(NEW YORK) — A spacewalk by two U.S. astronauts was called off on Tuesday morning due to the risk of space debris, NASA announced in a statement.
NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Thomas Marshburn were scheduled to leave through the International Space Station’s Quest airlock at 5:30 a.m. EST to replace a part on the space station, according to a NASA blogpost.
“Marshburn and Barron will work at the Port 1 truss structure, where the antenna is mounted. The antenna recently lost its ability to send signals to Earth via NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System,” NASA said in the blog.
However, four hours before the scheduled spacewalk, the ISS tweeted that the repair would be delayed until more information was available.
The source of the debris hasn’t been confirmed. Two weeks ago Russia had conducted an anti-satellite test that created a “dangerous” debris field in the orbit.
The spacewalk was scheduled to last 6 1/2 hours and be Barron’s first and Marshburn’s fifth spacewalk, NASA said.
(NEW YORK) — Julie Anne Genter, a Green Party member of the New Zealand Parliament, is a keen cyclist who used her skills to bike to the hospital in the middle of the night while in labor Sunday. Within an hour of setting off, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
“I genuinely wasn’t planning to cycle in labor,” she wrote on Instagram later that day, “but it did end up happening.”
Genter shared photos of her nighttime journey on a cargo bike, smiling through contractions while locking up in the Wellington, New Zealand, hospital car park.
“My contractions weren’t that bad when we left at 2 a.m. to go to the hospital,” she said on Instagram. “Though they were 2-3 min apart and picking up in intensity by the time we arrived 10 minutes later.”
At 3.04 a.m., her daughter was born.
Originally, the plan was for her partner Peter Nunns to cycle with her in front, Genter told New Zealand outlet Stuff. When they realized there was too much weight with her hospital bag, Genter “just got out and rode.”
Genter is a dual U.S.-NZ citizen. She grew up in Los Angeles and moved to New Zealand in 2006 as a post-grad scholar at the University of Auckland. She credits her L.A. upbringing with her interest in transportation and urban design. She worked in transport and urban planning before becoming a Member of Parliament in 2011 where she has been an advocate of cycling and increasing bike infrastructure. Her baby girl was born two days after her 10-year anniversary in parliament.
This is the second time the lawmaker has cycled to the hospital to give birth. She did so in 2018 for the birth of her first child, although on that occasion, labor was induced, she said.
New Zealand’s parliament is one of the most gender-equal in the world, electing 49% female members in its 2020 election. It also has a reputation for being family-friendly.
The country’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gave birth to her daughter Neve while in office in 2018, making headlines as one of the first sitting world leaders to do so. Genter followed her lead, bringing her firstborn to a UN meeting a year later.
In 2019, the Speaker of Parliament, Trevor Mallard, appeared in headlines around the world when he cradled and fed a bottle to a baby boy during a general debate.
Mallard told ABC News at the time that inclusivity is something that he focused since becoming speaker in 2017. “When I became speaker, I made it clear that I wanted the parliament to be much more family-friendly than it had been,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — A bitter cold is gripping the South with states from Florida to Georgia experiencing wind chills in the 30s.
The wind chill — what temperature it feels like — plunged Tuesday morning to 24 degrees in Raleigh and 31 degrees in Atlanta, Charleston and Montgomery.
A freeze warning has been issued as far south as Tallahassee, where the actual temperature fell to 30 degrees.
The wind chill dropped Tuesday morning to 15 degrees in Boston and 25 degrees in New York City.
Milder air will thaw the East Coast by Wednesday and Thursday. Temperatures are expected to reach the middle to upper 50s for Boston and New York City and near 60 degrees in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, more heavy rain is expected for Washington state and Oregon, where some areas could see 3 to 6 inches over the next few days.
Two weeks ago, over 1 foot of rain pummeled the Pacific Northwest within days, bringing rivers into major flood stages and flooding roads and neighborhoods.
(NEW YORK) — As holiday shopping season ramps up, Walmart CEO John Furman addressed the concerns of prices and how long supplies will last.
Furman told Good Morning America that President Joe Biden, who met with retail executives this week, and his administration have “been a great help.”
“We’re all working together to make sure that customers have what they need over the holiday season and ended our third quarter up in inventory,” Furman said. “It took a lot of work on behalf of our team and they’re working really hard.”
As the calendar dwindles down on 2021, Furman said that “it’s always a good idea to shop early” and “just like every year there’s something hot, a hot toy — like game consoles — but we have a couple things we can help with.”
“Last week we had our biggest day ever in terms of delivery,” he said of their Walmart Plus membership program. “But there’s some categories like Christmas decor — that are selling quick.”
Other trends that Furman said Walmart has seen and prepared for, are people “spending a lot more time together in groups.”
For Thanksgiving alone, he said “we sold over 10 million turkeys, which is about 2 million more than last year, so it tells you a bit about how many families are getting together and spending time together.”
The Federal Trade Comission has launched a probe into the supply chain issues, which Furman said Walmart just learned about, and said he is optimistic about the company’s position in the market.
“A lot of what you see in stores and online, all the products and what’s available, these are the results of plans, in most cases, that started over a year ago. Our merchants work about 12 months out to determine what they think the trends are, what people will be looking for,” he said. “And we’re proud of our inventory position at this point.”
(NEW YORK) — Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Travel Tuesday? Tuesday marks a potentially big day for saving if you’re looking to snag a deal on a trip in 2022.
“A lot of folks in the travel industry are trying to encourage people to not just buy things over the holiday weekend, but buy experiences as well,” Scott Keyes, Scott’s Cheap Flights founder and author of Take More Vacations, said. “Buy travel and treat yourself to that gift of those lifetime memories from trips you take.”
Paul Couch, a city surveyor from Akron, Ohio, is looking to do just that. He will be scouring the airlines’ websites for a reasonably-priced getaway this travel holiday.
“I’m hoping for the best,” he said. “Just kind of checking the different locations out and if something strikes my eye, you know a place I haven’t been to, then I’ll look for travel dates and book a flight and hotel and all that.”
In 2019, before the pandemic, online booking platform Hopper said it saw more flights discounted on Travel Tuesday than on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
“We typically see about 34 deals per second here at Hopper,” Hopper economist Adit Damodaran told ABC News. “That’s 30% more than we usually see on any other day throughout the year. So, that’s really a great time to be booking those flights for 2022.”
Several airlines have announced promotional discounts over the last few days: JetBlue is offering $50 off one-way and $100 off round trip tickets; Aer Lingus is offering up to $200 off economy fares and up to $300 off business class fares from the U.S.; Air New Zealand, Fiji Airways, Icelandair, and many more are offering discounts for certain destinations.
But Keyes says the real “hidden secret of the travel world” is that the best deals actually come from un-advertised sales.
“Just in the past two or three days alone, we’ve seen flights nonstop to Hawaii for $158 round trip nonstop, to Costa Rica for $176 round trip nonstop, down to Aruba for $226 round trip,” he said. “These are fares that have been popping up that are not getting any advertising dollars behind them. You’re not going to see them in your inbox from the airlines promoting them, but they’re quietly offering these fares, and so the key is to be able to find out about them before they disappear.”
If you’re looking for a deal tomorrow, Keyes recommends looking at the fine print.
“You’re going to see a lot of airlines say ‘25% off,’ ‘50% off,’ ‘This is one of our biggest sales of the year,'” he warned. “But oftentimes, that doesn’t include taxes and fees, all of these types of things that oftentimes can make up the majority of what a ticket costs. So, seeing what the actual price looks like, and then trying to compare it to well, is this a good deal? Is this significantly cheaper than what I might have expected to pay last week or what I might expect to see next week?”
And don’t worry if you can’t find that perfect price, Keyes says, you still have plenty of time.
“Cheap flights are constantly popping up throughout the year, and so don’t put extra pressure on yourself to book something on Travel Tuesday,” he said. “If it just seems like an OK deal you can rest assured that constantly deals are going to continue to pop up throughout the rest of this year and certainly into next year.”
(NEW YORK) — Period pain is a fact of life for many women, yet many don’t know that what they are experiencing might not be normal.
“When it comes to period pain, a lot of people just don’t know what they don’t know,” Dr. Nita Landry, a Los Angeles-based OBGYN, said. “Which makes sense, because the only period that you’ve ever had is your period.”
In some cases, people may expect their period to be painful based on what they’ve seen on social media or heard repeated in pop culture — that experiencing pain is just part of having a period.
In other cases, it may be because their mom or grandmother or aunt told them that painful periods “are just the way it is” for women in the family, according to Landry.
“It could be that everybody is experiencing period pain that was never properly diagnosed, and it was never properly treated,” Landry said. “So then everybody ends up suffering unnecessarily.”
More than half of women who menstruate have some pain for one to two days of their cycle, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
For most women, the pain is mild, but for others it can be debilitating, which is a sign it’s time to seek help, Landry said.
“Periods are not fun, that’s not really a secret,” she said. “But, they are not supposed to make you miserable either. They should not be debilitating.”
Here are five facts to know about periods and pain:
1. There are different types of period pain.
The technical term for period pain is dysmenorrhea.
Primary dysmenorrhea is the most common type of dysmenorrhea and is caused by natural chemicals in the uterus lining. It is the cramping pain that comes before or during a period, according to ACOG.
Secondary dysmenorrhea is also a recurrent, cramping pain, but it is the result of an underlying medical issue in the reproductive organ.
“For example, if a person has endometriosis, which is where tissue that’s similar to the inside lining of the uterus gets outside of the uterus, or if someone has uterine fibroids, which are benign growths in the wall of the uterus, then those conditions can lead to secondary dysmenorrhea,” Landry said.
With secondary dysmenorrhea, the pain often lasts longer than normal period cramps and can worsen over time.
“When you think about pain with periods and what’s normal, pain can start about a day or so before a woman’s menstrual period starts, but it typically tapers off within two or three days,” Landry said. “If you find that your pain is extending beyond your menstrual period, then that’s not normal.”
2. Period pain is caused by a hormone-like chemical called prostaglandins.
Women experience pain during their periods because of a natural, hormone-like chemical called prostaglandins.
During a menstrual cycle, prostaglandins cause the uterine muscle to contract, which compresses some of the blood vessels that pump blood into the uterus.
“Blood is going to carry oxygen, so when you decrease blood flow to the uterus, you’re going to have a lower level of oxygenation, and, as a general rule, your body does not like to be deprived of oxygen,” she explained. “Whenever you are deprived of oxygen, you can experience pain.”
“So when we think about pain with periods, you have the uterine contractions, the contractions will decrease blood flow, less blood flow means less oxygen and less oxygen translates as pain,” she said.
Some people may naturally produce larger amounts of prostaglandins, which means they will likely experience more pain during their periods, and some people may be more susceptible to pain, according to Landry.
And just because a person has a light period flow does not mean they can’t experience painful cramps during their cycle, she noted.
“Please don’t make the assumption that, ‘My periods hurt, but my flow is not that heavy so it’s not a big deal,'” Landry said. “It’s still a big deal because pain is pain, and who wants to live with period pain if there’s something that can treat you effectively?”
3. Lifestyle habits can make period pain better or worse.
If you do not have an underlying issue, factors like what you eat and how you handle stress can also have an impact on the pain you experience, according to Landry.
“Being under a lot of stress actually makes your period worse,” she said, and, “Fatty foods increase the production of prostaglandins, and that’s going to increase period cramps.”
Smoking can also make period pain worse, because it constricts blood vessels, which decreases blood flow to the uterus, Landry said.
On the other hand, she said, exercise is a lifestyle habit that is helpful in lessening pain during the menstrual cycle, as is getting good sleep.
“A lot of things can come into play when it comes to determining why some people have more painful periods compared to others or even why the same person may experience different levels of pain during their periods from menstrual cycle to menstrual cycle,” Landry said.
4. These are red flags to look for when it comes to period pain.
The biggest warning to look for when it comes to period pain, according to Landry, is how it is impacting your life.
“If you are missing school or if you are missing work or you’re just missing life in general, that’s a red flag,” she said. “That’s not how your period is supposed to be.”
Other red flags include period pain that gets progressively worse or that continues past your menstrual cycle or changes with age.
“If you didn’t have period pain before, but you’re 25 or older and you start to experience a different type of pain, that’s also a red flag,” she said. “Because that could indicate that there’s an underlying issue that developed more recently that needs to be addressed.”
Landry said the most important thing is for women to talk to their health care provider about their period pain.
“If your health care provider tells you that period pain is normal even though you’re missing school, you’re missing work, you’re missing out on life, then talk to another health care provider,” she said, “I don’t want you to suffer unnecessarily.”
5. Period pain can be treated.
For mild period pain, Landry recommends adjusting lifestyle habits such as diet, exercise and stress management and using natural remedies like a warm bath or a heating pad.
Women can also take over-the-counter pain relievers, called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), in the first one to two days of their period to reduce the production of prostaglandins.
Women with bleeding disorders, asthma, aspirin allergies, liver damage, stomach disorders or ulcers should not take NSAIDs, according to ACOG.
Hormonal therapies, like birth control, are also frequently used to treat period pain.
Landry said there is also research to support the idea that some vitamins, including vitamins B and E as well as magnesium and Omega 3 fatty acids, may be helpful when it comes to easing period pain.
Some women also find alternative remedies such as acupuncture and acupressure helpful, too, according to Landry.
“There are so many different treatment options that your doctor can talk to you about,” she said. “Make sure you give them a chance to tell you about all of them before you decide to grin and bear [the pain].”
GoodMorningAmerica.com is tackling a different taboo women’s health topic each month, breaking down stigmas on everything from mental health to infertility, STDs, orgasms and alcoholism.
(DAYTON, Ohio) — The suspect who carried out a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, on an early August morning in 2019 had an “enduring fascination with mass violence,” the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit concluded in a report released Monday.
Just after 1 a.m. on Aug. 4, 2019, Connor Betts killed nine people and wounded 27 when he opened fire in downtown Dayton.
It was the second mass shooting that weekend, after 23 people were killed at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the day before.
After a mass shooting or incident, it is typical for the FBI to use its Behavioral Analysis Unit to try and determine a motive or find other factors at play when an attacker carries out an incident.
The FBI concluded in its report that Betts “likely violated federal law” by lying to federal investigators about his drug use when he purchased the gun used in the attack.
The agency also concluded that Betts likely suffered from mental illness.
“The FBI’s BAU assessed the attacker’s enduring fascination with mass violence and his inability to cope with a convergence of personal factors, to include a decade-long struggle with multiple mental health stressors and the successive loss of significant stabilizing anchors experienced prior to August 4, 2019, likely were the primary contributors to the timing and finality of his decision to commit a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio,” the report stated.
There were no specific warnings that Betts would one day commit a crime, the FBI said, despite having “suicidal and violent fantasies” for over a decade.
“This underscores the importance of bystanders’ attentiveness to more subtle changes an individual may exhibit that could be indicative of their decision to commit violence, such as a change in personal circumstances, an increase in perceived stressors, or language indicating they may be contemplating suicide,” the FBI said.
One reason that family and friends did not alert authorities about Betts was potentially because of “bystander fatigue,” according to the report. Bystander fatigue occurs when people around the suspect don’t pay attention or take any action “due to their prolonged exposure to the person’s erratic or otherwise troubling behavior over time,” according to the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
The special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cincinnati field office said there were some technical issues with the investigation that made it harder to get to the bottom of what happened.
“Finding answers for the victims and their families has been a driving motivator each day,” FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge J. William Rivers said in a statement.
“From the start, this has been a thorough and deliberate investigation. Due to technical challenges accessing lawfully acquired evidence that was encrypted, this investigation has taken significantly longer than expected,” he said. “However, we are confident that it has uncovered the key facts and that we have done everything in our ability to provide answers to all those impacted by this horrible attack.”
(NEW YORK) — “The biggest science event of the year quickly became the biggest political debate in our country, and the word at the center of both stories is vaccine,” Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, said in a press release. “Few words can express so much about one moment in time.”
The selection, which is based on search volume, comes as more than 196 million Americans are fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. The dictionary publishing company said in a press release Monday that even though the choice may be seen as “obvious,” data from its website’s search history paints a more complicated picture.
“Vaccine lookups increased 600%, and the story is about much more than medicine,” Sokolowski said in the press release. “It was at the center of debates about personal choice, political affiliation, professional regulations, school safety, healthcare inequity, and so much more.”
Sokolowski told ABC News on Monday that there was already increased search for vaccines coming into the year, as the first shots were administered in late 2020. Those searches continued in 2021, spiking in early summer and fall.
The dictionary publisher also expanded its definition of vaccine to include scientific advances in how vaccines work, adding information about the use of mRNA technology.
“Insurrection” was a notable runner-up as searches for the term spiked following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Sokolowski told ABC News that there was a 61,000% increase in searches for the word following the attack.
Another contender was “infrastructure,” which spiked in April as President Joe Biden made his pitch for a more than $2 trillion package investing in infrastructure.
Other words related to pop culture and lifestyle also trended, including “nomad,” which spiked after “Nomadland” swept the Oscars in April. The word “cicada” increased by 1,442% in May as Brood X emerged in the Northeast, with millions of the insects making their noisy entrances.
Sokolowski said some of 2021’s most popular words, like vaccine, may already be in the vocabulary of the average American and that the interest in the words may have “nothing to do with the spelling of vaccine, but it has a lot to do with our understanding of vaccines.”
“I’m betting most of the words that you look up in a given day are words that you have encountered before,” Sokolowski told ABC News. “Looking up a word isn’t the signal of ignorance, it’s the opposite of ignorance. It means that you want to know more nuanced, more specific knowledge”
Jackson Women’s Health Organization is Mississippi’s last remaining abortion clinic. – ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider a case that could fundamentally transform abortion rights in America by overturning Roe v. Wade and clearing the way for stringent new restrictions on abortion in roughly half the country.
“This is the most important Supreme Court case on abortion since Roe in 1973, and I don’t think it’s particularly close,” said Sherif Girgis, Notre Dame law professor and former clerk to Justice Samuel Alito.
The justices will hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health over a Mississippi law that prohibits termination of pregnancies after 15 weeks. Lower courts have found the ban plainly unconstitutional under the half century of legal precedent since Roe and put it on hold.
Fetal viability outside the womb — around 24 to 26 weeks, according to medical experts — has been the long-standing line before which states cannot ban abortions. Mississippi is asking the justices to eliminate that standard and allow each state to set its own policy.
“Roe v. Wade has hindered a healthy political dialogue about abortion, and perhaps most importantly, about how we as a society care for the dignity of women and children,” said Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who is leading defense of the state law.
The case will be heard by a court whose conservative majority of justices is widely viewed as more sympathetic to opponents of abortion rights than any in a generation. The three most recently appointed justices were all elevated to the high court by former President Donald Trump with the express purpose of overturning Roe.
”The new crop of quite conservative justices on the court seems to put special stock in how wrong a previous opinion was, and they all think that Roe was very, very wrong,” said Cardozo Law professor and ABC News legal analyst Kate Shaw. “I think that will be an important factor in their decision whether to revisit it.”
The fact that the court decided to take up the case — without a clear conflict among lower courts or ambiguity in legal precedent — suggests to many legal scholars that a decision favoring Mississippi is highly likely.
“The court has long surprised us,” said Shaw, “but it seems to me a vanishingly slim chance that the court will strike down the Mississippi law.”
A decision upholding the state’s 15-week abortion ban would implicitly reverse nearly 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and open the door to state restrictions much earlier in pregnancy.
“You cannot uphold Mississippi’s 15-week ban on abortion and continue the precedent of Roe v. Wade. They’re not compatible,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is leading the legal battle against the law. “There is no middle ground.”
Majorities of Americans support the Supreme Court upholding Roe v. Wade and oppose states making it harder for abortion clinics to operate, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll this month. Three in four Americans, including majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats, say the decision of whether or not to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.
University of California, Berkeley Law professor Daniel Farber said the legal options before the court are stark and extreme. “I think between those two options, I think overruling Roe would win the day,” Farber said.
Some abortion law scholars believe the justices may attempt a more moderate approach — at least in appearance — by upholding the Mississippi law while explaining that they are changing, rather than overturning, the standard set by Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
“The court might say, ‘We are not finding that there’s no constitutional protection for abortion, only that these earlier decisions didn’t give sufficient weight to other kinds of state interests,'” said Shaw. “So, perhaps states may be able to ban abortions prior to viability, but that doesn’t mean they have carte blanche to ban all abortions.”
Mississippi has just one remaining abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health, that only provides abortion services up to 16 weeks of pregnancy. The state argues that a ban starting at 15 weeks would not impose a significant burden on most women.
While Americans are broadly supportive of abortion rights, they appear more sharply divided on the type of ban at issue in Mississippi. A Marquette University Law School poll this month found 37% favored upholding a 15-week ban, with 32% opposed.
Overshadowing the case is the Supreme Court’s still-pending decision in a separate dispute over Texas’ unprecedented six-week abortion ban, SB8, which has been in effect for nearly three months and dominated national headlines.
“SB8 has the effect of making the Mississippi statute look quite moderate,” said Julia Mahoney, a law professor at the University of Virginia. “So in a sense, upholding the Mississippi statute looks now like kind of a middle ground.”
The justices gave the Texas law a highly expedited hearing, during which a majority appeared skeptical of its enforcement scheme that encourages citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an unlawful abortion for the chance at a $10,000 bounty. Many observers assumed the court would quickly move to put the law on hold, but it has not done so.
Girgis said the delay suggests the justices “hit some snags” in their negotiations and may have decided to resolve the dispute in tandem with the Mississippi case.
“If they end up reversing Casey and Roe, then obviously the question of the constitutionality of SB8 becomes a lot easier,” Girgis said.
In the meantime, access to abortion care for millions of women in the nation’s second-most populous state remains on hold and could be suspended for months longer. The court is not expected to issue a decision in the Mississippi case until June.
“We’re waiting on tenterhooks to hear from the court,” said Northup of Texas law SB8. “But it is just quite unconscionable that we’re so many months in, allowing this law to be in effect when it clearly violates Roe v. Wade.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh could be the key vote to watch in both cases, analysts said. He sided with the majority more than any other justice last term and notably broke with Chief Justice John Roberts in September to allow SB8 to take effect.
“From a tea leaf reading standpoint, we’re watching Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett,” said Mary Ziegler, Florida State Law professor and a leading abortion law historian.
“I think she may have some incentive, certainly not to save Roe, but to take her time in unraveling Roe rather than kind of delivering an immediate death blow,” Ziegler said of Barrett, the court’s newest and youngest member. “We don’t know what Brett Kavanaugh, who is no longer beholden to John Roberts to get the deciding vote, will say about abortion.”
The abortion rights battle at the Supreme Court comes as Republican-led states have enacted more than 100 new abortion restrictions so far this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. Twenty-one states have laws in place that would quickly impose abortion bans in the event the Supreme Court overturns Roe.
Fourteen states plus Washington, D.C., have laws explicitly protecting access to abortion care, according to Guttmacher.
“If the court follows the rule of law, we will prevail,” Northrup said. “But we are ready to fight on every front if there should be a reversal of Roe.”
(NEW YORK) — The holiday season is in full swing and tree farmers across the country are preparing for the Christmas crowds.
At Boyd Mountain Christmas Tree Farm in Waynesville, North Carolina, customers can cut down their own Christmas tree. Darren Nicholson, who works at the farm, said he is grateful to see people “coming out in record numbers to get the perfect Christmas tree.”
Across the country, wholesale tree grower The Jonsteen Company packages live tree saplings and seed growing kits. The California-based company specializes in Giant Sequoias and Coast Redwoods but offers a variety of different trees, including evergreens, giving customers a chance to plant their own Christmas tree and watch it grow over the years.
One Jonsteen customer, Martin Harmon, and his family, who live south of Atlanta, planted their Christmas tree years ago and now it’s a full-grown evergreen.
The Fowler family from Lexington, Kentucky, planted their Jonsteen tree in their front yard and have already decorated it with lights.
Other small businesses all over the country are gearing up for the holiday rush, like Authenticity50. The California-based bedding and home goods company was co-founded by husband and wife Jimmy and Steph McDonald.
Last year, they started using their materials to sew masks in the middle of the pandemic.
All of their products are 100% American made. The McDonalds said the cotton is from California, the yarn is spun in Georgia, the sheets they sell are cut and sewn in South Carolina, their button are from Connecticut and their packaging is made in Illinois.
The McDonalds said the advantage of having their products made in the U.S. is that they are fully stocked during ongoing supply chain shortages.
“We haven’t had to deal with container ships stuck at port,” said Jimmy McDonald.
“Buying local helps us sustain our small business and 1,000 local jobs from coast to coast,” added Steph McDonald.
