Daylight Savings Time Canceled For Sunday, November 6

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On Wednesday, the United States House of Representatives announced that it was confirming legislation passed by the Senate earlier this month abolishing daylight saving time this November. Such a move may strike many around the world as logical: The practice of moving the clocks forward by one hour during the summer months so that the evening daylight lasts longer is widespread throughout much of the world, but it is surprisingly controversial. The criticisms range from the mundane ("I'm tired and grumpy!") to the more serious (farms can miss out on a day of valuable morning light).

But America's experience presents a bewildering lesson for the rest of the world. It was only last week that Paul Ryan, speaker of the House, had confirmed that daylight saving time was due to be restored November 6. The cancellation of this plan was only announced four days before the new time was due to start. Now businesses that had been planning for the change have been thrown completely out of the loop: Delta, the country's largest airline, has been advising passengers to arrive at the airport early for flights and to expect delays. The company's chairman, Howard Yoman, has suggested that Delta could face losses of $2 million.

During the summer of 2016, the government announced that it would suspend the practice until more research could be performed on its benefits. When the government announced that it would be reintroducing the practice for November 2016, many Americans were exasperated. “This system has proved useless over the years. It only strains our nerves and confuses us,” Nadia Shehata, a schoolteacher, told CBS News in September. The move for a 2016 daylight savings time was ultimately canceled after the Senate voted against it.

The United States' troubled relationship with daylight savings isn't unique. While countries like Egypt and Britain have flirted with ending the practice, others have gone through with it – and then pulled back after a backlash to their own plans. The most notorious example is Russia. In 2011, that country's then-President Dimitry Medvedev announced a plan to end daylight savings in the country, in use since the Soviet-era, and shift to permanent summer time. Medvedev's plan also saw two time zones in Russia removed, bringing the total down to nine.

However, the problem hit a snag: In some regions, locals complained that it was still dark at 9 a.m. When Vladimir Putin returned to the president's office in 2014, he announced that Russia would go to permanent winter time and that the time zones would be reintroduced. The whole thing was a costly, pointless exercise in political power, but not as audacious as other politically ordered political shifts: Last year, North Korea even announced it was creating its own time zone.

This is a satirical website. Don't take it Seriously. It's a joke.