Things You Need to Know Today: Ready for Cyber Monday?

Here are the things you need to  know today......

From the Associated Press:

Retailers are getting ready for Cyber Monday, what's traditionally the busiest online shopping day of the year. But stores have been offering internet deals earlier, stretching them through the week, as well as making them available in stores. Adobe Digital Insights, which tracks online retail transactions, says that the day after Thanksgiving, consumers spent $3.34 billion shopping online. That's a 21.6 percent increase from the same day last year.

The state ethics commission wants to tighten up Maine rules for publicly-funded candidates. The state Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices wants to make candidates ineligible for public funding if they fail to make sure their campaigns don't collect fraudulent contributions.

L.L. Bean is kicking it up a notch as demand continues to surge for its iconic boot. The Maine-based outdoors retailer has leased a 110,000-square-foot building and plans to install a third injection-molding machine. The company is boosting production to meet demand that's expected to reach 1 million pairs in 2018.

A state commission is figuring out how to reform Maine's formula for funding public education and improve student performance. The commission will meet Nov. 28 in Augusta as it prepares a report for lawmakers due in January.

Tours marketed at beer lovers and bird enthusiasts are popping up around the country. Beer and bird hobbyists say they are united by their mutual love of minutiae, rarity and variety. Events and tours have taken place in locales as disparate as Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Hampton, New Hampshire. One of the more successful tours is "Birds On Tap Roadtrip," located in beer-loving, bird-rich Maine.

The backers of a new national monument in Maine don't believe Donald Trump will undo President Barack Obama's move. Obama this year created the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument on 87,000 acres donated by the co- founder of Burt's Bees. Trump criticized Obama at the time. The leader of a group opposed to the monument recently told reporters that the idea of Trump reversing course has crossed opponents' minds. But Quimby's son says he's "pretty confident" that Trump won't get involved.

President-elect Donald Trump is scoffing at Hillary Clinton's nearly 2 million lead in the popular vote, claiming without evidence Sunday that "millions" voted illegally in the national election. Trump and his lieutenants are calling an effort to recount votes in up to three battleground states fraudulent and the work of "crybabies."

Tens of thousands of Cubans are expected to gather in the streets Monday after 9 a.m., when simultaneous 21-gun salutes will sound in the capital and in the eastern city of Santiago. That's where former president Fidel Castro launched his revolution in 1953. Castro died Friday night at age 90. Virtually all schools and government offices will close and the government says it will "render homage and sign a solemn oath" to Castro at a monument to national hero Jose Marti in Havana.

Doctors in the main hospital treating trauma victims from the battle for Mosul, Iraq, say they are overflowing with casualties, both civilians and soldiers. One doctor at the West Irbil Hospital says the main triage center for trauma cases is seeing 100 to 150 patients daily. And he says authorities are expecting the tide to stay the same for three months. The offensive to free Mosul of Islamic State militants is now in its second month.

An Ohio judge plans to meet with both sides in the case of a white former University of Cincinnati police officer whose first trial in the fatal shooting of a black motorist ended in a hung jury. The prosecution plans to retry Ray Tensing on the same charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter in the July 2015 shooting of Sam DuBose, but wants the trial moved to another county. The defense is asking the judge to acquit Tensing.