Winter In Gaza, Black Friday Shopping, Third Party Politics

0:02Aid groups warn lives will be lost in Gaza as winter settles in and people don't have protection against harsh elements and seasonal illnesses. Too little aid is coming in, and of that aid, a fraction is really distributed. I'm Rob Schmitz, and this is Up First from NPR News.

0:20It's Black Friday. As more people say they're tightening their budgets, this is expected to be a record-breaking holiday shopping season. So what's motivating people to spend, and who are they actually shopping for? And support for third parties declined in this year's election. I personally did not feel a lot of support from the national party. I felt like there was a lot of antagonism. What's next for people who want options beyond the two-party system? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

0:52This message comes from Dell Technologies. The new Dell PC with Intel Core Ultra helps you fast forward through busy work, leaving more time for U-Time. Get a new Dell PC at dell.com slash ai dash pc. This message comes from NPR sponsor Odoo. Some describe Odoo like a magic beanstalk because it scales with you and is magically affordable. Odoo, exactly what a business needs. Sign up at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Support for NPR and the following message come from GoodRx. Prescriptions keep getting pricier and more of a hassle to fill. It's like the Wild West getting prescription medication these days.

1:36Good thing GoodRx wrangles it for you. From telehealth to wellness tips to easy discounts of up to 80%, GoodRx is riding with you at every step. GoodRx is not insurance, but if you have insurance or Medicare, GoodRx may beat your copay. Save time and money on prescriptions at GoodRx.com slash upfirst. Israel and Lebanon agreed on a ceasefire this week to pause more than a year of fighting. But in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes continue to pound the territory, where more than 40 ,000 people have been killed, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry there. And now people in Gaza have this to contend with.

2:13Winter has arrived, and most families don't have a home or shelter. Joining us to discuss the latest in Gaza is NPR's international correspondent, Aya Batrawi, who's based in Dubai. Hey, Aya. Hi, Rob. So, Aya, temperatures dropped into the 40s Fahrenheit at night in Gaza this week, and it began to rain. How are people surviving? Well, Rob, many people are hardly surviving. And aid groups warn that this winter will claim even more lives from things like malnutrition, hyperthermia, flu, and other less visible consequences of this war. Now, NPR's producer Anas Baba met with families in Gaza who are on the very edge of survival.

2:52He went to a strip of coastline called Moesi after a night of rain, and he found families covered in seawater. The few things that they owned, some clothes, pots, and pans, were buried in the sand by lashing wind and rain. Now, for months, thousands of families were forced to live here right at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea because most of Gaza is under Israeli military evacuation order, leaving just this stretch of coast all that's left. That sounds terrible. I mean, what do people have to protect themselves with? Well, not very much. I mean, families were able to survive the grueling summer in flimsy tents, but winter is proving impossible.

3:29Nidala Abdelkattati's tent was made out of used flower bags and some wooden sticks, and he tried to cover it with extra tarping to prepare for winter, but then this happened.

3:42So he tells Anas that his children erupted into screams around 2 in the morning. Waves had crashed into their tent, pulling their blankets and things out to sea. And he says his kids were being swallowed by the sea and being pulled by the tide too. And his three-year-old daughter was crying all through the night after he pulled her ashore. And with no idea where they can go next, he says, where are our human rights? So, Aya, why is it that people don't have proper shelter when aid groups have had months to prepare for winter? Well, I asked aid workers this question, and here was the answer. Too little aid is coming in, and of that aid, a fraction is really distributed.

4:19So that's Jan Egeland. He's the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. Now, this is the main group in Gaza in charge of shelters and tents. He was in Gaza this month, and he says that the destruction from airstrikes has left the entire territory in ruins. Now, Israel's military says it is facilitating a humanitarian response to prepare for winter in Gaza, that it has allowed tons of aid in. But Egeland says at the rate Israel is allowing in tents and other aid, It will take at least two years to get the supplies in needed just to cover people for this winter. And Rob Eglin says of the few hundred tents they have been able to get into Gaza, many are damaged by the time they arrive, or they end up stolen by armed gangs that have sprung up near Gaza's border with Israel.

5:00And these looters attacked a food aid convoy of around 100 U.N. trucks last week, taking everything. This just sounds like a completely dismal situation. What else do you know about the attack on the aid truck that you just mentioned? So this was the biggest looting of U.N. aid anywhere in the world. And armed gangs are taking advantage of the chaos right now in Gaza to attack these trucks. And what that's done is it's driven up prices at the same time that bakeries are shutting down because they don't have flour. People are selling their clothes, their winter jackets and shoes to buy food. And the World Food Program, which runs these bakeries, also had to suspend giving out parcels.

5:34And all this is happening while tents, flour and blankets are sitting in warehouses and on trucks just outside Gaza. That's NPR's Aya Batrawi. Aya, thank you so much for bringing this to us. Thanks, Rob.

5:54We are officially in the busiest shopping season of the year. It is Black Friday, which can mean joy or chaos for shoppers, and financial pressure and chaos for retailers. What's in store for our budgets and the U.S. economy? NPR's Alina Seljuk is here to tell us. Alina, good morning. Hello, hello. So let's start with the big picture. How are shoppers feeling about the economy and holiday spending this year? Well, people are not feeling great about prices, but they are shopping. They are spending. We are likely in for another record holiday shopping season. Already so far just this month, online shoppers alone have spent almost 10 % more this year compared to last year.

6:35That seems like a lot. It's a lot. And that's just as of Wednesday, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks online transactions. So is that because the prices are higher? So, I mean, we're spending more, but we're buying less? I think that's part of it. But there is more to the story. For this Black Friday weekend, retailers are also expecting huge turnout, a record number of people shopping. And of those people, there's a growing group saying they plan to spend more this year than they did last year. Which, you know, how do you get more people shopping when more people say they're tightening their budgets?

7:09And the answer is deals. When people feel financially squeezed, to have several days known for discounts is a big draw. So deals. Are these deals expected to be really good this year? You know, that's the perennial question. And the answer is always it depends. Deals are not good enough for a lot of shoppers I talk to who say prices are too high to begin with and any discount is simply not enough. But then you have this weird calendar thing. Thanksgiving this year is quite late in November, so there are actually five fewer shopping days till Christmas, which means less time for retailers to sell you what they want to sell you, which has some experts predicting maybe rolling sales that stores might drop prices just to clear those shelves.

7:52So what are people actually buying, Alina? What are the most popular things this year? You know, it's a lot of classics this year. Top toys are expected to include Legos, Hot Wheels, Barbies, slime kits for adults, Dyson hair devices, fitness trackers, gaming consoles, and pickleball paddles, which is a new classic. And one thing came up in a survey by Circona. It's a market research firm. They found almost two-thirds of shoppers saying that higher costs of food and bills, like insurance especially, it has people changing how they shop. People are maybe buying fewer gifts, cheaper gifts, or buying off-brand stuff.

8:32And there's another curious element. There's one category that shifts depending on economic vibes. Okay, what is that? And that is whether or not you are buying presents for yourself. It's like that famous Parks and Rec scene. Three words for you. Treat. Yo. Self. Clothes. Treat yourself. Fragrances. Treat yourself. Massages. Treat yourself. So there's this annual survey done by Deloitte that actually found people plan to buy more gifts for themselves this year compared to last year. The sum on average is about$44 more. And the reasons could be all kinds. This could be folks who are more well-off, so maybe they're not really budgeting.

9:11Or it could be, you know, that oldest Black Friday trick in the book, which is, I got to get it because it's on sale. Merry Christmas to me. That is NPR's Alina Selyuk. Alina, thank you. Thank you.

9:30President-elect Donald Trump has run for president in the past three elections. And in 2024, third-party presidential candidates got fewer votes than at any other point in the Trump era of presidential politics. This is despite widespread dissatisfaction with Republican and Democratic nominees for much of the campaign cycle. NPR's Stephen Fowler has been covering third parties this year for us, and he reports Donald Trump himself is actually a big reason for that decline. Good morning, Stephen. Good morning. So Trump won the popular vote but did not clear 50 percent. How many votes did third-party campaigns earn in this election cycle?

10:08So not that many, relatively speaking, Rob. Out of about 154 million ballots cast, less than 2 % went to someone not named Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Green Party nominee Jill Stein did the best with just about 800 ,000 votes. Then came Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who actually removed his name from most every competitive swing state ballot, literally told people, do not vote for me. but he earned slightly fewer votes than that. The Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver earned just about 640 ,000 votes, which is notable considering the Libertarian Party is the third largest political party and usually the most common alternative.

10:46Wow. So that's a sharp decline since 2016 when the Libertarian Party earned 3 % of the vote. What happened there? Well, none of this is actually surprising when you look under the hood at how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Libertarian Party apparatus both shifted to support Trump and oppose Democrats the closer we got to the election. At the Libertarian Party convention this summer, both RFK and Trump spoke. They tried to court the party's endorsement and favor. The party instead nominated Chase Oliver, a gay anti-war activist, more on the progressive end of the libertarian spectrum. When I talked to Oliver earlier this month, he said Kennedy's decision to leave the race also took a lot of interest in third party candidates along with him.

11:29Plus, he had to deal with his own party's politics that took a hard right turn towards Trump. I personally did not feel a lot of support from the National Party. I felt like there was a lot of antagonism, particularly because a lot of wanted to throw in our votes for Trump because he made a lot of promises to libertarians. And one of those promises, Rob, was to put a libertarian in his cabinet. I mean, so far, there are no libertarians in Trump's next cabinet, but there is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's been tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Is his appointment a victory for voters interested in third-party options moving forward?

12:02Well, some of the libertarians call it a win, though RFK is not a libertarian. Beyond Kennedy, though, Chase Oliver says Trump's picks show his compatriots have been bamboozled. I'm going to say right now, based on his foreign policy picks and cabinet picks so far, not paying out for the libertarians, especially in terms of foreign policy. We are an anti-war, anti-interventionist party. The reality is Trump picking RFK Jr. is a mark of loyalty for Kennedy dropping out of the race and endorsing him. It's also an acknowledgment of the sizable overlap and the shared ideology between Trump's base and RFK's base around health.

12:39But in some ways, it does validate the idea that it is possible to exist outside of the two-party system, have your voice be heard, and gain concessions from whoever ultimately ends up being in power. That is NPR's Stephen Fowler in Atlanta. Stephen, thank you. Thank you.

13:20and Lalique Ross. Our executive producer is Erica Aguilar. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent, and our technical director is Nisha Hainas. Join us again tomorrow.

13:44This message comes from Mint Mobile. From the gas pump to the grocery store, inflation is everywhere. So Mint Mobile is offering premium wireless starting at just$15 a month. To get your new phone plan for just$15, go to mintmobile.com slash switch. This message comes from Paka. Everyone's got that one hoodie they practically live in, but the Paka hoodie, it's on another level. Softer than cashmere, warmer than wool, and still breathable, this alpaca fiber hoodie goes from airport to mountain trail to couch without missing a beat. Right now, grab a pack of hoodie and score a free pair of Alpaca Cruise Socks.

14:23Moisture-wicking, odor-resistant, and guaranteed for life. Level up your hoodie game at go.pakaapparel.com slash NPR, code NPR. This message comes from Mint Mobile. If you're tired of spending hundreds on big wireless bills, bogus fees, and free perks, Mint Mobile might be right for you with plans starting from$15 a month. Shop plans today at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three-month five-gigabyte plan required. New customer offer for first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.