i was furious. we came home and we didn't talk the entire ride. i didn't speak to him the entire ride home, and he tried to speak to me and i didn't want to hear anything. >> back in the game, maybe. see how a new ruling could affect ray rice's football career, and we hear from his wife in a new interview. protests and arrests return to the streets of ferguson, missouri. new and alarming. a report on the surge of near misses between commercial airliners and drones. could the flying robots bring down a passenger jet?

there it is. a new trailer for the newest saga in the "star wars" saga. why is it already creating controversy? good morning, everyone. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." protesting the grand jury decision in the brown shooting. in ferguson, protesters made their voices heard. we have new york, los angeles, seattle, san francisco, all seeing protests to disrupt the black friday shopping. and the ncaa p will begin a march from ferguson to the

capitol. richard, what is going on there? >> reporter: the protests you are talking about at the police department in ferguson, that started around midnight, and that report coming from the st. louis police department, and 15 individuals were confirmed arrested and in the last week or so there's the peaceful marches in the day, and then those that are called violent marches, and they are not organized or militant as patricia burns, she has talked them so often, and this follows a complete day of the demtkep demonstrations. >> near ferguson, protesters lying down and shopping shoppers for ten or 15 minutes, and then

hands up, just one of the economic protests, also hash tagged as blackout black friday. this doesn't help sales. one business district already struggling with 10% burned or destroyed, and the governor's office afternoon response, $625,000 in zero interest loans are available. the country is reacting as well. oakland took to the streets, and seattle took to the streets. and new york as well, taking to the streets. united nations committee on torture also saying friday, it's concerned about excessive police force and profiling of minorities. >> reporter: one last note about the protests last night, those involved included the communist party of new york, and individuals with posters and m

pamphlets not from the area of the protests. >> let's look ahead what we are starting to see today. small business saturday that is being promoted. do you think you will have people trying to boycott that as well? are there more concerns about those demonstrations, too? >> reporter: there are so many small events happening in and around the area of ferguson as they have been happening over the last two days, and thanksgiving we did see a downturn because it was a holiday. as we make it into the weekend, that's the big question, isn't it. it's going to be 10 degrees warmer today, and we could see more activity on the good side and what some might see as the bad side when it comes to demonstrations. the big event, as you described earlier, is that the ncaa p, and

they plan to do it in seven days, and they hope to have anywhere from hundreds to thousands all along the way. >> we will talk with the head of the naacp, and get what they have for ahead of the march. has the national guard presence been lifted? >> reporter: the processes that they have used in recent days did not change overnight in terms of closing off the areas as well as the presence in front of the police department, and that was echoing what individuals here had been seeing and reporting on throughout the last week after that indictment came down on monday. >> okay, richard lui for us. and again, a march that will last for seven days. other news, overnight, hosni

mubarak was cleared of conspiring. the 86-year-old is still sir srepbg a three-year-sentence under house arrest for empwezlement. violators of a ban will be forced to pay the equivalent over $30. china is home to about 300 million smokers, and it's more than any other country in the world. in upstate new york two boys were rescued after being trapped in the snow for nearly seven hours. an 11-year-old and his 9-year-old cousin were playing outside when a snowplow drove by and unknowingly buried them in a snow bank. >> i was thinking that me and my

cousin were going to die. >> me, too. we got stared, and we started screaming and told them to stop but he didn't hear us. >> a pair of police officers heard the boys and are credited with digging them out. rice was dropped from the team after seen hitting his wife in an elevator, and after taking on the league, he can return to the field effective immediately, but the key question is, will anybody pick him up. kristin welker has been following this story. what a story, right? >> reporter: what a story, absolutely. with only a month left in football season, it remains an open question, exactly what you said, alex, will ray rice return to the field. meanwhile, reaction is pouring into the ruling, and we are hearing from his wife for the first time. a second chance for ray rice, one suspended indefinitely for

knocking out his now wife in a hotel elevator, he is now cleared to sign with any team after an arbitrator overturning the suspension, and his victory comes as his wife is speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with matt lau lauer, taped before the decision. >> i can't imagine that you were pb calm when you started to realize exactly what happened in that elevator. can you describe those emotions? >> i was furious. we came home and we didn't talk the entire ride -- i didn't speak to him the entire ride home, and he tried to speak to me and i didn't want to hear anything, and i just knew he hit me and i was completely over it and was done and didn't want to hear anything, and i didn't want to entertain him or anything that he had to say or

explanation, and in my mind and heart, i knew our relationship would not be over because i know that this is not us and it's not him. >> the big question now centers on rice's professional life. will another team make him an offer to suit up. >> with ray rice, there is going to be an unknown. >> rice won his appeal after arguing the nfl was punishing him twice for the same offense, and the nfl suspended rice for two games in june upon learning about the incident in the elevator and suspended him indefinitely in september after tmz sports released the graphic video showing him assaulting his wife. and nfl said they had not seen the tape. e but the judge in her decision said rice had the videotape, and the nfl never asked him for it. >> she said they are relieved by

the statement, and in a statement ray rice said i made an inexcusable mistake, and based on judge jones's decision, he will be eligible on signing a new contract. this is a setback for roger goodell who has come under scrutiny how he handled this and other abuse cases in the league. let's go from there to the weather and the cleanup effort after a major snowstorm, after we have a plunge of arctic air. raffaele, thank you for being here. >> did you get all your holiday shopping done already? >> heavens no. >> lots of us are in the same boat. lots of us heading out to the malls and you need to bundle up. lots of snow on the ground to the north and west of the big

cities in the northeast, and windchills in the teens and 20s all across the midwest as well, and it feels like 15 in minneapolis, and 24 degrees in chicago. a little light snow moving through portions of pennsylvania, and also snow in the rockies, and heavy rain moving on shore in the northwest right now, seattle down to california. this is good news. we have exceptional drought conditions for much of the state of california. this is very welcomed rain. i know the timing is not great with the weekend, but all the way up to crescent city, it will stay rainy throughout the day today. a warm up back in chicago up to 54 today, and 12 degrees in billings, and a rainy day for you in san francisco. now, tomorrow it gets milder here in the northeast, and back to 51 degrees in new york city, great shopping day there. and still holding on to the 40s in chicago, and rain for l.a. and san francisco, and as we jump ahead to monday, that's when the cold makes a big

comeback. down to 7 in minneapolis, and 20s in chicago, and 52 still holding on to the mild weather in new york city on monday. i am good with the california rain as long as it means snow in the upper elevations. >> thank you. just ahead, everyone, the close call between drones and planes on the rise. we will ask an expert if a drone can bring down a commercial airliner. and then what pope francis had to say about the fight against isis coming up. this is the equivalent of the sugar in one regular soda.

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new demonstrations will take place in ferguson, missouri, today. demonstrations took place in many major cities yesterday, including new york, seattle, chicago, and the naacp will

begin what they call a journey for justice a. march from missouri to jefferson city. and cornell brooks joins us from ferguson. nice to see you. glad to talk about this, because i want to know what you want to accomplish with this march? >> our journey for justice takes us across missouri and into the conscience of the country. it represents a seven-day 120-mile journey for justice, and it invokes the civil rights history, and where dr. king spoke to the conscience of the country. what we are seeking is really justice for a grieving family and systemic reform for an outraged country. >> okay. the seven days -- i know it would not take 120 -- you could do 120 miles in a lot faster

time than seven days, so what else do you have planned along the way? >> absolutely. we are commencing the marches every day with a meeting at the washington metropolitan zion church for the first four days at roughly 6:00 in the morning, and we will return to that church in the evening at 7:00 after marching between 17 and 22 miles a day, and then in the second half of the journey, we will be marching, i should say, going back to quinn chapel in jefferson city, missouri. so we are marching from ferguson to jefferson city, from the hometown of michael brown to the hometown of governor nixon. we are trying to change the way in which police officers engage their communities, because the

challenge of racial profile something really a generational assault, and we think about the fact in any given month, 1 out of 4 african-american males report being treated unjustly by police officers, and this is a challenge that is larger than race or class, and we have people being profiled as a consequence of sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and religious, and we have a chance to really reform, and we are able to do this, because we have seen literally a generation of young practitioners of democracy who had been out here for over 100 days protesting nonviolently. so this non-violent civil rights march really invokes the spirit of the civil rights movement. >> when you think back to the civil rights of the '60s, they had voting rights and schools,

and the shooting, has it brought a new sense of goals and urgency to the civil rights movement? >> absolutely. when we have a 12-year-old shot and killed holding a toy gun, where we have unarmed young people who are suspected of under well manyingly the offenses met with aggression, and we are seeking body cameras on the bodies of police officers, and seeking a reform in the policing in the country so they reflect a community policing model. the point being here is the kind of reform that we see moves from the local police department all the way up to the federal level,

so at the municipal level and the state level and the federal level in terms of congress, and every night we will focus in our teach-ins, at churches, what can be done now. over 100 years ago, the naacp was formed to address the challenge of lynching, and we committed ourselves to that challenge and we addressed it as a nation and we overcame it. we can overcome this problem. racial profiling is not something we have to accept. the death of our children, it's not something that we have to accept, and we believe there are people all across the country and from outside of the country who are going to join us in the march. think about it this way, only 50 people made the entire march from selma to montgomery. we will have double that number as a core group of marchers, and we expect to start with hundreds

and end with thousands, and we will reform this challenge. >> it's a noble goal. we wish you the best luck. and money headlines coming your way next. sensitive bladder?

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the country with the overwhelmingly large muslim population. on a rare papal visit to turkey, pope francis met with the president and strongly condemned religious extremism and the persecution by isis of christians in iraq. all forms of fundamentalism and terrorism gravely duh mean the dignity of every man and woman, he said, and exploit religion. today pope francis arrived where he visited the building of represents 15 years of power struggles. it was a church for 1,000 years, the spiritual center for an orthodox christian empire. but in 1453, the empire was

conquered and sophia was converted into a mosque. today it's a museum, and some turks threatened to protest, but it didn't happen. the pope was given a warm reception, and in the spirit of religious tolerance, pope francis also visited the blue mosque, even praying alongside a muslim cleric, stressing it has been a theater of wars. alex, propose francis is visiting with orthodox christian leaders and is expected to return to rome tomorrow, and you can hear the muslim call to prayer echoing across the city, one of five daily prayers in islam. >> pretty great back drop you are providing for us. thank you so much, richard engel. >> reporter: my pleasure. black friday lessons and hot toys, and joining me to break it

down, usa today contributor, regina lewis. let's get the early read on the weekend holiday shopping. >> an early read on online sales, and they are up and that's to be expected, and 14% for black friday, and 8% for black friday, and 14% for thanksgiving day, and the biggest surprise on the online side, the best buy site crashed, and good sign for demand but not good for them. and i can tell you that it appears there's a lot more night owls in america than early risers, and stores were crowded on thanksgiving, but i was in the stores on friday morning, black friday, and had them to myself. the magic number throughout the day as things picked up, seemed to be 50% off store wide, and those were crowded and the others, not so much. >> what about the lessons for black friday shoppers? >> the atlantic, which has wonderful online content took economic theories and applied

them to the entire shopping season. the first is timing. and trying to outsmart that, which a lot of people spend time o. are the best deals now or later, and best prices are dictated by price discretion, where i am competing with others, and that's right about now, because everybody wants first advantage, and later it's about inventory pressure, oh, my, we still have it and we need to get rid of it. you take a risk that's going to happen. really hard to outsmart. and decision fatigue, which means if you shop a little, you start shopping a lot more and you lose your discretion, so if there is a $150 item, you are more likely to buy that after buying a $500 item than a

5dollar item. let's talk about the hot toys? >> "frozen," the big hit. 250 different "frozen" items at toys "r" us. pretty high price point for motorized things, and a tax tow truck and it tows 200 pounds, so imagine the fun you can have in your driveway. at one point, a father online gets in a wagon behind it and off it goes. >> actually, that is cool. i can see families having fun with that, as we did with you. thank you as always. an alarming report by the faa shows a surge in near misses between drones and commercial airline airline airliners.

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welcome back to "weekends with alex witt." there were chaos in some stores and even some arrests. migu miguel has more. >> this may be the calm before the storm right now. this weekend shopping malls and major department stores will be packed all weekend long, and if black friday is any indication of what is to come, this weekend is going to be a zoo. out in force and in some cases out of control. the crowds. >> we are diehard, 16 years now that we all have come together. >> reporter: the chaos. >> it's about the deals. >> reporter: of course, the savings. >> very big discount, some things i found were under $10. >> reporter: but black friday blowouts can come in more ways than one. across the pond, mayhem in

manchester, england. while here at home the sales got down right criminal, and two women arrested at a california kohl's. a fistfight in the baby aisle. >> skpwreubg mortar stores saw sales spike 4%, and online, 14%. >> you are seeing a huge shift online, and that gets a bigger piece of the puzzle every year. >> so much web traffic. best buy broke the internet. their website crashed. still, the crowds kept coming at the mall of america. a record 230,000 people showed up since thanksgiving. more than doubling the city of bloomington's population, even when the lights went out in south carolina, the crowds kept shopping. >> it was just crazy. >> reporter: today is officially dubbed small business saturday when you are encouraged to stop at a small business and locally,

and it's the department stores behind me that will likely be jammed. >> they look pretty, now that we can see them without the crowds. there is more evidence beyond the black friday rush that the u.s. economy may be back on track. this week the congress department announced to revise third quarter gdp 3.9%. and now new reports say president obama's immigration action will provide a boost to the economy, but the impact of broader reforms, which would have been much more significant, we will talk about that now with the former chief economists for vice president biden. good morning to you. i am glad to see you. i want to start with the gdp. 3.9% in the third quarter, and 25% for the middle six months of the year, so what is driving this? >> well, many

were holding the economy back have dissipated. for example, during the great recession and before that, american households and corporations took on a ton of debt and became over leveraged is the term you hear. well, this deleveraging process, this winding down of your debt took a long time, but it seems to be largely behind us. so that is helping. also, of course, the job market has come back, not to where we need it to be, and there are still wage problems out there, as you and i have frequently discussed, alex, but between those two factors, remember, we're a 70% consumption economy, which ties into a couple other stories you have been talking about this morning. so as long as folks are de-leveraged and got jobs, that's going to help move the economy forward. >> let's talk about gas prices. the national is now down to $2.78, and that's about 50 cents lower than last year. what kind of impact does that

have on consumer spending? >> it has a significant impact. there's a rule of thumb, and every time prices at the tank fall by a penny, that's about a billion more dollars in consumer pockets across the country. you can imagine how that is helping to also move the economy forward. it works just like a tax cut in terms of raising disposable income. >> and officially the holiday shopping season is here, so what do you think? what is your out look? >> well, from what we have seen and based on some of the comments i made so far about the way things have been looking up somewhat for consumers, i think it's going to be positive, but we mention the wage issue, and let's not lose track of that. while the economy is trucking along, we really have not just kept growing, but we accelerated, growing faster in gdp and job terms, and it's not reaching peoples' paychecks as much as we would like it to. and because the price of gas has

fallen, and is that higher buying power for a paycheck that may not be growing that much, and that helps us get a bit forward in that regard, but there is still a problem of the economy's growth not showing up enough in median or typical family incomes. >> i want to talk about the impact of immigration action. there's a new report from ucla which estimates that the actual increase labor income by $6.8 billion, and tax revenues about $2.5 billion, and it's going to create 260,000 new jobs, and where in the economy will we see the impact of this? >> when we talk about the raw numbers we can make things sound bigger than they are, so you say 160,000 jobs, and we have 155 million people in our labor force, and, you know, our gdp is $17 trillion, something in that neighborhood. these happen to be positives and move in the right direction and

i am a big fan of the action the president took. not the best way to do this, but given the system is broken and congress won't act on it, i think he did the right thing. the impacts will be small, because these folks whose deportation is going to be delayed, they are here anyway, and they are already part of the economy, and that's not sort of a new input at the margin, but it does help. >> all right, it's great to see you as always. thank you for joining us. the protest after the ferguson decision. what tangible results can we see from the demonstrations? new meta health bars help promote heart health. experience the meta effect with our new multi-health wellness line. ♪ motor trend's 2015olf car of the year. so was the 100% electric e-golf, and the 45 highway mpg tdi clean diesel.

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interrupted in oakland. >> they came down and shut down the powerful moving target and we stopped commerce to send the message that is hopefully going out across oakland and california and across the nation and the world. >> in the st. louis area, protesters disrupted the usual black friday sprees, and three shopping malls were shut down. and joining me, welcome, good morning to you, and i want to talk to you about these protests, what you see happening in ferguson around the country. what tangible result can come out of this? >> well, thanks for having me. we have win continuing to peacefully protest after the no indictment, something we said we were going to do, we were going to stay organized and stay engaged in the process, and we are going to continue to build the relationships with each and

we are going to continue to stay out here and organizing and having actions and going to target locations, and going to places to have our voices heard. we are going to continue to keep crying out for the change we want, and we are going to keep protests and continue to have the movement go on as long as they need to, and until the voice is heard, and to the change that we want to see and we desperately need in ferguson, and stop being profiled by the police and to be able to feel like you are a human and have the same human rights as everybody else, so we will keep fighting. >> tell me what life in ferguson was like before the michael brown shooting? with the problems that we have seen as a result of that, were they always there? >> sadly, these problems have always existed here in ferguson, especially in the north county area. my mother always told me as a young boy, you know, especially when i started driving to not

drive at nighttime and not to go in the north county area at nighttime because the officers, they pick on young african-american boys and harass us all the time and giving us tickets, and that's how ferguson makes their money is off the back bones of people and off the backbones of the tickets they are giving the individuals. so ferguson has always had an issue for a long time, and st. louis was already at the brinks, and tired, and this was the needle on the camel's back when michael brown was murdered, and it's why you continue to see young people come out here because of the way everything played out, and the lack of respect for michael brown and the lack of respect for all color lives. >> we mention you are the youngest member of the ferguson commission. the st. louis post dispatch suggested one of the things the commission could do is this,

figure out how to create civilian boards to review use of force by police officers, and this would include deadly force, police shootings, and use of nonl nonlethal weapons. what is your reaction to that? >> i think it's a great idea. here is st. louis, a lot of our mentors have been working for many years to pass a bill for review here in st. louis, because of the lack of trust and accountability and transparency the police offers to the community. i definitely think independent investigation is a way for the community or civilians to be on the board where we can see the murder cases and where the trials are going, and it would make the community start to trust the process a little bit, because there is no trusts in the process or in the police system or in the whole system in general, and the only way we

will be able to trust it is maybe if we are there, and that's honestly a good idea, so we can feel like we know what is going on, and we know that things are not being messed with, and we know that we actually seen it and we can communicate with other citizens around this community and let them know what is going on. >> best of luck. you have got our support and we hope you are able to effect some change. thank you for talking with me. >> thank you, thank you. now to iraq and syria this week, the u.s.-led coalition launched 15 air strikes against isis militants, and the u.s. is revising its strategy for training the iraqi army. the u.s. will focus on a so-called lean and mean force of just 45,000 light infantry troops. joining me now, a medal of honor recipient and analyst. what is this sign of new

strategy? a sign the training mission might be over its head? >> yeah, i think so. in order to have a robust army, you need three things at least a. lot of trainers, a lot of trainees and a lot of time. i don't think we have any of those things. we will take trainers from what is about ready to be the smallest u.s. army that has existed in my lifetime, and i was born before the dawn of recorded history, so we're talking about a long time. we have a smallest army, and i don't know whether the iraqis are going to find the people to be in their army to train, so i think everybody has bitten off more than they can chew. >> i am curious as what an army of 45,000 can do? >> most people don't realize the following, it takes more resources to hold on to an objective, than to take it in the first place.

you can probably take mosul for 45,000 troops, but can't hold on it while you are fighting to keep isis away. you are right. a bigger chunk than we can chew. >> the new approach calls for a national guard to be created? >> also doable, but you got to find the troops to be in the national guard. most of all, you need extremely strong leadership in baghdad, a unifying force you of some type. the last time there was something of a unifying force was ironically when saddam hussein was running the place. >> chuck hagel's departure, does that change anything? >> no, because national security strategy to the extent that we have any at all, and it's run from the white house, and secretary of defense is irrelevant at the moment in this administration, and it will be interesting to see who, if

anybody, is willing to take the job. >> all right, colonel jack jacobs, thank you very much. >> you are welcome. what's being done to keep drones from colliding with planes. the new trailer for the latest "star wars" movie is out. >> the dark side. >> "star wars the force awakens," the seventh movie in the series directed by j.j. abrams. fans are saying that the new light sabre with the added cross bar poses a danger who whomever is wielding it. well, you can find the entire 88 seconds online, so go check it out.

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and show you can all watch or come down to the plaza and gather with all the crowds. folks are skating as well on this chilly morning. this week from the faa a new and alarming report about the surges of drones. private pilots and air traffic controllers have alerted the faa of 25 episodes in which small drones came within a few seconds or few feet of crashing into much larger aircraft. many of those occurred during takeoffs and landings at the nation's busiest airports. joining me, john cox, retired u.s. airways pilot. john, i want to get this question out of the way before we get going. can a drone bring down a commercial airliner full of passengers? >> well, it depends on the size of the drone, obviously. there's some that are very, very large that could. it would be a midair collision. the answer is yes. but most of what we're seeing now are much smaller.

they could damage an airplane, a commercial airliner, and cause it some problems if it wass inguei injested in an engine. >> there are a slew of near misses. this was on june 1st. a flight originating from rome alerted the control to your at dulles that a four-engine helicopter drone passed 100 feet underneath a boeing 767. so how does a pilot avoid a drone in midflight because they fly somewhat erratically? >> they do. you would do the same basic techniques as you would for a bird. adjust your descent rate or turn a bit so that you're no longer on a collision course with it. corrections are relatively small because this whole thing unfolds very quickly because of the closure rates involved. >> okay. is there a size of drone that

you wouldn't at all worry about? >> no. i think that this is a case where technology is overrunning the regulator. i'm sympathetic to the faa's plight about how do you regulate these things because they are pro lif ratiliferating at such . they're one of the hot items this year for christmas. that means there's going to be hundreds or thousands more of them in the airspace system and that's going to present a problem. >> but a problem also for pilots. they're going to have to be looking out for them so they're going to be distracted. that in itself is a problem. >> well, yes and no. pilots look out for things anyway. we're constantly on the look for birds and things. so looking out and making sure the flight path is clear is something pilots do as a matter of routine and training so that's not going to change. but we're introducing more objects into the airspace system and the people that are

controlling them don't understand the rules and regulations. that really becomes the core problem. >> john cox, thank you for alerting us to that and everything else. appreciate it, thanks. >> my pleasure, alex. >> that wraps up this hour. be sure to join me for a two-hour edition of the show at noon today. ahead "up with steve kornacki."

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♪ be a part of the bigger picture. ♪ and your kindness makes ♪ the little things that you do for me ♪ go to facebook.com dawnsaveswildlife. black friday in ferguson. good morning and thanks for getting up with us this holiday weekend. part of the holiday for many americans is the shopping ritual known as black friday that played out yesterday. the frenzied high-traffic official kickoff to the holiday shopping season. it's the kind of annual event where we think we know what's going to happen. but in and around ferguson, missouri, yesterday on black friday and even up to 1700 miles away from ferguson, missouri, black friday