Thanksgiving | featured news

A surveillance video found at the Little Falls home of Byron Smith shows teenagers Nick Brady and Haile Kifer outside Smith's house on Thanksgiving Day before the homeowner shot them to death after they broke in.

Thanksgiving is over and to Hollywood that means one thing: awards season. Let the Carpetbagger be your guide to all things Oscar.

Sales on the day after Thanksgiving fell from those a year earlier, after stores started their “doorbuster” promotions early in the week and opened for business on Thursday evening.

When Sandy slammed the East Coast, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons, floats and costumes were spared from the devastation. And Thursday morning, New Yorkers' mood elevated along with the traditional helium-filled balloons as the parade kicked off, just as it had for more than eight decades.

Put down that turkey leg. It's time to shop. No, really. Stores typically open in the wee hours of the morning on the day after Thanksgiving known as Black Friday, named for the period when stores traditionally turn a profit for the year.

Getting in just under the wire before Thanksgiving day’s orgy of football viewing, “The Insider” will Wednesday night have the first interview with the first man who claimed former Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash had a sexual relationship with him when he was a minor.

Those hoping to save a couple bucks on a last-minute Thanksgiving meal may want to shop at Target, which beat Walmart for the cheaper turkey dinner. Bloomberg Industries conducted a study of 15 retailers and determined that a Thanksgiving turkey dinner from Target is cheaper than one from retail competitor Walmart. An 18-item meal, including turkey, cranberries, onions, corn, pumpkin and heavy cream, from Target costs $45.48. The same dinner goes for $52.31 at Walmart, $70.18 at Whole Foods Market and $70.82 at Acme, owned by Supervalu Inc.

There is a dirty little secret about economics writing. The thing that offers the surest path to glory to front page play for a story, to lots of Web traffic, to a pat on the back from editors is doom and gloom. When we can point out something that is awful, whether it is a collapsing job market or rising poverty or skyrocketing gasoline prices, the world seems a whole lot more interested in what we have to say. It's not for nothing they call economics the dismal science.

I come from a divorced family, and so does my husband. Every year on Thanksgiving, we wonder: Of the four sets of parents, which one should we take our kids to visit this year? (All live nearby, which makes the decision even more challenging.) We try to be careful with our choice, but it's tricky, and we have inadvertently caused offense in the past. How can we avoid upsetting any of our loved ones this time around?

No matter how much you plan ahead, feeding your extended family--bottomless teenage nephews, out-of-town uncles, and wild munchkins included--is going to be a massive undertaking.