On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: How to shop this Cyber Monday
Reviewed’s Kate Ellsworth has some deals and trends to look out for. Plus, protests continue in China against strict COVID-19 policies.
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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I’m Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Monday, the 28th of November 2022. Today, Cyber Monday, plus we look at mortgage fairness and protests continue in China against strict COVID 19 lockdowns.
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Today is Cyber Monday. The annual e-commerce day aims to encourage people to shop online. For more on this year’s deals, I’m joined by Reviewed’s, Kate Ellsworth. Kate, thanks so much for being here.
Kate Ellsworth:
Of course, thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So what exactly is Cyber Monday?
Kate Ellsworth:
So Cyber Monday is essentially the Internet’s answer to Black Friday. Black Friday has always been retail’s biggest holiday, in-store shopping. It’s been massive. But Cyber Monday is what Amazon essentially can do to answer in store sales. So for Cyber Monday, expect pretty much every single website to have bananas deals that you can shop. With of course, the headline being Amazon, the Amazon deals this year are spectacular and they’re just going to continue to be great.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Let’s talk deals. What are your favorite deals this year, Kate, and what are some of the trends you’re looking at?
Kate Ellsworth:
Black Friday is really when people are buying the big stuff. They’re buying TVs and they’re buying appliances. They’re buying things that require a great deal of research and things that they want to get into at a store and actually see what they look like. Does this look nice in my home? Cyber Monday is really anything that you could possibly need in your house or in your life. So what we’re seeing right now are really incredible streaming deals. Like Hulu and HBO Max are offering a $1,99 a month for three months or up to a year. We are seeing some really incredible clothing sales happening during Cyber Monday. Old Navy and Anthropology are both offering 50% off, where Nordstrom is 60% off. Lots of really great designer bag sales going to be happening Monday. We’ve got Kate Spade, it’s 50% off. Tory Burch, 60% off, and Michael Kors 70% off. Lululemon is another clothing store. They never run sales, but they always go all out for Cyber Monday. So there’s a really great Lululemon sale happening now. And then, as far as Amazon is concerned, our top sellers that we’re seeing are Apple products for sure. So iPads, AirPods, Apple Watches. We’re seeing a virtual reality headset from Meta Quest go off. We are also seeing iRobot. iRobot sells the best robot vacuums that we’ve tested in our labs and they’re on sale across every retailer right now, Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and obviously the iRobot website. But the best deals that we’re seeing on those are definitely at Amazon.
Taylor Wilson:
Kate Ellsworth, thanks so much.
Kate Ellsworth:
Thank you so much. Happy shopping!
Taylor Wilson:
You can find links to some great reviewed guides for this Cyber Monday in today’s show notes. They include the best deals by product, by retailer, and the best Cyber Monday deals under a hundred bucks.
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If you’re white or Asian, you have a fair shot at getting a mortgage. But for every other race, mortgage fairness, which is already at low levels, could be getting worse. According to an analysis of 250 million mortgage applications from 1990 to 2021 through the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, fairness for Black and Native American applications may plunge to almost housing crisis levels if historical patterns mirror what happens when interest rates surge. The analysis comes from the company FairPlay AI, and was shared exclusively with USA TODAY.
The analysis also shows that the stimulus money and programs that boosted credit worthiness and a fairer shot at approval for Black home buyers in 2021 has dried up. FairPlay CEO founder and report co-author, Kareem Saleh, told USA TODAY, “We’re in the middle of a mortgage fairness crisis today. That’s not being reported on because it’s not going to show up for another several months until these lenders are forced to report this data sometime in 2023. But the unfairness is happening now.” More than half a century after the Fair Housing Act was signed into law, not only is the home ownership gap between white and Black Americans wider than it was in 1960, but the home ownership rate of Black Americans is expected to be lower in 2040 than it was in 2020. That’s according to a study by the Urban Institute, a Washington based research organization focused on upward mobility and equity.
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Protests continue in some of China’s biggest cities as crowds are pushing back against the country’s strict COVID 19 lockdowns. Three years after the virus began spreading and Wuhan was quarantined, China continues to implement a so-called zero COVID policy. The government regularly confines millions of people to their homes and in some cases workers to their factories during outbreaks. It also requires nearly constant testing. The policy has been credited with minimizing COVID deaths compared to other countries, but critics say some measures go too far. Last week, 10 people died in an apartment building and many believe their rescue was delayed because of excessive lockdown measures. Protestors clashed with police in Shanghai over the weekend and demonstrators even chanted for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to step down. Protests were also reported across Chinese university campuses and in Beijing. Protestors said several people were taken away, forced into vans by police.
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Winter has arrived in Ukraine. Snow covered much of the country over the weekend with temperatures hovering around freezing, all while Ukraine works to return power to its grid as Russia is targeting electricity. Ukraine’s power grid operator said yesterday that electricity producers were supplying around 80% of demand, up from 75% the day before. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko clashed over the weekend. Zelensky said too many residents in the capital were still without power. Klitschko said what he called “political dances” have begun. Pace of the war in Ukraine has slowed over the past few days, but experts say things may pick up again in the next few weeks as the ground freezes and temperatures continue to drop.
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A severe weather system is expected to slam the southern and central US today, about 25 million people will be affected, according to AccuWeather. It’s expected to impact northeastern Texas, northwestern Louisiana, and parts of Arkansas first. Weather could involve everything from strong winds and rain to possible tornadoes. There were no reports of major travel delays during the holiday weekend with fewer than 70 flight cancellations on Saturday. But that could change today due to the severe weather. The storm is next expected to bring snow to the Midwest later this week. And a storm also dropped snow on the Pacific Northwest over the weekend.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. If you haven’t already, you can go back and check out James Brown’s Sunday edition of 5 Things right here on this feed. Be sure to check out those links to review.com for Cyber Monday deals and I’ll be back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.
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