Black Friday: how Australians can take advantage of the US shopping season

America’s Black Friday sales have become a global event thanks to online shopping and Australian buyers are among the most eager when it comes to finding a US bargain.

Black Friday marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the US with retailers enticing consumers into stores with heavy discounts for one day only.

The sales bonanza is on November 25 (or 2.00pm Saturday AEST), the first Friday after Thanksgiving in the US, but some Australian retailers are using the event to offer deals to local consumers.

If you are looking for a bargain, the internet will be full of opportunities for the canny shopper – and American retail heavyweights are the best place to start.

Sites such as Amazon and eBay have been favourites for Australians looking for a deal, offering up discounts on big-ticket items.

Apple is saying Friday “can’t come soon enough“. Macy’s, Sea Folly, Asos, Nike, Urban Outfitters and Patagonia are just a few of the other major brands promising deals for Australian shoppers.

To find Australia’s top Black Friday deals, websites such as Finder and Cuponation list the country’s best discounts.

Buyer beware

But before the rush to compete with Americans for cheap TVs and Disney toys, one expert has a word of warning for Australian consumers.

Deakin University marketing lecturer Michael Callaghan says buyers should pay attention to the fine print.

“There’s all sort of regulations with telecommunications and electrical equipment, and you might get a very good deal online but it turns out it’s not usable or it’s illegal when you get it in the country,” Mr Callaghan said.

In a bid to keep online sales in Australia, homegrown sites are piggybacking off the shopping holiday with virtually every Australian retailer competing under the Black Friday brand.

“Black Friday is being used as a brand to attract consumers that would have been buying overseas,” Mr Callaghan said.

“If you’re a retailer and you’re not looking at your calendar with a view to have some sort of sale special for this period, then you are going to fall behind your competitors.”

Why Black Friday sales?

The term Black Friday was coined by the Philadelphia Police Department to describe the chaos from the crowds of people and traffic that surfaced on the day after Thanksgiving to take advantage of sales.

It originated as a regular event in the United States in the 1960s, but has quickly become a pre-Christmas sales bonanza for international online consumers.

And according to Mr Callaghan, Australian consumers are some of the most savvy consumers in the world and have been stealing away bargains from US retailers for years.

“The phenomenon started with innovative consumers that were looking for the best deals around three to five years ago, when a lot of Australians started buying on Amazon.com and few other overseas sites offering Black Friday deals,” he said.

“Australians are very savvy consumers and I think it was Australians that largely started buying at Black Friday sales overseas because they knew the value of a good deal.”

Other discount dates

Retailers found that as Black Friday became a multi-media event, they weren’t getting the sales they wanted in the one-day affair.

What followed was the creation of three more discount dates to take advantage of prior to Christmas – starting with Cyber Monday.

Mr Callaghan said the pre-Christmas sales were more logical for consumers, allowing them to buy before the holiday than wait for Australia’s traditional in-store Boxing Day sales.

Another important date: July 1, 2017

The government announced in this year’s federal budget that it will start charging goods and service tax (GST) on foreign businesses that sell in Australia online.

Currently, the GST only applies to online purchases worth more than $1000.

From July 1, 2017, the Australian Tax Office will (attempt to) apply the 10 per cent consumer tax to all online sellers with annual turnover of $75,000 or more.

This is a tax regulation, so there is no need for the government to pass any legislation to make it happen. There’s no change the Senate can block it.

So, perhaps another reason to get in early, before prices rise?

Trump picks South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to be US ambassador to UN

President-elect Donald Trump has picked South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, the transition team announced Wednesday.
Haley, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, has already carved out a legacy for herself, serving as her home state's first female and first minority governor.
Once considered a potential vice president pick, Trump's tapping of Haley, 44, further raises the profile of a rising star in a party whose leaders are increasingly attempting to attract more minorities and women.
In a statement released Wednesday, Haley said the US "faces enormous challenges" both at home and internationally. She cited a "sense of duty" in accepting Trump's offer.
"When the President believes you have a major contribution to make to the welfare of our nation, and to our nation's standing in the world, that is a calling that is important to heed," Haley said. "The second is a satisfaction with all that we have achieved in our state in the last six years and the knowledge that we are on a very strong footing."
Haley was also among those being considered by Trump for secretary of state. Her pick leaves former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and a handful of others among those still in the running for the top diplomat position.
Haley will keep serving as governor until the Senate confirms her nomination.
"We still have much to do in South Carolina, and my commitment to the people of our state will always remain unbreakable, both while I continue to hold this office, and thereafter," she said in a statement.

How to cook a perfect Thanksgiving turkey

                                                                                    Recipe for roast turkey

The day before, rub the skin of the bird with oil and sprinkle it inside and out with salt and pepper. Refrigerate it overnight without covering it (this helps crisp the skin). You’ll need a meat thermometer and a pan large enough to hold the bird with space around it. A rack is nice, but not essential. Set the bird on a bed of carrots and onions and roast according to the accompanying chart. Let the turkey sit at room temperature for 45 minutes before roasting, and for 30 minutes after roasting.

1 whole turkey (10 to 25 pounds)
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 onions, quartered
2 lemons, quartered
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, or more if needed
1 bunch fresh rosemary, chopped
1 bunch fresh thyme, chopped
1 bunch fresh oregano, chopped
2 carrots, quartered
2 cups water

1. Set the oven at 325 degrees. Remove the giblets from both the neck and vent ends of the bird. Wipe the bird inside and out with paper towels but do not wash it. Sprinkle the inside with salt and pepper and tuck a handful of onion and lemon pieces into the cavity.

2. Using your hands, rub the bird with oil and sprinkle it all over with salt, pepper, and half the herbs, pressing them into the skin. Set the remaining onions, lemons, and carrots in the roasting pan. Add the turkey, breast side up. With kitchen twine, tie the legs to the bird. Add water to the pan.

3. While the turkey roasts, baste it occasionally with the juices in the pan. Turn the roasting pan from back to front once during roasting. If your bird is on the small side, you can roast it breast side down for the first hour, then turn it breast-side up to finish cooking. Or roast it breast up the entire time, covering it loosely with a foil tent once it starts to brown. Roast (see turkey roasting times chart below) until a meat thermometer inserted into three places in the bird registers 165 degrees (see Page G4). If the turkey reaches the correct temperature sooner than you expected (this happens often), remove it from the oven and set it in a warm place. If it isn’t brown enough, turn the oven up to 400 degrees for the last 20 minutes.

4. Lift the bird from the pan and transfer it to a cutting board. Let the turkey rest in a warm place for at least 30 minutes before carving.

University of Guelph student dies in residence Tuesday morning

The student lived in Prairie Hall, part of U of G's South residence

A University of Guelph student died in a campus residence Tuesday morning, according to a release from the university.
"We are deeply saddened by this news, and my heart goes out to the family and friends of this student," said University of Guelph president Franco Vaccarino in a release.

The student lived in Prairie Hall, which is a part of U of G's South Residence. The cause of the student's death is still unknown. Guelph police are investigating, and according to the university, there is no risk to public safety.

"As a community, there is no greater struggle than losing one of our own, and we will ensure that students affected by this tragedy receive support and assistance," said Vaccarino.

The student's family has been notified. The student's name hasn't been released to the public

Manchester City stun Barcelona in breathless Champions League victory

It was a thrilling, breathless night, full of everything that football at its highest level should be, and when it was all done Manchester City could reflect on the kind of result they have craved since the bags of gold arrived from Abu Dhabi and the story of this club changed forever. They had not only beaten Barcelona but they had done it the hard way, coming from behind, and they have spent so long waiting for a victory of this magnitude it automatically takes its place as their most gratifying in the Champions League to date.

Any success against a side featuring Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suárez has to be cherished but perhaps the most satisfying part for Pep Guardiola’s team is what it showed about their competitive courage and the shift in mentality compared with City’s previous attempts to overcome perhaps the most beautifully constructed club side there has ever been.

City played with a level of self-belief that has never been witnessed in these assignments. No one could accuse them of being cowed in the presence of the team Guardiola described as “the best” and there has never been a night when so many of their A-listers have reached the point of maximum expression all at once. Kevin De Bruyne can reflect on an evening when he outshone a four-time Ballon d’Or winner. Ilkay Gündogan, with two of the goals, had his finest game yet in City’s colours and, finally, after six attempts, this fiercely ambitious club knows what it is like to confront Barcelona and do the tormenting rather than the other way around.

True, there were long, difficult periods when Messi, Neymar and Suárez bewitched them with their speed, thought and movement. Nicolás Otamendi still does not seem to comprehend that the most accomplished centre-halves stay on their feet and Guardiola’s first comment in his post-match press conference was to find fault with the team’s first-half display. Yet City had their own attacking trident in De Bruyne, David Silva and Sergio Agüero and, ultimately, those three wore down their opponents. De Bruyne’s free-kick to make it 2-1 was a peach but his through ball in the buildup to Gündogan’s second goal was another reminder of his exquisite ability. Raheem Sterling added his own menace and, as a test of nerve, Guardiola’s men passed with distinction.

More than anything, they did not seem afflicted by the inferiority complex that has shaped previous encounters. They rode their luck at times, most notably when the ball came off Agüero’s hand before the final goal. There was a period in the first half when the game threatened to run away from them – “we were really in trouble,” Guardiola reflected – and Messi’s goal, following a stunning breakaway, was not the only time the home side left the suspicion they still lack a certain amount of defensive knowhow.

Yet City deserve immense acclaim for refusing to buckle and they can also look back to the moment, 11 minutes in, when the Hungarian referee, Viktor Kassai, made the kind of mistake that felt incongruous for a night of football royalty. Kassai was badly mistaken to think Sterling had tried to deceive him into awarding a penalty and City would have gone away with legitimate grievances if they had lost the game from that point.

Television replays confirmed Samuel Umtiti had clamped his left foot on Sterling. It was a clear penalty and for a while the soundtrack to the night was of raucous disgruntlement. Too much was happening, however, for the crowd to linger on the injustice and, if nothing else, that incident might also have encouraged the home side to think Barcelona were vulnerable at the back.

Guardiola had talked beforehand about Barça’s habit of “provoking mistakes” from their opponents but now it was happening the other way around, too.

“In the first 38 minutes we saw the best team in the world,” Guardiola said of his former club. But everything changed with the calamitous pass that Sergi Roberto subsequently aimed across his own half. Agüero was first to the loose ball, turning it to the right for Sterling to drive into the penalty area. Sterling decided against shooting and his pass across the six-yard area was weighted perfectly for Gündogan to turn in the equaliser.

Suddenly the home side looked reinvigorated, with De Bruyne becoming increasingly influential after the interval. The Belgian’s free-kick was the outstanding moment of the night, aimed expertly into the top corner of Marc-André ter Stegen’s goal, and he was superb during those exhilarating passages when City attacked from every angle and there was the rare sight of a Barça team looking rattled in the extreme.

There were still plenty of occasions when City’s opponents showed, in flashes, their attacking brilliance and an almighty scare for the home team when John Stones and Otamendi both reminded us of their occasional frailties only for André Gomes, teed up by Suárez, to thud his shot against the crossbar. That, however, came at a point of the game when City were creating chance after chance. Agüero was fortunate not to be penalised for the handball that left Gündogan with a simple finish for his second goal but it was also true that Barça suffered during the second half in a way that is seldom seen. That alone made it feel like a special occasion.

The downside for City was Fernandinho’s injury and they will have to learn they cannot defend as recklessly as they did for Messi’s goal, stemming from an attack of their own that left seven of Guardiola’s players, including three-quarters of their defence, stranded at the other end of the pitch. Overall, however, there was the sense that City had reached new heights. They looked like a team with nothing to be afraid of.

Scary Dogs! Rigged Machines! Votes From the Grave! This Election, Paranoia Reigns

There was the myth of Trump supporters sending wild dogs to scare off black voters in Ohio. In Texas, some of the voting booths supposedly became possessed, switching ballots cast for Donald J. Trump to Hillary Clinton. And then there was the amateur genealogist said to be committing voter fraud by jotting down names found on gravestones.


A week before Election Day, warnings of a rigged vote, amplified largely by Mr. Trump himself, have led to anxiety across the country about the integrity of the electoral process. In some instances the concerns appear to be justified, but many have resulted from simple glitches or a heightened sense of suspicion. In any case, a year of extraordinary political polarization has left voters increasingly wary about their fellow citizens and the credibility of the country’s method for picking a president.

“I think there’s definitely more paranoia this year,” said Pamela Smith, the president of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that promotes the integrity of elections. “There has been a lot of talk about election rigging. If you think an election is going to be rigged, then you look at everything through that filter.”

Many of the rumors of rigged votes have taken on a life of their own on social media, where conspiracy theories flourish and accusations fly. The reports have left election officials and the local authorities scrambling to verify claims of mischief and, often, to offer reality checks.

One of the most fiercely contested battlegrounds, Ohio, has been a hotbed of suspicion. Over the weekend, a political activist with more than 30,000 Twitter followers wrote a post claiming that Trump supporters with dogs were threatening black voters who went to the polls early in Cincinnati. The post sent his followers into a frenzy, but local officials said the man, Jim Wallis, was making a false claim. The message was later deleted.

“I saw a couple of Seeing Eye dogs, one miniature horse wearing a campaign sign and another rather large but friendly dog on a leash,” Tim Burke, the chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Elections, told The Cincinnati Enquirer.

In Butler County, Ohio, Leah Edwards notified the authorities about voter fraud when she saw a man taking notes and photographing gravestones at a cemetery. “I can’t think of any other reason a person would be doing this,” she wrote on the Facebook page of the Butler County Sheriff’s Office.

A man claiming that he was the one later detained at the cemetery, Frank Flack, posted a reply that assailed Ms. Edwards for being irresponsible. He said he had been photographing grave markers for a “find a grave” memorial project.

“Sorry to dispel your conspiracy theory on voter fraud,” Mr. Flack wrote. “If you would have stopped and talked to me, I could have let you know that I am a registered Republican!”

Texas is notorious for its skepticism about the system, and early voting there spurred an uproar about glitches with voting machines. Voters in several counties complained that they had voted for a straight Republican ticket, only to see the box for Mrs. Clinton highlighted. The anecdotes ricocheted around conservative corners of the web, leading to urgent warnings from the likes of Sean Hannity and the site Infowars.

The notion of a widespread conspiracy was debunked by Nancy Tanner, a judge in Potter County, Tex., who blamed user error for most of the malfunctions. “As everyone knows, our fingers don’t always do what our brain tells them,” Judge Tanner said.

Voter registration problems in North Carolina and other states have led to confusion and long lines. With talk of rigging so pervasive, anything out of the ordinary can be taken as potentially untoward. When faulty machines would not accept ballots in Boone, N.C., Allison Critcher was asked by a poll worker to slip her ballot through a little metal slot on the ballot box. She felt that something might be fishy.

“They did not, however, explain what they were going to do with our ballots, which made me a little wary,” said Ms. Critcher, who voted in late October.

Not all of the early-voting problems reported this year are figments of imagination. Kristen Clarke, the executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said that her organization’s national hotline for reporting problems at the polls had received about 50,000 calls this year, and that there had been more complaints about voter intimidation than in 2012.

“We have observed a more fevered pitch in the kinds of calls that we received from voters,” Ms. Clarke said. “Most certainly this is an election cycle fueled by toxic rhetoric and one in which anxiety levels are higher.”

The local authorities have been taking action against people who may have committed voter fraud, and civil rights groups are pushing back against what they say are acts of disenfranchisement.

A woman from Des Moines was arrested last week and accused of casting early ballots for Mr. Trump in two Iowa locations. In Miami-Dade County, Fla., a 74-year-old elections employee was arrested after co-workers said she had tampered with ballots sent by mail.

On Monday, the North Carolina N.A.A.C.P. filed a federal lawsuit to try to stop state and local election boards from canceling the registrations of thousands of black voters.

Voters appear to be more suspicious of one another this year, said Wendy Weiser, the director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. But Ms. Weiser said she did not expect voter fraud to be more prevalent than in other general elections. In fact, Mr. Trump’s loud assertion that the election is rigged may have the effect of making irregularities even rarer.

“One of the silver linings is that people are even more prepared,” Ms. Weiser said. “There’s undoubtedly more attention being paid to what’s going on in polling places.”

For his part, Mr. Trump appears content to keep the integrity of the voting process in doubt. At a rally in Colorado on Sunday, Mr. Trump suggested that people were most likely voting multiple times across the country and that their votes were probably not being counted properly.

“I know they’re all saying, ‘Of course, everything is so legitimate,’” Mr. Trump said. “Perhaps I’m a more skeptical person.”

The View From Two Sides of the Standing Rock Front Lines

The prairie is seething. Work crews are plugging ahead on the 1,170-mile Dakota Access oil pipeline, inching closer and closer to a river crossing that activists view as a critical juncture in their monthslong fight against a $3.7 billion project that they say will threaten water supplies and that Native Americans say violates their right to sacred land.

Last week, clashes erupted between lines of law enforcement officers and protesters. The air was filled with pepper spray and black smoke from burning tires. The authorities arrested 142 people during what local sheriffs denounced as a riot and protesters said was a peaceful demonstration.

For months now, Mekasi Horinek and Deputy Jon Moll have lived these demonstrations, day in and day out. But they fall on opposite sides of the front lines, reflecting a community that is as divided as, well, oil and water.

‘Don’t You Drink Water, Too?’

Mekasi Horinek, activist

Mr. Horinek sees the pipeline protest from the rolling prairies, his arms locked with fellow Native American activists to sing and pray. He sees tribe members standing up to years of racist slights and torn-up treaties. He sees prayer circles, pipe ceremonies and a unifying fight for clean water.

He is the son of Ponca Tribe activists from Oklahoma who took him to rallies when he was just a baby. Mr. Horinek, 43, remembers riding on his father’s and uncle’s shoulders as they marched with Cesar Chavez in the California fruit-pickers’ protests.

“I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t being taught to stand up for human rights, native rights,” he says.

He came to North Dakota for a cause. Here is how he describes that cause now:

“What I said to the police officers when I was sitting down in a prayer circle, I asked them, ‘Don’t you drink water, too?’” he says. “Don’t your children drink water? We’re here to protect the water. This isn’t just a native issue. We’re here protecting the water, not only for our families and our children, but for your families and your children. For every ranch and every farm along the Missouri River.”

Law enforcement officials have accused the protesters of rioting and attacking pipeline contractors, and they have arrested more than 400. But Mr. Horinek says the protesters — water protectors, they call themselves — are not the bad guys. He tells a story:

Last week, he and 49 other demonstrators decided to link arms and sit together by the overturned earth where the Dakota Access pipeline is slated to go. They were on what the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe considers sacred ancestral land, but from a legal perspective, it is owned by the pipeline company. So sheriff’s officers arrested them for trespassing.

Mr. Horinek says he and the others, including his 68-year-old mother, were zip-tied and driven to the county seat, Mandan. He says he had bruises from being tied up so tightly, and from being thrown to the ground and pinned during his arrest. His mother and some of the older people were stiff and sore for days, he says.

Officials wrote numbers on their arms — his was 4838, he says — and held them overnight in cages in a parking garage, men and women separated by a plastic tarp. They spent the night singing and praying.

“No matter what they do to us, they’re not going to strip our dignity, our honor,” Mr. Horinek says. “These are things we hold in our DNA, and we’ll never lose.”

The next morning, he bailed himself out of jail with money he had been keeping in his wallet in case he got arrested, and headed back to the camp.

‘Folks Are Terrified’

Jon Moll, sheriff’s deputy

Deputy Moll sees the pipeline protest through a bug-spattered windshield, his patrol car slipping along North Dakota’s gravel county roads. He sees out-of-state protesters occupying federal land and trespassing on private ranches. He sees tense confrontations, lost days off and threats to his fellow officers.

He is the son of a Lutheran pastor, who moved the family from Ottertail, Minn., to Philadelphia. Mr. Moll, 38, remembers learning about the diversity of this country as the only white child in his class.

“I’m the son of farmers, and we worked hard for everything we have,” he says.

He came to Morton County, N.D., for work. Here is how he describes that work now:

“Sometimes the job sucks, but you do your job. It’s definitely been a strain. Every time we’ve been out, we’ve seen weapons. People screaming down this road at 100 miles per hour. Trespassing and squatting on federal property. If I wanted to build a house there, I’d have U.S. marshals knocking on my door, saying, ‘No, you can’t do that.’”

Activists have accused law enforcement of needlessly roughing up and pepper-spraying demonstrators, and of responding to their sit-ins and marches with militarized force. But Mr. Moll says the deputies are not the bad guys. He tells a story:

Earlier this fall, about 70 demonstrators rallied at one of the ranches being bisected by the pipeline. Ranchers have grown angry and impatient with the protests and regularly come up to Deputy Moll when he gases up his car to ask him when it will all just be over. He says he sees the Standing Rock Sioux as neighbors and respects them, but he has a harsher view of what he sees as hard-core protesters from outside North Dakota. “Folks are terrified,” he says.

On this day, officials decided to move in and arrest the protesters for trespassing. As they did, some in the crowd started to yell, “Bring out your horses!” to fellow activists who had parked their trailers in a field of winter wheat. From his patrol car, Mr. Moll says, he saw one of the horses charge directly at a line of officers, and he hit the gas and raced over to cut off the horse as another officer raised a shotgun loaded with beanbag rounds at the rider.

“You run a 1,000-pound animal at a 200-pound person, that’s a deadly threat,” Mr. Moll said. “They were willing to use the threat of the horse against us, all the while screaming, ‘We’re peaceful protesters.’”

He has been working around the protests almost every day since, and expects to be on straight through to Thanksgiving.