, recently decided to pair a $3,500 dining table with $25 dining chairs from Temu to save money. She’s also purchased clothes from Temu. The quality or fit wasn’t always always great, so Flowers donated some unwanted pieces to thrift stores to avoid paying return shipping fees that would cost almost as much as the clothes.

Flowers planned to buy stocking stuffers on Temu as well as baubles for an ornament-swapping party in early December. She also wanted to buy necklaces and bracelets for an activity at her 5-year-old niece’s upcoming birthday party.

“I love buying my nieces presents,” Flowers says. “Since they’re young, they don’t need the Louis Vuitton handbag. I can give them a cute handbag from Temu. Then they’ll lose interest in a month and I’ll buy them another one.”

Despite their rise, Temu and Shein have proven particularly ripe for pushback. Last year, a coalition of unnamed brands and organizations launched a campaign to oppose Shein in Washington. U.S. lawmakers also have raised the possibility that Temu is allowing goods made with forced labor to enter the country.

More recently, the Biden administration put forward rules that would crack down on a trade rule known as the de minimis exception, which has allowed a lot of cheap products to come into the U.S. duty-free. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to slap high tariffs on goods from China, a move that would likely raise prices and across the retail world.

Both Shein and Temu have set up warehouses in the U.S. to speed up delivery times and help them better compete with Amazon, which is trying to erode their price advantage through a new storefront that also ships products directly from China.

Meanwhile, Temu is onboarding Chinese merchants to store inventory in the U.S., a move that would allow the company to not be as exposed to changes around the de minimus trade rule, said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of e-commerce intelligence firm Marketplace Pulse.

The change comes as both Shein and Temu are attempting to expand beyond the bargain-hungry shoppers who popularized their platforms. Temu is allowing sellers to ship products to customers from local U.S. warehouses and says the move will allow it to sell larger items like furniture as it expands its selection of big-ticket items.

Meanwhile, American children’s clothing retailer The Children’s Place signed a deal last month to distribute its products through Shein’s platform. Last year, Shein went into business with women’s fashion retailer Forever 21. It has been working to recruit other brands and reportedly has hopes of getting listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Our Favorite Catalogs

 

PORTLAND, Alb Micky — Honey, they shrunk the catalogs.

While retailers hope to go big this holiday season, customers may notice that the printed gift guides arriving in their mailboxes are smaller.

Many of the millions of catalogs getting sent to U.S. homes were indeed scaled down to save on postage and paper, resulting in pint-sized editions. Lands’ End, Duluth Trading Company and Hammacher Schlemmer are among gift purveyors using smaller editions. Some retailers are saving even more money with postcards.

Lisa Ayoob, a tech-savvy, online shopper in Portland, Maine, was surprised by the size of a recent catalog she received from outdoor apparel company Carbon2Cobalt.

“It almost felt like it was a pamphlet compared to a catalog,” she said.

Catalogs have undergone a steady recalibration over the years in response to technological changes and consumer behavior. The thick, heavy Sears and J.C. Penney catalogs that brought store displays to American living rooms slimmed down and gave way to targeted mailings once websites could do the same thing. Recent postal rate increases accelerated the latest shift to compact formats.

The number of catalogs mailed each year dropped about 40% between 2006 to 2018, when an estimated 11.5 billion were mailed to homes, according to the trade group formerly known as the American Catalog Mailers Association. In a sign of the times, the group based in Washington rebranded itself in May as the American Commerce Marketing Association, reflecting a broadened focus.

But don’t expect catalogs to go the way of dinosaurs yet. Defying predictions of doom, they have managed to remain relevant in the e-commerce era. Retail companies found that could treat catalogs with fewer pages as a marketing tool and include QR and promo codes to entice customers to browse online and complete a purchase.

Despite no longer carrying an extended inventory of goods, catalogs are costly to produce and ship. But they hold their own in value because of growing digital advertising costs, helping retailers cut through the noise for consumers barraged by multi-format advertisements, industry officials say.

In an unlikely twist, notable e-commerce companies like Amazon and home goods supplier Wayfair started distributing catalogs in recent years. Amazon began mailing a toy catalog in 2018. That was the same year Sears, which produced an annual Christmas Wish Book Wish starting in 1933, filed for bankruptc y.

Fans of printed information may rejoice to hear that apparel retailer J.Crew relaunched its glossy catalog this year.

Research shows that the hands-on experience of thumbing through a catalog leaves a greater impression on consumers, said Jonathan Zhang, a professor of marketing at Colorado State University.

“The reason why these paper formats are so effective is that our human brains haven’t evolved as fast as technology and computers over the past 10 to 20 years. We retain more information when we read something on paper. That’s why paper books remain relevant,” Zhang said. “The psychology shows that three-dimensional, tactile experiences are more memorable.”

Pint-sized presentations still can work, though, because the purpose of catalogs these days is simply to get customers’ attention, Zhang said. Conserving paper also works better with younger consumers who are worried about the holiday shopping season’s impact on the planet, he said.

Postal increases are hastening changes. The latest round of postage hikes in July included the category with the 8.5-by-11-inch size that used to be ubiquitous for the catalog industry.

Many retailers responded by reducing the size of catalogs, putting them in a lower-cost letter category, said Paul Miller, executive vice president and managing director of the American Commerce Marketing Association. One size, called a “slim jim,” measures 10.5 by 5.5 inches. But there other sizes. Some retailers have further reduced costs by mailing large postcards to consumers.

Lands’ End, for one, is testing new compact formats to supplement its traditional catalogs. This year, that included folded glossy brochures and postcards, along with other formats, Chief Transformation Officer Angie Rieger said.

Maine resident Ayoob said she understands why retailers still use catalogs even though she no longer is a fan of the format. These days, she prefers to browse for products on the internet, not by flipping through paper pages.

“Everybody wants eyeballs. There’s so much out there -- so many websites, so many brands,” said Ayoob, who spent 35 years working in department stores and in the wholesale industry.

Targeting customers at home is not a new concept. L.L. Bean was a pioneer of the mail-order catalog after its founder promoted his famous “Maine Hunting Shoe” to hunting license holders from out-of-state in 1912. The outdoor clothing and equipment company based in Freeport, Maine, is sticking to mailing out regular-sized catalogs for now.

“By showcasing our icons, the catalog became an icon itself,” L.L. Bean spokesperson Amanda Hannah said. “Even as we invest more in our digital and brand marketing channels, the catalog retains a strong association with our brand, and is therefore an important part of our omni-channel strategy, especially for our loyal customers.”

Trudeau Returns Home

  

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returned home Saturday after his meeting with Donald Trump without assurances the president-elect will back away from threatened tariffs on all products from the major American trading partner. Trump called the talks “productive” but signaled no retreat from a pledge that Canada says unfairly lumps it in with Mexico over the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States.

After the leaders’ hastily arranged dinner Friday night at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trudeau spoke of “an excellent conversation” and said in a post later Saturday on X, accompanied by a photo of the two men seated a table and smiling, that he looked forward to “the work we can do together, again.” Trump said earlier on Truth Social that they discussed “many important topics that will require both Countries to work together to address.”

For issues in need of such cooperation, Trump cited fentanyl and the “Drug Crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of Illegal Immigration,” fair trade deals “that do not jeopardize American Workers” and the U.S. trade deficit with its ally to the north.

Trump asserted that the prime minister had made “a commitment to work with us to end this terrible devastation” of American families from fentanyl from China reaching the United States through its neighbors. The U.S., he said, “will no longer sit idly by as our Citizens become victims to the scourge of this Drug Epidemic.”

The Republican president-elect has threatened to impose a 25% tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico as one of his first executive orders when he takes office in January.

U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border. On immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian border between October 2023 and September 2024 — and Canadian officials say they are ready to make new investments in border security.

Trudeau called Trump after the Republican’s social media posts about the tariffs last Monday and they agreed to meet, according to a official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to publicly discuss detail of the private talks. The official said other countries are calling Canadian officials to hear how about how the meeting was arranged and to ask for advice.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, after speaking with Trump on the telephone, said Thursday she was confident a tariff war with Washington would be averted.

At the dinner that was said to last three hours, Trump said he and Trudeau also discussed energy, trade and the Arctic. A second official cited defense, Ukraine, NATO, China, the Mideast, pipelines and the Group of Seven meeting in Canada next year as other issues that arose.

Trudeau’s office said in a statement that the leaders “shared a productive wide-ranging discussion” centering on “collaboration and strengthening our relationship,” adding, “As Canada’s closest friend and ally, the United States is our key partner, and we are committed to working together in the interests of Canadians and Americans.”

Trump, during his first term as president, once called Trudeau “weak” and “dishonest,” but it was the prime minister who was the first G7 leader to visit Trump since the Nov. 5 election.

“Tariffs are a crucial issue for Canada and a bold move was in order. Perhaps it was a risk, but a risk worth taking,” Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.

Trudeau had said before leaving from Friday that Trump was elected because he promised to bring down the cost of groceries but now was talking about adding 25% to the cost of all kinds of products, including potatoes from Prince Edward Island in Atlantic Canada.

“It is important to understand that Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out. There’s no question about it,” Trudeau said.

“Our responsibility is to point out that he would not just be harming Canadians, who work so well with the United States, but he would actually be raising prices for Americans citizens as well and hurting American industry and business,” he added.

The threatened tariffs could essentially blow up the North American trade pact that Trump’s team negotiated during his first term. Trudeau noted they were able to successfully renegotiate the deal, which he calls a “win win” for both countries.

When Trump imposed higher tariffs as president, other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs of their own. Canada, for instance, announced billions of new duties in 2018 against the U.S. in a response to new taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US $2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day.

About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports are from Canada.

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.

Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and 77% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S.

Cabin Service On Flights

 

Southwest Airlines Passenger Jet

Southwest Airlines says it is ending cabin service earlier on flights, requiring passengers to do the usual pre-landing procedures such as ensuring their seatbelts are fastened and returning their seats to an upright position earlier than before.

Beginning on Dec. 4, a company spokesperson said, flight attendants will start preparing the cabin for landing at an altitude of 18,000 feet (5,486 meters) instead of 10,000 feet (3,048 meters). The change in procedure is designed to “reduce the risk of in-flight turbulence injuries” for crew members and passengers, the company said.

While turbulence-related fatalities are quite rare, injuries have piled up over the years. More than one-third of all airline incidents in the United States from 2009 through 2018 were related to turbulence, and most of them resulted in one or more serious injuries but no damage to the plane, the National Transportation Safety Board reported.

In May, a 73-year old man died on board a Singapore Airlines flight when the plane hit severe turbulence over the Indian Ocean.

The airline had also previously announced other changes.

Starting next year, Southwest will toss out a half-century tradition of “open seating” — passengers picking their own seats after boarding the plane.

Black Friday Shoppers

 Retailers used giveaways and big discounts to reward U.S. shoppers who ventured out for Black Friday even as earlier offers, the prospect of better bargains in the days ahead and the ease of e-commerce drained much of the excitement from the holiday shopping season’s much-hyped kickoff.

Frequent deals throughout the month and more awaiting on Cyber Monday gave consumers less of a reason to squabble over store shelves while trying to get their hands on TVs or toys. But shopping malls and merchants big and small used the day after Thanksgiving to entice customers into physical stores at a time when many prefer to browse and buy online.

Some Target shoppers lined up as early as 11:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day to get their hands on an exclusive book devoted to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and a bonus edition of her “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” album. Although both will be available purchase online starting Saturday, many locations sold out their supply of the products, the discount retailer said.

At a Target in Southfield, Michigan, a few miles north of Detroit, Marge Evans, 32, used her cellphone to take and send photos of shirts, sweaters and other apparel with Black Friday markdowns. Her shopping cart was full, but she was shopping for an upcoming cruise with her fiance, not Christmas.

“I’ll see what things are looking like the first week in January,” the 32-year-old massage therapist said. “Really, after the holidays are over is when the real deals come through. They get rid of everything.”

Industry analysts observed Black Friday shoppers displaying the same choosy, deal-driven behavior many U.S. consumers exhibited all year while adjusting prices after the period of inflation that started toward the end of the coronavirus pandemic.

At many stores, the huge crowds of Black Fridays past never returned after the pandemic. A Walmart in Germantown, Maryland, had only half of the parking spots filled on Friday morning. Some shoppers were returning items or buying groceries.

Bharatharaj Moruejsan, a 35-year-old software engineer, decided to check out Walmart’s offers because he was jet-lagged after returning from a month-long family vacation to India. He scored an iPad for his 1-year-old daughter for $250, 32% off its original $370 price tag.

“That’s a good deal,” Moruejsan said.

After visiting stores and shopping centers on Long Island, Marshal Cohen, chief retail adviser at market research firm Circana, said that apart from people lining up for Target’s Taylor Swift merchandise, the number of shoppers appeared typical.

“The spreading out of the holidays has created the lack of need and lack of urgency,” said Cohen, who had a 20-person team monitoring crowds nationwide. “This is going to be a long, slow tedious process” of getting shoppers to buy, he said.

Michael Brown, a partner at management consulting firm Kearney, saw no lines at the Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey, 10 minutes before the 7 a.m. opening.

“It’s not the old Black Friday that we used to know,” he said.

Retailers that offered at least 40% off drove shoppers’ attention, according to Brown. For example, Forever 21 had 50% to 70% discounts and had lines to the stores, while H&M, which offered 30% discounts, was relatively quiet.

Enough consumers still enjoy holiday shopping in person that Black Friday nonetheless was expected to retain its crown remains the biggest day of the year for retail foot traffic in the U.S., according to retail technology company Sensormatic Solutions.

At Macy’s Herald Square in Manhattan, the setting for the 1947 Christmas movie “Miracle on 34th Street,” a steady stream of shoppers early Friday found some shoes and handbags priced half-off, special occasion dresses marked down by 30%, and 60% off the store’s luxury bedding brand.

Keressa Clark, 50, and her daughter Morghan, 27, who were visiting New York from Wilmington, North Carolina, arrived at 6:15 a.m.

“I am actually shocked to see so many Black Friday deals because so many things are online,” Morghan Clark said.

Karessa Clark, who works as a nurse practitioner, said President-elect Donald Trump’s pending return to the White House made her feel better about the economy. She plans to spend $2,000 this holiday season, about $500 more than a year ago.

Julie Rambo, a retired school teacher, shoved aside her worries about the incoming Trump administration as she shopped with her grandchildren at the Target in Southfield, Michigan.

Rambo, 74, said she was “totally, completely scared of tariffs because I’m still going to need an automobile,” but it was a problem to confront later. As she does each year, she was primarily looking for Christmas gifts through a prison ministry for children with parents who are incarcerated.

“As we’re shopping, we find things for ourselves too,” Rambo said.

Online sales figures from Thanksgiving Day gave retailers a reason to remain hopeful for a lucrative end to the year.

Vivek Pandya, the lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said consumers spent a record $6.1 billion online Thursday, 8.8% more than on Thanksgiving last year. Bigger-than-expected discounts helped spur spending on electronics, apparel and other categories, Pandya said.

Across the board, Black Friday weekend discounts should peak at 30% on Cyber Monday and then retreat to around 15%, according to Adobe’s research.

Analysts forecast a solid holiday shopping season overall in the U.S., though perhaps not as robust as last year. Retailers were even more under the gun to get shoppers in to buy early and in bulk since there are five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

Shoppers at Lakeside Shopping Center in Metairie, Louisiana, were treated to a glass of champagne and a $50 gift receipt.

“This is a nice touch. I was just talking to my best friend and rehashing over Thanksgiving so this was a nice little treat after that conversation. Everyone needs a little drink,” said Faren Kennedy, a Houston resident who was in town visiting family and wanted to stop at the mall for the nostalgia of Black Friday shopping.

At Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, some 13,000 people showed up the first hour of its 7 a.m. opening, roughly 1,000 more than a year ago, according to Jill Renslow, the mall’s chief business development and marketing officer.

The mall was on target to exceed the 200,000 Black Friday customer visits it received in 2023, Renslow said. Stores with deep discounts and promotions were the most packed, she said, citing Lego’s giveaway of a free retro record player with a $250 purchase.

Stephen Lebovitz, CEO of CBL Properties, which operates 85 shopping properties, and Bill Taubman, president and chief operating officer of upscale mall landlord Taubman Realty Group, also said customer visits were up.

Black Friday no longer is an American-only sales event. Retailers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. also appealed to holiday shoppers looking to save money.

In India, about 200 Amazon warehouse workers and delivery drivers, rallied Friday in New Delhi, some wearing masks of Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, to demand better wages and working conditions. Similar protests were planned in other countries.

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Kenya 1.5 million years ago

By Albert Ariho 

Eastern Side of Lake Turkana, Kenya

Muddy footprints left on a Kenyan lakeside suggest two of our early human ancestors were nearby neighbors some 1.5 million years ago.

The footprints were left in the mud by two different species “within a matter of hours, or at most days,” said paleontologist Louise Leakey, co-author of the research published Thursday in the journal Science.

Scientists previously knew from fossil remains that these two extinct branches of the human evolutionary tree – called Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei – lived about the same time in the Turkana Basin.

But dating fossils is not exact. “It’s plus or minus a few thousand years,” said paleontologist William Harcourt-Smith of Lehman College and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was not involved in the study.

Yet with fossil footprints, “there’s an actual moment in time preserved,” he said. “It’s an amazing discovery.”

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The tracks of fossil footprints were uncovered in 2021 in what is today Koobi Fora, Kenya, said Leaky, who is based at New York’s Stony Brook University.

Whether the two individuals passed by the eastern side of Lake Turkana at the same time – or a day or two apart – they likely knew of each other’s existence, said study co-author Kevin Hatala, a paleoanthropologist at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.

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“They probably saw each other, probably knew each other was there and probably influenced each other in some way,” he said.

Scientists were able to distinguish between the two species because of the shape of the footprints, which holds clues to the anatomy of the foot and how it’s being used.

H. erectus appeared to be walking similar to how modern humans walk – striking the ground heel first, then rolling weight over the ball of the foot and toes and pushing off again.

The other species, which was also walking upright, was moving “in a different way from anything else we’ve seen before, anywhere else,” said co-author Erin Marie Williams-Hatala, a human evolutionary anatomist at Chatham.

Among other details, the footprints suggest more mobility in their big toe, compared to H. erectus or modern humans, said Hatala.

Our common primate ancestors probably had hands and feet adapted for grasping branches, but over time the feet of human ancestors evolved to enable walking upright, researchers say.

The new study adds to a growing body of research that implies this transformation to bipedalism – walking on two feet — didn’t happen at a single moment, in a single way.

Rather, there may have been a variety of ways that early humans learned to walk, run, stumble and slide on prehistoric muddy slopes.

“It turns out, there are different gait mechanics – different ways of being bipedal,” said Harcourt-Smith.

Scientists Reconstruct Dinosaur

 

Poland during Early Jurassic Period

Using fossilized feces and vomit samples from Poland, scientists have reconstructed how dinosaurs came to dominate the Earth millions of years ago.

Researchers aren’t sure whether dinosaurs’ rise over the course of 30 million years happened because of luck, skill, climate or some combination. But they came away knowing this: “It was not a sudden thing,” said study co-author Martin Qvarnström from Uppsala University.

The new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, analyzed hundreds of dino droppings to reconstruct who was eating whom 200 million years ago.

The first dinosaurs were go-getters, Qvarnström said, eating whatever they could — including insects, fish and plants.

When climate conditions changed, they were quick to adapt. Plant-eating dinosaurs, for example, ate a greater variety of greens than other vegetarians of the time, so it was easier to expand their palates when wetter conditions gave rise to new plant species.

Since the study’s findings were limited to Polish fossils, Qvarnström said he’d like to see if their ideas hold steady against fossil records from around the world.

It’s not uncommon for scientists to study ancient fecal matter to understand creatures of the past, said Emma Dunne, a paleobiologist at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. But fossilized feces can resemble blobs or chunks of rock, and they are not always found near fossils of the animal that made them — which makes it hard for scientists to know where they came from.

In this study, researchers found fish scales, insect bits and bone shards nestled within the droppings.

“They are a really unassuming, quite plain part of the background,” said Dunne, who was not involved with the new research. “But they hold so much delicate, fine information.”

Tadpole Fossil

 

Scientists have discovered the oldest-known fossil of a giant tadpole that wriggled around over 160 million years ago.

The new fossil, found in Argentina, surpasses the previous ancient record holder by about 20 million years.

Imprinted in a slab of sandstone are parts of the tadpole’s skull and backbone, along with impressions of its eyes and nerves.

“It’s not only the oldest tadpole known, but also the most exquisitely preserved,” said study author Mariana Chuliver, a biologist at Buenos Aires’ Maimonides University.

Researchers know frogs were hopping around as far back as 217 million years ago. But exactly how and when they evolved to begin as tadpoles remains unclear.

This new discovery adds some clarity to that timeline. At about a half foot (16 centimeters) long, the tadpole is a younger version of an extinct giant frog.

“It’s starting to help narrow the timeframe in which a frog becomes a frog,” said Ben Kligman, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History who was not involved with the research.

The results were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The fossil is strikingly similar to the tadpoles of today — even containing remnants of a gill scaffold system that modern-day tadpoles use to sift food particles from water.

That means the amphibians’ survival strategy has stayed tried and true for millions of years, helping them outlast several mass extinctions, Kligman said.

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Giant Fish In The Mekong River

 

 A huge fish in the Mekong River thought to be extinct has been spotted three times in recent years.

“The giant salmon carp is like a symbol of the Mekong region,” said Chheana Chhut, a researcher at the Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The predatory fish can grow up to 4 feet in length, and has a conspicuous knob at the tip of its lower jaw. A striking patch of yellow surrounds its large eyes.

With the last confirmed sighting in 2005, “this species of fish seems to have disappeared from the Mekong region for decades,” said Chheana, who is a co-author of a study published online Monday in the journal Biological Conservation that documents the recent sightings.

Since 2017, biologists tracking migratory fish species in Cambodia have developed relationships with local fishing communities, asking them to alert any unusual sightings.

That’s how the three giant salmon carp found in the Mekong River and a tributary in Cambodia between 2020 and 2023 came to the attention of researchers.

“I was really surprised and excited to see the real fish for the first time,” said Bunyeth Chan, a study co-author and researcher at Svay Rieng University in Cambodia.

Researchers say the sightings give them new hope for the fate of the species. One nickname for the species is “ghost fish.”

“This rediscovery is very exciting, positive news,” said Zeb Hogan, a fish biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who was part of the team.

But the plight of the fish also spotlights the perils facing all migratory species in the Mekong, which faces industrial pollution and overfishing.

More than 700 dams are built along the river and its tributaries and there are very few functional “fish passages” to help species navigate obstructions, said Brian Eyler, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, who was not involved in the research.

The biologists said they hope that working with local communities in Thailand and Laos will enable them to confirm if the fish still swims in other stretches of the Mekong River.