Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia will not run for reelection in 2024, the moderate Democrat announced on social media Thursday.

“I will not be running for reelection to the United States Senate but what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together,” Manchin said in a message posted on social media.

The Democratic Caucus controls the chamber with a narrow 51-49 margin, and Manchin’s decision not to run again in such a deeply red state puts Democrats in a tough spot, as they’ll be defending seats in other competitive states.

Montana Sen. Steve Daines, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, released a statement minutes after Manchin’s announcement, saying, “We like our odds in West Virginia.”

It’s unclear what specifically Manchin will do after leaving Capitol Hill. Earlier this year, he stoked speculation of a third-party presidential campaign, when he spoke at a No Labels forum at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire.

“I’ve never been in any race I’ve ever spoiled. I’ve been in races to win,” Manchin said at the time in July. “And if I get in a race, I’m going to win.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

An Airbus A321 aircraft took off from London Stansted Airport last month with four damaged window panes, including two that were missing, according to UK air accident investigators.

Nine passengers and 11 crew members were on board the plane bound for Orlando International Airport in Florida on October 4, when the damage, apparently caused by high-powered lights used during a filming event the previous day, was discovered after takeoff.

The aircraft had reached an altitude of at least 14,000 feet by the time it was turned around, reads a special bulletin by the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB.) The plane landed back at Stansted Airport safely shortly afterward.

‘Increased cabin noise’

The report, published on November 4, details the incident, noting that it could have resulted in “more serious consequences” if “window integrity” had been “lost at higher differential pressure.”

It describes how passengers had noticed that the aircraft appeared to be “noisier and colder than they were used to” after taking off at Stansted Airport.

As the plane continued to climb and the seatbelt signs were switched off, the loadmaster, who had also noticed “increased cabin noise,” walked towards the back of the aircraft and spotted a cabin window on the left side of the aircraft with a window seal that was “flapping in the airflow.”

The loadmaster, who described the cabin noise as “loud enough to damage your hearing” informed the cabin crew and also went to the flight deck to let the commander know.

Ongoing investigation

Although there were no “abnormal indications,” the crew opted to stop the plane’s ascent at 14,000 feet and reduce airspeed while the window was inspected by an engineer and the third pilot.

“Having inspected the window, it was agreed the aircraft should return to Stansted,” the report continues.

“The cabin crew told the passengers to remain seated and keep their seatbelts fastened, and reminded them about the use of oxygen masks if that became necessary.”

The full extent of the damage to the aircraft wasn’t discovered until it was back on the ground.

The flight crew initiated a descent and the aircraft arrived back at Stansted Airport a short while later. The total flight time was 36 minutes, according to the bulletin.

After passengers had disembarked and the plane was parked and shut down, the crew inspected the plane from the outside, and found that two cabin window panes were missing and a third was dislodged.

“The four affected windows were adjacent to each other, just aft of the left overwing exit,” adds the bulletin.

The AAIB explains that the windows may have “sustained thermal damage and distortion” due to increased temperatures when the aircraft was used during filming for four to five and a half hours the day before the flight.

It will continue to investigate the incident to “fully understand the properties of the lights used and how this risk can be managed in future.”

“Aircraft owners and operators should consider the hazard posed by such activities to minimize the risk of aircraft damage,” it added.

CNN has contacted the AAIB for further comment.

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Washington, DC — When Michael Monaghan, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Sellers Realty in northern California, got an offer for a home in Bayside at the seller’s $650,000 list price in September, he told the buyer’s agent that the buyer needed to start looking for insurance immediately.

“I said, ‘Start working on this on day one,’” Monaghan said. “Getting insurance is the most important thing right now when you’re in escrow for the deal to close.”

In the past, acquiring homeowners’ insurance didn’t present buyers much difficulty, but as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather, insurers — especially those in areas most impacted by floods and fires — are raising their premiums, or pulling out altogether, impacting the affordability and availability of home and fire insurance.

For example, in May, State Farm, the largest home insurer in the state, announced it would pause issuing policies in California, citing wildfire risks. That came after Allstate stopped issuing policies in the state. Farmers Insurance deemed it too risky to continue insuring homes in Florida and pulled out of the market there entirely.

“With many carriers pulling out, that leaves other companies underwriting these really expensive policies,” said Monaghan. “Policies that cost $10,000 for a year? That is impossible for some buyers who have to pay that all at once [along] with their closing costs.”

RELATED: Five years after California’s historic Camp Fire killed 85, Paradise moves ahead with a goal to build a fireproof town

To help a deal close, Monaghan said some motivated sellers have given two years’ worth of insurance costs to the buyer.

But even if a buyer can pay their insurance costs up front (or even has them paid by the seller), buyers still have backed out of deals, worried that their insurance premiums will go up in the years to come.

He said buyers wonder, “Will [they] be able to afford it next year? Will their policy be canceled? Then, if they can’t get another insurer, their loan gets called. It is a never-ending death spiral.”

As the closing day came for his clients’ home in Bayside, it became clear the buyers had not secured insurance. Monaghan began calling around to help. The most affordable option he could find was $6,348 for the year. The average cost for homeowners’ insurance in the United States is about $1,820, according to an analysis by NerdWallet, but there are many variables.

Ultimately, the buyers walked away. The costly policy and the potential of rising insurance costs in years to come killed the deal.

Now, the home is back on the market. But with insurance coverage so hard to find, it’s listed for $25,000 less.

“It is a very bad situation,” said Monaghan. “What insurers say goes. Even if they have flawed maps or are relying on third-party information. They think it is going to get a lot worse over time.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the number and severity of storms are already getting worse.

As of October 10, there have been 24 weather and climate disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion in the United States this year, according to NOAA. These included a drought, two floods, 18 severe storms, one tropical cyclone, one wildfire, and one winter storm. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 373 people and had significant economic effects.

By comparison, between 1980 and 2022, the typical annual average for events like this was eight. For the most recent five years, the annual average has been 18 events.

As climate risks continue, a standoff has developed over who should pay the cost of insuring homes against ever-growing risks.

Home insurance woes are becoming even more widespread

As insurance becomes scarce in some areas and its cost surges, homebuyers are walking away from deals more often than in the past, said Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, a personal insurance consumer advocacy group based in San Francisco.

Although, she added, this is where the industry has been heading for some time now.

“Florida and Louisiana have been having extreme property insurance drama for a while, starting from Hurricane Andrew in 1992, then Hurricane Katrina in 2005,” Bach said. “The severity of the storms and the price tag of the repairs started to get insurers’ attention.”

Bach said that in places like Louisiana, insurers were shown the large-scale risk mitigations put in place in the face of more frequent and harsher storms, such as stronger levees.

“But I don’t think they are there yet,” she said. “Insurers are not yet accepting the value of risk reduction. They aren’t able to reduce prices, they aren’t willing to have it impact their underwriting. That is where the heart of the fight lies now.”

In the meantime, she said, on top of climate change, other issues are also pushing the risk and cost even higher.

“This isn’t just climate change, it is climate-change-plus,” Bach said. It is climate change, plus the Covid hangover pushing costs up, plus inflation, plus technology that allows insurers to evaluate risks in a wider array of ways.

Her organization, whose main focus was once helping those impacted by disaster to recover money from insurance companies, is now primarily devoted to working on insurance availability and affordability issues.

“It has evolved from a very regional crisis impacting few areas to a much bigger crisis,” said Bach. “We didn’t want to use the word ‘crisis,’ but if you talk to the homeowners in WUI [wildland urban interface] areas they would say it is a crisis.”

Still, Bach said, it is important to keep the crisis in perspective. In California, for example, the share of homeowners using FAIR plan — the insurer of last resort made up of a syndicated fire insurance pool comprised of all insurers licensed to issue property and casualty in the state — remains under 5%, according to the California Department of Insurance.

Competition isn’t coming to save the day

While insurers have always dropped out of markets or changed their conditions in reaction to a policy, Bach said a competitor would always move in.

“Competition would, in fact, heal the wound,” she said. “But that isn’t happening now.”

“We are in a world in which natural disasters are more common and more severe, and we are in a state with diverse housing,” said Jennifer Branchini, a Compass agent in Pleasanton and president of the California Association of Realtors.

“It is this insurance expense that everyone is now concerned about. Yes, it is expensive to rebuild. What is that doing to the market when it is being put on the homeowner or the person who would like to purchase the house?”

And it isn’t just the lower- or mid-priced homes.

Branchini heard from a California agent who represented a buyer in the purchase of an $8.2 million property.

“The only insurance they could get was through State Farm for $210,000 a year,” she said. “Three days later, State Farm paused new coverage. They lost that insurance. That buyer walked away.”

The affordability and availability of insurance is one more thing in the perfect storm of the current rough housing market, said Branchini.

“Buyers are facing high interest rates,” she said. “There is already a lack of availability and lack of affordability. And for many of the properties that are on the market you can’t obtain insurance? Or it is very unaffordable insurance?”

She remains hopeful that competition and creativity will help the housing market.

“We’ll have to see some creative solutions in the near term to create that competitive marketplace for insurance,” she said.

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The deposit delays are linked to a problem that emerged on Friday with the Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments system, causing headaches for consumers and employers.

Banks stressed to customers that all funds are secure. Payments that did not go through late last week had to be resent, a process that can take time.

It’s not clear how widespread the impact continues to be or how long it will take for all customers to receive their deposits.

An industry source confirmed to CNN on Monday that it’s likely some customers haven’t received their deposits yet. The source stressed that banks are at the mercy of the originating bank to resend payment files.

Federal regulators are watching closely.

In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the agency is “aware of the issue and monitoring how institutions are responding.”

“This brief disruption underscores the importance of the nation’s payments infrastructure,” the CFPB spokesperson said.

As of early Monday afternoon, Bank of America and Chase are the top two companies overall (not just banks specifically) where users are reporting problems on Downdetector.

Wells Fargo, US Bank, Truist and other banks where users reported problems on Friday were not ranked high on Downdetector.

Some customers are complaining they still haven’t been paid, while others say they have received their direct deposits.

“Bruh, what’s wrong with @BankofAmerica I can’t even pay my bills,” said one user on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Another user on Downdetector wrote to Wells Fargo complaining that payday was Friday and on Monday nothing had been updated.

“Wells Fargo can y’all speed it up? Some of us do have bills to pay!” the user said.

Wells Fargo told CNN the bank will update account balances as originating financial institutions reissue deposits. “We continue to work directly with our customers,” Wells Fargo spokesman Jim Seitz said.

Bank of America continues to display an alert to online customers warning them that “some deposits may be temporarily delayed” because of an “issue impacting multiple financial institutions.”

“Your accounts remain secure, and your balance will be updated as soon as the deposit is received,” Bank of America said in the alert. “You do not need to take any action.”

Chase explained to customers in a message posted on Downdetector that a “system issue” impacted ACH debits and credits sent to it and other banks.

“The originators of these deposits are working to resend the payment files and we will post them as soon as we can,” Chase said in the message.

Clearing house says it was a ‘manual error’

Asked for comment, multiple banks referred inquiries to The Clearing House, which is owned by the largest commercial banks including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, CitiBank and Wells Fargo.

The Clearing House did not provide an updated comment on Monday or any timetable for when the problem will be fully resolved.

In a statement on Saturday, The Clearing House told CNN it was “working with the financial institutions who have customers that have been impacted,” adding that “all other ACH transactions are processing as expected.”

The Federal Reserve alerted banks Friday afternoon there was a “processing issue” at ACH, the system that allows banks to send electronic payments to each other. Banks use that system to send everything from direct deposit paychecks to customer bill payments for mortgages and utilities.

The Fed noted that the problem originated in the private-sector operator The Clearing House.

Greg MacSweeney, a spokesperson for The Clearing House, said Friday the problem was caused by a “manual error” and was not linked to a cybersecurity issue.

MacSweeney said the problem impacted less than 1% of the daily ACH volume in the United States.

Of course, 1% of a massive system is still a large amount. The ACH Network processed 7.8 billion payments worth $19.7 trillion during the third quarter alone, according to Nacha, a nonprofit that governs the network.

Multiple customers complained online over the weekend and on Monday about a lack of communication from their bank about the delayed deposits.

Dennis Kelleher, CEO of financial reform advocacy firm Better Markets, was not surprised.

“There always seems to be a conspiracy of silence in the industry when things go wrong… There should be full transparency so that the public is informed and that there is a basis for confidence that the problems have actually been fixed,” Kelleher told CNN. “Without transparency you can’t have oversight or accountability, which erodes trust and confidence.”

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Evan Ellingson, a former child actor known for roles in “My Sister’s Keeper” and “CSI Miami,” has died. He was 35.

According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Coroner’s division online records, Ellingson died on Sunday. The record notes he was found in “a bedroom” in the city of Fontana, which is about an hour east of Los Angeles County.

The cause of death has not yet been released.

CNN has reached out to Ellingson’s family members the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department for more information.

Ellingson is best known for his role as Jesse Fitzgerald in the 2009 film “My Sister’s Keeper,” a drama about a family coping with their young daughter’s cancer diagnosis. Ellingson starred in the movie alongside Abigail Breslin, Jason Patric and Cameron Diaz.

He made his television debut in 2001 playing “young Chuck” in the TV movie “Living in Fear,” according to IMDb.

“My childhood was a cool one,” Ellingson said in a 2009 interview, adding, “I was busy doing the things I love. I had no regrets because I found my passion for acting early on.”

He also starred in various TV series throughout the aughts including “General Hospital,” “Mad TV” and “Titus.” In 2006, Ellingson appeared in the war-era film “Letters from Iwo Jima” and the 2007 indie comedy “Walk the Talk.”

Ellingson’s most recent credit listed is “CSI: Miami,” where he played the character Kyle Harmon for three seasons between 2007 and 2010.

According to Ellingson’s personal Facebook page, he notes his “love” for surfing, camping, hiking and riding horses in his free time.

Apollo astronaut Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II, known for helping the crew of Apollo 13 safely return to Earth after an explosion doomed their lunar mission, has died at the age of 87, NASA announced.

“Mattingly was key to the success of our Apollo Program, and his shining personality will ensure he is remembered throughout history,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement, calling Mattingly “one of our country’s heroes.”

Mattingly died Tuesday, the statement said. A cause of death wasn’t provided.

Born in Chicago on March 17, 1936, Mattingly would go on to graduate high school in Miami and earn a degree in aeronautical engineering from Auburn University in 1958, according to his NASA biography.

Starting his career with the Navy, Mattingly, who went by Ken and TK, eventually joined the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School as a student, before being chosen by NASA to be part of the astronaut class in 1966, according to the statement.

“Perhaps his most dramatic role at NASA was after exposure to rubella just before the launch of Apollo 13,” Nelson said. “He stayed behind and provided key real-time decisions to successfully bring home the wounded spacecraft and the crew of Apollo 13 – NASA astronauts James Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise.”

Actor Gary Sinise portrayed Mattingly in the movie “Apollo 13.”

Sinise called it an “honor” to play Mattingly in a post on X earlier this year to mark the 53rd anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission.

Mattingly had “unparalleled skill as a pilot,” Nelson said, noting he was a command module pilot for Apollo 16 and spacecraft commander for space shuttle missions STS-4 and STS 51-C. “The commitment to innovation and resilience toward opposition made TK an excellent figure to embody our mission and our nation’s admiration.”

Mattingly’s contributions “allowed for advancements in our learning beyond that of space,” Nelson said.

“He described his experience in orbit by saying, ‘I had this very palpable fear that if I saw too much, I couldn’t remember. It was just so impressive.’ He viewed the universe’s vastness as an unending forum of possibilities,” Nelson said. “As a leader in exploratory missions, TK will be remembered for braving the unknown for the sake of our country’s future.”

As the US gears up for a winter heavily influenced by the first strong El Niño in years, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have released maps that offer insight into where snow could pile up.

El Niño – a natural ocean and weather pattern in the tropical Pacific – is forecast to reach the most significant level since a very strong El Niño in 2015-2016 fostered the warmest winter on record across the contiguous US, according to NOAA.

While no two El Niño winters are the same, the pattern typically brings wetter and cooler weather to the southern US while the north becomes drier and warmer. And that’s exactly what’s expected this winter.

However, wetter weather doesn’t necessarily mean more snow. And when it does snow, amounts can vary wildly from one location to the next.

This is where the new maps come in. They show where snow is more or less likely during El Niño winters compared to average.

There’s just one caveat: these maps are historical guidebooks, not forecasts, for how the season’s snow could play out. An actual snowfall forecast would account for a variety of atmospheric and climatological factors, not just El Niño.

“El Niño nudges the odds in favor of certain climate outcomes, but never ensures them,” Michelle L’Heureux, one of the two scientists behind the new maps, explained in a NOAA blog post.

The map above depicts how much snow differs from average across all El Niño winters, regardless of El Niño’s strength. The drier trend that’s typical across the northern US shows up well in the tan and brown shading, while the wetter, snowier trend across the southern US appears in the blue shading.

This pattern comes from the jet stream’s shift south, pushing storms across the southern tier of the country at the expense of the north. And an increase in storms during the winter means snow is more likely.

The stronger an El Niño is, the more amplified its impact becomes. The map below shows the same data for stronger El Niño winters. The pronounced darker hues represent more extreme shifts in snowfall during a strong El Niño compared to an average one.

The big snow winners are the mid-Atlantic, the high elevations of the Southwest and California, and the South, albeit with an important caveat.

It still needs to be cold in order to snow, so chances don’t vary as much from normal in portions of Texas and the Southeast, which tend to remain too warm for flakes to fly.

El Niño’s jet stream effect is particularly noticeable in the highest terrain of the West, where cold and snow isn’t usually hard to come by. Mountains in the Southwest and California thrive while the Northwest misses out because of fewer storms.

Storms that affect the mid-Atlantic’s snow chances typically take a track along the spine of the Appalachians or push off the coast and become nor’easters.

These nor’easters can get “juiced up” by abundant tropical moisture during El Niño and deliver “two to three big snowstorms” on average, according to Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

This could bring above-average snowfall to places like Washington, DC, and Baltimore, where less than an inch fell last winter.

Even though the Northeast typically misses out on snow during a strong El Niño winter, all it takes is one massive storm, like a “juiced up” nor’easter, to skew snow totals for the whole season.

Snow lovers in the Northwest and Midwest will also have to join their Northeast counterparts in hoping for a big storm. Stronger El Niños have caused less snow than average in the past.

Removing snowfall totals from the map and focusing on the number of stronger El Niños with below-average snowfall helps suss out outlier storms.

On the map above, darker reds indicate areas that have experienced more years of below-average snowfall during moderate-to-strong El Niño winters.

Parts of the typically snowy Midwest and Northeast which also suffer from snowfall deficits jump out clearly, a sign that this may be where El Niño steals the most snow, most often.

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Ears flattened, constricted pupils, a lick of the lips. If you’ve ever wondered if your feline friends’ furry faces were saying something whenever they got together, chances are they were.

In a study published in the journal Behavioural Processes last month, two US scientists counted 276 different facial expressions when domesticated cats interacted with one another.

“Our study demonstrates that cat communication is more complex than previously assumed,” study co-author Brittany Florkiewicz, an evolutionary psychologist at Lyon College in Arkansas, told CNN Wednesday, adding that their findings suggest that domestication has a significant impact on the development of facial signaling.

Florkiewicz explained that domesticated cats are typically more socially tolerant than their wildcat counterparts because of the way they live in proximity to humans, so the researchers were expecting to see expression in both positive and negative contexts—but they were surprised to “observe 276 morphologically distinct facial expressions.”

According to Florkiewicz and lead author Lauren Scott, a medical student from the University of Kansas Medical Center with a personal interest in cats, domestication allows more cat-to-cat social interactions, which is why the pair believed they would show more expression.

To collect data, Scott filmed 53 cats at a local cat café when both were based at University of California, Los Angeles, between August 2021 and June 2022. From the 194 minutes of video footage gathered, she recorded 186 feline interactions. The cats were adult domestic shorthairs of both sexes, all neutered or spayed.

Both researchers assessed the differences in expression with a coding system designed specifically for cats, called the cat Facial Action Coding System, and looking at the number and types of facial muscle movements. The study added that muscle movements associated with biological processes such as breathing and yawning were not included.

While they were not able to attribute a meaning to each expression they recorded, Florkiewicz and Scott found that 45.7% of coded expressions were friendly, while 37% were aggressive.

The paper detailed that a friendly expression is shown when the ears and whiskers move forward while the eyes close, and an aggressive cat has constricted pupils, ears flattened against the head and a tongue-swipe of the lip.

“Our hope is to expand our sample size to include cats living in other locations…looking at the facial expressions of cats living in multi-cat homes, feral colonies” and so on, Florkiewicz said.

Another goal for the future is to conduct a follow-up study to determine what more of the expressions mean, she added.

Tyler Christopher, an actor known for his roles on “General Hospital” and “Days of Our Lives,” has died. He was 50.

Christopher’s representative Chi Muoi Lo told CNN in a statement that the actor died Tuesday morning.

“This news was incredibly shocking, and I am devastated by his loss. He was a very gifted actor, and more importantly, an amazing friend. My heart goes out to his friends and family who loved him so much,” the statement read.

Christopher’s “General Hospital” co-star Maurice Bernard also shared a tribute to the actor on Tuesday, writing, “Tyler was a truly talented individual that lit up the screen in every scene he performed and relished bringing joy to his loyal fans through his acting.”

“Tyler was a sweet soul and wonderful friend to all of those who knew him,” he added.

In 2008, Christopher married ESPN reporter Brienne Pedigo, with whom he shared two children. According to People, the pair ended their marriage in 2021. He was previously married to actress Eva Longoria from 2002 to 2004.

Christopher was best known for his role playing the popular character Nikolas Cassadine on the long-running daytime soap opera “General Hospital.” He starred as Cassadine at various points between 1996 and 2016, earning one Daytime Emmy win and four additional nominations for his performance along the way.

In a 2017 interview with Soap Opera Digest, the actor said he’d left “General Hospital” to take a “personal leave,” and ultimately did not end up returning to the show. He went on to star as Stefan DiMera in the NBC soap opera “Days of Our Lives” between 2018 and 2019, a performance for which he also earned a Daytime Emmy nomination.

Outside of his celebrated career as an actor, Christopher dealt with various hardships toward the end of his life.

In 2019, he reportedly underwent craniotomy surgery after he fell in his bathroom at his home and injured his head. His sister, according to an interview Christopher participated in with Bloomberg Law in July, petitioned to be his legal guardian during his recovery. The guardianship ended in 2021.

In May, the actor was arrested at the Hollywood-Burbank airport on suspicion of public intoxication, according to the LA Times.

“Tyler was an advocate for better mental health and substance use treatment who openly spoke about his struggles with bipolar depression and alcohol,” Bernard wrote in his Instagram post Tuesday. “We are beyond devastated by the loss of our dear friend and pray for his children and his father.”

New York  — For fervent fans of Starbucks, the holidays officially kick off this week with the arrival of its seasonal cups.

Beginning Thursday, customers at its US locations will have their hot drinks served in one of four festive cups that are “clad in holiday red and Starbucks greens and a mood-boosting magenta,” according to a release.

Noticeably different in this year’s design is the magenta accent, which “lifts the traditional holiday colors and makes the red even look brighter,” said Kristy Cameron, Starbucks’ creative director.

Each of the four cups has a unique name and theme. The “peppermint swirl” design is based off its peppermint mocha with “swirling waves of color that seem to move.” The “party plaid” design is a modernized take on a winter plaid scarf, and the “ribbon spool” cup mimics gift wrap ribbons. Finally, the “bauble wrap” has ornament shapes that creates a “bold, mod print, wrapped around the cup at an angle as a play on gift wrap,” the company explained.

Iced drink cups are also getting a new design that mixes “playful baubles” and “sparkles” with its white print on the plastic.

The annual celebration has become a tradition for the coffee chain and drums up excitement among its loyal customers. Holiday sales are important for the coffee chain: Last year, revenue grew 14% compared to a similar time period the year before, according to the company.

Starbucks first rolled out seasonal cups in 1997. The company stirred up controversy in 2015 when it removed “symbols of the season,” i.e. reindeer and ornaments, and went with a simple two-toned red cup. Since then, it has added more festive flourishes, such as ornaments and mistletoe, to its cups.

Last year marked the 25th anniversary of the tradition. Starbucks reports earnings Thursday, perhaps providing a glimpse of what it expects this year’s holiday sales to be.