• Black Friday got off to its earliest start ever as the nation's shoppers put down their turkey and headed straight to the malls.
• Stores typically open in the wee hours of the morning on the day after Thanksgiving that's named Black Friday because it's traditionally when they turn a profit for the year. In fact, generations of shoppers have made Black Friday rituals of going to bed early after munching on turkey and pumpkin pie so that they can head out to stores early the next day.
• But Black Friday openings have crept earlier and earlier over the past few years as stores have experimented with ways to compete with online rivals like Amazon.com that can offer holiday shopping deals at any time and on any day. And this year, crowds gathered across the country as stores such as Target and Toys R Us opened on Thanksgiving evening, while retailers from Macy's to Best Buy opened their doors at midnight on Black Friday.
• About 11,000 shoppers were in lines wrapped around Macy's flagship store in New York City's Herald Square when it opened. Joan Riedewald, a private aide for the elderly, and her four children ages six to 18, where among them. By the time they showed up at the department store, Riedewalde had already spent about $100 at Toys R Us and planned to spend another $500 at Macy's before heading to Old Navy.
• "I only shop for sales," she said.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- When black voters gave President Barack Obama 93 percent support on Election Day in defiance of predictions that they might sit it out this year, black leaders breathed a collective sigh of relief.
• That encouraged those leaders to try to leverage more attention from both Obama and Congress. Although they waver over how much to demand from the president -- particularly in light of defeated GOP challenger Mitt Romney's assertion

(Continued on page 26)