Massachusetts gas explosion under investigation

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — Dozens of building inspectors began assessing homes and businesses in one of New England's biggest cities on Saturday, a day after a natural gas explosion leveled a strip club located next to a day care and heavily damaged a dozen other structures. The blast injured 18 people, many of them first responders.

Investigators were trying to figure out what caused the Friday night blast in Springfield that could be heard for miles, left a large hole in the ground where the multistory brick building housing Scores Gentleman's Club once stood and scattered debris over several blocks.

Officials had already evacuated part of the entertainment district after responding to a gas leak and odor reported about an hour before the explosion while firefighters, police officers and gas company workers were in the area filled with commercial properties and residences.

"It really is a miracle and it's an example of our public safety officials, each and every day, putting themselves in harm's way, taking what could have been considered a very routine call of an odor of gas, but they took the proper precautions," State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said. "And thanks to God that they did."

Officials also marveled how the 5:30 p.m. blast occurred when a day care center next door was closed. The center's building was heavily damaged.

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray and Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno were attending a tree-lighting ceremony when the explosion occurred. Sarno said some people mistakenly thought the boom was part of the holiday event.

The explosion blew out windows in a three-block radius, leaving at least three buildings irreparably damaged and causing emergency workers to evacuate a six-story apartment building that was buckling, police said. Pieces of broken glass littered streets and sidewalks. It was unclear how many residents had been evacuated. A shelter was set up at a school.

Omar Fermin, manager of the Punta Cana Restaurant two blocks from the explosion site, found the floor-to-ceiling windows blasted out when he came to check on the property Saturday morning.

"It looks like an earthquake hit," said Fermin, a native of the Dominican Republic. "I've never seen anything like it."

He said he was waiting for somebody to come and assess the damage. He worried the restaurant would remain closed for weeks while the owner seeks to replace the massive custom-made windows.

Authorities cordoned off the center of the explosion Saturday morning as building inspectors worked to identify unsafe structures. Anxious residents gathered at the perimeter, waiting for permission to visit their buildings.

Dogs trapped in abandoned buildings barked out loudly Saturday as building inspectors fanned out across the area. One inspector said he wished he could get a ladder and permission to retrieve a dog that was barking in the upper floor of one building sealed off from residents.

Coan, the fire marshal, said his office was investigating a cause of the blast and its possible origin. The state's Department of Public Utilities was also investigating.

Sheila Doiron, a spokeswoman for Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, said the company will continue to monitor for any potential leaks within several blocks of the blast site. So far, she said, the company hadn't yet found any measurable readings.

Doiron said the company also didn't find in its records any gas odor calls to the area where the strip club was located.

The victims were taken to two hospitals in the city. None of their injuries was considered life-threatening, officials said. Those injured were nine firefighters, two police officers, four Columbia Gas workers, two civilians and another city employee.

Springfield, which is 90 miles west of Boston and has about 150,000 residents, is the largest city in western Massachusetts. It's known as the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, which is not in the vicinity of the blast.

The city has been rebuilding from damage it sustained in a June 2011 tornado.

On Friday night, residents milled around the neighborhood where the explosion occurred, stunned by the destruction and confused by the cordoned-off area, which grew as crews continued to search for gas leaks. The mayor warned against looting, saying police would be out in force.

Wayne Davis, who lives about a block away from the destroyed building, said he felt his apartment shake.

"I was laying down in bed, and I started feeling the building shaking and creaking," he said.

The Navy veteran said the boom from the explosion was louder than anything he'd ever heard, including the sound of a jet landing on an aircraft carrier.

The blast was so loud it was heard in several neighboring communities. Video from WWLP-TV showed the moment of the explosion, with smoke billowing into the air above the neighborhood.

___

Associated Press writers Rodrique Ngowi, Bridget Murphy and Bob Salsberg in Boston and Jessica Hill in Springfield contributed to this report.

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6 ways to tweet yourself out of a job












Hate your job? Want to leave without giving two weeks notice? Thanks to Twitter, it’s never been easier to get fired, says Rob Lammie at Mental Floss


13f4a  MentalFloss Best FINAL 6 ways to tweet yourself out of a job












Step 1: Drunk tweet
As any Spring Break partier knows, drinking impairs your judgment. It seems to have also impaired the judgment of Major League pitcher-turned-sports-radio-host Mike Bacsik, who put on quite a show during a San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks NBA game in April 2010. While watching the game, Bacsik bragged that he was “About 12 deep and some shots.” He proceeded to unleash a string of insults aimed at NBA commissioner David Stern, accused the refs of fixing the game, and even threatened to blow up the NBA’s offices. But the one that really got people riled up came after the Mavericks lost the game, when Bacsik tweeted: 


SEE MORE: Why popular kids make more money as adults


@MikeBacsik: “Congrats to all the dirty mexicans in San Antonio.”


After sobering up, Bacsik deleted the offending tweets and issued an apology. But it was too little, too late. Numerous people complained to his radio station, which first suspended Bacsik and later fired him. After his dismissal, he told ESPN Dallas, “When you tweet like that, it’s not a playful, harmless thing… I’m very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets.”


Step 2: Break the law (or just anger your governor)
Twitter has become a great tool for politicians to connect to the voting public. Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, for one, has really embraced the technology as a way to share his opinions and views. For example, in December 2009, he sent out a tweet saying:


 @HaleyBarbour: “Glad the Legislature recognizes our dire fiscal situation. Look forward to hearing their ideas on how to trim expenses.”


Jennifer Carter, one of his Twitter followers who worked for the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC), read this message and offered up a suggestion on how Governor Barbour could personally save the taxpayers money:


“Schedule regular medical exams like everyone else instead of paying UMC employees overtime to do it when clinics are usually closed.” 


This “Oh, snap!” moment referred to an incident that had occurred three years earlier, when the governor requested the medical center open on a Saturday, when they were normally closed, and bring in a staff of 15-20 people who were paid overtime to administer his annual check-up. This happened before Carter worked for UMC and she was simply repeating what she had been told by other employees. 


SEE MORE: Does a shaved head give you an advantage in corporate America?


The governor’s office tracked down Carter and made a formal complaint to UMC, saying Carter had violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a privacy law that states no employee of a medical facility can reveal any information about a person’s “protected health information.” Some argued that Carter didn’t violate HIPAA, since she didn’t actually give out any information about the health of the governor. However, others believe that simply saying the governor had even visited a doctor is a violation. 


Semantics aside, UMC administrators said it was a violation, so they suspended Carter for three days without pay and strongly suggested she resign to avoid further disciplinary action, which she did.


SEE MORE: Facebook’s new jobs board: Is LinkedIn toast?


Step 3: Have an NSFW lifestyle
St. Louis-based blogger “The Beautiful Kind” had been writing online about her polyamorous sex life for years. Knowing that not everyone would agree with her chosen lifestyle, she was always very careful about maintaining her anonymity, especially when it came to the workplace. So when she signed up for Twitter, she wanted to be anonymous there as well. She thought that, thanks to the similarities between the two, it was like signing up for an online message board — you supplied your real name to the website privately, but could choose to be known publicly by your username only. But when she logged in for the first time and saw that, not only did it show her username (@TBK365), but also her real name on her profile, she immediately went back and removed it. 


Thinking she was now safely anonymous, she used Twitter to promote her blog and to discuss sexually explicit topics with her followers. However, when her boss at the non-profit group where she worked was told by upper management to do a Google search of all employees, TBK’s Twitter account information — with her real name still associated — came up on the Twitter tracking site topsy.com.


The next day, TBK was called into her boss’ office and fired on the spot. Afterwards, her former boss sent her a letter saying, “While I know you are a good worker and an intelligent person, I hope you try to understand that our employees are held to a different standard. When it comes to private matters, such as one’s sexual explorations and preferences, our employees must keep their affairs private.” Because Missouri is an at-will employment state, meaning employers can fire someone for just about any reason, TBK was SOL.


Step 4: Question company policy
When California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) traded in their standard white shirts for black ones, employee Tim Chantarangsu wasn’t happy with the change. So he tweeted @calpizzakitchen his opinion:


@traphik: “black button ups are the lamest s**t ever!!!”


He didn’t expect anyone to notice or care, but the next day he received a direct message from corporate asking what restaurant he worked for. He knew better than to respond, but they tracked him down anyway and he was fired. They not only referenced his tweet about the shirts, but also an earlier one where he had said he was getting ready to work at “Calipornia Skeetza Kitchen.” 


Little did they know that Chantarangsu is kind of a big deal on another social website, YouTube. Under the name TimothyDeLaGhetto2, Chantarangsu has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, accounting for over 10,500,000 views of his videos at the time. Of course he made a YouTube video telling his Twitter story and it has been viewed well more than 100,000 times. Shortly after the incident, he asked his followers to bombard CPK’s Twitter account with RTs (re-tweets) of his offending message, which they were more than happy to oblige.


Step 5: Make a celebrity look bad
During his five years on the job, Jon Barrett-Ingels had served a lot of celebrities as a waiter at Barney Greengrass, an upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills. One day, Jane Adams, star of the HBO series Hung, came in and had lunch to the tune of $ 13.44. Unfortunately, when the bill came, Adams realized she had left her wallet in the car. Ingels knew who she was, so he told her she could run out and grab it and come back. The actress left, but didn’t return. Instead, someone from her agency called the next day and paid the bill. However, they didn’t leave a tip. Ingels had recently signed up for Twitter and so, his sixth tweet to his 40 followers said:


@PapaBarrett: Jane Adams, star of HBO series “Hung” skipped out on a $ 13.44 check. Her agent called and payed the following day. NO TIP!!!” 


Over the next few weeks, Ingels started using Twitter to send out a few harmless observations about celebrities that came in to eat — mainly what they ordered or what they looked like that day. Then, out of the blue, Jane Adams came back to the restaurant. According to Ingels’ blog, she was clearly upset and begrudgingly slapped $ 3 on the bar for Ingels as a tip. Surprised, Ingels told the actress she really didn’t have to do that, but her gesture was appreciated. She allegedly replied with, “My friend read about it on Twitter!” before storming off. Adams complained about the tweet to management, so someone from Barney’s corporate started following Ingels on Twitter to see what he was up to. After reading his celebrity tweets, it didn’t take long before they gave him the boot.


Step 6: Don’t get hired in the first place
If you’ve followed steps 1 – 5 and you still have a job, here’s the ultimate way to make sure Twitter will keep you from gainful employment.


When recent college grad Skye Riley heard back from Cisco, the computer networking giant, about her job application, one of her first instincts was to tweet about it. Unfortunately, this is what she tweeted:


@theconnor: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.


The unfortunate part? An employee of Cisco, Tim Levad, came across her post while doing a Twitter search for Cisco. He replied to her by saying:


@timmylevad: Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.


Riley’s story was the tweet heard round the world. It became a hot topic on tech blogs for weeks afterwards, with writers calling it the “Cisco Fatty” incident. She later claimed that the tweet was taken out of context — that part of her message was referring to a well-paid internship she had turned down — but it appears the damage had already been done. While only she and Cisco know what really happened, according to her online resume, she has never worked for the company.


 — Rob Lammie


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Four new cases of SARS-like virus found in Saudi, Qatar












LONDON (Reuters) – A new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September has now killed two people in Saudi Arabia, and total cases there and in Qatar have reached six, the World Health Organisation said.


The U.N. health agency issued an international alert in late September saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, where another man with the same virus had died.












On Friday it said in an outbreak update that it had registered four more cases and one of the new patients had died.


“The additional cases have been identified as part of the enhanced surveillance in Saudi Arabia (3 cases, including 1 death) and Qatar (1 case),” the WHO said.


The new virus is known as a coronavirus and shares some of the symptoms of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.


Among the symptoms in the confirmed cases are fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.


Of the six laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO, four cases, including the two deaths, are from Saudi Arabia and two cases are from Qatar.


Britain’s Health Protection Agency, which helped to identify the new virus in September, said the newly reported case from Qatar was initially treated in October in Qatar but then transferred to Germany, and has now been discharged.


Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections, such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.


The WHO said investigations were being conducted into the likely source of the infection, the method of exposure, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.


“Close contacts of the recently confirmed cases are being identified and followed-up,” it said.


It added that so far, only the two most recently confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia were epidemiologically linked – they were from the same family, living in the same household.


“Preliminary investigations indicate that these two cases presented with similar symptoms of illness. One died and the other recovered,” the WHO’s statement said.


Two other members of the same family also suffered similar symptoms of illness, and one died and the other is recovering. But the WHO said laboratory test results on the fatality were still pending, and the person who is recovering had tested negative for the new coronavirus.


The virus has no formal name, but scientists at the British and Dutch laboratories where it was identified refer to it as “London1_novel CoV 2012″.


The WHO urged all its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections.


“Until more information is available, it is prudent to consider that the virus is likely more widely distributed than just the two countries which have identified cases,” it said.


(Editing by Alison Williams)


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Cricket-Australia v South Africa – second test scoreboard












ADELAIDE, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Scoreboard at the close of the


third day of the second test between Australia and South Africa












at Adelaide Oval on Saturday:


Australia won the toss and chose to bat


Australia first innings 550


South Africa first innings


G. Smith c Wade b Siddle 122


A. Petersen run out 54


H. Amla st Wade b Warner 11


J. Rudolph c Quiney b Lyon 29


AB de Villiers lbw b Siddle 1


F. du Plessis c Clarke b Hilfenhaus 78


D. Steyn c Ponting b Hilfenhaus 1


R. Kleinveldt b Hilfenhaus 0


J. Kallis c Wade b Clarke 58


M. Morkel b Lyon 6


I. Tahir not out 10


Extras (b-7, lb-2, w-3, nb-6) 18


Total: (all out, 124.3 overs) 388


Fall of wickets: 1-138 2-169 3-233 4-233 5-240 6-246 7-250


8-343 9-352 10-388


Bowling: B. Hilfenhaus 19.3-6-49-3, J. Pattinson 9.1-0-41-0


(nb-4, w-1) N. Lyon 44-7-91-2, P. Siddle 30.5-6-130-2 (nb-2), M.


Clarke 7-1-22-1, M. Hussey 1-0-7-0 (w-2), D. Warner 5-0-27-1, R.


Quiney 8-3-12-0


Australia second innings


D. Warner c Du Plessis b Kleinveldt 41


E. Cowan b Kleinveldt 29


R. Quiney c De Villiers b Kleinveldt 0


R. Ponting b Steyn 16


M. Clarke not out 9


P. Siddle c De Villiers b Morkel 1


M. Hussey 5


Extras (lb-7, nb-3) 10


Total (for five wickets, 32 overs) 111


Fall of wickets: 1-77 2-77 3-91 4-98 5-103


Still to bat: M. Wade, B. Hilfenhaus, J. Pattinson, N. Lyon.


Bowling: Steyn 10-4-28-1, Morkel 9-2-24-1, Kleinveldt


6-1-14-3 (nb-2), Tahir 7-1-38-0 (nb-1)


- -


Third test: WACA, Perth Nov. 30-Dec. 4


(Compiled by Ian Ransom; Editing by Alastair Himmer)


Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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China’s ‘Beijing Blues’ wins at Taiwan film fest












TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China‘s “Beijing Blues” has won the best film award at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Festival, an event considered the Chinese-language Oscars. Hong Kong‘s Johnnie To is taking home the best director’s award


“Beijing Blues” portrays the lives of the ordinary urban dwellers through the work of a squad of plainclothes crime-hunters.












At Saturday’s ceremony, To won the award for directing “Life Without Principle,” a movie about ordinary citizens’ struggles in hard economic times.


The film has also won veteran Hong Kong actor Lau Ching Wan the best actor’s award. Lau portrays a triad thug seeking to recover money lost in a loan shark scheme.


Taiwan’s Gwei Lun-mei won the best actress award for portraying a woman involved in a romantic triangle in “GF-BF” or “Girlfriend-Boyfriend.”


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Canada wants to balance budget in 2015, may invest to grow economy












TORONTO (Reuters) – Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Thursday he is aiming to wipe out the federal budget deficit by 2015, in time for the next election, but cautioned the Conservative government would be flexible with that target if the economy soured.


Canada’s fiscal shortfall of 1.4 percent of gross domestic product is tiny compared to that of the United States and some other major economies. But it is a sore point for policy makers in a country that ran an 11-year string of surpluses prior to the global financial crisis.












“It remains our intention to balance the budget during this session of Parliament,” Flaherty said in the prepared text of a speech he was delivering in Toronto.


“Although we are prepared to be flexible and pragmatic should circumstances warrant — our plan is to stick to our plan: balanced budgets and low taxes,” he said.


The parliamentary session is due to end in October 2015, the same month a federal election is scheduled.


Last week, Flaherty presented a fiscal update that showed a return to balanced budgets in 2016-17, including a C$ 3 billion ($ 3 billion) contingency cushion in case the global economy worsens.


Three days later, amid criticism, both he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper were at pains to say they still intended to end the red ink by 2015.


Flaherty said on Thursday the next budget in early 2013 would continue with what he called “pro-growth initiatives” of the past year, giving as examples previously-announced initiatives to strengthen the venture capital system and to provide skills training for the work force.


He hinted there would be “much more,” without giving details.


The plan will not include tax hikes and the government will continue to look for ways to cut spending, he said.


“From the experience of Greece and beyond, Canadians know that the consequences of unsustainable finances are all too painful,” he said.


($ 1 = $ 1 Canadian)


(Writing by Louise Egan; editing by Andrew Hay)


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Pussy Riot protester alone in cell after inmate tension












MOSCOW (Reuters) – Jailed Pussy Riot punk protester Maria Alyokhina has been moved to a single-person cell for her own protection because of tension with other prisoners, her lawyer and Russia‘s federal penitentiary service said on Friday.


Alyokhina, 24, is serving a two-year sentence for a raucous protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow‘s main Russian Orthodox cathedral. Activists said her trial, and that of two band mates, was part of a crackdown on dissent.












“There was a conflict” between Alyokhina and other inmates and “she was transferred to a individual cell,” her lawyer Irina Khrunova said by telephone. She said it was not yet clear what caused the conflict.


Prison authorities said Alyokhina was moved at her own request.


“Some tensions arose in relationships and, apparently to prevent this situation from escalating, she decided to submit a request to the prison leadership and they moved her to a one-person cell,” a federal prison service spokeswoman said.


The spokeswoman dismissed Russian media reports Alyokhina argued with inmates over religion at the Ural Mountains prison about 1,150 km (715 miles) northeast of Moscow. Pussy Riot’s protest offended many members of Russia’s Orthodox Church.


The spokeswoman also said she had no information regarding a report on the tabloid-style Life News website that Alyokhina had received violent threats from cell mates.


Alyokhina’s main meal is taken to her cell and she is accompanied by a guard when she leaves it, the spokeswoman said.


Alyokhina and two band mates were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for their “punk prayer”, which the dominant Russian Orthodox Church has cast as part of a concerted attack on the church and the faithful.


The women said the protest, in which they burst into Christ the Saviour Cathedral and called on the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin, was not motivated by hatred and was meant to mock the church leadership’s support for the longtime leader.


Putin, a former KGB officer who has cultivated close ties with the church over 13 years in power, has rejected criticism from the United States and European leaders who called the two-year sentences disproportionate.


Alyokhina, who has a young son, argued with the judge and cross-examined witnesses during her trial.


Her band mate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, is serving her sentence in a different prison. Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, was freed last month when a court suspended her sentence on appeal.


(Additional reporting by Ludmila Danilova and Steve Gutterman; Writing by Nastassia Astrasheuskaya; editing by Jason Webb)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Ireland opens new probe into death of woman denied abortion












DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland has opened a new investigation into the death of a woman denied an abortion of her dying fetus, as the government scrambled to stem criticism of its handling of an incident that polarized the overwhelmingly Catholic country.


Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year old dentist, was admitted to hospital in severe pain on October 21 and asked for a termination after doctors said her baby would not survive, according to husband Praveen, but in a country with some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws, surgeons would not remove the fetus until its heartbeat stopped days later.












Husband Praveen Halappanavar, who believes the delay contributed to the blood poisoning that killed his wife on October 28, has said he would not cooperate with an investigation already launched by the country’s health service because he did not believe it would be neutral.


On Friday, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) watchdog, which is government-funded but independent of the state health service, said it had also launched an investigation after receiving information from the health service and University Hospital Galway, where Halappanavar died.


A solicitor acting on behalf of the husband said the new inquiry was unlikely to be enough to satisfy his client.


“My client has always made his position very clear … He wants a public inquiry. He has made it clear he wants to get to the truth of the matter, so I don’t think that the framework of HIQA will suffice,” Gerard O’Donnell, told RTE radio.


He added that the next step would be to consider an application to the European Court of Human Rights, which criticized Ireland’s abortion ban in 2010.


Halappanavar’s death has reopened a decades-long debate over whether the government should legislate to explicitly allow abortion when the life of the mother is at risk.


Irish law does not specify exactly when the threat to the life of the mother is high enough to justify a termination, leaving doctors to decide. Critics say this means doctors’ personal beliefs can play a role.


Though the influence of the Catholic Church over Irish politics has waned since the 1980s, successive governments have been loath to legislate on an issue they fear could alienate conservative voters.


CALL TO CLARIFY


Ireland’s abortion stance is enshrined in a 1983 constitutional amendment that intended to ban abortion in all circumstances. In 1992, when challenged in the “X-case” involving a 14-year-old rape victim, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was permitted when the woman’s life was at risk, including from suicide.


But successive governments refused to make clear the circumstances under which a threat would make an abortion legal. After several challenges, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2010 that Ireland must clarify its position.


Prime Minister Enda Kenny, whose ruling Fine Gael party made an election pledge not to introduce new laws allowing abortion, said last week he would not be rushed into a decision on the issue.


The government was forced into an embarrassing u-turn this week when it removed three Galway-based consultants from the health service inquiry following criticism from Praveen Halappanavar.


The issue has raised tensions between Fine Gael and the more socially liberal Labour Party, its junior coalition partner, which has campaigned for a clarification of the country’s abortion rules.


The country’s president, Michael D. Higgins, a former member of the Labour Party, weighed into the debate this week when he said an investigation was needed that satisfied the dead woman’s family.


Opposition party Sinn Fein introduced a motion to parliament on Wednesday calling for parliament to legislate on abortion, but it was rejected.


“Successive governments over the past 20 years have failed in respect of legislation. That failure is in large measure due to fear or cowardice,” said Mary Lou McDonald, vice president of Sinn Fein.


(Editing by Will Waterman)


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The politics of shopping: Does that store lean left or right?

Black Friday: It’s a day in which most American citizens put aside politics in pursuit of shopping bargains. But in Washington we can sort almost anything in the US in terms of partisan proclivity, and temples of commerce are no exception. Want to know whether the big box store where you’re waiting in line leans Democratic or Republican? The folks at the invaluable Center for Responsive Politics have compiled a handy guide based on campaign contributions.


Toys R Us, for instance, seems a solidly blue store. Self-identified employees of the store gave $39,000 to political candidates in the 2012 election cycle, and $36,000 of that went to Democrats.


Dig into the numbers though, and you’ll see that Toys R Us is not so much Democratic as Klobucharian. All that $36,000 went to one candidate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) of Minnesota. (That’s kind of odd, isn’t it? The retailer’s corporate headquarters are in New Jersey.) Other than that, Mitt Romney got $1,750 from Toys R Us workers. President Obama got zilch, according to CRP’s Open Secrets blog.


Are you a smart shopper? Take our quiz to find out.


Macy’s employees, on the other hand, were big Obama fans. They donated $28,870 to the president’s reelection campaign, as opposed to $16,390 to GOP nominee Mr. Romney. This Democratic lean was counterbalanced to a certain extent by the store’s corporate political action committee, however. (Toys R Us doesn’t appear to have a central PAC.) Macy’s PAC gave $12,000 to Republicans, and $4,000 to Democrats.


Best Buy seems more of a red retailer. Both it s employees and the company’s PAC had a slight preference for Republicans, according to CRP. Store employees gave $17,662 to Democrats and $22,419 to the GOP, for instance.


But there’s Senator Klobuchar again – she’s the individual candidate to whom Best Buy-related entities donated the most. Yes, she’s chairperson of a Senate Commerce subcommittee on competitiveness, so that might have something to do with it. Maybe the money comes due to her political affiliation with Minnesota’s Gov. Mark Dayton? Governor Dayton is the scion of the Dayton retail empire, which among other things founded Target.


Hmm, we see that Target leaned GOP as well, so maybe that theory isn’t right. Of the store’s $483,777 in individual and PAC contributions, the majority went to the right side of the aisle, according to Open Secrets. And the top recipient is not Sen. Klobuchar, but Rep. Eric Paulsen – a Twin Cities Republican.


Then there’s Wal-Mart. Sam Walton’s empire has a major presence in politics compared with its big box brethren. Its employees and PAC gave $2.7 million to candidates in the 2012 cycle.


Employee donations skewed Republican – which might not be surprising, since Wal-Mart is a big employer in the exurban/rural areas where Romney ran strongly. The firm’s PAC gave roughly equal amounts to candidates of both parties, however. That might be because Wal-Mart lobbies hard in Washington and needs relationships on both sides of the aisle.


In fact, Wal-Mart has spent more than $12 million on lobbyists in the past two years. It has its own Washington office, with 15 employees, and pays hundreds of thousands of dollars in retainers to such top outside lobby firms as Patton Boggs and the Podesta Group.


The firm’s No. 1 issue is sales taxes – specifically, getting states to slap sales taxes on web retail. Rep. Steven Womack (R) of Arkansas, whose district includes Wal-Mart’s Bentonville headquarters, has long pushed national legislation that would force out-of-state online retailers to collect sales tax. He’s one of the top recipients of Wal-Mart campaign contributions.


“The traditional brick and mortar retailer is not asking for special treatment. They know they have to compete against a number of consumer criterion. What they don’t want – and should not compete against – is a disadvantage based on a tax loophole,” said Congressman Womack earlier this year during a Judiciary Committee hearing on the issue.


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Fights and lines: Shoppers descend on Black Friday deals




Black Friday got off to its earliest start ever as many shoppers cleared the table of Thanksgiving dinner and headed straight to the malls and big-box retailers across the nation to snag goods at bargain prices.



More than 10,000 people were wrapped around Macy's flagship store in New York City before the doors opened at midnight this morning. Across the country, up to 147 million people are expected to shop at some point this weekend.



Thousands lined up outside a Target in Chicago ahead of a 9 p.m. start time.



"I'm here because my mom is making me, because she said I couldn't eat any of the Thanksgiving food if I didn't hold her place in line," Alex Horton told ABC News station WLS-TV in Chicago Thursday.



Many critics panned the early start this year, saying it cuts into quality time that should be spent with family and friends.




PHOTOS: Black Friday Shoppers Hit Stores



Chicago resident Claudia Fonseca got creative and took Thanksgiving to go.



"We brought a plate, but that's about it, we've been here since 11 a.m. And that's it," Fonseca told WLS Thursday.



Black Friday makes headlines every year, but not always for the right reason as violence has become linked to the day after Thanksgiving tradition.



In Los Angeles, police aren't taking any chances with the LAPD deploying dozens of extra officers around the city to make sure things don't get out of hand.



Ontario Mills shopping mall in Los Angeles opened at midnight last year, but decided to give excited shoppers a two-hour head start to get their hands on the cut-rate deals, especially for electronics.



"This is my first year," Gabriela Mendoza told ABC News station KABC-TV Thursday. "I tried to stay away from this but I've heard it's really exciting so, I'm looking forward to it."



Things have been relatively calmer compared to the incident last year when a woman was accused of unleashing pepper spray on other shoppers in a dash for electronics at Walmart in Los Angeles.



The Black Friday madness kicked off Thursday when a south Sacramento, Calif., Kmart opened its doors at 6 a.m. Thursday. A shopper in a line of people that had formed nearly two hours earlier reportedly threatened to stab the people around him.



At two Kmarts in Indianapolis, police officers were called in after fights broke out among shoppers trying to score vouchers for a 32-inch plasma TV going for less than $200, police told ABC News affiliate RTV6. No injuries or arrest were made.



Stores have taken preventive measures in hopes of shoppers and tempers at ease, where safety is the main concern for everyone involved.



Mall of America has tightened its Black Friday policies and will bar unaccompanied minors from the megamall all day today. After a chair-throwing melee last year after Christmas, which was captured on smartphones and posted online, the mall is taking steps to prevent any repeat.



At the Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento, Calif., security planned to place barricades at the mall entrance to control the crowds and officials planned to double the number of security officers.



ABC News' John Schriffen and Sarah Netter contributed to this report.

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