Nordstrom, Walmart See Online Sales Surge Ahead of Black Friday

Nordstrom Inc. and Walmart Inc. saw the biggest online-sales increases in the week leading up to Thanksgiving among U.S. retailers studied by Edison Trends.

Nordstrom’s online revenue almost doubled over the period — Nov. 15 to Nov. 21 — from a year earlier, while Walmart’s increased 67 percent. Target Corp., Macy’s Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Best Buy Inc. also saw sales rise, according to Edison, an e-commerce research company that uses email receipts from purchases to calculate trends.

Sears Holdings Corp. and Jet.com registered the largest declines.

Sears filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors this year, while Walmart’s Jet.com is focusing on urban shoppers.

The study gives an early indication of which companies have momentum heading into Black Friday today.

Powered by low unemployment and high consumer confidence, retailers are expecting holiday revenue to accelerate this year.

Deloitte expects sales from November to January to rise as much as 5.6 percent to more than $1.1 trillion from the same period last year.

Indian Island Police Struggle To Recover Body of American

New Delhi — Indian authorities were struggling Thursday to figure out how to recover the body of an American who was killed after wading ashore on an island cut off from the modern world.

John Allen Chau was killed last week by North Sentinel islanders who apparently shot him with arrows and then buried his body on the beach, police said.

But even officials don’t travel to North Sentinel, where people live as their ancestors did thousands of years ago, and where outsiders are seen with suspicion and attacked.

“It’s a difficult proposition,” said Dependera Pathak, director-general of police on India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where North Sentinel is located. “We have to see what is possible, taking utmost care of the sensitivity of the group and the legal requirements.”

Police are consulting anthropologists, tribal welfare experts and scholars to figure out a way to recover the body, he said.

IAEA Calls on North Korea To Re-Admit Nuclear Inspectors

Vienna — The head of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog has called on North Korea to allow inspectors back in to monitor its nuclear program.

Speaking at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday, Director General Yukiya Amano noted that Pyongyang had in September talked about denuclearization measures including the “permanent dismantlement of the nuclear facilities in Yongbyon” — a reactor where it produces plutonium.

Amano said there has been activity observed at Yongbyon, but “without access the agency cannot confirm the nature and purpose of these activities.”

At a news conference later Thursday, he said he couldn’t elaborate on when exactly the activity was observed.

IAEA inspectors were expelled from North Korea in 2009 but Amano said the agency continues to prepare for their possible re-admittance.

— Wire reports