Local public transit agencies are encouraging residents to celebrate the holiday responsibly by taking advantage of free late-night transit services. Here’s how to hitch a ride.

Holiday sales from the beginning of November through Christmas Eve climbed 3.8%, outpacing the 3.1% increase from a year earlier, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks all kinds of payments including cash and debit cards.

Many stores and offices are closed on the two holidays to give employees a chance to spend time with loved ones during the holiday season. This year, Christmas Eve falls on Tuesday, Dec. 24, and Christmas falls on Wednesday, Dec. 25.

Amazon delivery drivers and Starbucks baristas are on strike in a handful of U.S. cities as they seek to exert pressure on the two major companies to recognize them as unionized employees or to meet demands for an inaugural labor contract.

The strikes by baristas and other workers were scheduled to take place in Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle and could spread to hundreds of stores across the country by Christmas Eve. Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks’ baristas, said at least 10 locations were closed down as of midday Friday.

Party City’s “very best efforts have not been enough to overcome” its financial challenges, he added, resulting in the company’s collapse. The CEO said the company struggled to contend with inflation, which sent the company’s costs higher and dragged down consumer spending.

Charitable giving dropped more than 2% in 2023, according to a Giving USA report. But local organizations are making efforts to reach their donation goals just in time for the new year. 

The union called it the largest strike against the company in U.S. history, although Amazon said it did not expect the labor action to impact its operations.

The law, enacted in April, set a Jan. 19 deadline for TikTok to be sold or else face a ban in the United States. The popular social media platform has more than 170 million users in the U.S.

The massive silos — popular with urban explorers and famously featured in “Transformers: Age of Extinction” — date back more than a century but haven’t been used as grain elevators since the 1970s.

Express lanes are set to reopen Jan. 13 pending successful completion of testing, which will begin Jan. 2, weather permitting, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. 

The investment could reach tens of millions of dollars, IBM President and CEO Arvind Krishna said, and comes with an initial commitment of 50 permanent jobs that he expects will be paired with fellowships, internships and partnerships with other local firms.

While banks have cut back on overdraft fees in the past decade, the nation’s biggest banks still take in roughly $8 billion in the charges every year, according to data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and bank public records. Currently, there is no cap on the overdraft fees that banks can legally charge.

Brothers Andy and Fredy Granados opened Grano Panadería and Café in Back of the Yards. The shop combines traditional Mexican flavors with their first-generation Chicago roots.

SmileDirectClub, once a publicly traded company known for selling clear dental aligners, shut its doors in December 2023. In an abrupt move, the company canceled outstanding orders and announced that its “Lifetime Smile Guarantee” would no longer exist.

The plan is to transform the former U.S. Steel South Works site into the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park. Officials are calling the campus “history-altering,” but some neighbors want the process to slow down and are raising environmental and displacement concerns.