DETROIT (CBS Detroit) Remember the halcyon days of 2011, when Thanksgiving involved turkey, giving thanks and hanging out with your family all day — and then lots of people got up at the crack of dawn the next day for Black Friday shopping?

Apparently those were the good old days.

Target and Walmart will both be opening the evening of Thanksgiving to kick off holiday shopping deals, with Target announcing Monday they’ll open at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving; Walmart and Sears will do the same thing, but an hour earlier — starting their “Black Friday” deals at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

Workers and traditionalists are fighting back with a petition on change.org asking the retailers to save Thanksgiving by moving sales back to Black Friday. About 155,000 people have already signed a petition asking the Target CEO to “take the high road and save Thanksgiving.”

Petitioner C. Renee of California writes, “Since workers need to show up sometimes hours before the store officially opens, this will take much of Thanksgiving away from retail employees across the country. Target can take the high road and save Thanksgiving for employees like me and our families by saying no to ‘Thanksgiving Creep.’”

Heather Barefoot wrote on the petition: “Is the Corporate office opening on Thanksgiving too?!?! I think not. So how dare you ask your store employees to give up their holiday so you can make an extra buck. It disgusts me that you could even contemplate such an idiotic and obnoxious idea.”

Word on Twitter is Walmart workers may go even further and strike on Thanksgiving. The website for Corporate Action Network says 1.4 million people work for Walmart — and the site, and other union-affiliated networks, are urging those workers to walk off the job on Thanksgiving and hold demonstrations about “saving Thanksgiving.”

The site says workers at Sam’s Club in Madison Heights will demonstrate on Black Friday, as will workers at the Walmart in Chesterfield, Troy, Sterling Heights, Southfield, Roseville, Farmington, Livonia, Utica, Dearborn, Taylor and Novi.

The website www.allvoices.com says, “It might be one of the largest labor protests in decades.”

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/12/target-walmart-to-open-thanksgiving-for-black-friday-shopping/

Research shows that whites with kidney cancer consistently outlive blacks with the same condition. (Photo: Fotolia, ©bst2012)

From Healthline: Racial disparities between blacks and whites affect a number of diseases and health outcomes, and cancer is no exception. Research shows that whites with kidney cancer consistently outlive blacks with the same condition, according to a new study appearing in the American Cancer Society’s publication, CANCER.

Black Americans also have a higher incidence of kidney cancer to begin with, but despite comparable tumor size, surgical treatments, and other patient characteristics, they die sooner than whites, pointing to a host of other factors at play that should be explored in additional studies. Previous research has shown that social support, health literacy, education, and socio-economic status all contribute to racial health disparities—so doctors, individuals, and policy makers have their work cut out for them.

http://thegrio.com/2012/11/12/black-kidney-cancer-patients-die-earlier-than-white-patients/

DETROIT (WWJ) - Detroit police say twice in the last two weeks people have climbed utility polls to conduct illegal energy hook ups.

The latest victim was a man who, last Friday, was killed when he touched a live wire. In both cases, the people were electrocuted, leaving a gruesome scene.

DTE Energy Chief Security Officer Michael Lynch says people who do illegal hookups are endangering everyone.

“This, when a person tries to hook up electric service, is when fire occur. If somebody’s trying to restore gas service, that’s how explosions occur. So, this is a quality of life issue; it’s a huge safety issue,” Lynch told WWJ Newsradio 950′s Marie Osborne.

“I can’t stress it enough — they’re risking their life by touching a wire. It looks innocent, but it packs a powerful punch and it can end somebody’s life in an instant,” he said.

Lynch said if a person is having problems paying a utility bill, they should call DTE for assistance. Those who rent their home or apartment need to make sure their landlord provides safe, legal utility connection.

“We partner with many community groups to go out there and help people who are in need. When we talk about greed versus need — theses are the persons that we go after and prosecute,” Lynch said. “So, we’re talking about landlords who offer free electricity included in their rent and they’re stealing.”

Lynch said they have been stepping up efforts to prosecutor those who steal electricity.

Anyone who knows of an illegal hookup is urged to call the police.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/12/police-dte-illegal-electrical-hookups-kill/

FARMINGTON HILLS — October was another month of solid recovery for the southeast Michigan housing market.

Figures from the Farmington Hills-based real estate information firm Realcomp II Ltd. showed 6,298 home sales in October, up 21.1 percent from 5,199 in October 2011. And the median sale price was also up sharply, to $89,000, up 22.8 percent from $72,500 a year earlier.

Foreclosure sales edged up 2.9 percent in the 10-county region, to 2,080 from 2,021 a year eaerlier. Non-foreclosure sales rose much more significantly, 32.7 percnet, to 4,218, from 3,178 last year. In addition, 755 of the total sales, or 12 percent, were identified as short ales.

The median sale price on foreclosure sales was $43,000, up 16.2 percent from $37,000 a year earlier. The median sale price on non-foreclosure sales was $123,000, up 11.8 percent from $110,000 a year earlier.

The average days on the market for all sales fell by 16 days from a year earlier, from 94 to 78. The number of homes on the market fell by 17 percent from 30,147 in October 2011 to 25,035 in October 2012.

By county, and the city of Detroit, here are the figures for October:

City of Detroit: 323 foreclosure sales, down 3.9 percnet from 336 a year earlier. 189 non-foreclosure sales, up 3.3 percent from 183 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $8,700, up 7.9 percent from $8,060 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $17,000, up 20.8 percent from $14,078 a year earlier.

To read more click here

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/12/metro-detroit-home-sales-jump-in-october/

In the wake of President Obama's reelection, one CEO is doubling down on his criticisms of Obamacare.

Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter said he plans on passing the costs of health care reform to his business onto his workers. Schnatter said he will likely reduce workers’ hours, as a result of President Obama's reelection, the Naples News reports. Schnatter made headlines over the summer when he told shareholders that the cost of a Papa John’s pizza will increase by between 11 and 14 cents due to Obamacare.

"I got in a bunch of trouble for this," he said, referring to the comments he made in August, according to Naples News. "That's what you do, is you pass on costs. Unfortunately, I don't think people know what they're going to pay for this."

Schnatter went on to say he's neither in support of, nor against the Affordable Care Act, even admitting that "the good news is 100 percent of the population is going to have health insurance.” But he’s not the only one in the chain restaurant industry to admit that workers hours may be reduced, since Obamacare mandates that only employees that work more than 30 hours per week are covered under their employers health insurance plan. For example, Darden restaurants, the parent company of Olive Garden and Red Lobster, has already experimented with reducing workers hours in anticipation of the legislation.

Others have responded to the added costs of Obamacare more harshly, including Applebee's franchisee owner Zane Tankel who said his company won’t hire new workers because of the law. Just this week, a Georgia business owner also claimed he cut employees due to Obamacare and in fact had specifically laid off those who he thought had voted for President Obama.

Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that Applebee's was not planning on hiring new workers due to Obamacare. It is only Applebee's franchisee Zane Tankel who has taken that stance.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/09/papa-johns-obamacare-john-schnatter_n_2104202.html?utm_hp_ref=detroit&ir=Detroit

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving regarded as one of the biggest shopping days of the year, may be dramatically different this year.

Organizers are planning a nationwide strike against Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, and are banking on a new strategy: online organizing.

Labor organizers are working with social action nonprofit Engage Network as well as corporate watchdog nonprofit Corporate Action Network to pull off what they are calling a "viral" -- meaning national and spreading online -- strike.

Walmart workers interested in joining the day of action are directed to this website, either to find a store near them with an organized strike or to "adopt an event" at a store near them.

Brian Young, cofounder of the Corporate Action Network, said on a conference call coordinated by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union Thursday, that organizers cannot cover the roughly 4,000 Walmarts across the country, but enabling self-appointed leaders online has widened and decentralized the campaign.

Supporters can also sponsor a striking worker, who may be losing wages in order to strike, by donating grocery gift cards. The campaign has raised more than $13,500 worth of donations toward grocery gift cards since Oct. 15 -- a figure that doesn't include significant funds raised through mailed-in checks, Jamie Way, of the UFCW, told HuffPost.

The campaign is also mobilizing strikers and supporters through a Facebook app, multiple Facebook pages, a Tumblr and Twitter with the hashtag #walmartstrikers.

"This online mobilization, in addition to traditional on-the-ground organizing, has allowed the campaign to reach into the rural corners of the country that might have otherwise been overlooked," Marianne Manilov, cofounder of the Engage Network, said on the conference call.

She pointed to a group of renegade workers in Oklahoma who mobilized in October. "A completely unorganized set of workers in Oklahoma spontaneously went out on strike and held their own type of action without any organizer or … connection with the broader organization," she said. "This is what organizing looks like in the age of Occupy."

The outreach leading up to Black Friday follows a series of unprecedented actions taken by Walmart workers against their employer and working conditions. In October, for the first time in the company's 50-year history, more than 70 workers at multiple Los Angeles-area Walmart stores walked off the job, even though their jobs are not protected by an official union. The strike had a ripple effect, causing strikes in 12 other cities, in large part through online organizing.

The success of these strikes, as well as one over the summer touted as the largest ever protest against the company, and a six-day pilgrimmage of warehouse workers in September, would not have been possible without Facebook, Twitter and other web sites, Young said.

"Making Change at Walmart," which organized the demonstrations and is a campaign affiliated with the UFCW union, has over 25,000 supporters on Facebook.

Although it does not officially represent Walmart workers, OUR Walmart, organized by the Making Change campaign, acts like a union to fight for the rights of Walmart workers. OUR Walmart, which was founded last year with 100 members, now has over 14,000 supporters on Facebook.

Corey Parker, a Walmart worker from Mississippi, said on the conference call that he became active with OUR Walmart after finding out about it through a HuffPost article on Facebook. Now, he has mobilized workers at his store to strike on Black Friday because, he said, he realized that "not being able to make a living was not just an issue at my store."

Adding fuel to movement, Walmart announced Thursday that it will kick off its Black Friday sale at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, its earliest start ever.

"Lots and lots of Walmart workers are going to be forced to not have Thanksgiving because they're going to be preparing all day for the busiest shopping day of the year," Dan Schlademan, director of Making Change at Walmart, said on the conference call. "This essentially cancels Thanksgiving for hundreds of thousands of workers."

"It's not like Walmart is financially hurting. It's not like they're not making unbelievable sums of money. The price of this is really decimating an important family day in our country."

But Walmart spokesman Steven Restivo said of the sale, "Last year, our highest customer traffic was during the 10 p.m. hour and, according to the National Retail Federation, Thanksgiving night shopping has surged over the past three years."

"Most of our stores are open 24 hours and, historically, much of our Black Friday preparations have been done on Thanksgiving, which is not unusual in the retail industry," he said, adding that the strikes planned for Black Friday, will not "have any impact on our business."

Regarding the action over the last few months, Restivo said, "While the opinions expressed by this group don’t represent the views of the vast majority of more than 1.3 million Walmart associates in the U.S., when our associates bring forward concerns, we listen."

In September, dozens of Walmart-contracted warehouse workers in Southern California's Inland Empire walked off the job and went on a six-day, 50-mile pilgrimage to protest working conditions and retaliation for speaking up.

More than a month later, the warehouse company NFI responded to some of the strikers' working condition requests. "Just in the last week, we've seen the warehouse operators scrambling to replace broken and unsafe equipment, they've rented fans to increase ventilation, and they've added more water coolers," Elizabeth Brennan, communications director for Warehouse Workers United, said on the conference call.

However, the strikers who returned to work have continued to face retaliation, many times getting their hours cut from 35 down to eight, she said. Some of these warehouse workers will join striking Walmart workers on Black Friday, Brennan said.

Excluding the retaliation, organizers hope to see that type of positive response after Black Friday. And with an online system open to anyone who wants to start a strike in his or her local Walmart, Manilov hopes both the demonstration and response will be broad-reaching.

"This is one of the first labor campaigns to really fully embrace the potential of online-to-offline labor organizing," she said. "As this captures fire, its potential is limitless."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/walmart-black-friday-strike-organized-online-video_n_2094698.html?utm_hp_ref=detroit&ir=Detroit

DETROIT (WWJ) - It’s Veteran’s Day and a World War II vet and one of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American pilots in the US military, says he’s relaxing this veterans day.

At 90, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Jefferson has just returned from speaking to high schoolers in Portland Oregon.

“It was exhilarating, actually exhilarating, to let the young people know that freedom ain’t free, somebody’s got to pay the bill,” said Lt. Col. Jefferson.

Jefferson still fits into his WWII bomber jacket and remembers flying missions in France.

He flew escort for bombing missions and says there was discrimination against him and other African American pilots.

“We were discriminated against, they had to build a separate airfield in Alabama to train us to fly, we could not be integrated with the rest of the men. It was segregation and discrimination from the very beginning,” he said.

“I was treated as an officer and a gentleman in the POW camp because of the Geneva Convention,” he said. “I literally sat the war out, because officers that were in the camp did not have to work,” he said. “Enlisted men went to separate camps and you could make them work.”

Jefferson, who turns 91 this week, was shot down during World War II and spend nine months at a Prisoner of War (POW) camp, but says he doesn’t think of himself as a hero.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/11/sporting-his-wwii-bomber-jacket-90-year-old-vet-says-freedom-aint-free/

DETROIT (WWJ) - Last year, thousands of Detroit Lions fans signed a petition to keep Canadian rock band Nickelback out of their arena and away from the Thanksgiving halftime show — albeit to no avail. That’s definitely something they won’t have to do this year.

The so-called son of Detroit, Kid Rock, is scheduled to perform during halftime of the Lions’ 73rd Thanksgiving Day Classic vs. the Houston Texans on Nov. 22.

Detroit Lions Team President Tom Lewand made the announcement live on the Stoney and Bill Show on 97.1 The Ticket Friday morning.

The special halftime event will feature a live performance of Kid Rock’s new song “Detroit, Michigan,” the feature track from his new album “Rebel Soul,” which is slated for release on Nov. 19. The song pays homage to several of the Motor City’s music greats, including Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Bob Seger and Eminem — in addition to icons like Henry Ford and Rosa Parks.

Click here to listen to “Detroit, Michigan”

“The song is unbelievable, it’s just a great anthem for our city and our region. To put him on a national stage in our stadium at halftime is just great way to celebrate our city, to celebrate his new album, and to celebrate the great relationship that he has with our team, with our city, with our community and I think it will be a great celebration of the tradition,” Lewand said.

This will be the second time in three years that Kid Rock is playing the Thanksgiving halftime show.

Kick-off for the Lions vs. Texans game is scheduled for 12:30 p.m.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/09/kid-rock-to-play-thanksgiving-halftime-show-in-detroit/

DETROIT (WWJ) – A Detroit family can thank a fast-acting neighbor for saving their lives Friday morning during a house fire.

WWJ’s Mike Campbell reports the fire happened during the early morning hours on Hampshire Street, near I-94 and Harper area on the city’s east side.

Al Baze said he woke up around 5 a.m. to neighborhood children banging on his door, saying their house was on fire and their mother and grandmother were trapped inside.

“You can’t be prepared for this, I’ll tell you that. It was just something else. It was scary,” he said.

Baze quickly sprang into action and rushed to the house across the street. He said the smoke was so thick, he couldn’t see his hands in front of his face.

Crawling around on the floor and using his hands as his eyes, Baze got past the couch and end tables before he ran into the children’s mother. She guided Baze to the hospital bed her mother was in.

“You just do what you’ve got to do. I had to get her off that bed, I had to get her out of that house. It was taking so long to get her out of there and that was my main concern, because that smoke was so thick, I had to run out of the house like 15 times just to get air and go back in and feel my way to her,” Baze said.

Eventually, Baze was able to free the grandmother and remove her from the house. He had to go back into the house, however, because the children’s mother passed out while trying to help Baze save her mother.

“The lights were all out and the smoke was very thick. So, she passed out in the house so I had to go back in and grab the mom and pull her out,” Baze said.

Everybody was able to make it out of the house, which was left standing although the inside is heavily damaged.

The mother, grandmother and four kids — ages three to 16 — were transported to a local hospital as a precaution, but are expected to be okay.

While the fire appears to have started in the basement, officials say the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/09/neighbor-saves-detroit-family-from-burning-home/

While the country debated (and voted, and debated some more) about whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney should be president, a 20-year-old woman on the other side of the world had come up with a way to unite the two forever. On Wednesday morning, Millicent Owuor, gave birth to twins in south-west Kenya. She named one brother Barack Obama and the other Mitt Romney, Kenya's Standard newspaper reported.

The BBC reported that Owuor gave birth close to the village of Kogelo where President Obama's father was born. While she was preparing to deliver twins, the village was celebrating the president's reelection. According to Reuters, there were several babies born at the nearby hospital who were named after Obama. But, it appears only one has a brother named Mitt Romney.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/millicent-owuor-twins-barack-obama-and-mitt-romney_n_2089438.html?utm_hp_ref=black-voices&ir=Black%20Voices