Record retail crowds, but spending declined
NEW YORK – Thanksgiving Day openings and reduced prices failed to get Americans to crack open their billfolds during the biggest shopping week of the year.
The tactics drew bigger crowds but failed to motivate Americans to spend.
Total Christmas spending is expected to fall for the first time ever since the trade group began tracking it in 2006, according to the survey that was released Sunday. During the first four days, spending fell an estimated 2.9 percent to $57.4 billion.
Speed plays factor in actor’s crash death
LOS ANGELES – Investigators sought to determine the cause of a fiery crash that killed “Fast & Furious” star Paul Walker, while the 40-year-old actor’s fans erected a makeshift memorial Sunday near where the Porsche he was riding in smashed into a light pole and tree.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said speed was a factor in Saturday’s one-car crash, though it will take time to determine how fast the car was going.
Because Walker is so closely associated with the underground culture of street racing portrayed in the popular “Fast & Furious” film franchise, the fatal accident had an eerie quality – a tragic end for a Hollywood hero of speed.
The crash also killed Walker’s friend and financial adviser Roger Rodas, according to Walker’s publicist, Ame Van Iden. She said Walker was a passenger in the car when the two drove away in a 2005 red Porsche Carrera GT from a fundraiser in the community of Valencia, about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
Man cited after tossing $1K in cash at mall
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – A 29-year-old Minnesota man who says he was trying to spread holiday cheer by tossing 1,000 dollar bills over an upper floor railing at the Mall of America has been cited for disorderly conduct.
Serge Vorobyov, of Apple Valley, Minn., admitted throwing his “last $1,000” from the fourth floor on Friday as a choir performed “Let it Snow.” Vorobyov said he also kept tossing cash as he continued down the escalator.
Vorobyov said he’s going through a divorce, lost his car-hauling business and hoped the positivity of throwing the money would come back to him. “I wanted to do some sort of pay it forward kind of thing,” Vorobyov said Sunday.
He invited his estranged wife to try to win her back, but she didn’t show up, he said.
UN concerned about body count in Iraq
BAGHDAD – The number of Iraqis slain “execution-style” surged last month, the U.N. said Sunday, raising fears of a return of the death squads that killed thousands during the darkest days of sectarian violence that followed the U.S.-led invasion.
The increase in targeted killings comes even though the U.N. reported that the overall death toll for November dropped to 659, compared with 979 in October. More than 8,000 people have been killed since the start of the year.
In an example of other dangers facing Iraqis, three bombs tore through the funeral procession of the son of an anti-al-Qaida Sunni tribal chief northeast of Baghdad, the deadliest in a wave of attacks that killed 17 people Sunday, Iraqi officials said.
Associated Press
