Chuey Quintanar has been creating art on living canvas for more than 20 years. A friend gave him a tattoo machine when he was 14 years old, and he has been tattooing ever since.

“When I started tattooing, they were still looking at it (tattoos) as a bad thing, but I always saw tattoo as an art form,” Los Angeles tattoo artist Quintanar said.

When a museum asked him to contribute a piece to the traveling exhibit called Tattoo, he realized something more positive was evolving from the older stereotypes.

WATCH: Tattoo history

“It’s like a dream to be in a prestigious museum,” Quintanar said.

“This exhibition is one of the very first exhibitions on tattoo that come from people from the tattoo culture. All the other ones, and there have been a number of them, were put together by doctors or criminologists,” Stéphane Martin, president of the Musée du Quai Branly, said.

Self-identity

More recently, having a tattoo has been associated with the criminal element, and as a way for gang members to self-identify.

Now, though, it has become common for A-list celebrities to show off their inked bodies, and tattoos have become mainstream in many cultures. 

The Tattoo exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County shows the long and varied history of tattoos. It transports visitors through thousands of years of tattoos, spanning myriad continents and cultures.

“It’s basically a universal impulse and practice,” said Gretchen Baker, vice president of exhibitions at the museum.

“There’s lots of reasons that people may have tattooed in the past, and certainly tattoo today — whether it’s to mark a rite of passage, mark a moment in time that’s important to them, or simply to put something beautiful on your body that matters to you,” Baker noted.

Through photos and videos, the exhibit shows examples of the many reasons why people go through the painful process. One video, taken during the annual Thai festival of Wai Kru, shows how tattoos seemingly embody magic.

“Tattoo has a strong spiritual and religious purpose in a lot of cultures where the tattoos themselves have a power,” Baker said.

Defiance, shame, honor

A tattoo also can be a sign of defiance, shame or honor.

“Tattoos [existed] everywhere, in every continent for two main reasons,” Musée du Quai Branly head Martin said.

“One was for adornment and making you different and proving, for example, your lineage or your connection with your tribe or with a kingdom — but also for punishment. One of the main uses of tattooing was to mark people down and to exclude them, to punish them, like the Greek, the Roman, Japanese for example,” he added.

Martin said a traditional tattoo often was not one of choice, but rather was decided upon by a family for the person. Now, of course, a person can choose what, where and when to tattoo onto one’s body.

The exhibit also features close to 280 square meters of space dedicated to the history of the tattoo scene in Los Angeles.

Baker said it started with the Pike, a waterfront amusement park, in Long Beach, a city that had a naval presence located south of Los Angeles.

“The Pike became a place where all the sailors are coming home from Asia, and they were kind of exchanging tattoos that they had received when they were in Asia,” she said.

The Pike was a popular place for L.A.’s early tattoo scene. The “black and gray” tattoo style of that era emerged from East Los Angeles, which remains largely Latino.

“The black and gray style — the Chicano style — that’s the style that I do,” Quintanar said.

He said he had always seen tattoos as art, and now his view has become widely accepted. “I wanted to show my art to the world and what better place to do it than at a museum.”
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From: MeNeedIt

The U.N. child agency said Sunday that it has flown 1.9 million doses of vaccines to war-torn Yemen, its first aid delivery since a Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite rebels tightened a sea and air blockade earlier this month.

Regional UNICEF director Geert Cappelaere described Saturday’s shipment as a “very small step” at a time of immense need and warned that it must not be a one-off.

The coalition had promised to reopen Yemen’s main airport in the capital of Sana’a and the Red Sea port of Hodeida to humanitarian traffic by late last week.

However, two UNICEF vessels carrying food, water purification tables and medicines heading to Hodeida have not yet received clearance to dock, Cappelaere said.

“We hope all will live up to their promises,” Cappelaere told reporters in the Jordanian capital of Amman. “These supplies are urgently needed.”

More than 11 million children in Yemen are in dire need of aid, and it is estimated that every 10 minutes a child in Yemen dies of a preventable disease, he said.

New alarms were raised by an outbreak of diphtheria, with suspected cases already reported in five governorates, said Cappelaere. Cholera and acute watery diarrhea spread rapidly in recent months, including among children, with close to 1 million suspected cases reported.

“The war in Yemen is sadly a war on children,” he said. “Yemen is facing the worst humanitarian crisis I have ever seen in my life.”

Yemenis have endured an intensified 2-1/2-year war.

It involves Iranian-backed Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, who control many population centers in western Yemen, and an internationally recognized government that has the backing of Saudi Arabia and several other key Persian Gulf states.

The Saudi-led coalition tightened its Yemen blockade on Nov. 6, in response to rebel missile fire toward the Saudi capital.

Since then, the coalition has come under growing international pressure to ease the restrictions.

Last week, it said it would reopen Sanaa airport and the port of Hodeida to humanitarian aid shipments by the end of that week.

U.N. flights to Sana’a resumed Saturday, including the shipment of vaccines.

Cappelaere said the 1.9 million doses are meant to vaccinate 600,000 children across Yemen against diphtheria, meningitis, whopping cough, pneumonia and tuberculosis.

Close to 180 cases of diphtheria have been reported in the past two months, starting from the governorate of Ibb, but spreading to four other districts.

The delivery of vaccines Saturday “cannot be a one-off,” he said, adding that many more supplies, including vaccines, are needed.

Like other aid officials in recent months, he appealed for a swift end to the war. “The absence of a political solution to the Yemeni crisis is deplorable,” he said.

Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation, has been caught up in the rivalry between regional powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran that has also helped fuel conflicts elsewhere, including in Syria.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas are among scores of police departments across the country quietly using a highly secretive technology developed for the military that can track the whereabouts of suspects by using the signals constantly emitted by their cellphones.

Civil liberties and privacy groups are increasingly raising objections to the suitcase-sized devices known as StingRays or cell site simulators that can sweep up cellphone data from an entire neighborhood by mimicking cell towers. Police can determine the location of a phone without the user even making a call or sending a text message. Some versions of the technology can even intercept texts and calls, or pull information stored on the phones.

Part of the problem, privacy experts say, is the devices can also collect data from anyone within a small radius of the person being tracked. And law enforcement goes to great lengths to conceal usage, in some cases, offering plea deals rather than divulging details on the StingRay.

“We can’t even tell how frequently they’re being used,” said attorney Jerome Greco, of the Legal Aid Society, which recently succeeded in blocking evidence collected with the device in a New York City murder case. “It makes it very difficult.”

At least 72 state and local law enforcement departments in 24 states plus 13 federal agencies use the devices, but further details are hard to come by because the departments that use them must take the unusual step of signing nondisclosure agreements overseen by the FBI.

An FBI spokeswoman said the agreements, which often involve the Harris Corporation, a defense contractor that makes the devices, are intended to prevent the release of sensitive law enforcement information to the general public. But the agreements don’t prevent an officer from telling prosecutors the technology was used in a case.

In New York, use of the technology was virtually unknown to the public until last year when the New York Civil Liberties Union forced the disclosure of records showing the NYPD used the devices more than 1,000 times since 2008. That included cases in which the technology helped catch suspects in kidnappings, rapes, robberies, assaults and murders. It has even helped find missing people.

But privacy experts say such gains come at too high a cost.

“We have a Fourth Amendment to the Constitution,” said Jennifer Lynch, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, referring to the protection against unreasonable search and seizure. “Our Founding Fathers decided when they wrote the Bill of Rights there had to be limits placed on government.”

Lawmakers in several states have introduced proposals ranging from warrant requirements to an outright ban on the technology; about a dozen states already have laws requiring warrants. Federal law enforcement said last year that it would be routinely required to get a search warrant before using the technology – a first effort to create a uniform legal standard for federal authorities.

And case law is slowly building. Two months ago, a Washington, D.C., appeals court overturned a conviction on a sex assault after judges ruled a violation of the Fourth Amendment because of evidence improperly collected from the simulator without a proper warrant.

In the New York murder case argued by the Legal Aid Society, a judge in Brooklyn last month ruled that the NYPD must have an eavesdropping warrant signed by a judge to use the device, a much higher bar than the “reasonable suspicion” standard that had previously been required.

“By its very nature, then, the use of a cell site simulator intrudes upon an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy, acting as an instrument of eavesdropping and requires a separate warrant supported by probable cause,” wrote state Supreme Court Judge Martin Murphy.

New York City police officials disagreed with the ruling and disputed that a StingRay was even used in the case, even though there had been a court order to do so. Police officials also said they have since started requiring a higher stander of probable cause when applying for the devices.

Legal Aid Society’s Greco said he hoped the ruling will push the nation’s largest department into meeting the higher standard, and help judges better understand the intricacies of more cutting-edge surveillance.

“We’re hoping we can use this decision among other decisions being made across the country to show that this logic is right,” Greco said. “Part of an issue we’re facing with technology, the judges don’t understand it. It makes it easier if another judge has sat down and really thought about it.”
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From: MeNeedIt

More than six years after a tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima nuclear power plant, Japan has yet to reach consensus on what to do with a million tons of radioactive water, stored on site in around 900 large and densely packed tanks that could spill should another major earthquake or tsunami strike.

The stalemate is rooted in a fundamental conflict between science and human nature.

Experts advising the government have urged a gradual release into the Pacific Ocean. Treatment has removed all the radioactive elements except tritium, which they say is safe in small amounts. Conversely, if the tanks break, their contents could slosh out in an uncontrolled way.

Fishermen protest

Local fishermen are balking. The water, no matter how clean, has a dirty image for consumers, they say. Despite repeated tests showing most types of fish caught off Fukushima are safe to eat, diners remain hesitant. The fishermen fear any release would sound the death knell for their nascent and still fragile recovery.

“People would shun Fukushima fish again as soon as the water is released,” said Fumio Haga, a drag-net fisherman from Iwaki, a city about 50 kilometers (30 miles) down the coast from the nuclear plant.

And so the tanks remain.

​March 11, 2011

Fall is high season for saury and flounder, among Fukushima’s signature fish. It was once a busy time of year when coastal fishermen were out every morning.

Then came March 11, 2011. A 9 magnitude offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people along Japan’s northeast coast. The quake and massive flooding knocked out power for the cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Three of the six reactors had partial meltdowns. Radiation spewed into the air, and highly contaminated water ran into the Pacific.

Today, only about half of the region’s 1,000 fishermen go out, and just twice a week because of reduced demand. They participate in a fish-testing program.

Lab technicians mince fish samples at Onahama port in Iwaki, pack them in a cup for inspection and record details such as who caught the fish and where. Packaged fish sold at supermarkets carry official “safe” stickers.

Only three kinds of fish passed the test when the experiment began in mid-2012, 15 months after the tsunami. Over time, that number has increased to about 100.

The fish meet what is believed to be the world’s most stringent requirement: less than half the radioactive cesium level allowed under Japan’s national standard and one-twelfth of the U.S. or EU limit, said Yoshiharu Nemoto, a senior researcher at the Onahama testing station.

That message isn’t reaching consumers. A survey by Japan’s Consumer Agency in October found that nearly half of Japanese weren’t aware of the tests, and that consumers are more likely to focus on alarming information about possible health impacts in extreme cases, rather than facts about radiation and safety standards.

Fewer Japanese consumers shun fish and other foods from Fukushima than before, but 1 in 5 still do, according to the survey. The coastal catch of 2,000 tons last year was 8 percent of pre-disaster levels. The deep-sea catch was half of what it used to be, though scientists say there is no contamination risk that far out.

​Not yet psychologically ready

Naoya Sekiya, a University of Tokyo expert on disaster information and social psychology, said that the water from the nuclear plant shouldn’t be released until people are well-informed about the basic facts and psychologically ready.

“A release only based on scientific safety, without addressing the public’s concerns, cannot be tolerated in a democratic society,” he said. “A release when people are unprepared would only make things worse.”

He and consumer advocacy group representative Kikuko Tatsumi sit on a government expert panel that has been wrestling with the social impact of a release and what to do with the water for more than a year, with no sign of resolution.

​More radioactive water

The amount of radioactive water at Fukushima is growing, by 150 tons a day.

The reactors are damaged beyond repair, but cooling water must be constantly pumped in to keep them from overheating. That water picks up radioactivity before leaking out of the damaged containment chambers and collecting in the basements.

There, the volume of contaminated water grows, because it mixes with groundwater that has seeped in through cracks in the reactor buildings. After treatment, 210 tons is reused as cooling water, and the remaining 150 tons is sent to tank storage. During heavy rains, the groundwater inflow increases significantly, adding to the volume.

Another government panel recommended last year that the utility, known as TEPCO, dilute the water up to about 50 times and release about 400 tons daily to the sea — a process that would take almost a decade to complete. Experts note that the release of radioactive tritium water is allowed at other nuclear plants.

Tritium water from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States was evaporated, but the amount was much smaller, and still required 10 years of preparation and three more years to complete.

A new chairman at TEPCO, Takashi Kawamura, caused an uproar in the fishing community in April when he expressed support for moving ahead with the release of the water.

The company quickly backpedaled, and now says it has no plans for an immediate release and can keep storing water through 2020. TEPCO says the decision should be made by the government, because the public doesn’t trust the utility.

“Our recovery effort up until now would immediately collapse to zero if the water is released,” Iwaki abalone farmer Yuichi Manome said.

Some experts have proposed moving the tanks to an intermediate storage area, or delaying the release until at least 2023, when half the tritium that was present at the time of the disaster will have disappeared naturally.
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From: MeNeedIt

Wildfires that swept through Northern California in early October killed 42 people, destroyed hundreds of homes, and caused an estimated $6 billion in damage to the region. The fires have also frozen an income stream the region relies on: tourism. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Brazil’s President Michel Temer is recovering after undergoing a successful angioplasty in three coronary arteries.

The presidential palace said Saturday that at least one stent was implanted in the procedure late Friday. It said Temer was recuperating in a hospital in Sao Paulo.

The 77-year-old president was admitted to the hospital on Friday night to have a coronary catheter inserted. That’s typically a procedure to check for blockages in arteries.

Earlier this year, Temer was diagnosed with a partial coronary obstruction. His office had said he planned to treat it with aspirin and a low-fat diet.

Temer also underwent a urological exam on Friday. Last month, he had surgery to reduce the size of his prostate after doctors diagnosed a urological blockage.
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From: MeNeedIt

A major London bookmaker has suspended betting on whether Prince Harry will marry American actress Meghan Markle in 2018 amid rumors an engagement may be announced soon.

Jessica Bridge of Ladbrokes said Friday that it seems an engagement announcement “is to be confirmed imminently.”

The bookmaker has stopped taking bets on a 2018 royal wedding after Markle was seen shopping in London this week.

The British press has reported that Markle has met in private with Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The couple has been dating for more than a year, and Harry has asked the press to grant them a certain amount of privacy.

Markle is believed to be in the process of moving to London.

Palace officials say they will not comment on the rumors.
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From: MeNeedIt

Chinese street barber Xiong Gaowu deftly scrapes a straight razor along the inside of his customer’s eyelid.

“You should be gentle, very, very gentle,” said Xiong, who performs traditional eyelid shaves at his roadside location in Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan.

Customers swear by the practice of “blade wash eyes,” as it is known in Mandarin, saying they trust Xiong’s skill with the blade.

“No, it’s not dangerous,” said 68-year-old Zhang Tian. “My eyes feel refreshed after shaving and I feel comfortable.”

Xiong, 62, said he learned the technique in the 1980s and serves up to eight customers a week, charging 80 yuan ($12) per shave.

“It was difficult at the beginning, but it became a piece of cake afterwards,” he said.

Risk of infection

The technique appears to unblock moisturizing sebaceous glands along the rim of the eyelid, said Qu Chao, an opthalmologist who works at a nearby hospital in Chengdu.

“Patients will feel their eyes are dry and uncomfortable when the glands are blocked,” she said. “When he is shaving, it is most likely that he is shaving the openings of these glands.”

She said there was a risk of infection if the equipment was not sterilized.

“If he can properly sterilize the tools that he uses, I can still see there is a space for this technique to survive,” Qusaid.

Onlookers unsure

While customers insisted their eyes felt better after a shave, onlookers cringed at the sight of Xiong wielding his razor.

“I am afraid to do it,” said He Yiting, 27, who winced as she watched.
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From: MeNeedIt

The director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau resigned Friday and named his own successor, leading to an open conflict with President Donald Trump, who announced a different person as acting head of the agency later in the day.

That means there are now effectively two acting directors of the CFPB, when there should only be one.

Typically an acting director position would be filled according to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. But Richard Cordray, along with his resignation, elevated Leandra English, who was the agency’s chief of staff, into the deputy director position.

Under the Dodd-Frank Act that created the CFPB, English would become acting director. Cordray, an Obama appointee, specifically cited the law when he moved English, a longtime CFPB employee and ally of his, into that position.

​Trump appoints CFPB critic

Within a few hours, President Donald Trump announced his own acting director of the agency, Mick Mulvaney, who is currently director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mulvaney had widely been expected to be Trump’s temporary pick for the bureau until a permanent one could be found.

Mulvaney is a long-time critic of the CFPB, and has wanted the agency’s authority significantly curtailed. So the difference between English and Mulvaney running the agency would be significant.

Senate confirmation needed

The person nominated to be director of the CFPB requires confirmation by the Senate, and it could be many weeks or months before the person would be able to step into the role permanently. Cordray’s move was aimed at allowing his favored successor to keep running the agency for as long as possible before a Trump appointee is confirmed by the Senate.

Cordray had announced earlier this month that he would resign by the end of this month. There is wide speculation that Cordray, a Democrat, is resigning in order to run for governor in his home state of Ohio.

What CFPB does

The CFPB was created as part of the laws passed following the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. The agency was given a broad mandate to be a watchdog for consumers when they deal with banks and credit card, student loan and mortgage companies, as well as debt collectors and payday lenders. Nearly every American who deals with banks or a credit card company or has a mortgage has been affected by new rules the agency put in place.

Cordray used that mandate aggressively as its first director, which often made him a target for the banking industry’s Washington lobbyists and congressional Republicans who believed Cordray was overreaching in his role, calling the CFPB a “rogue agency.”

As director, he also was able to extract billions of dollars in settlements from banks, debt collectors and other financial services companies for wrongdoing. When Wells Fargo was found to have opened millions of phony accounts for its customers, the CFPB fined the bank $100 million, the agency’s largest penalty to date.
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From: MeNeedIt

Slowly but steadily, the consciousness about the need to protect and preserve the natural environment is rising all over the world. Grassroots initiatives get more coverage, and those involved in them say it feels good to be a part of a beneficial movement. VOA’s George Putic reports on two of the latest initiative in Indonesia.
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From: MeNeedIt

Overhauling welfare was one of the defining goals of Bill Clinton’s presidency, starting with a campaign promise to “end welfare as we know it,” continuing with a bitter policy fight and producing change that remains hotly debated 20 years later.

Now, President Donald Trump wants to put his stamp on the welfare system, apparently in favor of a more restrictive policy. He says “people are taking advantage of the system.”

Trump, who has been signaling interest in the issue for some time, said this past week that he wants to tackle the issue after the tax overhaul he is seeking by the end of the year. He said changes were “desperately needed in our country” and that his administration would soon offer plans.

​Work on new policy begins

For now, the president has not offered details. Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said more specifics were likely early next year. But the groundwork has begun at the White House and Trump has made his interest known to Republican lawmakers.

Paul Winfree, director of budget policy and deputy director of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, told a recent gathering at the conservative Heritage Foundation that he and another staffer had been charged with “working on a major welfare reform proposal.” He said they have drafted an executive order on the topic that would outline administration principles and direct agencies to come up with recommendations.

“The president really wants to lead on this,” Winfree said. “He has delivered that message loud and clear to us. We’ve opened conversations with leadership in Congress to let them know that that is the direction we are heading.”

Trump said in October that welfare was “becoming a very, very big subject, and people are taking advantage of the system.”

​Clinton’s campaign promise

Clinton ran in 1992 on a promise to change the system but struggled to get consensus on a bill, with Democrats divided and Republicans pushing aggressive changes. Four years later, he signed a law that replaced a federal entitlement with grants to the states, placed a time limit on how long families could get aid and required recipients to go to work eventually.

It has drawn criticism from some liberal quarters ever since. During her presidential campaign last year, Democrat Hillary Clinton faced activists who argued that the law fought for by her husband punished poor people.

No evidence of fraud

Kathryn Edin, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who has been studying welfare since the 1990s, said the law’s legacy has been to limit the cash assistance available to the very poor and has never become a “springboard to work.” She questioned what kinds of changes could be made, arguing that welfare benefits are minimal in many states and there is little evidence of fraud in other anti-poverty programs.

Still, Edin said that welfare has “never been popular even from its inception. It doesn’t sit well with Americans in general.”

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at Heritage, said he would like to see more work requirements for a range of anti-poverty programs and stronger marriage incentives, as well as strategies to improve results for social programs and to limit waste. He said while the administration could make some adjustments through executive order, legislation would be required for any major change.

“This is a good system,” he said. “We just need to make this system better.”

Administration officials have suggested they are eyeing anti-poverty programs. Trump’s initial 2018 budget proposal, outlined in March, sought to sharply reduce spending for Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies, among other programs.

Budget director Mick Mulvaney said this year, “If you are on food stamps and you are able-bodied, we need you to go to work.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Retailers worked hard to attract shoppers to stores on Black Friday, offering in-person deals meant to counter the ease of shopping online.

A better economy helped, to be sure, but stores have also tried to improve the store experience and offer better service. They’ve also made a big push toward offering store pickup for online orders.

But online leader Amazon is still the first and only stop for many shoppers. So stores are getting creative with the deals.

Victor Moore said he arrived about two hours ahead of Best Buy’s 8 a.m. opening in Nashville and scored one of the about 14 “doorbuster” deals on a 55-inch Toshiba smart TV for $280, a $220 savings. Moore said he’s done some online shopping, but the allure of in-store-only deals drew him out from behind the computer.

“This is the first successful doorbuster that I’ve ever been a part of,” Moore said. “I’ve been in lines before, but never actually got the items that I was waiting for.”

Annette Peluffo usually avoids Black Friday and buys online. But a $250 gift card reward for buying an iPhone 8 plus at a Target store in Miami was hard to resist. She plans to use the money to buy toys for her nephews and nieces in the coming weeks. “I just came here for the iPhone. I am not going to any other store,” she said.

Not just one day

Still, Black Friday isn’t what it used to be. It has morphed from a single day when people got up early to score doorbusters into a whole month of deals. That has thinned out the crowds. And brick-and-mortar stores face plenty of challenges.

With the jobless rate at a 17-year-low of 4.1 percent and consumer confidence stronger than a year ago, analysts project healthy sales increases for November and December. The National Retail Federation trade group expects sales for that period to at least match last year’s rise of 3.6 percent and estimates online spending and other nonstore sales will rise 11 to 15 percent.

But analysts at management consultancy Bain & Company say Amazon is expected to take half of the holiday season’s sales growth.

Amazon said Friday that Thanksgiving continued to be one of its busiest shopping days, with orders through its app up over 50 percent from a year ago. Overall, online sales on Black Friday rose 18.4 percent to $640 million, from a year ago, as of Friday morning, said Adobe Analytics. Thanksgiving generated a total of $2.87 billion in online spending, up 18.3 percent from a year ago, the data firm said.

About 69 percent of Americans, or 164 million people, intend to shop at some point during the five-day period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, according to a survey released by the NRF. It expected Black Friday to remain the busiest day, with about 115 million people planning to shop then.

“The consumer still likes to go to the stores,” said Charles O’Shea, Moody’s lead retail analyst. “I’ve seen a lot of traffic. Yes, there’s going to be a lot of online shopping. But I think the brick-and-mortar stores have done a nice job so far in attracting shoppers.”

That’s true of Karre Wagner, 20, a University of Minnesota student from St. Paul who was shopping at Mall of America in Bloomington with her boyfriend. She bought a Blu-ray player at the mall’s Best Buy store. She says she started holiday shopping on Black Friday, but she likes to go to the mall to shop.

Hands-on experience

“I like to see what I’m buying. I like to touch it, feel it, know exactly what I’m getting, and part of it is the experience,” she said. “I mean, sitting online is fine, but there’s just something about starting the holiday season with Black Friday.”

The shift to online buying is a major factor as industry analysts watch how the nation’s malls fare this holiday shopping season. The Mall of America in Minnesota says that 2,500 people were in line at the 5 a.m. opening Friday, in line with a year ago. Shoppers started queuing up as early as 5:45 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Jill Renslow, Mall of America’s executive vice president of business development, said stores like Nordstrom, Macy’s and Best Buy were crowded. She said the items that caught shoppers’ attention included voice-activated devices like Amazon Echo, nostalgic toys, clothing and shoes.

Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said customer counts were higher and business was better in the North and Northeast, even with fewer promotions from a year ago.

But much depends on whether people are buying or just looking, and if they’re buying things that aren’t on sale as well.

Chuck Boyd said he and his son arrived at 4 a.m. to be among the first five or six in line at Best Buy in Nashville to get one each of about 14 “doorbuster” deals. He said he prefers online shopping, but his son wanted a TV for his apartment at school, so Boyd came along to get one, too.

“I’d much rather do online,” Boyd said. “But this was the deal you could only do in the store.”
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From: MeNeedIt