this is wjz tv, wjz hd, and www.wjz.com, baltimore. >> from the city to the counties to your neighborhood, now it's complete coverage. it's wjz, maryland's news station. mall madness. shoppers battle the crowds to make it to christmas. tonight, why the waiting game could pay off. >> good evening, i'm andrea fujii. here's what people are talking about. time is running out. stores will close soon and christmas is almost here, but that isn't stopping last-minute shoppers. and as gigi barnett explains, some people are finding good deals as the clock ticks down.

>> reporter: some christmas shoppers are done. everything is wrapped and ready to go. >> i am completely done. i have been done. >> reporter: others waited until today. >> i think i'm addicted to the crowds and getting angry, and then once everything is over, it's all good. >> reporter: time is running out to finish. >> she gave me a written list of what she wanted. >> reporter: terry matthews has a deal with his wife. she shops only for her while she takes care of all the other gifts. his wife was done days ago. >> that's the deal. she's home cooking dinner. >> and you get a hot meal. >> reporter: shoppers say the one thing that sets this christmas eve apart from last year are the deals they're finding so close to the holidays. >> i found better deals like recently, this week. >> i feel like a lot of the stores are cutting prices this year. i don't know. maybe it's just me. >> reporter: neriabout alone. this best buy was busy all

morning. the floor manager says there are deals to find, even with the clock ticking. >> don't wait for santa. >> reporter: stores will bring in a record $469 billion in sales this year. all that's left now is to wrap it up. i'm gigi barnett, wjz eyewitness news. >> thank you. and the national retail federation predicts a nearly 4% boost in sales this holiday shopping season. and besides shopping, many maryland families are celebrating christmas eve at church. wjz is live. we have more on masses drawing crowds across baltimore. >> there are some gorgeous services happening across our area and many people tell us they are grateful to be reminded of what christmas really means to them. >> reporter: at the historic baltimore basilica, hundreds celebrated. for many, it's a resple from

the hustle that comes along with the holiday. >> bringing my mom and my brother and we came back to where we started off, like christmas is really important. it's about family, it's about togetherness, it's about just enjoying the really simple things in life. >> reporter: inside, the pews were lined with several generations of catholics. the festive decorations stunned as they remembered the birth of baby jesus. some locals have been coming to the basilica since they were babies themselves. >> i think tradition is the biggest reason and to see a building that's been standing so long and such a part of the city, we feel like we're part of city and the families together, it's good. >> reporter: others are making the service a nutrition as they call the city their new home. >> it's a very traditional

mass. and it's just a beautiful peaceful and wonderful. >> and, of course, many people are waiting to attend midnight mass. the choir will start singing carols around 11:30 and if you plan to go, it is suggested you get there about 11:00. reporting live tonight, wjz eyewitness news. >> thank you. and coming up later, we'll take a look at how christmas is being celebrated across the globe. onto other news now, a baltimore county man was struck by a car. police say 79-year-old aaron bethat more was standing by a parked car when he and that vehicle was hit by another car. it happened last night on smith avenue in pikesville. he was rushed to shock trauma where he later died. police say the driver stayed on the scene and a crash team is investigating the accident. an elderly woman is severely beaten during a home

invasion. police say the intruder broke into the home early friday morning. the suspect attacked the woman while she slept, causing brain bleeding, a broken nose and a fractured eye socket. >> they had beat her so severe in the face, her eye was split and they busted her nose and really beat her up pretty bad. >> police say the house was ransacked but it doesn't appear anything was stolen. they're now trying to locate a person of interest in the attack. well, it won't be a white christmas here in maryland. taking a live look outside on this mild christmas eve, beautiful out there. we've got sun instead of snow. beautiful shot of the stadium. tim williams is live with an updated look at first warning live doppler radar. i know lots of people are wanting snow. >> you have to travel a good way to get it. in fact, for a lot of people,

it's considered the purple christmas instead of a white one with the ravens win today. we are looking at temperatures, though, very, very comfortable as we head into this christmas eve and then tomorrow's christmas day. first warning doppler radar shows the temperatures around 37 degrees, 52% relative humidity with calm winds. around the area, the temperatures are looking like this across the state. we do have 37 at the airport, 31, one of the colder spots out towards oakland and we start to see some 40s heading towards d.c., and 34 in ocean city. as we talked about, you have to go far up to the northeast to see any snow at all or back towards new mexico where they got about 19 inches yesterday. that storm that brought that snow is moving to our direction but what's it going to mean for christmas day? we'll talk about it and have your complete forecast in just a few moments. >> thanks, tim. what everybody's talking about, the ravens capture their last home game win of the regular season, setting a franchise record. sports director mark viviano was there for the win and is

live with the highlights. what a victory. >> it was a big one as they complete the home schedule 8-0 for the first time in team history and that will keep themselves in position for a home game. they beat the cleaved browns. let's pick up the action in the 1st quarter after an interception. the ravens would drive down the field and joe flacco would find ed dixon in the end zone that put the ravens on top 7-0. they put together another scoring drive, ray rice out of the backfield, flacco finds him, 42 yards for the score. the ravens led 17-0 at half. that lead grew to 20-0 in the second half but the browns scored two touchdowns. here's the second of their two. quarterback wallace gets free and finds evan moore in the end zone. 20-14 with about 8 minutes to go in regulation. getting dicey. but in the final minutes, the ravens had fourth down and two yards to go.

cleveland had no time-outs. cleveland stopped on fourth down actually on that play. the ravens got the ball back and ran out the clock. they win it 20-14 so it's a perfect record at home, first time in team history. consider that a christmas gift for baltimore fans. >> we really made a focus on taking care of home and our team came in and we did a great job taking care of home and this is the result of it, being able to go 8-0. >> there's not a better stadium in the league, and there's not a better bunch of fans than ravens fans everywhere but especially on game day in baltimore. >> well, the ravens have played well at home. it's on the road where they have struggled and it's on the road where they will finish the regular season, at cincinnati, needing one more win to secure that at least the number two overall seed. more coming up later on in sports, back to you for now. >> we'll be watching with our

fingers crossed. and keep it locked right here next weekend as the ravens wrap up the regular season against the cincinnati bengals. the action kicks off at 1:00 next sunday, right here on wjz 13. dozens of kids will have a happy christmas thanks to some big hearts. 75 needy children celebrated the holiday by picking out brand-new bikes at the rec center. the kids also unwrapped dozens of other donated gifts, which included clothes and toys and after all the excitement, they enjoyed a free lunch. this year marks the 20th annual cecil clerk's toy giveaway. coming up on wjz, deadly crashes rock yemen. what's behind the latest bloody protests. a campaign goof. what two g.o.p. candidates won't be appearing on the ballot. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

violence erupts once again today in yemen as more than 100,000 protesters march on the capitol. demonstrators are pressuring the government to prosecute the acting president for alleged

crimes since the uprising began early this year. he said he would leave yemen for the u.s. because of the tension in the country. a florida man is shot and killed outside a mall during one of the busiest shopping days of the year. the gunman fired dozens of shots with an assault rifle in the parking lot of the mall in fort myers last night. the mall was packed with holiday shoppers and went into lockdown. police say the gunman is still on the loose. prince philip will spend a second night in the hospital while he recovers from a heart procedure. he had surgery to fix a blocked artery late last night. doctors believe the 90-year-old may have had a heart attack. philip was visited by the queen and his four children at the hospital today. he is expected to return home after a short stay. a major setback for two of the candidates seeking the g.o.p. presidential nomination. the republican party of virginia has announced newt gingrich and rick perry will not appear on the state's primary ballot.

both candidates failed to submit the 10,000 signatures needed to qualify. perry has not addressed the decision but the gingrich campaign says he will pursue an aggressive write-in strategy to be added to virginia's ballot. well, on this christmas eve, people around the world are celebrating the holiday in different ways. millions are attending midnight masses, others are making a political statement. drew levinson reports for wjz with more. >> reporter: pope benedict celebrated the traditional christmas eve mass. it allows the 84-year-old pontiff to get more rest before his important christmas day speech. before mass, the vatican unveiled its much-anticipated annual nativity scene. in china, hundreds of catholics attended services. only 25 million are christians.

in this season of peace, activists in south korea floated giant balloons carrying boxes of socks over the border to north koreans. the socks were as much a political statement as they were a gift. >> we're directly helping the people over there because the system right now does not work in their favor. they don't get any aid. >> reporter: for the six astronauts and cosmonauts on board the international space station, it will literally be christmas around world, over and over. they'll orb that the globe 16 times. >> so on behalf of the crew on bard the international space station, we wish everyone on planet earth a happy, safe and most of all peaceful holiday season. >> reporter: santa, too, is spreading holiday cheer at a record pace. according to the official santa tracker, volunteers fielded more phone calls from children saturday than ever before. and santa's facebook page received nearly a billion likes. even for santa, that's quite a gift. in new york, drew levinson, wjz

eyewitness news. >> and at mass in the vatican, pope benedict urged followers to remember the true meaning of christmas, despite growing commercialization of the holiday. and make sure to watch the wjz new year's eve special a week from tonight with complete coverage of the fireworks live from baltimore's harbor. you can see all the festints right here only on wjz starting at 11:00 saturday night. and if the weather is this nice, it will be a great show. >> the one thing that is always a question is if there's going to be rain, and whether it's going to hamper the fireworks but at this point, our trend is pretty nice, at least temperature-wise. we'll have a keep an eye on the rain but right now, temperatures have been very comfortable. 37 degrees right now, calm winds and the barometer's pretty high, high pressure in control of our forecast. we'll have your complete christmas weekend forecast, coming up in just a few moments. ,,,,,,,,,,,, man: my electric bill was breaking the bank.

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now, the complete forecast and the first warning of severe weather. well welcome back. we're looking at another day of mild temperatures. how is 46 degrees mild? well, any time it's above the average high, typically we consider that mild and after we've had days of 60 and 50 degrees, 46 definitely on the mild side of things. nowhere near the record of 65 but we're still closer to the record highs than we are the record lows, 4 degrees was the record low back in 1983 and we're going to ride this wave of nice, mild temperatures for the next few days or so. 37 in elkton, 34 on the shore. we hit 42 in the nation's capital. 36 in westminster, and 37 in columbia, 41 indianapolis, and rock hall coming in at 40 this evening. just follow the direction of the arrows and you can kind of see where the high pressure is. it's the clockwise flow of the high.

it's just a little to our south so you watch the direction of the arrows coming on around and that's how we're tapping into this cooler northwest wind when it is blowing. it's keeping our temperatures down just a little bit, even though we did get a good bit of sun today, that northwest flow kept our temperatures down in the 40s and still above our normal high. right now, 37 degrees in baltimore, 33 in detroit, 35 in chicago and that's the direction that the breeze has been coming from, but the snow, we mentioned that the snow out in new mexico dumped about a foot and a half of snow and it's moving across the gulf states but it's moving into warmer air. so what that means for us is that this storm will develop. it will pick up moisture, kind of follow those clouds there, and it tracks just across the southern portion of the gulf states, south carolina, the northern portion of it, only touches virginia. so it stays far enough away from us that we don't really see much impact of it at all. the high keeps it down to the south. we could see maybe a sprinkle

tomorrow but it looks like a pretty dry day heading into your sunday. your sunrise tomorrow is at 7:24 with your sunset at 4:49. small craft advisory in effect sunday. 30 degrees tonight, mainly clear, the normal is 26 we we'll be above that. for tomorrow, 50 degrees with times of clouds and sun and 48 degrees on monday, 48 on tuesday with a chance of showers, 46 and 44 for wednesday and thursday. >> thank you. and sports is next with all your ravens highlights. ,,,,,,,,

welcome back. mark is live at the stadium with our wjz the fan sports report. hi, mark. >> how are you doing? this is a holiday weekend and ravens fans certainly in a

festive mood following a victory over the cleveland browns in the final home game of the regular season. let's pick up the highlights. we go to the 2nd quarter. ravens already leading 7-0 and they add to their score when joe flacco finds ray rice out of the backfield, short toss, long gain. that will go 42 yards for the touchdown. and the ravens had a 17-0 lead at halftime. it grew to 20-0 in the second half but here come the browns on special teams. the ravens punt and the punt returner for cleveland is one of the best of all time. he is josh cribs and he is on display on this christmas eve, dashing through the ravens coverage, going 84 yards for the touchdown. cleaved scored twice to make it 20-14. this is a close game. the browns would get the ball back and they had to go for it on fourth and five from their own 45. seneca wallace to payton willis who gets run out of bounds, and the ravens hold on.

it wasn't easy, 20-14 the final. >> it was a great team win but obviously, you know, it was a must-win for us and i mean, hey, it wasn't pretty but at the same time, we got the job done and it felt good to leave on a high note. a perfect record at home, 8- 0, 1st time in team history. now, they've got to finish well on the road at cincinnati next sunday. we'll have that game for you right here on wjz. for more on this week 16 in the nfl, we go down to stan in the studio. >> thank you, mark. stay warm out there. ravens not the only ones rolling up their national football league sleeves. 13 games on tap, 10 of them played or being played early on this christmas eve. from pittsburgh, rams versus the steelers, injured ben roethlisberger was on the sideline all day but his replacement charlie batch doing a houdini-like great escape. mendenhall on the run, but that

was the first nfl touchdown for john clay, one drafted player out of wisconsin and the steelers win. also new england hosting miami, and winning 27-24 with help from who else? tom brady to branch, he's got him. it's the patriots winning, barely, 27-24. so that's a good look at sports for now but i can tell you there are a whole bunch of games today new england, buffalo, giants, oakland and california, all winners. >> you guys are busy today. >> i love these days. thank you. and be sure to watch the cbs prime-time lineup today at 10:00. watch 48 hours mystery. that is immediately followed by wjz eyewitness news at 11:00. and coming up tonight, at 11:00 on wjz, christmas eve services continue this evening around the world and right here in maryland. we'll show you the different ways people are marking the holiday.

plus, an emotional return for the very last american soldiers to leave iraq. well, the christmas wish of one military family comes true. [ laughter ] >> soldier wes jackson told his two young sons he wouldn't be home for the holidays. instead, he came down the escalator dressed up as santa claus. spending christmas together is the best present they could have ever received. welcome home. three tiger cubs in thailand got into the christmas spirit to the delight of visitors. zookeepers dressed the little cubs in santa outfits and placed them in a pen with piglets. that could be a bad decision, but apparently, it worked out. hundreds of visitors were on hand to witness the unusual site, how cute are they? the animals actually get along well but the tiger cubs drink

the mother's milk. i wonder how they like being dressed up like that. my dogs don't like it very much. thanks for joining us. i'm andrea fujii, thanks for watching wjz 13. we're here again tonight at 11:00. merry christmas, everybody. ,, what does hope look like? it's in the rising walls of a home rebuilt. raising the spirit of a community reborn. what does heart sound like? it's in the rhythm of nails pounded into wood. a beat driven by the conviction that inspiration can overcome desperation.

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