The World Side

The holiday shopping season is getting off to an earlier start this year as consumers stung by high inflation attempt to stretch their budgets.

Driving the news: Walmart unwrapped its annual top toy list Tuesday, nearly a month earlier than last year, with the addition of a new budget-friendly category — toys under $25.

• The majority of the 55 toys on the list can be purchased or preordered online.
• Like in past years, Walmart’s list includes Lego, Hot Wheels and Barbie toys along with trending products from Cocomelon, LOL Surprise and Magic Mixies.
• Walmart said the list includes “more Rollbacks on toys” to give consumers “deeper savings” on top of “everyday low prices.”

The big picture: Expect the toy wars to heat up this year with Macy’s adding Toys R Us shops to every store by Oct. 15.

By the numbers: Online prices declined by 1% in July, compared with

It’s almost September, which means the holidays are creeping up on us — and for Netflix, that means a lot of movies. The streamer just released its schedule for holiday film releases in 2022, and it’s led by a pair of big sequels in Enola Holmes 2 on November 4th and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery on December 23rd.

Elsewhere, the streamer has some notable animated features, like Guillermo del Toro’s take on Pinocchio (December 9th), Henry Selick and Jordan Peele’s Wendell & Wild (October 28th), Drifting Home (September 16th) from Studio Colorido, and My Father’s Dragon (November) from the studio behind Song of the Sea and Wolfwalkers. Other titles to watch out for include Noah Baumbach’s post-apocalyptic White Noise (December 30th) and a musical adaptation of Matilda (December 25th), which is part of a big financial bet from Netflix on the Roald Dahl catalog.

There are, of

A pet owner got quite the surprise after asking her sister, who is currently cat sitting while she’s on vacation, to send her a picture of her two cats.

Cats may give off an air of aloofness, but some studies have suggested that, much like dogs, they are quite attached to their human companions.

The most notable of these studies was published in the Public Library of Science in 2017 and saw researchers observe how cats behave when left for 30 minute compared with after several hours.

Time and time again, the cats showed a strong reaction when reunited with their owners after an extended period of separation, with felines found to purr and stretch more when their human friend returned.

There’s certainly no doubting the