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With Halloween on the horizon, Chicago Costume is stuffed. Packaged costumes, including superheros and Japanese animation characters in both kid and adult sizes, dangle near colorful wigs and bottles of fake blood. Downstairs, vintage clothes from the 1970s beg for one more boogie night.The frightening possibilities mask the work that’s gone on behind the scenes to stock the family-owned shop and its sister store for the spooky season. Owner Courtland Hickey said he ordered 40% fewer costumes this year because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on products from China.To fill the gap, Hickey and his mother, Chicago Costume founder Mary Hickey Panayotou, looked to their decade’s worth of unsold costumes and accessories to see what could be repackaged or repurposed. The tariffs made new imports more expensive, and storewide price increases might spook customers, he said.“If people have less money in their pocket to spend, then costumes are going to be lower on their list,” Hickey said. “So the more we have to invest in new products, the riskier it is for the business because we aren’t going to sell it.”Tapping the old inventory required sorting through several thousand items stored in backrooms and a warehouse. Vintage pieces once reserved for rentals combined with fresh items became sets. A surplus of black robes became the foundation for Halloween wizards, judges, choir members and graduating students, Hickey said.“They’re a staple piece that gets transformed by the accessories we pair with them,” he said. Owner Courtland Hickey talks about how tariffs have increased the cost of new costumes and his hope for selling some of his vintage inventory at Chicago Costume, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, in Chicago. [Photo: Erin Hooley/AP Photo] Some of Chicago Costume’s 35 employees also got busy sewing fabric scraps and foam material into imitations of the miter headdresses worn by high-ranking Catholic clergy. Paired with a robe, the headwear would let someone dress up as Pope Leo, a Chicago native.Panayotou founded Chicago Costume in 1976 by custom-designing and renting costumes for the Windy City’s theater companies. It fast became a destination for non-actors looking for Halloween outfits.Commercially made children’s costumes followed, and a stockpile of capes, masquerade masks, “Star Wars” kits and other leftovers grew from there.“I’m kind of a hoarder,” Panayotou said. “I didn’t want to throw stuff away. So there’s a lot of accessory items and pieces. Here’s the dress, but we have only one glove.”Having excess inventory typically is avoided in retail, but the practice has given Chicago Costume a supply cushion during what has been an unpredictable 2025 for import-reliant segments of the industry, including toy manufacturers and stores.Hickey said tariffs weren’t on his radar until he and and other Chicago Costume staff members met with suppliers at the Halloween & Party Expo in January. Whether Trump would impose duties on Chinese goods after his inauguration the following week was a big topic of conversation at the Las Vegas event, he said.On Feb. 1, the president signed the first tariff order of his second term. Hickey already had ordered his usual number of new costumes but put fulfillment and delivery on hold when the tariff rate on imports from China ballooned to 145% in April. Nearly 90% of the costumes Chicago Costume sells in stores and online are made in China, in line with the costume industry average, he said.Some suppliers already had products ready and said they would not charge him extra, Hickey said. Others said he would have to pay more to cover the cost of tariffs. “Take it or leave it,” he recalls being told. “I pretty much left it.”Other small businesses that rely on Halloween describe similar their own tariff-related woes. Trick or Treat Studios, which designs masks based on characters from popular horror movies as well as costumes and props, laid off 15 employees, one-fourth of its staff, in May, co-founder Christopher Zephro said.Zephro uses factories in China to make plastic masks but said he is reducing the amount of work done there and shifting it to Mexico, where his latex masks are manufactured. In the meantime, he raised prices by 15%.At Chicago Costume, which generates well under $1 million dollars in annual sales, shoppers will see fewer sales promotions and discounts, Hickey said. Children’s costumes of officially licensed characters and bulky sets will cost at least 25% more, he said. A lederhosen costume, for example, is priced at $49.99, or $10 more that it did a year ago.Hickey, who has served on the board of the National Costumers Association for 20 years, initially saw a silver lining in Trump’s tariffs. Big retail chains have siphoned sales from independent costume shops with the help of cheap costumes from China, he said.In May, Hickey published a column on the National Costumers Association’s website that outlined Chicago Costume’s can-do, environmentally superior approach this year. He hoped it would galvanize the trade group’s 100 independent store members a group that numbered 220 a decade ago to dust off old stock, reorganize their shops and prepare for “a potentially great Halloween.”Tariffs have “peeled back the curtain on just how deep our reliance on cheap overseas manufacturing has become,” he wrote. “If this shift hurts Amazon dropshippers, Spirit Halloween, or Walmart’s over-imported costume lines, I’m not going to mourn. In fact, I see it as a chance for us to reclaim what made local retail special.”Some of Hickey’s idealism has since faded. The impact of tariffs on Halloween played out differently than he expected. The largest retail chains doubled down, flooding the market with cheap costumes and dropping prices to hold onto customers.“It’s been a lot harder than I hoped, but I still believe that optimism, adaptability, and differentiation are what will keep independent costume shops like us alive,” he said.Chicago Costume is used to embracing challenges. To keep revenue flowing year-round, the stores cater to cosplay fans and themed parties. The Hickey-Panayotou family has a separate business making mascot costumes for the Chicago Bulls and other professional sports teams, and acquired a theatrical services company founded in 1886 along with its collection of period pieces.Diversifying made it easier to rotate and refurbish old stock instead of slashing prices after Halloween or throwing pieces away, he said.For a ustomer who wanted to be a Hollywood diva, his wife, Erin, who handles social media for Chicago Costume, paired a robe trimmed with feather boas from the vintage collection with a new cigarette holder, hat and pair of sunglasses. Total cost: $65.Damien Johnson, 53, is a longtime Chicago Costume patron whose birthday is Oct. 31. He has spent as much as $300 on his Halloween getups and said he would never shop online or at discount stores.Despite his loyalty, Johnson delayed his costume-buying by a month this year. He also gave himself a spending cap. Transforming himself into the clown-faced Pennywise character from Stephen King’s “It” will come to $90, including hair and makeup.“I always overbought.” he said. “This year, I am good.” Terry Chea contributed from Santa Cruz, California. Anne D’Innocenzio, AP Retail Writer
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Oil prices declined on Friday, after settling around 1.6% lower in the previous session, as the market’s risk premium faded after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a plan to end the war in Gaza. Brent crude futures were down 66 cents, or 1%, at $64.56 a barrel at 1016 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 61 cents, or 1%, to $60.90. “Finally having some kind of peace process in the Middle East is lowering the shoulders a little bit,” said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB. This could ease fears about crude carriers passing through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, he said. BOTH BENCHMARKS ON TRACK FOR WEEKLY GAINS Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement on Thursday in the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s initiative to end the war in Gaza. Under the deal, which Israel’s government ratified on Friday, fighting will cease, Israel will partially withdraw from Gaza, and Hamas will free all remaining hostages it captured in the attack that precipitated the war, in exchange for hundreds of prisoners held by Israel. Numerous vessels have been attacked by the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen since 2023, targeting ships they deem linked to Israel in what they described as solidarity with Palestinians over the war in Gaza. On a weekly basis, Brent was up around 1% and WTI was relatively flat, so far. Both benchmarks fell steeply last week. Prices climbed about 1% on Wednesday to a one-week high because of stalled progress on a Ukraine peace deal, a sign that sanctions against Russia, the world’s second-largest oil exporter, could continue. The Gaza ceasefire deal means the focus can move back to the impending oil surplus, as OPEC proceeds with the unwinding of production cuts, said Daniel Hynes, an analyst at ANZ. A smaller-than-expected November hike in output agreed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC+) on Sunday eased some of those oversupply concerns. “Markets expectations for a sharp ramp up in crude supply have not manifested themselves in substantially lower prices,” BMI analysts said in a note on Friday. “The most recent rise in production is lower than previously feared, contributing to a slight rise in prices for the week,” they said. Investors are also worried that a prolonged U.S. government shutdown could dampen the American economy and hurt oil demand in the world’s largest crude consumer. Additional reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan Anna Hirtenstein, Reuters
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America’s defense technology sector is rapidly expanding. Top talent, ambitious founders, and serious capital are flooding into a mission that matters, delivering products and solutions that will send us to the moon, deploy unimaginably capable unmanned aerial devices, and redefine what’s possible in modern warfare. It’s an exciting momentone full of possibility and potential. But here’s the problem: while everyone is focused on the moonshots, we’re overlooking the foundation. The unsexy stuff. The quiet, mission-critical gaps that don’t make headlines but could leave us dangerously vulnerable. We’re building skyscrapers without checking if the ground beneath us is solid. I’ve spent decades navigating this ecosystemfrom antitrust law to Capitol Hill and building critical technology at Palantir for Defense, Intelligence, and Public Health. And I can tell you: America’s national security demands the big bets. But if we want true resilience, we need to get serious about filling the gaps. Here’s where we’re falling shortand how we can fix it. The barrier to entry? It’s not paperworkit’s people Government go-to-market is notoriously hard. Requests for Proposals (RFPs), Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)these acronyms form their own labyrinth, sidelining products and burning through runway. But the real barrier isn’t the bureaucratic maze. It’s the human one. Success in this space requires identifying, cultivating, and maintaining relationships with every critical stakeholder group throughout a program’s lifecycle. There’s no shortcut. And the complexity multiplies because every agency and department operates differently. They have distinct cultures, decision-making processes, and procurement rhythms. Then there’s the churn. People rotate roles. Administrations change every four years. Priorities shift. Which means yes, you do have to rebuild relationships constantly. This reality demands a level of operational maturity, business development sophistication, and long-term investment that most startups simply can’t sustain. Innovation gets hampered before it even starts. We’re funding moonshotsand ignoring everything else These sky-high barriers create a funding environment that rewards only the most ambitious ideas: building America’s missile defense shield, designing next-generation autonomous drones, launching satellites into low-Earth orbit. These projects are critically important. They must get done. But what about everything else? For every loud leap forward, there are thousands of quiet, mission-critical problems leaving us exposed. Not because they’re unsolvable, but because they fall outside traditional models of scale, funding, and attention. What good is a billion-dollar drone without a reliable charging system? Why are life-saving field surgeries still being conducted with techniques from Vietnam? Why is mission-critical data being stored on local hard drives? Yes, we need hydrogen-powered autonomous jets. But we also need better military construction techniques. Better gimbals. Better field logistics. The unglamorous stuff that keeps the glamorous stuff running. Platforms need productsand we don’t have enough Despite an abundance of platforms, we’re facing a shortage of components. Companies like Anduril and Palantir are building some of the most ambitious, technically sophisticated defense platforms ever created. But here’s the catch: They’re not incentivized to populate those ecosystems with specialized applicationsnor should they be. Their business models reward scale and horizontal integration, not the painstaking work of solving narrow, specific mission problems. The result? Platforms without components are like operating systems without apps: powerful in theory, underutilized in practice. Real value emerges when platforms are filled with verticalized, specialized tools tuned to specific mission sets, environments, and workflows. What’s missing is an ecosystem that supports a new generation of builderssmall, agile companies creating plugins, widgets, and mission-focused modules that integrate seamlessly into existing infrastructure. This requires new funding models that reward precision problem-solving, not just scale. Speed isn’t optional anymoreit’s survival In an age of exponential technological change, speed is strategy. For five decades, we’ve overvalued perfection: building exquisite, bespoke systems engineered to the exact specifications of a single mission. We’ve undervalued iterationespecially in the field where conditions change rapidly. That approach won’t cut it anymore. We need to identify what’s needed today and ship it to the frontlines as fast as possible, anticipating and removing blockers before they become catastrophic delays. It’s time for a “build fast, fix faster” mindset. That means embracing edge manufacturing, hardening supply chains with domestic production, and structuring R&D teams for maximum autonomy. Yes, some projects require decade-long timelines. Some problems demand ambitious, wide-reaching platforms. But we also have urgent gaps in our resilience that demand urgency to fix. Build with your users, not for them Iteration and urgency only work with partnership. I’ve seen too many well-intentioned solutions developed at breakneck speed that completely miss the mark. Why? Because they were built in a vacuum. Teams delivered what they thought was needed instead of what was actually necessary. Usually, it’s because they lacked the prerequisites for success: direct access to end users, their leadership, and a deep understanding of program requirements. Every product lifecycle should begin with a concrete demand signal. What’s the urgent problem blocking mission success today? Not what you assume it iswhat the people on the frontlines are actually experiencing. Warfighters. Field operators. Career civil servants. Then build alongside them. Attend field exercises. Sit in the mud. Watch systems fail in real conditions. Learn from the people whose lives depend on your technology working. Surface these solutions to leadership. Invest in problems and solutions that have buy-in from every level. Because defense technology is ultimately public serviceand a team sport. Like any team sport, listening matters more than speaking. Everyone has a role to play to win. The path forward We’re not short on vision, talent, or commitment. What we need now is alignment: between technologists and operators, platforms and products, and urgency and execution. The opportunity in front of us is extraordinary. If we can bridge the gap between innovation and implementation, we won’t just build better systems. We’ll build a stronger, safer, more resilient futureone that can handle both the moonshots and the fundamentals that keep them flying.
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