Strong holiday spending - NCAA trans athlete policy - Desmond Tutu remembered

U.S. retail sales rose 8.5% between Nov. 1 and Christmas Eve compared with the same period last year, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks sales in the Mastercard payments network coupled with survey-based estimates for cash and checks. That is the strongest growth in 17 years, but slightly below Mastercard’s estimate of 8.8% growth that it published in September
...
Compared with 2019, sales were up 10.7%. The tally includes online purchases and spending in restaurants but excludes automotive sales. Shoppers returned to bricks-and-mortar stores, driving big increases in categories like apparel that suffered a year ago when Americans were sheltered at home early in the pandemic.
...
Some of the rising sales were due to higher prices. Inflation jumped to a nearly four-decade high in November. But [Stephen Sadove, a senior adviser to Mastercard] said higher prices didn’t appear to sap demand, perhaps because many households are sitting on high levels of savings.