American families are finding some relief this holiday season as the average cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner has decreased for the third year in a row.
The price for a “classic” holiday meal for ten people has dropped to $55.18 in 2025, down 5 percent from 2024.
This marks the lowest cost since 2021 and signals that targeted agricultural policy, supply chain reforms, and energy independence efforts may finally be easing burdens for working-class Americans.
The biggest drop in cost comes from the star of the table—turkey. A 16-pound bird saw a 16.3 percent price decline from 2024, contributing most significantly to the overall reduction in the total dinner cost.
While the wholesale price for fresh turkey is higher than last year, grocery stores are aggressively running Thanksgiving deals to draw shoppers back to turkey, resulting in lower retail prices for holiday birds.
Some retailers have even highlighted Thanksgiving baskets priced at under $4 per person by using store-brand substitutions and adjusted ingredient lists, reflecting broader efforts to keep meals affordable.
Federation president Zippy Duvall warned, however, that food costs remain a concern for many families.
He noted the loss of 15,000 family farms over the past year and pointed to historically low crop prices, high supply costs, and ongoing trade uncertainty as key challenges facing American agriculture.
Not every item on the table is cheaper. Frozen peas jumped 17.2 percent, sweet potatoes rose 37 percent, and a fresh vegetable tray spiked 61.3 percent from last year.
Even with those increases, markdowns on staples like stuffing and dinner rolls—driven by improved wheat prices and retailer incentives—bring the total cost lower overall.
This decline follows years when Thanksgiving dinners were roughly 13 percent more expensive than pre-pandemic levels during Trump’s first term. The latest numbers show a welcome shift toward stabilization.
The broader trend is unmistakable: costs are leveling out.
This reflects a renewed emphasis on market-driven solutions, agricultural revitalization, and energy policies designed to lower transportation and fertilizer expenses.
In contrast to the inflation and food price instability seen under Joe Biden, the current downward trend shows the impact of an administration prioritizing domestic production and deregulation.
From a political standpoint, the data speaks for itself. Strategic deregulation and economic pragmatism continue to outperform centralized, bureaucratic policymaking.
Eight Senate Democrats broke ranks with their party and sided with Republicans in a crucial procedural vote to advance a continuing resolution (CR) aimed at keeping the government open. This move has sent shockwaves through the Democratic establishment and sparked speculation about deep fractures forming within the liberal ranks.
The vote, described by insiders as a pivotal moment in the fiscal showdown, revealed an undeniable truth: the Democrat agenda is wearing thin, even among its own foot soldiers. While party leaders pushed a radical spending plan filled with climate boondoggles and social engineering, these eight senators chose fiscal responsibility over left-wing dogma.
According to CBS News, the resolution advanced with bipartisan support, clearing the first major hurdle in the Senate. The Democrats who crossed over did so in the face of immense pressure from party leadership, signaling a revolt brewing beneath the surface of Chuck Schumer’s caucus.
Among those Democrats were Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Tim Kaine, Maggie Hassan, and Catherine Cortez Masto. These lawmakers likely saw the writing on the wall: supporting reckless spending could cost them their seats in battleground states come 2026.
Independent Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, also joined the Republicans. His defection further highlights the growing discomfort with the party’s fiscal extremism. Democrats no longer speak for all Americans. Increasingly, they only speak for the fringe.
Republicans, led by Senate conservatives and emboldened by House Freedom Caucus support, have made it clear they will not rubber-stamp socialist wishlists disguised as funding bills. The CR vote was a victory for responsible governance and a blow to unchecked liberal overreach.
For years, Democrats have used government shutdown threats to ram through bloated budgets. This time, their fear tactics fell flat. Americans are fed up with being held hostage by a party that treats taxpayer dollars like Monopoly money.
The CR includes critical provisions for national security, border enforcement, and curbing runaway domestic spending. In short, it reflects priorities long championed by America First conservatives. The fact that eight Democrats supported it is a tacit admission that the Republican platform is resonating beyond party lines.
It also signals a new dynamic in Washington. With razor-thin margins in both chambers, Democrats cannot govern without unity. And clearly, that unity is crumbling. The party that once marched in lockstep behind Joe Biden is now splintering under the weight of its own radicalism.
This rebellion is just the latest in a series of setbacks for the left. From failed green energy mandates to rising inflation and border chaos, Democrat policies are collapsing under scrutiny. Voters are noticing. And so are their elected officials.
Expect these eight Senators to be vilified by their own party. The Democrat playbook demands absolute loyalty, even when it means torching the economy. But for once, principle triumphed over partisanship. That deserves recognition.
Senator Tim Kaine, often portrayed as a moderate, is now under attack from progressives for daring to support a bill that doesn’t give handouts to every special interest. It’s clear: moderation is a crime in today’s Democrat Party.
Republican leadership, by contrast, welcomed the bipartisan support. Senate GOP leaders noted that the vote reflects growing awareness that America cannot continue down the path of endless spending and spiraling debt.
Conservative watchdog groups hailed the development as a breakthrough. “This is what leadership looks like,” said a spokesperson for the Heritage Foundation. “We need more Democrats willing to put country over party.”
Make no mistake: this vote is a bellwether. It reveals that even in Washington’s swamp, truth can surface. Fiscal sanity is making a comeback, and not a moment too soon.
Nothing out of the ordinary occurred when he chose to tidy up the garden, until he discovered five puppies concealed beneath an old mattress.
He brought them to an animal shelter, where the staff was astonished to find out a week later that the puppies he had rescued were not dogs at all…
Discover exactly what they were.
Craig Mcgettrick was tidying up the garden alongside a coworker. While they were engaged in some spring cleaning around the house, they stumbled upon an old, filthy mattress.
When they chose to shift the mattress, they uncovered something surprising. It revealed a den of five tiny animals that were taking refuge underneath it.
Craig’s initial thought was that someone must have known they would be clearing out trash from that area and intentionally left the animals there…
After sharing a few photos of the critters on social media, the guy thought it would be best to take them to a shelter for the care they required.
Craig packed the puppies into a box and transported them to an animal shelter.
However, the story took an unexpected twist when the founder of a fox organization stumbled upon Craig’s social media posts featuring him with the little animals.
The creator of the group mentioned that a “really sweet lady” had reached out to them via Facebook, sharing images of what she thought were fox cubs and inquiring if there was any chance they weren’t.
As soon as I saw the pictures, I was certain these were indeed fox cubs.
All the staff at the animal shelter assumed the five were just sleeping dogs.
According to the national fox club, a mother fox had used the mattress as a den to care for her young.
They aimed to find a way to reunite the baby chicks with their mother, but they were unsure how to proceed.
It was decided that the cubs should be returned to Craig’s garden, where the mattress had initially been found, so they were carefully packed and placed into a box.
They were surprised to see a fox rushing towards the container. After a thorough inspection, the fox mother took the chicks and dashed away.
The cubs would have a better chance of thriving if raised by their natural mother in the wild instead of in an animal shelter.
In Sri Lanka, a packed passenger bus crashed off a cliff, leaving 21 passengers dead and at least 24 injured.
The tragedy, which was one of the bloodiest in Sri Lankan history for decades, happened early on Sunday morning in a mountainous region close to the town of Kotmale, some 86 miles east of the capital Colombo.
When the driver lost control and the state-owned bus went off the road before daybreak, it was carrying about 70 passengers, which was roughly 20 more than it could hold, according to authorities.
“We are trying to establish whether it was a mechanical failure or if the driver fell asleep at the wheel,” a local police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The injured were sent to two nearby hospitals, according to Deputy Transport Minister Prasanna Gunasena, who was on the site. The bus was reportedly transporting scores of Buddhist pilgrims.
“Twenty one have died and we are trying to identify the victims,” Gunasena added.
The minister claimed that if locals hadn’t assisted in removing the injured from the twisted wreckage and transporting them to the hospital, the death toll might have been greater.
As workmen and others assisted in removing injured individuals from the debris, images from the accident showed the bus laying inverted at the base of a cliff.
The bus crashed wheels up into a tea plantation after the roof and side panels were sheared off and more than half of the seats were torn off the floor.
The driver was one of many hospitalised for injuries.
One survivor told a local reporter that he was fortunate to have escaped with only minor injuries because he had been in the front section of the bus.
“The bus was leaning to the left side and as the driver was negotiating a bend, he lost control and it fell down the precipice,” said the unnamed man.
The bus was travelling roughly 155 kilometres from the central city of Kurunegala to the pilgrimage town of Kataragama in the island’s far south.
In Sri Lanka, deadly bus accidents are frequent, particularly in the hilly areas, and are frequently caused by careless driving as well as narrow, badly maintained roadways.
Sri Lanka’s roadways rank among the most dangerous in the world, with an average of 3,000 traffic fatalities every year.
On Sunday, one of the worst bus accidents to hit Sri Lanka since a driver raced a train at a level crossing in the town of Polgahawela in April 2005 occurred.
Thirty-seven passengers were slain, but the bus driver escaped with minor injuries.
Additionally, in March 2021, a privately owned bus went down a precipice at Passara, approximately 100 miles east of the accident scene on Sunday, killing 13 passengers and the driver.
The tragic event follows the death of a tourist in Sri Lanka who was dangling her head out of a train when she fell off it.
In February, Olga Perminova, 53, chose to lean out of an open door in a fatal photo opportunity while travelling on the renowned Podi Menike rail line.
After clinging to two rails and dangling her head from the carriage, the woman reportedly collided with a rock and sustained terrible head injuries.
During the ‘vacation of a lifetime’ in Sri Lanka in February, two guests, including a young British influencer, reportedly died unexpectedly after being poisoned by pesticides used to treat bed bugs at the backpackers’ hostel where they were staying.
Just four days into her ideal vacation to the sunny island, Derby resident Ebony McIntosh, 24, was taken to the hospital on Saturday along with other visitors to receive treatment for respiratory issues, nausea, and vomiting.
However, Ebony and another German visitor who experienced the same symptoms passed away within hours of getting to the hospital.
Ebony and the unidentified German woman may have been poisoned by toxic pesticides used to kill bed bugs in a nearby room 72 hours prior to her breakdown, according to reports from Sri Lanka.