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Most of us are not professional chefs or caterers or decorators, so the thought of cooking for and entertaining a Thanksgiving crowd can be daunting. That's why we turned to the experts — professional chefs and caterers and interior designers — to discuss some typical Thanksgiving mistakes and how to avoid them. "The overriding first mistake people make is they think they have more time than they do," said Bistro to Go Cafe and Catering executive chef Kate Kobylinski. She regularly hosts her extended family of 30 and knows "every single problem." "Food takes longer to cook, the table takes longer to set and houses take longer to clean than you think." Clean your house on Monday. On Wednesday, dice vegetables so they're "food-show ready," as Kobylinski put it. Prepare (but don't cook) your green bean casserole (leaving off garnishes like fried onions) so it can just be popped in the oven and set the dining room table. Don't feel that you have to do everything yourself. But be as specific as possible when doling out the assignments. "Don't let them make their own decisions!" Kobylinski said emphatically. Thanksgiving is "micromanager's heaven." For example, have someone bring ice on Thanksgiving Day because going out to buy it takes time and ice hogs freezer space. If you don't like making desserts, have someone bring one. If a guest wants to prepare a side dish, great, but decide beforehand what they will bring. Ahead of dinner, interior designer Kacie Cope likes to set out all of her serving platters with Post-it notes attached denoting what will go on them. "You'll be amazed if you have them labeled," she said. "People can help in a jiff." During the evening, Kobylinski gives people assigned jobs, such as serving drinks or taking charge of an after-dinner game. And the chef is forgiving about using premade ingredients, like gravy or cranberry jelly. "There's no right or wrong way to make any of your foods," she said. But you might want to give a homemade touch to prepared ingredients, like adding sauteed onions or celery to prepared gravy. "Everyone goes into Thanksgiving Day with a half-frozen turkey," said Kobylinski. "And you can't get the bag of giblets out because they're frozen in place." It takes one day for every 4 pounds of turkey meat to defrost in the refrigerator. (No, it is not safe to leave your frozen turkey out on the counter to thaw and breed bacteria.) So if you've got a 20-pound bird, you've got to start thawing on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. However, there are other methods. Kobylinski suggests submerging the bird and running a thin stream of cold water over it. "It doesn't have to be a lot of water." The U.S. Department of Agriculture says there are only three ways to safely thaw food: In the refrigerator, in cold water or in the microwave. To safely thaw turkey in cold water, the USDA says it takes about 30 minutes per pound. Put the turkey in a leak-proof plastic bag to prevent cross-contamination and submerge it. Change the water every 30 minutes, and cook immediately when it's thawed. If opting for your microwave, follow its instructions for thawing and cook immediately. Then, if you're running late and need to speed things up to satisfy the hungry hordes, you can cut the bird in half before cooking (skin side up). This significantly reduces cooking time, requiring about 10 minutes per pound. Kobylinski also recommends resting the turkey on vegetables in the oven to keep the bottom from getting burned. Private chef and culinary educator Emily Larsen warns that those plastic thermometers in supermarket turkeys are setting you up for failure. The USDA says that you should cook a turkey until the internal temperature is 165 degrees. Plastic thermometers don't pop out until the breast meat is at about 180 degrees, "when your turkey is completely dry," Larsen said. Plus, people forget that meat continues to cook once it's out of the oven. She recommends taking a bird out of the oven when it is at 155 degrees — she likes to use an inexpensive instant-read folding probe thermometer — and continue to monitor it. (Insert it into the thickest part of the breast, avoiding the bone.) "Ten dollars [for the thermometer] can save your Thanksgiving," she said. Some feel that buying a frozen rather than fresh bird is another no-no, since freezing leaches water out of the turkey. However, if, despite your best efforts, your turkey is lacking moisture, Kobylinski has a fix: Put warm chicken or turkey stock and clarified butter into a mister and spritz sliced turkey with it before serving. "The same with stuffing if it's too dry," she said. Thanksgiving Day is not the time to try out a completely new recipe. And you don't have to lay out 10 side dishes. In addition to opting for a simple menu, Kobylinski also recommends figuring out how long your items will take to cook and what method of cooking it requires ahead of time. Your turkey will be monopolizing your oven for four hours, so other oven foods should be limited or be easily reheated during the time that the turkey is resting. (As for resting a turkey, the chef puts her turkey on a hot plate with towels over it so "the meat rebinds itself and stabilizes for a smoother cut.") "Stovetop items should be staggered," she said, so you don't have a frying pan and three pots all going at once. As a sample menu, she suggests you might have one baked potato dish and one mashed. And for vegetables, one baked dish and one that is blanched or grilled. Interior designers advise against going too crazy with holiday-specific décor. "There's a lot that's being sold to us that we feel like we need," said Pittsburgh interior designer Amanda Bock. Do you really need a turkey-shaped vase or pilgrim figurines? "They're out for two weeks, and then you have to figure out where to store them," agreed Cope. "It takes an already busy season and makes it stressful in an unnecessary way." Cope says you can take things that are already part of your menu and use them as décor — a bowl of nuts or cranberries, or even removing the label from a cranberry sauce tin and repurposing it as a vase for flowers and fall leaves. Bock adds that dining room table décor should be kept to a minimum, since you'll need space for your food. You don't have to have "big chargers and five plates and three different glasses, plus all of your Thanksgiving food on the table," Bock said. If you do have flowers or a centerpiece in the middle of the table, keep it low, Cope advised. "That way, you can actually see the person who's across the table from you." Tableware and tablecloths might be in fall colors, so they can be repurposed throughout the season. Water glasses or wine goblets could be amber-toned, Bock suggests. Well in advance of your guests' arrival, think critically about the setup of your home. Don't be afraid to rearrange your furniture so your guests move to different areas and don't all congregate in your kitchen. "You want to make sure that there are areas where people can sit and chat, watch the parade or just hang out together," Bock said. Set up a drinks station and an hors d'oeuvres station in different parts of the house, Bock suggests. Though, she admits, "I can't do that in my house because my dogs would just gobble up the hors d'oeuvres." She suggests repurposing a kitchen nook for kid seating, or as a serving area. Kobylinski might set up a half-built puzzle in a side room. She even puts out winter jackets and boots for "the gentlemen" for the moment when she urges them to go out on the porch to smoke cigars and drink brandy so they won't be underfoot. As a finishing touch, don't neglect to set the mood by using lamps around the room instead of harsh overhead lights. Putting out tapers or tea candles establishes an intimate feeling. "That just leans into the cozy fall vibe," Cope said of low lighting. But don't use scented candles, Bock warns. Or a smelly flower arrangement. "That can overwhelm you when you're eating," Bock said. Putting on a favorite music playlist can set the mood and take away self-consciousness, especially early in the evening. The most important thing on Thanksgiving is simply for everyone to enjoy each other's company. A little advance preparation can help you, the host, stay relaxed throughout the evening so you can interact with your guests. As Bock advised, "Keep it simple for Thanksgiving." Let friendship and fellowship be the stars of the show. The 98th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade coverage is slated from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST Thursday, Nov. 28. This year's event will feature 28 clown crews, 26 floats, 16 giant balloons, 11 marching bands, five performance groups, three "baloonicles"—cold-air inflatables driven down the parade route, and numerous performers. Stacker curated a selection of photographs from the past century of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to help illustrate the history of the iconic event. The parade in New York City, presented by department store chain Macy's, was first held in 1924 under the heading "Macy's Christmas Parade" to promote holiday sales and spotlight the newly expanded and, at the time, largest in the world Herald Square store in Manhattan. The success of the event led organizers to turn the spectacle into an annual tradition. Each year, the parade ends outside the same Herald Square Macy's location. The event has been televised nationally since 1953 on NBC. The parade at first featured Central Park Zoo animals escorted by Macy's employees and professional entertainers for 6 miles from 145th Street in north Manhattan's Harlem to Macy's. A quarter of a million onlookers lined the streets. Real animals were replaced with balloons in 1927; that same year, the name of the event was changed to Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The longest-running parade float is the event's unofficial mascot, Tom Turkey. Tom features moving wings, head, and eyes and usually functions as the lead float in the parade. Bringing up the caboose in virtually all the parades is Santa Claus who ushers in the holiday shopping season with his arrival at Macy's Herald Square. The parade offers a glimpse into pop culture of the time, from beloved children's entertainment to hit Broadway shows and musical acts. The Radio City Rockettes, formed in 1925, have performed in the parade annually since 1957. In 1933, the outside temperature was 69 degrees F, the warmest it's been; 2018 was the coldest day in parade history at 19 degrees F. In 2022, for the first time, the event featured a trio of women hosts. Today, more than 44 million people tune in to watch the parade. Keep reading to learn more about the parade's history and see some iconic shots of the event. You may also like: Game on: The booming growth of online gaming In Macy's first Thanksgiving parade, Santa Claus sat atop a float pulled by a team of horses down Broadway. That year floats, bands, and Central Park Zoo animals were featured in the procession. At the parade's end, Santa Claus was crowned "King of the Kiddies" on Macy's balcony at the 34th Street entrance. Macy's quickly announced the parade would be an annual event. The large balloons that replaced live zoo animals in 1927 were filled with regular air and had no release valves—they were simply let go to pop in the air following the parade. 1928 marked the first year of Macy's inflating balloons with helium to allow them to float. They were also outfitted with valves so the helium could gradually escape rather than waiting for the balloon to inevitably pop, and featured a return address so anyone who found them could return them and receive a reward. In this photo from 1928, a 35-foot fish and 60-foot-long tiger were featured prominently in the parade. A $100 prize was offered for each balloon recovered after its release. The Thanksgiving parade enjoyed rapid growth throughout the 1930s, with more than 1 million revelors lining the parade route in 1933. In this 1931 photo, a giant hippopotamus balloon makes its way down Broadway. A blue hippo balloon—possibly this one—released after the parade was still at large several days later, thought to be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. In this image, the Felix the Cat balloon is led down Broadway by its four handlers tailed by Terrible Turk and Willie Red Bird. The original Felix the Cat character balloon made its parade debut in 1927, but was destroyed after its post-parade release by a high tension wire in 1931. The Terrible Turk also was destroyed the same year by an electric sign. In 1932, Macy's Tom Cat balloon got stuck in the propeller of a plane when the aviator flying the plane tried recovering the balloon for a reward. While the plane eventually landed safely, that event marked the final year of releasing balloons after the parades and offering prizes for their return to Macy's. The 23rd annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was held Nov. 24, 1949. In this photo, a teddy bear makes its way through Times Square. This parade marked the second appearance for the bear. Other balloons made their debut: Freida the Dachshund, Howdy Doody on the Flying Trapeze, and Macy's Hobo Clown. Macy's original character The Giant Spaceman made his debut in 1952's parade, measuring 70 feet long and 40 feet wide and weighing 600 pounds. More than 25 gallons of paint went into painting the astronaut. An estimated 2.25 million people lined the streets for the festivities that year. Throngs of onlookers pack the sidewalks in Manhattan's Times Square during this 1955 parade. Mighty Mouse, an animated superhero created by Terrytoons, is seen in the back left of the photo. Mighty Mouse made his debut in the Thanksgiving Day parade in 1951; he appeared in 80 short films between 1942-1961. Popeye makes his way through Times Square in the 1959 parade. A year earlier, another helium shortage meant balloons were inflated with air and hung from construction cranes to make their way through the parade route. Also in 1958, the first celebrity performances were added with the Benny Goodman sextet. Live music proved a challenge technically and logistically. The parade was transitioning to the now-familiar lip syncing by 1964. The iconic peacock float makes its debut in this photo of the 1961 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. That same year, Miss Teenage America Diane Lynn Cox appeared in princess attire sharing a float with "Prince Charming" actor Troy Donahue. You may also like: Baltimore buried its urban streams—now an artist is bringing one back Teen performers appear in classic roller skates in this image from the 1961 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The sign above the skaters reads "Macy's presents A Fantasy of Christmas in New York." This 1961 photo shows shoulder-to-shoulder parade onlookers at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The year marks the first balloon featuring Bullwinkle Moose and the first year for floats with Pinocchio, The Racetrack Grandstand, Cinderella, Peacock, Ferris Wheel, Brigadoon, Meet the Mets, and Santa's Sleigh. Several years later, in 1968, Macy's creative team figured out how to design floats up to 40 feet tall and 28 feet wide that could fold into 12.5-by-8-foot boxes for strategic transportation from New Jersey to Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel. A Bullwinkle Moose balloon floats down Broadway in this 1972 photograph of the parade. The 46th annual parade featured five firsts for floats: Alphabet Blocks, Snow Mountain, Windmill, Curious George, and Santa's Holiday Home. A giant inflatable balloon of Kermit the Frog makes its way down the 1982 parade route in this photo. The parade marked Kermit's sixth appearance. First-time balloons included Olive Oyl and Woody Woodpecker. You may also like: Far from making their last calls, LGBTQ+ bars evolve to imagine a new world Woody Woodpecker greets the crowd as he floats past One Times Square during the 63rd annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1989. In the coming years, safety concerns troubled '90s-era parades—namely the wind. Strong gusts in 1993 pushed a Sonic the Hedgehog balloon into a Columbus Circle lamppost that broke and hurt a child and off-duty police officer. Four years later, intense winds caused a Cat in the Hat balloon to hit a lamppost, hurling debris into the air that fractured the skull of a spectator who spent 24 days in a coma. The incident, among others, led then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to form a task force. The Soaring Spirit Canoe float, pictured here in 1995, made its debut in the parade in 1986. Popular '90s balloons included Bart Simpson, Cat in the Hat, and The Rugrats. New York City first responders carry two American flags during the Nov. 22, 2001, 75th Anniversary of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which was also held on the heels of 9/11. They honored those killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that year. New Yorkers crowded the streets to watch the parade, which featured 15 giant balloons and marching bands that all added an air of patriotism to the event. Dora the Explorer makes her balloon debut in this 2005 photo. That same year, the M&M 's chocolate candies balloon collided with a streetlight in Times Square, and debris from it injured two siblings. A woman dressed in an elf costume sprinkles spectators with confetti in Times Square during Macy's 85th Thanksgiving Day parade on Nov. 24, 2011. Sonic the Hedgehog and Julius the sock monkey, which was created by Paul Frank, made their balloon entrances that year. You may also like: 5 tips for making your next event more affordable Snoopy and Woodstock made their way along the 89th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade route Nov. 26, 2015. To date, Snoopy boasts the most years flown as a character balloon in the event. In this 2016 photo, spectators like this one recorded videos of the parade on their phones. More than 24 million people were estimated to have streamed the parade that year on TV. The Pikachu balloon floats down Central Park West for its fourth time during the 91st annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2017. That year's lineup featured 1,100 cheerleaders and dancers, more than 1,000 clowns, 28 legacy balloons, 26 floats, 17 giant helium balloons, 12 marching bands, and six performance groups. Performers in this photo prepare at the 94th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on Nov. 26, 2020. The event was one of few public occasions to be kept on schedule during the COVID-19 pandemic, albeit in a tempered manner. Much of the performances were pre-taped and the parade route was massively reduced. Participants wore masks and balloon handlers were cut by nearly 90%. Santa Claus celebrates at the 97th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in this photo from Nov. 23, 2023. First-time giant balloons included Beagle Scout Snoopy, Leo (Netflix), Monkey D. Luffy, Po from "Kung Fu Panda," and The Pillsbury Doughboy. Copy editing by Lois Hince. You may also like: From the Roman Empire to your therapist's office: The history of the chaise lounge Pinnochio, Tin Man, and Uncle Sam make their way along the parade route in 1939. Mickey Mouse made his debut five years earlier with a balloon designed in part by Walt Disney; Mickey's handlers were also dressed as mice. New iterations of Mickey appeared over the next 70 years as the character evolved. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was canceled from 1942-1944 because of supply shortages during World War II, namely helium and rubber. Festivities returned in 1945. The Christmas classic "Miracle on 34th Street" was released in 1947 and prominently features actual footage from the 1946 parade. 1948 marked the parade's first network television broadcast. You may also like: Legendary interior designers from every decade of the 20th century A solo tortoise float makes its way down the street near Columbus Circle in this 1974 parade photo. Not pictured is the accompanying hare. This marked the seventh appearance of the duo. For the holidays: Get inspiring home and gift ideas – sign up now!How Polyester Viscose Fabric Manufacturers Ensure QualityI just spent a week in Beijing and Shanghai, meeting with Chinese officials, economists and entrepreneurs, and let me get right to the point: While we were sleeping China took a great leap forward in high-tech manufacturing of everything. If no one has told Donald Trump, then I will: His nickname on Chinese social media today is “Chuan Jianguo” — meaning “Trump the (Chinese) Nation Builder” — because of how his relentless China bashing and tariffs during his first term as president lit a fire under Beijing to double down on its efforts to gain global supremacy in electric cars, robots and rare materials, and to become as independent of America’s markets and tools as possible. “China had its Sputnik moment — his name was Donald Trump,” Jim McGregor, a business consultant who lived in China for 30 years, told me. “He woke them up to the fact that they needed an all-hands-on-deck effort to take their indigenous scientific, innovative and advanced manufacturing skills to a new level.” The China that Trump will encounter is a much more formidable export engine. Its advanced manufacturing muscles have exploded in size, sophistication and quantity in the last eight years, even while consumption by its people remains puny. If I were drawing a picture of China’s economy today as a person, it would have an awesome manufacturing upper body — like Popeye, still eating spinach — with consuming legs resembling thin little sticks. China’s export machine is so strong now that only very high tariffs might really slow it down, and China’s response to very high tariffs could be to start cutting off American industries from crucial supplies that are now available almost nowhere else. That kind of supply-chain warfare is not what anyone, anywhere needs. The Chinese experts I spoke with during my trip two weeks ago would like to avoid that battle. The Chinese still need the U.S. market for their exports. But they will not be pushovers. Both Beijing and Washington will be much better off with a bargain — one that imposes a gradual increase in U.S. tariffs, while both of us do what we needed to do long ago. What is that? I call it the “Elon Musk-Taylor Swift paradigm.” America would use higher tariffs on China to buy time to lift up more Elon Musks — more homegrown manufacturers who can make big stuff so we can export more to the world and import less. And China would use the time to let in more Taylor Swifts — more opportunities for its youth to spend money on entertainment and consumer goods made abroad, but also to make more goods and offer more services — particularly in health care — that its own people want to buy. But if we don’t use this time to respond to China the way we did to the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, with our own comprehensive scientific, innovative and industrial push, we will be toast. You have to go to China to see it, but because a U.S. congressional delegation, led by Sen. Chuck Schumer in October 2023, was the first official visit by U.S. lawmakers since 2019 — and because many U.S. companies that moved their American staffs out of China for COVID never returned them — a lot of people in Washington have missed the country’s staggering manufacturing growth. Here’s what Noah Smith, who writes about manufacturing, posted the other day, using data from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization: In 2000, “the United States and its allies in Asia, Europe and Latin America accounted for the overwhelming majority of global industrial production, with China at just 6% even after two decades of rapid growth.” By 2030, Smith wrote, the U.N. agency predicts “China will account for 45% of all global manufacturing, single-handedly matching or outmatching the U.S. and all of its allies. “This is a level of manufacturing dominance by a single country seen only twice before in world history — by the U.K. at the start of the Industrial Revolution, and by the U.S. just after World War II,” Smith wrote. “It means that in an extended war of production, there is no guarantee that the entire world united could defeat China alone.” Let me offer a few examples of the scale of what we’re talking about: In 2019, as Trump was finishing his last term, net lending by Chinese banks to domestic industries was $83 billion. Last year it swelled to $670 billion, according to the People’s Bank of China. That is not a typo. When I visited China in 2019, before COVID, Xiaomi and Huawei were only Chinese smartphone companies. When I returned a few weeks ago, both were now also electric car companies — each leveraging its battery technologies to make really cool electric cars. Xiaomi’s SU7, which is manufactured in a formerly abandoned plant that used to make gasoline-fueled cars — was the talk of the Beijing car show last April. Meanwhile, BYD, the famed Chinese battery company, which already had a car-making subsidiary, doubled down on automobiles. I rode all over Shanghai in super-comfortable BYD electric cars operated by Didi, China’s Uber. BYD now offers a subcompact EV, the Seagull, that starts at less than $10,000. In an effort to export its large inventory of cars, China has begun construction of a fleet of 170 ships capable of carrying several thousand automobiles at a time across the ocean. Before the pandemic, the world’s shipyards were delivering only four such vessels a year. That is also not a typo. Because China has essentially a national electric grid, it has installed charging stations all over the country, which is why more than half of new car sales in China are of EVs. Apple talked for 15 years about making an electric car. Has anyone driven an Apple car? I took the bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai. The trip is roughly the distance between New York City and Chicago. Only it takes just 4.5 hours because the train goes over 200 mph and there’s almost 100 of them going back and forth each day. The ride is so smooth, if you put a dime on the ledge next to your window — half on the ledge and half off — it will be there exactly as you left it from the beginning of the trip to the end. Try that on the Acela between New York City and Washington and the dime will be on the floor seconds after the train starts wobbling out of the station. In case you missed the story, while I was in Beijing, General Motors took a write-down of more than $5 billion on the value of its once cutting-edge factory that at one time was a major player in the Chinese car market. Sales at GM’s China joint venture, SAIC-GM, “slumped 59% in the first 11 months of this year, to 370,989 units, while local new-energy vehicle champion BYD sold more than 10 times that number in the same period,” Reuters reported. But don’t worry, folks, help is on the way. Trump has vowed to make America great again by doubling down on drill-baby-drill gas guzzlers and ending U.S. government subsidies for Americans who purchase electric cars. So, what do you think is going to happen? The rest of the world will gradually transition to Chinese-made self-driving EVs, “and America will become the new Cuba — the place where you visit to see old gas-guzzling cars that you drive yourself,” as Keith Bradsher, the New York Times Beijing bureau chief and an auto industry specialist, said. If that happens, one day we’ll wake up and China will own the global electric vehicle market. And since fully autonomous driving technology only really works with EVs, that means China will own the future self-driving-cars market —as well. Here’s another way the China that Trump will face in 2025 looks a lot different from his last go-round. If Trump were even to tell China, “Hey, I’ll let you off the hook on tariffs, if you build more factories in America,” that would definitely help reduce our trade deficit with Beijing, but it might not be such a vote-getter for Republicans. Because here is what China would say: “Sure, how many factories would you like? Forty? Fifty? But there’s one thing. The assembly lines will all be staffed by robots, and we can even operate them remotely.” I learned a new term on this visit: “dark factory.” A retired Chinese official mentioned to me in passing over dinner that she wanted to buy a new high-tech bed and decided to go see the offerings at the factory. When she arrived, though, she found it was a “dark factory” — so the lights were turned on just for her. It wasn’t dark because it was out of business, she told me. It was dark because it was so fully roboticized that the company doesn’t waste electricity keeping the lights on for any humans — except for the engineers who come to clean or adjust the machines once a day. As an article in the state-run China Daily explained: “From steel plates and mobile phones to household motors and rocket ignition device parts, more business lines in China are using artificial intelligence to power their production and have introduced ‘dark factories’ with their 24-hour uninterrupted and unattended production capabilities. Dark factories, also called smart factories, are entirely run by programmed robots with no need for lighting.” You remember the old joke? “The modern factory will be just a man and a dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the machines and the man will be there to feed the dog.” That is not a joke in China. More Americans might get a better feel for what is going on there if they simply went and ordered room service at their hotel. I love this account from a German travel vlogger from his Shanghai hotel experience, recounted recently by Global Times: “‘OK, so the phone is ringing. That means the robot is here,’ he said at the beginning of the video. When he opened the door, he saw a robot standing there waiting for him. When he pressed the ‘open’ button on the machine, the lid on the top opened to reveal the food he had ordered inside. He took out the package and hit ‘finished’ to close the compartment and watched the robot return to the elevator.” No tip required. But there is another reason for China’s headlong rush to robotization: demographic necessity. In America, strong trade unions and a growing population make robots the natural enemy of working people, because of how they supplant blue-collar labor. China’s population collapse and its heavy restrictions on trade unions make introducing more and more robots to factory floors both economically essential and politically easier (but China, too, will most likely face a backlash from its blue-collar workers). In the last seven years alone, the number of babies born in China fell from 18 million to 9 million. The latest projection is that China’s current population of 1.4 billion will decline by 100 million by 2050 and possibly by 700 million by the end of the century. To preserve its own standard of living and be able to take care of all its old people, with a steadily shrinking working population, China will drive the robotization of everything for itself — and the rest of the world. In his first term, Trump — and Joe Biden, too — was right to impose tariffs on China as long as it didn’t give us reciprocal access. China has consistently violated World Trade Organization trade rules to avoid giving reciprocal access to its major trading partners, and it has greatly subsidized its companies. I have complained about this for years. China has historically bought $1 from America for every $4 America bought from China; much of that is soybeans and other agricultural products. But here’s what’s scary: We no longer make that many things China wants to buy. It can do almost everything at least cheaper and often better. Eric Chen is the founder of Kingwills, a Chinese materials science company that competes with, among others, DuPont. He explained to me that what young Chinese entrepreneurs like himself learned from the Chinese internet giants like Tencent, ByteDance and Alibaba was “rapid innovation and improvement.” His foreign competitors, said Chen, upgrade their products much more slowly and, when they do, can take five or six years to build a new factory. “We upgrade some products every 30 days. We can produce a new production line in six months. We learned from Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. You are really good” at taking products “from zero to 1. We are good at going from 2 to 100.” This is possible because the steady buildup of manufacturing capacity in China means that virtually anything you need today — from a tiny part to a rare earth chemical — can be sourced domestically. No other country in the world has such a complete homegrown ecosystem, Chen explained, so any idea you come up with, “you can do all the sourcing from here. We have a three-year target to have zero labor for production and storage using a combination of robots and AI.” Then “we can sit in China and control production outside of China. Then we can put factories closer to the customer.” He added one warning, though: “Probably in the future the competition for the U.S. is not China, but AI. It is coming for both of us.” Foreign business executives operating in China will tell you that you used to have to be there to have access to its giant market of consumers. You still have to be there, they say, but today it’s also in order to have access to China’s expanding market of innovators. Get ready for more “designed in China,” not just “made in China.” We fool ourselves if we believe that China’s growing strength in advanced manufacturing is only from unfair trade practices. It is also because it has lots and lots of people still burning to work, as they say, “9-9-6” — that is 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. 6 days a week to make a better life, and because Beijing has invested in world-class infrastructure, and because it deliberately suppresses consumer spending and because it has a seemingly endless supply of students majoring in engineering — and not so many in sports management, sociology and gender studies. “The Chinese treat education like we treat sports,” said Han Shen Lin, who teaches at NYU Shanghai. *** So, China’s going to bury us? That is not at all inevitable. I left as impressed with China’s weaknesses as much as with its strengths. I don’t want to see instability in China. It’s important to the world that China continues to be able to give its 1.4 billion people a better life — but it cannot be at the expense of everyone else. And it is clear to me from being there that, in the relative absence of foreign visitors, a lot of Chinese have grown out of touch with how China is perceived in the world. As a senior White House official said to me, China “freaked out” the rest of the world when it began its “Made in China 2025” agenda — a state-led and -funded industrial policy that aimed to make China the dominant producer in every aspect of advanced manufacturing, from aerospace to material science to machine tools. And it’s not only freaking out more developed manufacturers, like the United States and Germany, but also developing countries such as Brazil, the Philippines and Indonesia, as they see China dominating overseas and yet still constricting its domestic consumption. China has billions and billions of dollars in domestic savings that could stimulate its economy, but people will spend those savings only if they have confidence in their government and faith in the future. But the government’s bad performance at the end of COVID shook that confidence, and the lack of transparency about China’s future direction has kept savers cautious. Related Articles Their reluctance to spend is compounded by youth unemployment stuck over 17%, as well as by seeing some cities so starved for cash that raiding parties of tax collectors are sent to track down tax evaders in other provinces. In addition, the persistent housing crisis, born of immense overbuilding, has left many Chinese feeling house-poor. It also doesn’t help confidence to read that China’s third consecutive serving or former defense minister is being investigated for alleged corruption in the People’s Liberation Army. Most important, the government’s prioritizing of Communist Party ideology and state-owned industries is driving some of China’s most talented private-sector innovators to quietly move their money, families or themselves to Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. That is not a good trend for China. My free advice to my friends in China is that an economy this unbalanced is not sustainable. It will eventually generate a global trade alliance against them. The world will not let China make everything and only import soybeans and potatoes. China needs more nurses to provide good health care at home — and fewer engineers to design more cars for abroad. Its youth need more outlets for creative expression — without having to worry that a song lyric they write could land them in prison. I talked to too many people who feel choked or don’t dare speak their minds. They see the crackdown in Hong Kong. It was not like this 15 years ago. There is a reason so many educated young Chinese now yearn to go abroad. As for my neighbors in America, I have a confession. I caught a virus in China that I never imagined I’d get: “Elon Musk appreciation.” I’d become so disgusted with the way Musk had been using his X megaphone to bully defenseless people and fawn over Trump that I just wanted that Elon Musk to shut up and go away. But there is another Elon Musk. The genius engineer-entrepreneur who can make stuff, big stuff — electric cars, reusable rockets and satellite internet systems — as well as anyone in China can, and often better. Musk at his best is the one American manufacturer the Chinese fear and respect. It is crazy to me that Trump is wasting Musk on the project of shrinking the U.S. bureaucracy — under the acronym DOGE, for the informal “Department of Government Efficiency” — when he should be leading another DOGE, a government office for enabling more Americans to “Do Good Engineering.” In sum, America needs to tighten up, but China needs to loosen up. Which is why my hat is off to Secretary of State Antony Blinken for showing China the way forward. On April 26, as Blinken was en route to the airport after a visit that included a meeting with China’s president, Xi Jinping, Reuters reported, he popped into the LiPi record store in the Chinese capital’s arts district. Blinken bought two records — one was an album by classic Chinese rocker Dou Wei. The other was Taylor Swift’s 2022 record “Midnights.” Swift’s “Lover” album in 2019 had more than 1 million combined streams, downloads and sales in China within a week of its release — a record for an international artist, the Reuters story noted. The demand from Chinese consumers is there. I’d say it’s time for China’s leaders to let their people have more of the supply. It would be good for both our countries. Thomas Friedman writes a column for the New York Times.

Bany John is struggling to hold its own at the box office. The film, after opening at more than Rs 11.25 crore on Christmas, has continued to fall each day. At the end of three days, the film has not managed to touch Rs 20 crores. Baby John continues to fall According to Sacnilk’s early estimates, Baby John earned approximately Rs3.65 crore on the third day at the box office. The first-day collection was Rs 11.25 crore and there was a drastic drop on day 2. The third day saw a bigger drop. Despite being a major holiday release, the movie struggled to attract audiences for Kalees' mass entertainer. Here’s looking at Baby John’s total collection after three days at the box office: Baby John Box Office Collection DayBaby John Box Office CollectionBaby John Box Office Collection Day 1Rs 11. 25 CroreBaby John Box Office Collection Day 2Rs 4.75 Crore Baby John Box Office Collection Day 3Rs 3.65 Crore * early estimatesBaby John Box Office TotalRs ₹ 19.65 Crore ALSO READ: Baby John Box Office Collection Day 1: Atlee-Varun Film FAILS To Beat Pushpa 2, Earns Rs 12 Crore On Christmas More about Baby John Zoom's in-house reviewer gave the film 2.5 stars. The review states, "Baby John has Atlee’s classic touch. It has strong political flavours wrapped in the sweet coating of a commercial actioner. Over the years, the definition of mass has changed and Atlee has a pivotal role to play in the shift. It comes as no surprise that Theri has inspired Baby John. Coated with Bollywood masala, the film offers nothing new in terms of story. Following the success formula of Theri, director Kalees relies too much on Varun’s stardom and jarring loud action sequences. It’s a been there, done that situation." The film is facing stiff competition from Allu Arjun's Pushpa 2 as well! Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from Box Office, Entertainment News and around the world.CHILLIWACK, B.C. — Dan Coulter, a former member of British Columbia's legislature and a New Democrat cabinet minister, has died at age 49. The BC New Democratic Party says in a statement that Coulter was a "devoted advocate" for the people of B.C. The party says Coulter "always championed the underdog," citing his work in the legislature after his election in Chilliwack in 2020, his former role of chair of the Chilliwack school board and as the Parliamentary secretary for accessibility and minister of state for infrastructure and transit. The party's provincial director Heather Stoutenburg said last week in a statement that Coulter had "experienced a serious medical emergency" and was being treated in hospital. The party says a private service will be held for Coulter on Saturday and a local public service will be held in Chilliwack on Jan. 11. The party says that Coulter, who lost his bid for re-election in the October provincial election, was "the very best of us," and it extends its "deepest condolences to his family, friends and everyone who had the privilege of knowing and working with him." It says that instead of flowers, his family has asked that donations go to the Chilliwack Restorative Justice and Youth Advocacy Association, Chilliwack Bowls of Hope Society, and the BC SPCA. "To those of us who knew him, Dan was so much more than a colleague — he was a friend and a mentor," the statement says. "He was smart, funny, thoughtful and honest. But above all things, he was kind." Premier David Eby is echoing that sentiment on social media, saying the province has lost an "incredible advocate and a fighter for justice." "He was so happy to be part of a movement to make this province better for everyone," Eby says of Coulter. "Even at such a young age, Dan leaves behind a proud legacy of standing up for workers, the people of Chilliwack, and people across B.C." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 13, 2024. The Canadian Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes threw for 269 yards and three touchdowns, Spencer Shrader kicked a 31-yard field goal as time expired and the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Carolina Panthers 30-27 on Sunday to reach double-digit wins for the 10th straight season. Noah Gray caught two TD passes as the Chiefs (10-1) bounced back from last week’s 30-21 loss at Buffalo and won at the buzzer yet again in a season of narrow escapes. for the two-time defending Super Bowl champions, who scored on their first five possessions. Bryce Young finished 21 of 35 for 262 yards and a touchdown for the Panthers (3-8), who had their two-game winning streak snapped. David Moore had six receptions for 80 yards and a touchdown. Trailing 27-19, Young completed a fourth-down pass to Adam Thielen to move the chains, then went deep for the veteran receiver, who drew a pass-interference penalty on Chamarri Conner. That set up a 1-yard touchdown run by Chuba Hubbard. Young’s initial 2-point conversion toss to Moore drew a flag on Trent McDuffie, and Hubbard ran for 2 on the next play to tie the game with 1:46 left. Mahomes ran for 33 yards on the ensuing drive and was sprung by a downfield block from Justin Watson to reach field goal range. Then he connected with Kareem Hunt for 10 yards to make it a chip shot for Shrader. Mahomes finished with 60 yards rushing. The Chiefs wasted no time setting the tone as Samaje Perine returned the opening kickoff 56 yards and Mahomes found on the third play of scrimmage for a 7-0 lead. Gray went nine games without a TD catch before hauling in two last week against Buffalo. His 11-yard score late in the second quarter gave him . The Panthers moved the ball well but struggled in the red zone, resulting in field goals of 30, 32, 29 and 33 yards for Eddy Pineiro, the most accurate kicker in NFL history. Running back Jonathan Brooks made his NFL debut for Carolina, but was limited to 7 yards on two carries. Eight of the Chiefs’ wins have come by a one-score margin, and this was their second straight victory decided on the last play. They beat Denver two weeks ago by blocking a would-be game-winning field goal. Moving on up Kansas City’s Travis Kelce had six catches for 62 yards and moved into third place in career yards receiving by a tight end. He ranks behind only Tony Gonzalez and Jason Witten. However, Kelce failed to find the end zone for the ninth time in 11 games this season. Injuries Panthers: Rookie TE Ja’Tavion Sanders was taken to the hospital with a neck injury after landing awkwardly on his head after making a catch near the end of the second quarter. Up next Chiefs: Host Las Vegas on Friday. Panthers: Host Tampa Bay next Sunday. ___ AP NFL:

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