Holiday toy-shopping tips: "The best thing consumers can really do is shop right now"
CBSN
Worldwide supply-chain bottlenecks and ongoing shipping delays mean that, the closer to December the calendar gets, the less likely store shelves will be filled with what consumers want most during the holidays — toys.
Delays in shipping are so severe that President Joe Biden got involved on Wednesday. White House officials helped broker a deal to open the Port of Los Angeles 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Some 40% of the nation's imports come through the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.
Major retailers and shippers also want to speed up things. Walmart and Target plan to expand nighttime operations, while UPS and FedEx aim to do the same, according to the White House announcement.
Two climbers were waiting to be rescued near the peak of Denali, a colossal mountain that towers over miles of vast tundra in southern Alaska, officials said Wednesday. Originally part of a three-person team that became stranded near the top of the mountain, the climbers put out a distress call more than 30 hours earlier suggesting they were hypothermic and unable to descend on their own, according to the National Park Service.
There's no making up for what Olympic hurdler Lashinda Demus lost on the day she finished .07 seconds behind a Russian opponent who, everyone later learned, was doping. What the American 400-meter hurdles champion will finally receive is a great day under the Eiffel Tower where she'll be presented with the gold medal she was denied 12 years ago at the London Olympics.