Time’s up for holiday shopping procrastinators

Last minute shoppers like Josette Tyne are in luck this year.

With a long weekend before Christmas, retailers want to make it easier for procrastinators to finish their gift buying. Macy’s for the first time is keeping all its stores open around the clock from Friday until Sunday at midnight. Toys “R” Us and Walmart Supercenters will be open non-stop until Christmas Eve.

Even those retailers skipping the all nighter still have added extended hours often as late as 11 pm or midnight. Coupled with a flurry of last minute promotions, they hope to lure shoppers, many of whom have been largely sitting on the sidelines since Black Friday.

Tyne, 33, just starting her shopping this week at Aventura Mall, armed with a list of about two dozen people and the presents they wanted. The list would have been longer if the Fort Lauderdale resident hadn’t limited it to the kids in her family.

“I’ll probably be shopping every day from now till Sunday,” said Tyne, as she wheeled the youngest of her three boys around H&M in a stroller before heading on to Game Stop, Urban Outfitters and BCBG. “Whatever catches my eye. Luckily the kids usually like everything I get. I’m the awesome Auntie.”

A Consumer Reports Poll released earlier this week found that with just five shopping days left until Christmas, a whopping 68 percent of shoppers — a projected 132 million Americans — have yet to finish their holiday shopping.

With an early Thanksgiving leaving an extra week until Christmas and a long weekend before Tuesday’s holiday, shoppers have felt little need to rush. They also haven’t found December deals to be quite as compelling as the November sales.

Based on disappointing sales trends earlier this month, ShopperTrak said Wednesday it was cutting its holiday sales forecast. The company, which counts foot traffic and its own proprietary sales numbers from 40,000 retail outlets across the country, now expects a 2.5 percent sales increase to $257.7 billion, down from the 3.3 percent growth it initially predicted. The National Retail Federation is sticking with its prediction of a 4.1 percent sales increase.

Online sales trends are more encouraging, up 13 percent to $35 billion from Nov. 1 through Dec. 16, according to comScore, an online research firm. But that pace is below the forecast of 17 percent for the season.

“It’s coming down to the wire,” said David Bassuk, managing director and co-head of the retail practice at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm. “It’s going to require retailers to be more aggressive with their promotions than they were hoping heading into the weekend.”

While the economy is certainly in a better position than it was during the recession, many consumers still feel uneasy this year about their financial future. Some are worried about the U.S. job market and others fear the stalemate between Congress and the White House over federal “fiscal cliff’’ that could lead to tax increases and less disposable income for shoppers.

That was the case for Latonya Jones, on the hunt for bargains at Aventura Mall, coupon-loaded iPad in hand.

“I wasn’t going to buy anything this year, because I wanted to save money,” said Jones, 39, of Miami Gardens, who was shopping with her daughter Richelle, 12, this week in Macy’s. “But then I changed my mind.”

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The man behind the camera: legendary Miami photog Tim Chapman retires

Here is a Tim Chapman story, one of many concerning the Herald photographer who worked his last day this past Friday after 40 years on the job.

It was a frigid morning in South Florida. Tim, our roving a.m. shooter/newsgatherer, was out performing a humdrum chore: looking for a “weather photo.”

The call came in to the news desk around 9. It was Tim checking in from Bill Baggs state park, where the manager had just explained that on bone-chilling days, the park’s iguanas drift off into a trance-like state and go limp, plopping to the ground like ripe mangos. When the weather warms up, they reanimate and skitter away.

And, by God, it was true, Tim said, at least the falling-out-of-trees part. Instead of a carpet of leaves, Bill Baggs was blanketed by catatonic iguanas.

That sounds fishy, an editor told Tim, but he insisted it was so, and he is a very insistent guy. So, OK. We put a blurb online that said the weather was so cold in South Florida it was “raining iguanas in Key Biscayne.” Exaggeration? Maybe a tiny bit. But we figured what the heck. It’s Web only. It will never wind up in the paper.

Tim, though, was a little irate. Half an hour later, he stormed into the newsroom, stalked over to the news desk and threw down a limp, green, two-foot-long iguana like a poker player revealing a royal flush. Then he launched into a tirade about never, ever doubting him if we know what’s good for us. He was sort of kidding. Maybe.

After that admonition, Tim, ever the environmentalist, took the creature downstairs and (he swears) revived it with his lighter.

Late that night, Tim’s editor got a call on his cell phone from Tim, never a good thing. Tim had had a beer or two, and he was howling, like a grizzly with his paw in a trash compactor. Between threats and curses, he roared that “SOMEBODY is messin’ with our STORY!”

A subsequent call to the news desk revealed that the story had done so well on the Web that they’d decided to run it in the next day’s paper. Except a literal-minded night editor had gotten his mitts on it, phoned Tim and wanted to know how we could possibly say it was “raining iguanas”? Did we count the iguanas? Was it two? Five? Fifty? Shouldn’t we do a little more reporting before making such a bold, sweeping statement? Maybe interview an expert on animal physiology?

For Tim, who hates authority, hates being grilled, hates process, hates editors, it was too much.

The good thing about newsrooms is that they attract quirky, interesting, head-strong individuals. Tim is one. He despises bosses and corporations, loves the outdoors and nature, has no neck but fists like a sock full of rocks. He is fierce, fearless, funny, proud, and maybe a little crazy, but in a good way.

On a newsman’s salary, he helped put his son through medical school. He is retiring with Charlene, his new bride (they were married last month after 15 years together) to a home on stilts in Big Torch Key, miles off the main road, where he can enjoy a drink and smoke a cigar undisturbed while watching the sun sink slowly into still waters. He built that home with his own hands, over a period of years.

As a Herald photographer for four decades, he covered wars, hurricanes, riots, earthquakes, waves of refugees, kidnappings, plane crashes and the Jonestown mass suicide in Guyana.

And, on a cold day in January 2008, the one and only “iguana rainstorm” ever to hit Key Biscayne.

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Is the Christmas card dead?

Author Nina Burleigh says the holiday photo is dead — and the internet killed it

Every year around the holidays, countless Americans sit down at their dining room tables to thoughtfully scribble pen-and-paper updates about how they are and what they’ve been doing with their lives to a select number of friends. These messages are usually written on the back of a recent family photograph (sometimes with Santa hats), before they’re sealed, stamped, and mailed around the country, where they’re displayed like a trophy over someone else’s fireplace.

Could that all be changing? This year, especially, there seems to be a dearth of dead-tree holiday cheer filling up mailboxes across the country. In a recent column for TIME, author Nina Burleigh says the spirit once distilled inside the Christmas card is dying, and a familiar, if fairly obvious perpetrator killed it: The internet. “There’s little point to writing a Christmas update now, with boasts about grades and athletic prowess, hospitalizations and holidays, and the dog’s mishaps, when we have already posted these events and so much more of our minutiae all year long,” she writes. “The urge to share has already been well sated.”

[Now] we already have real-time windows into the lives of people thousands of miles away. We already know exactly how they’ve fared in the past year, much more than could possibly be conveyed by any single Christmas card. If a child or grandchild has been born to a former colleague or high school chum living across the continent, not only did I see it within hours on Shutterfly or Instagram or Facebook, I might have seen him or her take his or her first steps on YouTube. If a job was gotten or lost, a marriage made or ended, we have already witnessed the woe and joy of it on Facebook, email and Twitter.

Burleigh says the demise of the Christmas card is deeply saddening. “It portends the end of the U.S. Postal Service,” she writes. “It signals the day is near when writing on paper is non-existent.” It’s true, says Tony Seifart at Memeburn — “my mantle is empty this year. In fact I haven’t received one Christmas card yet.”

SEE ALSO: The perks and perils of our newly indexed society

Let’s not get too nostalgic just yet, says Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic. Research firm IBISWorld anticipates that purchases of cards and postage will be the highest it has been in five years — $ 3.17 billion total. And Hallmark, the industry’s biggest player, has seen revenue hold steady since the early 2000s despite the financial crisis. We could also think about this another way: That desire to share, the willingness to inform, could just be extending itself beyond the physical form of the holiday photo. 

No matter what time of the year, people now write contemplative letters with weird formatting to an ill-defined audience of “friends”; these are Christmas letters, whether Santa is coming down the chimney or not. There are reindeer horns on pugs in July. And humblebrags about promotions in April. There are dating updates in November. And you can disclose that you were voted mother of the year any damn day you please… For good or for ill, perhaps we’re seeing not the death of the holiday card and letter, but its rebirth as a rhetorical mode. Confessional, self-promotional, hokey, charming, earnest, technically honest, introspective, hopey-changey: Oh, Christmas Card, you have gone open-source and conquered us all. 

The spirit of the Christmas card is indeed alive and well. It’s just not necessarily in a Christmas card.

SEE ALSO: Poison pens and lipstick guns: 8 real-life spy weapons

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Buzzmakers: New X Factor and Miss Universe Winners

What had ET readers buzzing this week?

1. 'The X Factor' Crowns A Winner!

And the $5 million recording contract goes to…

Tate Stevens! The 37-year-old country crooner beat out runner-up 13-year-old Carly Rose Sonenclar for the top prize Thursday night. 35 million votes were cast Wednesday to determine victory for L.A. Reid's mentee.

Near tears, the Raymore, Missouri native thanked his fans for their overwhelming support.

"This is the best day of my life," said an emotional Stevens.

Girl group Fifth Harmony, mentored by Simon Cowell, placed third in the competition. Earlier in the night, the holiday themed finale saw performances by One Direction and Pitbull.

Auditions for an all-new season of The X Factor USA have already begun online. In-person auditions will start on March 6, 2013 in Los Angeles.

The celebrity judging panel has yet to be announced, but L.A. Reid has already taken himself out of the running. Spears has expressed interest in returning to the show for season three, but nothing has been confirmed.

2. Miss Universe 2012 Crowned

Beauties from 89 countries strutted their stuff Wednesday night in pursuit of the Miss Universe crown, but only one woman would earn the coveted title.

In the end a panel of ten celebrity judges, including Cee Lo Green and U.S. Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings, appointed Miss USA Olivia Culpo the winner.

The 20-year-old Rhode Island native beat out Miss Brazil (Gabriela Markus) Miss Philippines (Janine Tugonon), Miss Mexico (Irene Sofía Esser Quintero), and Miss Australia (Renae Ayris) for the distinction.

Culpo follows in the footsteps of Miss Angola, Leila Lopes, who earned the crown in 2011.

The two-hour show was broadcast live from Las Vegas with musical acts One Direction and Train lending their talents to the annual extravaganza.

3. Exclusive: Arsenio on His Late Night TV Return

Break out the Woof! Woof! fist pump: Arsenio Hall is coming back to late night TV in the Fall of 2013 after a 17-year break from the game, and only ET is behind the scenes with the timeless talk show host as he shoots his first-ever promo for The Arsenio Hall Show!

"[This is] the first time America will see anything on television about the show," says Arsenio. "Instead of a commercial where I do something like say, 'I'm baaaaack' -- and everybody's, 'Ugh' -- they've come up with a real, unique, creative angle that -- actually, I looked at dailies, and it scared me. I looked at the dailies and I frightened myself."

The trailer-length promo from CBS Television Distribution pays homage to horror movies and begins airing today on all Arsenio Hall Show affiliate stations, kicking off the campaign for the new late night syndicated talk show that will be seen all across the country next year.

"I'm real excited about this; so many things have changed in pop culture since I left the air," says Arsenio about his return to late night. "I can't wait."

The Arsenio Hall Show premieres on 9/9/13. Look for much more with Arsenio between now and then, only on ET!

4. Claire Danes Gives Birth

It's a boy!

Homeland star Claire Danes and her husband Hugh Dancy welcomed their very first child together on Monday, December 17, her rep confirms to People Magazine.

The proud parents named their bouncing baby boy Cyrus Michael Christopher Dancy.

Danes, 33, wed Dancy, 37, in 2009 after two years of dating.

5. President Obama is Time's Person of the Year

For 2012, Time Magazine has selected President Barack Obama as their Person of the Year.

"For finding and forging a new majority, for turning weakness into opportunity and for seeking, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union, Barack Obama is Time's 2012 Person of the Year," Time's Managing Editor Richzard Stengel explained.

He also cited both of the president's re-elections, snagging over 50 percent of the popular vote, as one reason he received this honor.

This is the second year Time has tapped Obama as their Person of the Year -- he previously was selected in 2008 for becoming the first black president of the United States.

Time previously named the eight finalists for 2012's Person of the Year. They included: Bill and Hillary Clinton, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Malala Yousafzai (the Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for her crusade for better girls' education), Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the three scientists who discovered the Higgs Boson particle.

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Staten Island man killed in early-morning house fire

A Staten Island man was killed when an early-morning fire swept through his home, police and relatives said.

Jameek Champagne, 23, died in the third-floor attic of the home on Osgood Avenue in Clifton. His brother and grandfather escaped the blaze uninjured.

A neighbor reported the blaze after seeing flames erupt from the house at about 5:40 a.m. He banged on the door in a frantic effort to awaken its residents.

The fire was extinguished about an hour after it started, according to an FDNY spokesman. Fire marshals are investigating what caused it.

About ten cars full of grief-stricken relatives and friends came to the scene to mourn Champagne. His devastated girlfriend said that the two had a newborn girl and a 1-year-old boy.

G.N.Miller/New York Post

The Staten Island house after it was damaged by the fire

“We’re just trying to find out how this happened,” Champagne's uncle said, weeping.

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Time’s up for holiday shopping procrastinators

Last minute shoppers like Josette Tyne are in luck this year.

With a long weekend before Christmas, retailers want to make it easier for procrastinators to finish their gift buying. Macy’s for the first time is keeping all its stores open around the clock from Friday until Sunday at midnight. Toys “R” Us and Walmart Supercenters will be open non-stop until Christmas Eve.

Even those retailers skipping the all nighter still have added extended hours often as late as 11 pm or midnight. Coupled with a flurry of last minute promotions, they hope to lure shoppers, many of whom have been largely sitting on the sidelines since Black Friday.

Tyne, 33, just starting her shopping this week at Aventura Mall, armed with a list of about two dozen people and the presents they wanted. The list would have been longer if the Fort Lauderdale resident hadn’t limited it to the kids in her family.

“I’ll probably be shopping every day from now till Sunday,” said Tyne, as she wheeled the youngest of her three boys around H&M in a stroller before heading on to Game Stop, Urban Outfitters and BCBG. “Whatever catches my eye. Luckily the kids usually like everything I get. I’m the awesome Auntie.”

A Consumer Reports Poll released earlier this week found that with just five shopping days left until Christmas, a whopping 68 percent of shoppers — a projected 132 million Americans — have yet to finish their holiday shopping.

With an early Thanksgiving leaving an extra week until Christmas and a long weekend before Tuesday’s holiday, shoppers have felt little need to rush. They also haven’t found December deals to be quite as compelling as the November sales.

Based on disappointing sales trends earlier this month, ShopperTrak said Wednesday it was cutting its holiday sales forecast. The company, which counts foot traffic and its own proprietary sales numbers from 40,000 retail outlets across the country, now expects a 2.5 percent sales increase to $257.7 billion, down from the 3.3 percent growth it initially predicted. The National Retail Federation is sticking with its prediction of a 4.1 percent sales increase.

Online sales trends are more encouraging, up 13 percent to $35 billion from Nov. 1 through Dec. 16, according to comScore, an online research firm. But that pace is below the forecast of 17 percent for the season.

“It’s coming down to the wire,” said David Bassuk, managing director and co-head of the retail practice at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm. “It’s going to require retailers to be more aggressive with their promotions than they were hoping heading into the weekend.”

While the economy is certainly in a better position than it was during the recession, many consumers still feel uneasy this year about their financial future. Some are worried about the U.S. job market and others fear the stalemate between Congress and the White House over federal “fiscal cliff’’ that could lead to tax increases and less disposable income for shoppers.

That was the case for Latonya Jones, on the hunt for bargains at Aventura Mall, coupon-loaded iPad in hand.

“I wasn’t going to buy anything this year, because I wanted to save money,” said Jones, 39, of Miami Gardens, who was shopping with her daughter Richelle, 12, this week in Macy’s. “But then I changed my mind.”

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Stand Your Ground motion denied in Janepsy Carballo case

It will be up to a jury to decide if Janepsy Carballo was justified in the killing of the man she said killed her husband.

The Stand Your Ground motion filed by her defense was denied on Friday, based largely on Carballo’s inadvertent confession to a confidential informant who was wearing a police wire to investigate an unrelated drug charge at the pain management clinic where she worked.

“The inescapable conclusion is that the defendant lured the victim to the home and killed him,” said Miami Circuit Court Judge Beth Bloom, reading in court from a statement explaining her decision. “The taped conversation between the defendant and the disclosed confidential source is compelling, incapable of being ignored, downplayed or interpreted in any other manner but one of revenge.”

In May 2008, Carballo shot Ilan Nissim six times in the back and arm when she said he came to her house uninvited. Cellphone records show that she called Nissim three times that day, asking him to come over.

The shooting came one month after Carballo’s husband and toddler son were shot in front of her house. Her son survived; her husband did not. Nissim was a suspect in the murder.

Carballo said her 37-year-old husband, Orlando Mesa, was an “entrepreneur” who worked as a mechanic and was involved in drug dealing. Mesa and Nissim were involved in some business transactions including a $180,000 real estate deal, the defendant said.

Explaining her decision, Judge Bloom read from the transcript of Carballo’s 3 1/2-hour conversation with the confidential informant, quoting the 34-year-old defendant as saying, “An eye for an eye. I want his daughter to grow up without a father just like my son.”

Since the Stand Your Ground statute was passed in 2005, it has been used in “fake defenses” all over the state of Florida, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in an interview.

The controversial law, which eliminated the duty to retreat when threatened, came under scrutiny in February when neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager in Sanford. Police initially declined to charge Zimmerman when he invoked the Stand Your Ground statute. Zimmerman now faces charges of second-degree murder.

In response to national outcry surrounding the Trayvon Martin case, Florida Gov. Rick Scott commissioned a 19-member task force to make suggestions about the law. Their findings, presented to the state Legislature in November, did not suggest major changes.

Other states have enacted similar laws, which are supported by the National Rifle Association.

Two days before the ruling on the Carballo case, Sen. Chris Smith of Fort Lauderdale introduced a bill in the state Senate to amend the Stand Your Ground statute by removing immunity from prosecution for someone who initiates a confrontation or pursues a victim.

Fernandez Rundle also made suggestions to change the law, specifying that immunity should be granted only to someone “who does not initially provoke the force,” according to documents from the state attorney’s office.

“A lot of people are trying to abuse the good intentions of the statute,” Fernandez Rundle said. Although she declined to comment at length on the pending Carballo case, she said she “appreciated the judge’s order validating our position and our interpretation of the facts of the case.”

Carballo has been charged with first-degree murder. She goes on trial in April.

Follow Anna Edgerton on Twitter @AnnaEdge4.

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Ashton Kutcher Files for Divorce from Demi

Ashton Kutcher has filed for divorce from wife Demi Moore more than a year after the couple's high-profile split.

Pics: A Relationship In Photos - Ashton Kutcher & Demi Moore Through The Years

Divorce papers were filed Friday Los Angeles Superior Court, according to People.com, with the 34-year-old Kutcher checking the ever-popular irreconcilable differences box. According to the documents, Kutcher isn't seeking any spousal support and he is not asking the court to deny the 50-year-old Moore any spousal support.

Kutcher has hired A-list divorce attorney Laura Wasser to represent him. Wasser's previous clients include Angelina Jolie, Heidi Klum and Britney Spears.

Related: Demi & Ashton Will Continue Joint Charity Work

Ashton and Demi began their May-December relationship in 2003 and married in 2005. In 2010, infidelity rumors about Ashton started to swirl, and on November 17, 2011, Demi took to Twitter to announce her plans to divorce her husband.

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VIDEO SHOCKER: Brute attacks woman in elevator

Police released shocking video today of a woman being pummeled in a Bronx robbery.

A suspect followed the 57-year-old victim into an elevator of a Washington Avenue building in Claremont about 9:25 a.m. yesterday, then got out one floor before the victim's floor, cops said.

When the door opened opened, she was face to face with the brute, who began punching her, authorities said.

The assault was captured on surveillance camera.

The thief took her purse, then ran off.

Police say the suspect is in his late teens, 5-foot-11, and thin. He wore a black Polo jacket and sweatpants, as well as a black hat with a red stripe during the attack.

Anyone with information should call Crimestoppers at 1.800.577.TIPS (8477).

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Pawn shops enter holiday-shopping fray

As retailers like Tiffany & Co., Saks Inc., Best Buy Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. vie for last-minute holiday sales, customers are being drawn away by a growing crop of competitors: pawn shops.

From Las Vegas and Los Angeles to Miami andOrlando, pawn shops appear to have shed their stigma and become a holiday-shopping destination.

“It’s crazy. Our stores are just packed right now,” said Lawrence Kahlden, chief executive of La Familia Pawn and Jewelry, which has two stores in Miami, one in West Palm Beach, 12 in Orlando and nine in Puerto Rico.

Overall, sales are up 40 percent from last year, he said, with smartphones, laptops, flatscreen TVs and jewelry ranking as top sellers. The Miami store at 1823 NW 79th St. is the company’s No. 1 store.

“The acceptance of pawn shops has increased due to the reality shows on TV,” Kahlden said. “It has become more acceptable to come into a pawn shop — you’re curious to see what kind of deals you can get.”

Holiday season traffic is also up at publicly traded Cash America, which has 800 stores in 23 states, including 75 in Florida and a half-dozen in South Florida.

“We have a broad spectrum of customers that come in for the holidays,” said Dennis Weese, chief operating officer of Cash America.

No longer are such outlets focused solely on lending to low-income consumers in downscale neighborhoods. Many pawn shops are expanding in more-affluent areas and increasingly are seeing white-collar and higher-income shoppers — who not only may borrow money, but also buy new or used jewelry, luxury watches, game consoles and electronics, often at deep discounts compared with regular-priced retail merchandise.

“The new customers are coming from all segments of the population. What’s central to all of them is getting a good deal,” Weese added. “The consumer is very value-oriented today regardless of socioeconomic status. They put us in the consideration set the past three or four years. The stigma associated with used merchandise has gone away.”

To better compete with mainstream retailers, Cash America has its own holiday-layaway program and stages its own annual customer-appreciation event on the first Friday of December, which Weese said “gets bigger every year.” Demand for that day serves as a good indicator of its sales for the month.

Pawn shops traditionally have been seen as a last-resort source of financing for those barely making ends meet (or worse) in the U.S. economy. Yet the recession stemming from the housing bust and the financial crisis of 2008 led many middle- and upper middle-class shoppers to visit pawn shops for the first time, mainly to seek financing. That’s how they discover there are good deals to be had there, according to pawn-shop operators. Meanwhile, shows such as History Channel’s Pawn Stars have helped lower the negative impression that consumers may have about shopping at such stores.

The National Pawnbrokers Association estimated there were about 10,000 pawn shops in January, up from about 6,400 in 2007, when the most recent U.S. Census data were available. As evidence of their broadening acceptance, many of the new pawn shops are being opened in more-upscale neighborhoods across the country, the trade group’s spokesman Emmett Murphy said.

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