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Trader Joes stores have a reputation for getting crowded at the best of times, but if youre planning to make a stop in the next few days, beware: the brand just dropped a Halloween version of its mini tote bags, and they already went viral twice for creating in-store traffic jams. The bags, which come in combinations of black, orange, purple, and green, cost just $2.99 each and dropped in stores on October 8. Theyre a tiny version of Trader Joes classic reusable tote bags, measuring just 13 x 11 x 6 inchesabout the size of an iPad. This is the third time that Trader Joes has released a new version of the bags, which have proven to be a desirable fan favorite (to put it mildly). When Trader Joes first debuted the mini tote in March 2024, social media exploded with videos of shoppers lining up to grab the product, with many shoppers piling their carts with every available colorway. The story was similar in April 2025, when Trader Joes announced a pastel line of the totes. If eBay sellers are to be believed, these bag designs have become full-on collectors items, with sets of the previous drops selling for over $100 on the site. Despite the fact that the new Halloween bags just dropped this morning, all signs indicate that Trader Joes shoppers are in for another round of mini tote fervor. Already, several TikToks show crowds lining up for the bags. One Trader Joes employee shared an unboxing video of the bags, encouraging shoppers to get one of their own. Another customer has already decked out her new bags with color-coordinated Labubus. On eBay, sets of the Halloween bags are retailing for over $50. Its 6:49 a.m. and Im on my way to Trader Joes, one TikToker shared. If I dont get these Halloween tote bags, Im gonna have a fit. Why is everyone so obsessed with the Trader Joe’s mini tote? Its possible that the mini tote craze is related to the increasing size of the reusable bag market, which is expanding in part due to plastic bag bans (eight states ban single-use plastic bags, and cities including New York and Washington, D.C. charge fees for their use). But the more likely reason for the trend is simpler: within our current stage of consumer capitalism, niche accessories are having a moment. In August, Fast Company wrote about the rise of the meta-accessory, a kind of accessory mainly designed to compliment another accessory. That includes items like a lipgloss phone case; a Stanley water bottle backpack; an $1,000 bag charm; or a Labubu for a Labubu. All of these pieces serve minimal utilitarian purposes, and seem mainly geared toward convincing consumers that they need to make yet another little purchase. At Trader Joes, the mini tote is like a tote bag for your regular tote bagand, clearly, shoppers cant get enough.
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About 40% of farm workers in the U.S. are undocumented immigrants, and theyve become a focus of the Trump administrations aggressive immigration crackdown. Terrorized farm workers have been forced into hiding, and farms themselves have been left empty of their workers. Experts have long warned that Trumps promise of mass deportations would threaten industries that rely on undocumented workerslike agricultureand that it could lead to mass disruptions in our food system. Now the Trump administrations labor department seems to be admitting that itself. In a document explaining the administrations new rule cutting farmworker wages, the Department of Labor writes that the labor shortage, in part due to increased [immigration] enforcement, presents a sufficient risk of supply shock-induced food shortages . . . There is ample data showing immediate dangers to the American food supply.” The near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens combined with the lack of an available legal workforce, results in significant disruptions to production costs and threatening the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S consumers, per the document. Trumps One Big Beautiful Bill, which includes additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), means that threat will grow, it adds. ‘A win for corporate greed’ The Trump administration is using this risk to justify cuts to farmworker wagesand says more foreign workers are needed to alleviate the threat. Because of this crisis, employers will need to rely even more on the H-2A visa program, which allows farms to bring on temporary foreign workers when theres a shortage of U.S. workers. (Under this visa, workers also lack basic labor protections and have reported issues with worker safety; they also do not have bargaining rights.) And the Department of Labor does not believe American workers will make themselves readily available in sufficient numbers to replace the departing illegal aliens. In theory, a worker shortage should lead to higher wages. But the visa program comes with high costs that have become burdensome, per the DOL, and so additional labor costs, it says, threatens the viability of farming operations. The departments new rule says the program needs reform, and that guest farm worker wages need to be cut to avoid agriculture disruptions. Under H2-A rules, the Department of Labor must advertise agricultural jobs, but it says this hasn’t led to more applications from domestic workers. The American Prospect, which reported on the DOL document, says that’s not entirely accurate. “Workers who apply often do not receive jobs, and nobody is really checking to see if applications are coming in,” it writes. “The system isnt set up to prove that theres a labor shortage of U.S. workers, Daniel Costa, an attorney with the Economic Policy Institute who tracks the H-2A program, told the outlet. The move could reduce wages for all farm workers, no matter their legal status. The United Farm Workers, which represents nearly 7,000 agricultural workers, condemns the wage cuts, which it says would mean a loss of $2.46 billion annually in farmworker wages. Farm workers should be paid more, not less. This regulation is a win for corporate greed; a money grab for big agribusiness that transfers millions of dollars through wage cuts and housing deductions from workers to employers, Erica Lomeli Corcoran, UFW Foundation chief executive officer, said in a statement. The farm workers who feed us every day deserve so much more and we remain committed to ensuring that their labor and dignity is respected.
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E-Commerce
A political scientist who studies what helps people connect across differences. A novelist whose books about Native American communities in Oakland, California, sparked a passionate following. A photographer whose black and white images investigate poverty in America. Hahrie Han, Tommy Orange, and Matt Black are among the 22 fellows selected this year by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and announced Wednesday. It’s a recognition often called the genius award, which comes with an $800,000 prize, paid over five years that fellows can spend however they choose. The foundation selects fellows over the course of years, considering a vast range of recommendations, largely from their peers. Each class doesnt have a theme and were not creating a cohort around a certain idea,” said Marlies Carruth, director of the MacArthur Fellows program. “But I think this year, we see empathy and deep engagement with community figures prominently in this class.” Through different methodologies, many of the fellows boldly and unflinchingly reflect what they see and hear from deep engagement with their communities, she said. Because fellows don’t apply or participate in any way in their selection, the award often comes as a shock and sometimes coincides with difficult moments. Nabarun Dasgupta, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, had just left a team meeting where he shared that a longtime collaborator in harm reduction work had died when he saw multiple missed calls from a Chicago number, which then called again. It was the MacArthur Foundation. They were awarding him the fellowship in recognition of his work, which includes helping to start a testing program for street drugs to identify unregulated substances and helping to overcome a shortage of naloxone, which reverses an opioid overdose. To make sense of the intense moment that mixed deep loss and recognition, Dasgupta wrote the following in a journal. We are surrounded by death every day. Sometimes, you have to give yourself a pep talk to get out of bed. Other mornings, the universe yells in your ear and tells you to keep going because what were doing is working. In an interview with The Associated Press, he added, I feel like this couldnt have been any clearer of a signal that the work has to go on. Other fellows were contacted by the foundation through email, asking to speak with them about potential projects. Tonika Lewis Johnson, a Chicago-based artist, planned to take the call in the car. The foundation representatives tried to get her to pull over before breaking the news, but she declined. They were definitely worried about my safety, she said laughing, and she did then stop driving. Johnson’s projects are rooted in her neighborhood of Englewood, located on Chicago’s South Side. She has photographed the same addresses in north and south Chicago, beautified residents’ homes and made predatory housing practices visible. All together, her work reveals the very specific people and places impacted by racial segregation. This award is validation and recognition that my neighborhood, this little Black neighborhood in Chicago that everyone gets told to, Dont go to because its dangerous, this award means there are geniuses here, Johnson said. For Ángel F. Adames Corraliza, an atmospheric scientist at the University of WisconsinMadison, the award is also a recognition of the talent and grit coming from Puerto Rico, where he is from, despite the hardships his community has endured. His research has uncovered many new findings about what drives weather patterns in the tropics, which may eventually help improve forecasting in those regions. Adames said usually one of his classes would be ending right when the foundation would publish the new class of fellows, so he was planning to end the lecture early to come back to his office. He said hes having trouble fathoming what it will be like. I am low-key expecting that a few people are just going to show up in my office, like right at 11:02 a.m. or something like that, he said. Before getting news of the award, Adames said he was anticipating having to scale down his research in the coming years as government funding for climate and weather research has been significantly cut back or changed. He said he had been questioning what was next for his career. The prize from MacArthur may allow him to pursue some new theoretical ideas that are harder to get funded, he said. I think people do care and it does matter for the general public, regardless of what the political landscape is, which right now is fairly negative on this, he said about climate and weather science. ___ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of APs philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy. Thalia Beaty, Associated Press
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