Cranberry sauce leads the surge

November 12, 2025

• The average cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner rose 7.1% from 2024 to 2025, reaching $61.14, according to Datasembly data.
  

• Jellied cranberry sauce saw the steepest jump up 45.7%, the highest increase among all tracked ingredients.
  

• Only pumpkin pie mix dropped in price, down 5.3% from last year.
  

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Many food retailers have rolled out Thanksgiving dinner bundles, offering consumers some relief from high prices. New data from Datasembly show just how high those prices have gotten, especially for Thanksgiving dinner.

For the second year in a row, American households are paying more to put a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on the table. According to Datasembly, the total cost of a standard basket of Thanksgiving staples rose 7.09% in 2025, climbing from $57.09 last year to $61.14.

While inflation has cooled across much of the economy, food prices particularly for prepared and packaged goods continue to edge higher. Consumers can expect to spend several extra dollars this year on popular side dishes and essentials like cranberry sauce, stuffing, and gravy.

Cranberry sauce and stuffing

Oddly, the biggest sticker shock this Thanksgiving comes from the canned cranberry sauce aisle. The average 12-ounce can of jellied cranberry sauce jumped from $2.34 to $3.41, a 45.73% increase. Supply chain issues for cranberries, coupled with rising packaging and processing costs, may be to blame.

Stuffing also saw a significant rise, up 14.24% year-over-year, followed closely by homestyle gravy at 14.17%. These double-digit increases suggest that the most convenient, pre-made holiday sides are being hit hardest by ongoing food manufacturing costs.

Modest gains for other staples

Many other items on the Thanksgiving table rose by single digits.

• Buttermilk biscuits increased 11.35%.
  

• Whipped topping, a dessert essential, rose 11.16%.
  

• The traditional frozen turkey, typically a 10-pound bird, is up 6.67%, costing an average of $24.00 in 2025.
  

Even frozen and canned vegetables often among the most stable food prices saw mild upticks: sweet corn rose 2.05%, green beans 1.21%, and russet potatoes 1.10%.

A bright spot for dessert lovers

In a rare bit of relief, pumpkin pie mix fell 5.33%, from $4.69 to $4.44. This drop could reflect improved pumpkin harvests or reduced demand after last years high prices.

Combined with modest increases in pie shells, the classic pumpkin pie may be one of the few Thanksgiving treats that doesnt cost more this year.

Thanksgiving dinner this year will cost consumers about $4 more than last year, driven largely by sharp increases in canned and prepared goods. While the total increase is smaller than in previous inflationary spikes, the continuing trend suggests that families will still need to budget carefully to host a holiday feast.

Its suing a company it claims is helping cybercriminals

November 12, 2025

• Google has filed a lawsuit claiming it identified and is now targeting a sprawling scam operation that uses text messages and fake websites to steal personal and financial data.
  

• The accused network, referred to as Lighthouse, allegedly provides a phishing-as-a-service platform: ready-made templates, bulk SMS tools, and backend infrastructure for scammers to impersonate legitimate brands and institutions.
  

• According to the complaint, Lighthouses reach spans at least 120 countries, may have created hundreds of thousands of fake websites and compromised millions of banking/credit-card details in the U.S. alone.
  

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Scammers usually operate in relative anonymity and are rarely held accountable for ripping off consumers. But Google has filed a civil suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against 25 unnamed defendants it says are behind Lighthouse a China-based network of cybercriminals.

Google alleges the defendants offered subscription services to technically less-skilled criminals. In exchange for a fee paid in cryptocurrency, buyers received access to mass-texting tools (SMS, iMessage, RCS), a library of more than 600 phishing templates, fake domains mimicking major brandssome using Googles own logoand dashboards tracking stolen credentials.

One dramatic claim in the companys filing: in a 20-day span, Lighthouse-linked activity alone reportedly created roughly 200,000 phishing websites and may have targeted 12.7 million to 115 million U.S. card-holder records.

Why this matters

The case reflects how large-scale text-based have evolved from simple spam to sophisticated infrastructures. According to a recent Google report, the so-called Spray and Pray and Bait and Wait models are increasingly used to trick users via SMS, group messaging, and social-engineered links.

Because the scammers impersonate trusted entities (postal services, toll-charges, delivery notices) and use familiar branding including Googles the risk goes beyond small-time phishing: it undermines trust in digital messaging and makes detection harder for users.

By filing this lawsuit, Google isnt just going after the alleged operators. The company says it seeks a legal finding that enables it (and other infrastructure providers) to better coordinate takedowns of domains, servers and payment systems used by the network.

Whats next

• Global cooperation may be required: Although Google has filed suit in the U.S., the defendants are believed to be overseas and anonymous, so enforcing judgments may be a challenge.
  

• Legislative angle: Google also voiced support for several bipartisan bills in the U.S. designed to combat , including the GUARD Act (targeting fraud against the elderly), the SCAM Act (addressing scam-compounds) and robo-call/foreign robocall legislation.
  

• User impact: For consumers, this case stresses the need to treat unexpected texts or messagesespecially those urging immediate action or asking for credentialswith suspicion. Googles own help guidance lists steps to avoid like this.
  

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