Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer charged in 7th deathNEW YORK — The holiday shopping season is about to reach full speed with Black Friday, which kicks off the post-Thanksgiving retail rush later this week. The annual sales event no longer creates the midnight mall crowds or doorbuster mayhem of recent decades, in large part due to the ease of online shopping and habits forged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hoping to entice equivocating consumers, retailers already have spent weeks bombarding customers with ads and early offers. Still, whether visiting stores or clicking on countless emails promising huge savings, tens of millions of U.S. shoppers are expected to spend money on Black Friday itself this year. Industry forecasts estimate that 183.4 million people will shop in U.S. stores and online between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, according to the National Retail Federation and consumer research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics. Of that number, 131.7 million are expected to shop on Black Friday. At the same time, earlier and earlier Black Friday-like promotions, as well as the growing strength of other shopping events (hello Cyber Monday), continue to change the holiday spending landscape. Here’s what you need to know about Black Friday’s history and where things stand in 2024. Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving each year, or Nov. 29 this year. The term “Black Friday” is several generations old, but it wasn’t always associated with the holiday retail frenzy that we know today. The gold market crash of September 1869, for example, was notably dubbed Black Friday. The phrase’s use in relation to shopping the day after Thanksgiving, however, is most often traced to Philadelphia in the mid-20th century — when police and other city workers had to deal with large crowds that congregated before the annual Army-Navy football game and to take advantage of seasonal sales. “That’s why the bus drivers and cab drivers call today ‘Black Friday.’ They think in terms of headaches it gives them,” a Gimbels department store sales manager told The Associated Press in 1975, while watching a police officer try to control jaywalkers the day after Thanksgiving. Earlier references date back to the 1950s and 1960s. Jie Zhang, a professor of marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, points to a 1951 mention of “Black Friday” in a New-York based trade publication — which noted that many workers simply called in sick the day after Thanksgiving in hopes of having a long holiday weekend. Starting in the 1980s, national retailers began claiming that Black Friday represented when they went from operating in the red to in the black thanks to holiday demand. But since many retail companies now operate in the black at various times of the year, this interpretation should be taken with a grain of salt, experts say. In recent decades, Black Friday became infamous for floods of people in jam-packed stores. Endless lines of shoppers camped out at midnight in hopes of scoring deep discounts. But online shopping has made it possible to make most, if not all, holiday purchases without ever stepping foot inside a store. And while foot traffic at malls and other shopping areas has bounced back since the start of the pandemic, e-commerce isn’t going away. November sales at brick and mortar stores peaked more than 20 years ago. In 2003, for example, e-commerce accounted for just 1.7% of total retail sales in the fourth quarter, according to Commerce Department data. Unsurprisingly, online sales make up for a much bigger slice of the pie today. For last year’s holiday season, e-commerce accounted for about 17.1% of all nonadjusted retail sales in the fourth quarter, Commerce Department data shows. That’s up from 12.7% seen at the end of 2019. Beyond the rise of online shopping, some big ticket items that used to get shoppers in the door on the Black Friday — like a new TV — are significantly cheaper than they were decades ago, notes Jay Zagorsky, a clinical associate professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. “There is less need to stand in line at midnight when the items typically associated with doorbuster sales are now much cheaper,” Zagorsky told The Associated Press via email. He pointed to Bureau of Labor Statistics data that shows the average price for a TV has fallen 75% since 2014. While plenty of people will do most of their Black Friday shopping online, projections from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights indicated that a majority of Black Friday shoppers (65%) still planned to shop in stores this year. It’s no secret that Black Friday sales don’t last just 24 hours anymore. Emails promising holiday deals now start arriving before Halloween. “Black Friday is no longer the start of the holiday shopping season. It has become the crescendo of the holiday shopping season” during what now feels like “Black Friday month,” Zhang said. Some retailers have updated their official marketing to refer to “Black Friday week.” Retailers trying to get a head start on the competition and to manage shipping logistics helps explain the rush, Zhang said. Offering early holiday deals spreads out purchases, giving shippers more breathing room to complete orders. Zhang therefore doesn’t expect the five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year to cause significant strain because retailers would have taken them into account. Linking pre-Thanksgiving sales with Black Friday is also a marketing technique since it’s a name consumers recognize and associate with big, limited-time bargains, Zhang said. Multiple post-Thanksgiving sales events keep shoppers enticed after Black Friday, including Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, which the National Retail Federation’s online arm designated in 2005. U.S. consumers spent a record $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday in 2023, and $15.7 million per minute during the day’s peak sales hour, acccording to Adobe Analytics. On Black Friday, they spent $9.8 billion online, Adobe Analytics said. Enough people still enjoy shopping in person after Thanksgiving that the activity is unlikely to become extinct, Boston University’s Zagorsky said. While Black Friday’s significance “is being slightly diminished” over time, the shopping event is still “a way to connect with others,” he said. “This social aspect is important and will not disappear, ensuring that Black Friday is still an important day for retailers.”
A ceasefire deal that could end more than a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group won backing from Israeli leaders Tuesday, raising hopes and renewing difficult questions in a region gripped by conflict. Hezbollah leaders also signaled tentative backing for the U.S.-brokered deal, which offers both sides an off-ramp from hostilities that have driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese and 50,000 Israelis from their homes. An intense bombing campaign by Israel has killed more than 3,700 people, many of them civilians, Lebanese officials say. But while the deal, set to take effect early Wednesday, could significantly calm the tensions that have inflamed the region, it does little directly to resolve the much deadlier war that has raged in Gaza since the Hamas attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that killed 1,200 people. Hezbollah, which began firing scores of rockets into Israel the following day in support of Hamas, has previously said it would keep fighting until there was a stop to the fighting in Gaza. Here’s what to know about the tentative ceasefire agreement and its potential implications: The agreement reportedly calls for a 60-day halt in fighting that would see Israeli troops retreat to their side of the border while requiring Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the deal is set to take effect at 4 a.m. local time on Wednesday (9 p.m. EST Tuesday). Under the deal, thousands of Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers are to deploy to the region south of the Litani River. An international panel lead by the U.S. would monitor compliance by all sides. Biden said the deal “was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.” Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. Lebanese officials have rejected writing that into the proposal. Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz insisted Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL , does not provide “effective enforcement” of the deal. A Hezbollah leader said the group's support for the deal hinged on clarity that Israel would not renew its attacks. “After reviewing the agreement signed by the enemy government, we will see if there is a match between what we stated and what was agreed upon by the Lebanese officials,” Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollah’s political council, told the Qatari satellite news network Al Jazeera. “We want an end to the aggression, of course, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of the state” of Lebanon, he said. The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel’s security concerns had been addressed in the deal also brokered by France. After months of cross-border bombings, Israel can claim major victories, including the killing of Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, most of his senior commanders and the destruction of extensive militant infrastructure. A complex attack in September involving the explosion of hundreds of walkie-talkies and pagers used by Hezbollah was widely attributed to Israel, signaling a remarkable penetration of the militant group. The damage inflicted on Hezbollah has come not only in its ranks, but to the reputation it built by fighting Israel to a stalemate in the 2006 war. Still, its fighters managed to put up heavy resistance on the ground, slowing Israel’s advance while continuing to fire scores of rockets, missiles and drones across the border each day. The ceasefire offers relief to both sides, giving Israel’s overstretched army a break and allowing Hezbollah leaders to tout the group’s effectiveness in holding their ground despite Israel’s massive advantage in weaponry. But the group is likely to face a reckoning, with many Lebanese accusing it of tying their country’s fate to Gaza’s at the service of key ally Iran, inflicting great damage on a Lebanese economy that was already in grave condition. Until now, Hezbollah has insisted that it would only halt its attacks on Israel when it agreed to stop fighting in Gaza. Some in the region are likely to view a deal between the Lebanon-based group and Israel as a capitulation. In Gaza, where officials say the war has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, Israel’s attacks have inflicted a heavy toll on Hamas, including the killing of the group’s top leaders. But Hamas fighters continue to hold scores of Israeli hostages, giving the militant group a bargaining chip if indirect ceasefire negotiations resume. Hamas is likely to continue to demand a lasting truce and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in any such deal. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas offered a pointed reminder Tuesday of the intractability of the war, demanding urgent international intervention. “The only way to halt the dangerous escalation we are witnessing in the region, and maintain regional and international stability, security and peace, is to resolve the question of Palestine,” he said in a speech to the U.N. read by his ambassador.
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has a in his life. The quarterback made the on the , revealing that he is dating a woman named . Aaron Rodgers drops love bomb on air While discussing his holiday shopping routine, casually mentioned the new relationship. He explained how he had switched from traditional mall shopping to ordering gifts online. However, the quarterback also shared his experience of dealing with a for his girlfriend's gift, noting the stress it caused him. said. revelation seemed to take and the crew by surprise. His former teammate, , jokingly asked, referring to , to which laughed off the comment and confirmed his girlfriend's name is , spelled with an "i." Rodgers: Love is a 'good feeling' Despite the public mention of his new relationship, was quick to add that his girlfriend is not active on social media, and joked that she probably doesn't watch show, despite being a fan of the host. When and others teased him about being responded with a grin, saying, , who has historically kept his personal life private, has had several high-profile relationships in the past. He was most recently linked to , a model and daughter of Milwaukee Bucks owner Wes Edens, though they were said to be keeping things casual. Before that, had relationships with actress , former race car driver , and actress . In his 2024 Netflix docuseries , opened up about the challenges of , admitting that he didn't always handle the attention well. he said. For now, appears to be enjoying his newfound love while continuing to focus on the two remaining regular season games with the .
