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Thanksgiving Weekend Sales, at Stores and Online, Slide 11 Percent - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/business/thanksgiving-weekend-sales-at-stores-and-online-slide-11-percent.html

Have Americans finally had enough of Black Friday madness?

Sales, both in stores and online, from Thanksgiving through the weekend were estimated to have dropped 11 percent, to $50.9 billion, from $57.4 billion last year, according to preliminary survey results released Sunday by the National Retail Federation. Sales fell despite many stores’ opening earlier than ever on Thanksgiving Day.

And though many retailers offered the same aggressive discounts online as they did in their stores, the web failed to attract more shoppers or spending over the four-day holiday weekend than it did last year, the group said. The average person who shopped over the weekend spent $159.55 at online retailers, down 10.2 percent from last year

Note que pour certains, ça ressemble à une révélation…

The results could show that “there are a significant number of Americans out there for whom the recession is not yet over,” said Matthew Shay, the president and chief executive [of the National Retail Federation].

Russian Money Suspected Behind Fracking Protests - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/russian-money-suspected-behind-fracking-protests.html

Vlasa Mircia, the mayor of this destitute village in eastern Romania, thought he had struck it rich when the American energy giant Chevron showed up here last year and leased a plot of land he owned for exploratory shale gas drilling.

But the encounter between big business and rural Romania quickly turned into a nightmare. The village became a magnet for activists from across the country opposed to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Violent clashes broke out between the police and protesters. The mayor, one of the few locals who sided openly with Chevron, was run out of town, reviled as a corrupt sellout in what activists presented as a David versus Goliath struggle between impoverished farmers and corporate America.
(…)
“Everything that has gone wrong is from Gazprom,” Mr. Mircia said.
(…)
Before stepping down in September as NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen gave voice to this alarm with remarks in London that pointed a finger at Russia and infuriated environmentalists.

“Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called nongovernmental organizations — environmental organizations working against shale gas — to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas,” Mr. Rasmussen said. He presented no proof and said the judgment was based on what NATO allies had reported.

Typical #hearsay !

Old Tactic Gets New Use: Public Schools Separate Girls and Boys - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/education/single-sex-education-public-schools-separate-boys-and-girls.html

In one third-grade classroom, the walls are bordered by cheetah and zebra prints, bright pink caddies hold pencils and glue sticks, and a poster at the front lists rules, including “Act pretty at all times!”

Next door, cutouts of racecars and pictures of football players line the walls, and a banner behind the teacher’s desk reads “Coaches Corner.”

The students in the first class: girls. Next door: boys.

Single-sex education, common in the United States until the 19th century, when it fell into deep disfavor except in private or parochial schools, is on the rise again in public schools as educators seek ways to improve academic performance, especially among the poor. Here at Charles Drew Elementary School outside Fort Lauderdale, about a quarter of the classes are segregated by sex on the theory that differences between boys and girls can affect how they learn and behave.

#c'est_pour_leur_bien