Many people celebrated the holidays across the Chicago area Sunday. A menorah lighting was held on the North Side and others visited the Chicago Christmas Tree in Millennium Park.

The holiday mood in downtown Detroit amplified when a flame lit the 26-foot menorah in Cadillac Square on Wednesday evening.

Christmas night will consist of cloudy skies with increasing areas of mist, drizzle, and fog after sunset. Some fog tonight could be dense. Lows will be in the mid-30s.Cloudy with areas of drizzle and fog for Thursday morning,

One of the world's most active volcanoes spewed lava into the air for a second straight day on Tuesday. The eruption of Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island has stayed within the mountain's summit caldera inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory estimated the lava was about 1 yard (1 meter) thick.

The UK is set for a period of unseasonably mild weather on Christmas Day this year. It is expected to be cloudy too, with the threat of some isolated rain in the far north of Scotland. BBC weather presenter Louise Lear delivers the weather forecast for the festive period.

Workers at more than a dozen Chicago area Starbucks were on strike Christmas Eve, union organizers said, as baristas escalated a national walkout that began in three cities, including Chicago, on Friday.

In what the union has dubbed "The Strike Before Christmas," more than 5,000 workers are walking out of 300-plus Starbucks locations nationwide Tuesday.

A rolling strike of Starbucks baristas began Friday and grows to include about 300 of the coffee giant's shops across the U.S.