the rush to get home in time for the holidays snarled by a temporary ground stop by american airlines. the ripple effect exacerbated by

wintry weather. bill karins is here tracking that christmas and hanukkah forecast. a starbucks christmas strike expands to more than 40 states. what workers are demanding, and how the coffee mega chain is responding. from fast food wars and a number of service outages. we're looking at the year in business and the economy. christmas celebrations are under way across the world. from notre dame's first christmas mass in five years o muted celebrations in bethlehem in the palestinian west bank. our team is there. and netflix is set to host a pair of holiday football games and a big performance by beyonce. but can they ease fans' buffering concerns? we'll let you know. "early today" starts right now. good morning. and thanks for joining us this morning. i'm jessica layton. well, just in time for

christmas, amtrak says its service has been fully restored in the northeast. last-minute travelers were hit by another delay. american airlines passengers caught way off guard when flights were grounded on christmas eve. alice barr has more on the last-minute travel rush. >> reporter: a holiday scramble at airports across the country after a technical issue temporarily grounded all american airlines flights. the ground stop only lasted an hour, and the airline promised all hands on deck to get travelers back on track after what it called a vendor technology issue that impacted systems needed to let flights take off. delays piled up quickly, setting off ripple effects for travelers facing a series of roadblocks in the skies, on the road. >> we're moving pretty slowly. >> reporter: and on the rails all week. >> a day's delay can mean that we don't end up home for

christmas. >> reporter: amtrak working to catch up after downed power lines trigger add two-day snarl along the busy northeast corridor. and more delays could be coming with millions under a winter weather advisory across the midwest and northeast. wild winter weather on the west coast where hurricane-force winds drove flooding and dangerously-high sur of. a wharf collapsed. aaa is expecting 119 million travelers to brave any obstacle in their quest to make it home for the holidays. in washington, alice barr, nbc news. the man accused of burning a woman to death on a new york city subway sunday morning says he was too drunk to remember what happened. sebastian zepeda, an undocumented immigrant from guatemala appeared before a judge yesterday to be charged

with murder and arson. and the victim has not yet been identified, but we do know she was sleeping on a stationary train in south brooklyn when she was attacked. the suspect admitted to heavily drinking and told police he has no recollection of this incident. a group of mayors is urging president biden to approve the sale of u.s. steel to a japanese company. mayors in indiana and pennsylvania where u.s. steel has facilities are backing this acquisition by nippon steel. the committee on foreign investment told the white house it is deadlocked on the proposed sale. president biden has 15 days to decide what to do. but he has said in the pasthat he opposes this deal. the union representing starbucks baristas says their strikes are expanding. workers walking off the job and drawing attention to what they say are unfair labor practices. nbc's emilie ikeda is following the strike's impact. >> reporter: dubbed the strike

before christmas, starbucks workers walking off the job again and shuttering about 170 stores, according to the java giant. >> we call the shots! >> reporter: from los angeles to new york. >> no one wants to have to do this. we want to be with our families, but starbucks has forced us into this position. >> reporter: union group is calling for better benefits and immediate wage increases and protesting alleged unfair labor practices. >> we got hundreds and hundreds of orders every single day. and we're just not properly staffed. >> reporter: the demonstration started on friday in three states. now spreading to 43 in the strike's final day, according to organirs, disrupting business in the heart of the holiday season. while it's been lights out at stores like this for the past several days, bucks says the vast majority of ts stores in the u.s. have remained open.

the union chose to walk away from bargaining. protesters say closed stores will reopen on christmas but aren't ruling out the chance for new demonstrations in the new year. >> we can't count on companies to be human. we, like, we have to bring the humanity to them. >> reporter: emilie ikeda, nbc news. in the shadow of the brutal war in gaza, a somber christmas in bethlehem on the palestinian west bank. for the second year in a row, celebrations have within canceled in what's known as jesus' birthplace, further decimating that local economy. nbc's raf sanchez is there. >> reporter: we spent the day in bethlehem. a city struggling to figure out how to mark christmas during war. in the little town of bethlehem, christmas is barely a whisper. palestinian scouts parading the streets but without their

traditional instruments, at the end of a difficult year for this holy city. christmas usually looks like this. the main square dominated by a towering tree. this is where that tree should be, but, with the war in gaza still raging and few tourists, most of the official festivities are canceled this year. church leaders calling for public signs of christian hope but muted celebrations. >> bethlehem is the capital of christmas. it's supposed to be the best time of the year, none of that is happening, because we're mourning. >> reporter: he is the pastor of the evangelical lutheran christian church where this nativity scene reminds worshippers of the thousands of children killed in gaza since last christmas. >> we see jesus in every child under the rubble in gaza. >> reporter: we walk the quiet streets, past struggling souvenir streets to the home of a christian born in gaza. she still has two surviving siblings there. >> that's why i didn't put the

christmas tree. i'll not feel well if i did this while they are suffering there. >> reporter: reaching them by phone, impossible some days. >> beep, beep, beep. >> reporter: no connection. but the next morning our team in gaza found her brother and sister at the church where much of the strip's dwindling christian community is sheltering. my greetings to all. rejoice as much as you can, they tell their distant sibling. back in bethlehem, there's still moments of christmas joy. how do you feel here in bethlehem? >> so blessed. >> reporter: foreign workers thousands of miles from their families gathering at the church of the nativity. normally in the run up to christmas you'd have huge lines of pilgrims from all around the world waiting to get into this holy place. and you can see we have it pretty much to ourselves. the church built on the spot where jesus is said to have been born, a refuge in a turbulent

world. raf sanchez, nbc news, bethlehem. notre dame in paris hosted its first christmas mass since the cathedral was nearly destroyed by a fire in april 2019. now during the service, the lead priest at notre dame said it served as a symbol of faith, unity and hope. it reopened on december 7. and just a few hours ago here in new york city, midnight mass was held at st. patrick's cathedral in manhattan. archbishop timothy dolan leading the service. and surely you have plans today. so let's get a check on the christmas day forecast now with nbc meteorologist bill karins. good morning. >> happy hanukkah, too. we are watching this strong storm syem in texas. we've had numerous reports of large hail, strong wind gus, too. and it is still pouring.

severe thunderstorm watches up until 6:00 a.m. this morning in the houston area. it's trouble sleeping for everyone. from rosenberg to houston. a lot of lightning and very heavy rain. this is what we call a big atmospheric river. all the bright white, this is coming up into the pacific northwest. and this is going to be moving in during the afternoon. and the worst of it will be this evening. so by 5:00 p.m. you notice the yellow, the heavy rain. with it, we're going to get power outages, too. then a little bit of a smaller storm comes in behind it. about 4 million people in the pacific north west, this is an event for the coastal areas. portland and seattle, we think your max winds will be somewhere in the 20 to 30 range. but look at the coast. we could have louisiana early .

temperatures mild in most locations, though, and above freezing. jessica, it's going to be a little dicey later today especially in the pacific northwest. >> seems like it always happens on the holidays, bill, thank you. no lucky winners took home the christmas eve mega millions billion dollar jackpot. the new jackpot worth $1.5 billion. it is the sixth biggest prize in the game's history. the next drawing is friday night. coming up, the a.p. named the male and female athletes of the year. can you guess who they are? but from inflation to the possible tiktok ban. we are looking back atheea t yr of you, the consumer. ♪ every now and then ♪ ♪ i get a little bit tired of the stinks ♪ ♪ that just will never come out ♪

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well, it has been quite a year in the world of business. 2024 saw rate cuts by the fed, unemployment, cyber outages crippling communications and grounding airplanes. our business correspondent brian cheung looks back on the past year and ahead into the next. >> reporter: in a year where a lot happenedthe u.s. economy kept its stride, thanks to a u.s. consumer that got chooseyer with their dollars. fast food chains like mcdonald's, wendy's and burger king were giving deals to bring shoppers back. >> some stuff was on sale, some weren't. but we still buy. >> reporter: that spending buoyed a u.s. economy that got

help from the federal reserve which cut rates for the first time since 2020. the fed undid some of its post pandemic rate increases to avoid a spike in unemployment which has tilted up about a half a percent since a year ago. but the pace of price increases in the united states slowed, with ilation declining over 2024. now still, prices for household staples remain high, but the cost of ground beef and eggs up from about a year ago. housing costs are rising, too. but many questions face the u.s. consumer going into 2025. >> can you guarantee american families won't pay more? >> i can't guarantee anything. >> prices could rise further under the incoming trump administration's plan to hit america's biggest trade partners with tariffs, letting a charge to import goods passed on to consumers, raising the cost of lecque electronics, meat or even oil. >> the supreme court will hear

arguments on the constitutionality of the tiktok ban. >> tiktok is getting banned again, so they say. is it real? i'm not sure. >> we are coming on the air right now with breaking news. a massive global technical outage tied to crowdstrike. >> there was also the, oh, the microsoft outage in july, due to a faulty update from crowdstrike. and that wasn't the only blackout of the year. in february, at&t had a massive cell phone outage. and in march, meta had problems that disrupted facebook and instagram's services. now it didn't sink any of those companies, but debt did pile up for companies that filed for bankruptcy this year, among them, tupperware, t.g.i.fridays and yep, red lobster. but bankruptcy just means they're reorganizing, not that they're gone forever.

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what a day for some football, baby! >> faliz navidad, faliis navidad. >> a christmas doubleheader featuring four playoff-bound teams. the chiefs take on the steelers at 1:00, followed by the ravens and texans at 4:30. baltimore and houston will cede the spotlight to beyonce. the streamer has been assuring fans that the games will go off without a hitch following those buffering issues that plagued last month's jake paul-mike tyson fight.

usually i can control how much football we're watching on christmas by the tv, but now everyone's just going to have it on their phones. >> lamar jackson said he's not going to go to halftime. he wants to sit and watch beyonce. >> i don't blame them. before 2024 comes to a close, some athletes are getting recognition. "the associated press" named caitlin clark female athlete of the war. she secures the honor after closing out her record-breaking college career in iowa and leaping quickly to the wnba, bringing unprecedented attention to the league. the male athlete, shohei otani, the third time the newly-minted world series champion has won the title. can you guess who the other person was? >> i think it was michael jordan. >> that's right. >> could have told you both of those, right?

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welcome back to what's making headlines this morning. former president bill clinton is out of the hospital. he's being treated for the flu. the 78-year-old was admitted to a gegeorgetownospital on monday with a fever. a spokesperson says the clinton family is grateful for the exceptional care and well wishes they received. the bald eagle is now officially the u.s. national bird after president biden signed the bill on christmas eve. that bill getting unanimous support in congress after a minnesota man pushed to officially designate the long-time symbol of america as the national bird. did your family track santa through norad last night? we sure did. and we're all if good company. the white house released this photo of the bidens also

tracking santa, taking calls from kids across the u.s. and santa's sleigh not the only thing flying high. nasa's solar probe reached within 3.8 million miles of the sun. these first images are expected to reach the earth next month. that is amazing. we will be right back after this. incoming dishes. —ahhh! —duck! dawn powerwash flies ♪ this is major tom to ground control ♪ yeah, it absorbs grease five times faster. even replaces multiple cleaning products. ooh, those suds got game. dawn powerwash. the better grease getter. (♪♪) skincare can start in the laundry room. that's why i always recommend all free clear for sensitive skin. it's free of dyes and perfumes. it's a key part of my self-care routine. and is gentle for my skin, and her's too. for an effective clean that's gentle on skin, all you need is all free clear. what's up, you seem kinda sluggish today. things aren't really movin'. you could use some metamucil.

metamucil's psyllium fibre helps keep your digestive system moving. so you can feel lighter and more energetic. metamucil keeps you moving. and try clear fibre, with no grit and no flavor. santa may live at the north pole all year, but not even he can resist waxing up his board and catching a thick barrel every once in a while. on tuesday morning, around

15,000 people flocked to cocoa beach florida for the surfing charity event. that's where surfers clad in holiday costumes, including the big guy himself, take to the waves. the event has raised more than $3,000 since it began in 2009. now to one green grump discovering that not every town is as nice as whoville. the notorious grinch was arrested in dallas county, iowa, the mean one was charged with a felony for what else? stealing christmas presents. he was booked alongside his dog max. the pup was released on good behavior, but nobody's touching mr. grinch with a 39 1/2-foot pole. he remains behind bars this morning. finally on this christmas day, we want to thank everyone from our "early today" team who helps put this show on the air bright and early for you every morning. >> happy holidays from ten years

ago and ago and ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> merry ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thanks for watching "early today," merry christmas and happy ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thanks for watching "early today." >> happy holidays! bye! ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the best team, and i am lucky to be part of every once in a while. thank you for watching "early today." today and every day. i'm jessica layton. have a wonderful christmas and happy nukkah. we'll see you morrow. to

the rush to get home in time for the holidays snarled by a temporary ground stop by american airlines. the ripple effect