district 6. it has a growing list of possible candidates for the 2012 race. yesterday three more people announced they may run for the seat currently held by rosco bartlett. brinkley, moo knee and his own chief of staff harold budotis are now considering making a bid. both brinkley and mooney are making exploratory committees. the men would join five other republicans and three democrats who are already running for the seat. five female students are suing howard university after they say the school ignored their complaints that a staff member was sexually harassing and assaulting them. george bright abeu who was convicted for sexually abusing two of the victims was a work study supervisor at the library. the suit says after the student

reported the harassment in 2010 to staff members, bright abeu continued to prey upon students for seven months. in april he was arrested and eventually convicted. he's now under two years supervised probation. he has been fired from howard since. one of the last american bases in iraq is now in the hands of the iraqi military. america agreed to pull out of iraq at the end of the year under an agreement which was signed during the bush administration. yesterday, vice president joe biden attended a symbolic handover ceremony at camp victory where he thanked u.s. and iraqi troops for their sacrifices. >> because of you and the work those of you in uniform have done, we are now able to end this war. >> nearly 4500 american troops died during the war in iraq. president obama wanted to leave some of the 13,000 u.s. troops behind but the iraqis refused

to give them immunity. the u.s. will transfer full control to the iraqis by the end of this month after nearly nine years of war. yesterday, the senate unanimously approved new sanctions on iran's central bank. the vote comes amid fears of tehran developing a nuclear weapon. when asked about the vote lawmakers said concerns about a nuclear armed iran outweigh any concern about driving up oil prices and hurting americans at the gas pump. under the sanctions, any foreign financial institution which does bank with the central business -- business with the central bank of iran would be prohibited from opening or maintaining businesses in the united states. the man accused of firing shots at the pentagon and other military targets will remain behind bars pending trial. an alexandria judge issued the ruling yesterday. prosecutors say evidence linked jonathan me la cue to a series of shootings last year.

he was arrested in june. a youth curfew will not be enforced in montgomery county anytime soon. now that is the recommendation from the public safety committee today. the panel said county executive ike leggett's idea was based on fear, not fact. the full county council is expected to vote next week. it is 4:34. here's a look at some other things making news now. four children are dead after being shot by their father in southeast texas. 24-year-old jose adela shot his children and his wife before shootings himself. friends and police say the family has a history of violence. gonzalez had been staying in a shelter for battered women. a former new orleans police officer has been sentenced to five years in prison for helping cover-up deadly shootings with unarmed residents after hurricane

katrina. 30-year-old robert barriso is the officer. police shot six people killing two of them on the bridge immediately after the 2005 storm hit. los angeles county is under a state of emergency following one of the worst wind storms in a decade. powerful santa ana winds toppled trees and downed power lines thursday. knocking out electricity to more than 350,000 customers. high wind warnings and advisories were also used for several other states including utah, nevada and wyoming. the time right now is 4:35. at 4:40. holiday sales numbers are rising, the latest on the shopping spree coming up in your money. at 4:48. you better prepare for higher fares if you rely on metro rail to get arnold. >> we're back with -- around. >> we're back with your weather first in two minutes. keep it here.

a frosty friday morning here, 4:38. got some frost out there. temperatures in the 20s in many years, 40ish around 9:00. by noon 50, look at the winds northwest at 5 to 10 with highs in the mid 50s. driving home under clear skies and 52. the weekend forecast in the next five minutes, right now good friday morning monika samtani. >> good friday morning howard. we are going to take a look at southbound 270 at shady grove road. there are no problems from

frederick down past gaithersburg to the point where the lanes divide. more on the maryland roadways in the next report. jessica back to you. thank you monika. time right now 4:38 and i'm watching your money. all eyes on the government's november jobs report out later this morning: economists expect that employers added 125,000 jobs while the unemployment rate stayed at 9% for the second straight month. now stocks were mixed ahead of the november employment report. checking the numbers the dow stands this morning at 12,020. dropped 25 points yesterday but the nasdaq had a pretty good day. up by almost 6 points and the s s&p 500 off by two. a research firm says the discount fueled spending spree on the day after teguexined with heavy price -- thanksgiving combined with heavy price cutting stole more sales from friday and saturday

and sunday. they rose 1.9% from a year earlier but black friday sales rose 6.6%. customer counts climbed 5.1%. americans returned to auto showrooms last month too. chrysler sales jumped 45% from a year earlier. ford sales up 13%. gm is reporting a 7% sales increase. now overall, november was the best month for the auto industry since august 2009 and that's when the government offered big rebates to drivers to trade in those gas guzzling clunkers. may be that our cars are getting a little aged and time to replace them. >> we have to make the change whether we want to or not. i heard that jcpenney opened later and their sales dropped a little from last year. >> it's really interesting you know i was curious this year since the sales are spread out all over the place with the daily deals and everything online if that would hurt black friday sales because you know,

it's black friday. they have all the other options but it's proved actually to help it. interesting. >> with jcpenney, they did big numbers online sire monday. it has several organizations talking about -- but howard says about that in two minutes. there's an app for that. and coming up at 5:50. some students are using the force to get to math. how jedi mind tricks are helping their grades soar.

good morning and welcome back to 9news now. it is friday. it's 4:43 this morning and it is cold. >> cold. >> yes. >> i was scraping this morning. >> yeah. >> with my id. because my scraper is not out of the garage yet. >> that's one of this things, if you don't have a scraper

handy. the edge of a credit card or your work id in this case will work just fine you know? you don't damage it too much i suppose. she got in and she's here. mix accomplished. good -- mission accomplished. good job. you may have to give yourself a couple extra minutes because here wearing that and seeing -- we're hearing that and seeing that. inside the beltway, outside the beltway. cold morning. here's a look at the bus stop forecast. clear, and chilly. and thankfully if winds are light but you know -- the winds are light but you know with temperatures in the 20s and 30s out there i'd be bundling up the little ones, the sunrise this morning at eight minutes past 7:00 a.m. day planner plenty of sunshine today. temperatures around 50 by noon. by 4:00 54. in fact looking for highs today in the mid 50s. a very comfortable afternoon as the winds turn to the northwest. a front is going to come through. the winds will turn northwesterly between 5 and 10 miles per hour. once again tonight, we're going back into the 20s and 30s to start the weekend.

there are your clear skies overhead. we've got some clouds well up to the north especially in michigan. got a little snow falling up there this morning with that cold front which will be here later today. our temperatures warm spot right in town at reagan national 35. we're down to 30 in fredericksburg and pax river. 32 in easton. it's 30 in winchester, luray 29 and thankfully as i said the winds are fairly light. here in washington, 35. winds are calm actually. so the dew point at 30 right now. giving us a relative humidity at 82%. and that barometer, well, that's been rising since the other day. now it's going to start to drop but we have a front right here. you see what happened in california with these santa ana winds? had gusts in places in california and out to new mexico and colorado, steam boat had damage. some of the gusts topped 100 miles per hour with the big area of low pressure. you can certainly see this thing spinning here south of las vegas and west of phoenix here in western arizona. you get these winds that come out of the mountains. they pick up speed as they descend to a lower elevation

and with this pressure gradient they just start doing a lot of damage. so very destructive storm. that thing is also going to drop a lot of rain and especially snow in the higher elevations. that's one weather system. the other we'd maker a front coming through the great lakes and through chicago this morning thankfully. not too many problems with air travel today. and around here just nice and a chilly start to this friday morning. well, watch this front. it will come through us but the weather associated with it pretty much stays north of the pennsylvania and new york line as it moves through new england here. that front coming through during the afternoon. by this evening though you won't see much clouds with the front but may just feel it starting to cool down a bit. tonight, it's going to be another chilly night but with high pressure nearby, light winds again so 20s and 30s. any weather tomorrow? chicago, madison, up toward milwaukee as well into parts of northern michigan. but we're still going to be on the mild side of the continent

so to speak. even though it will be chillier tomorrow, still about 50. into sunday, perhaps a few more of the clouds move this day. this thing is is a slow mover. may not see this until tuesday and wednesday the way things are going. in good shape here the next few days. another fine weekend coming up. here's the next three days. today, 56. tonight back the 25 and 35 and light winds. chilly around saturday with 50 and milder sunday in the upper 50s and i remind you that the skins at home with the jets, weather should be fine for that. monday, 60s with more clouds. tuesday some showers and wednesday into thursday some rain at times and right now nothing horribly cold headed our way just yet. so we'll keep watching it because at some point the shoe has got to drop. you know? monika, something's got to lap. it's december will -- happen. it's december already. as long as we can, the beltway is looking great all around town. we're going to first go over to the beltway north side of town. in fact, actually a live look

at 270. route 121 in clarksburg. now the beltway north side of town. all overnight construction should be cleared by now between 95 and bethesda and 270. good to go this morning. a live look at the american legion bridge. here's the west side of town crossing the river between tyson cease and bethesda. you should be okay here as well. coming up in my next report, we'll go into virginia at 4:55. jessica? metro considering changing how it charges passengers on the rail lines. now at thursday's meeting everything from a two tiered flat rate system to eliminating the peak of the peak fares was discussed. also discussed the need to close $124 million budget shortfall and it's talking about raising fares by almost 6%. big heads-up for melt row riders. beginning tonight at 10:00 the red line will be closed from glen month to rhode island

avenue and stay closed through sunday night. that's nearly the entire eastern branch of the red line. free shuttle buses will get you through the area but you're going to need to add 30 minutes to your commute. there will also be no service on the orange line between the cheverly and the deanwood stations. buses will be there as well but you also need to schedule an extra 20 minutes to your travel time. the first true cold air of the season is leading metro to change its rules when snow starts piling up on the tracks. historically the system has dropped running aboveground once we get 8 inches of snow but now the transit agency says it will wait to see 10 inches of snow and crews will also work to keep open a yellow line bridge over the potomac river no matter how much snow falls. the office of personnel management is also making changes ahead of this winter. yesterday opm director outlined new dismissal and closure procedures for the federal government. in the event a storm hits while

workers are at work, they will have the option to leave immediately. sheltering in place or engaging in the staggered early departure. in virginia they are also thinking about snow. police and v dot officials discussed changes in the commonwealth's snow strategy. one key change, crews will hit the streets earlier than in the past. >> if there's an event forecasted of at least 2 inches of snow coming in, we will predeploy our resources. we will put trucks in the subdivision and they'll wait there for the event to come. as soon as the event comes they'll be ready and start plowing whereas in the past, what we typically did was wait until there were 2-inches of snow on the ground. this doesn't work anymore. >> they've added an additional 1,000 trucks to battle the snow this year virginia says. the license plate reader program used by police is expanding. the department of homeland

security has given a $1 million grant to the program. it uses 250 cameras to record and store license plates of cars that pass by. they track down criminals. critics of the program are concerned about police tracking and storing information of innocent citizens. metropolitan police chief defended the program on wp top. >> it's the same thing that law enforcement did with pen and paper for years. i mean there's no restriction on my jotting down a tag number in the area of a crime scene to try to determine the witnesses and associates of a crime. so it's the same principle. it's just -- it's automated now. >> police say the program leads to at least one arrest per day in the d. c. area. the grant will help maintain existing cameras, create a new police data base to store information and add three new cameras to the system. parents always said eat your vegetables, they were right. women who eat plenty of fruits and vegetables can

significantly reduce their risk of stroke. researchers in sweden found that women had fewer strokes if they had diets rich in antioxidants. they reduced their risk 17%. those with a history of heart problems reduced their risk up to 57%. fruits, vegetables, whole grains, tea and chocolate all contain youthful antioxidants. there could be soon a new tool in the fight against tuberculosis. it kills nearly two million people around the world this year. researchers for the bill and melinda gates foundation are using a new vaccine with an older one and say it's increasing survival rates in monkeys and could help people eventually. patients who take prebiottics may be able to reduce their time in intensive care. they added prebiotics to feeding tubes. they are so-called good bacteria and can help intestinal function and also

help boost the immune system and reduce the number of infections. it is 4:52. before we head to break it's time to look at the question of the morning -- log on to the wusa9 facebook fan page and leave your response. we'll reveal the answer during the 6:00 hour.

welcome back. 4:55. this friday morning, howard here with your weather first and we'll have a lot of sunshine today. temperatures start in the 20s and 30s out there. so you'll need the jackets, the

gloves, you know the drill by now. toward 9:00 we're still in the low to mid-30s out there. now at noontime, sunshine, 50 degrees in washington. 49 in frederick. 51 for manassas and andrews air force base. into the afternoon look at these temps. pretty comfortable. mid even some upper 50s down to our south and west. i'll be back talking about the weekend during 9news now at 5:00. over though to monika samtani getting us out the door. if you're planning to head inbound on i-66 the length from centreville to the roosevelt bridge, you should be fine this morning. just getting word of an accident in fredericksburg on u.s. 17 business. we will keep you posted on that situation in my next report at 5:01. back to you andrea. three, two, one! >> it's officially the christmas season in the nation's capital. last night, president obama and his family flipped the switch on the national christmas tree on the ellipse. this year's tree is a brand new

one. a 26-foot tall colorado spruce. the previous tree was blown over during strong winds in february. president calvin coolidge started the tradition in 1923. do you want to keep track on santa this christmas? now you can do it on your smart phone. norad tracks santa on christmas eve and it's responsible for aerospace and maritime defense in north america. the agency offers information about st. nick's location. last year it set a record with more than 7,000 e-mails and 80,000 calls. some of which were answered by first lady michelle obama. via a hookup from hawaii where her family was vacationing. >> very, very rich liz taylor fan will soon be able to bid on her fabulous jewels. >> and britney spears celebrates a new decade of life. manuel gallegus is here with a look at entertainment news. ♪ >> reporter: britney spears hits the big 3-0 today.

the pop star and mother of two is said to be planning a spectacular birthday bash for herself in mexico where she's touring. word online is that her boyfriend jason tray wick's present might be an engagement ring. the boss will be the keynote speaker at the 2012 south by southwest music festival in texas. bruce springsteen will cake off the event in march which features more than 2,000 musical acts from around the world. tom cruise kicked off his promo tour for "mission impossible -- ghost protocol" in tokyo. the star picked japan as a gesture to his fans there after the nuclear crisis and earthquake and tune there. >> i -- sue ma tsunami there. >> i want you to know we care

for you. christie's in new york is about to auction off her most prized possessions. starting today her jewels and wedding dress are on displace. >> a hallmark of this entire collection is the quality of the stones and the craftsmanship. >> four days of back-to-back auctions begin december 13th. they're expected to fetch approximately $50 million. that's your eye on entertainment. manuel gallegus, cbs news, new york. >> under $50 category? you know her costume jewelry, it is so fabulous. >> all drooling over there. >> little pin would -- >> a little something. a little something. a bobble. >> a trinket. >> a trinket. >> i can't even afford the littlest one. >> qvc? good morning and thank you for watching 9news now at 5:00 a.m. i'm andrea roane. >> as long as she touched it i'll take it. >> and i'm jessica doyle in for mike. gushing like -- monika is here with traffic. howard has the weather.

>> i'll share it with him monday hen he gets back -- when he gets back. weather-wise it's cold. temperatures are down in the 20s but it's december after all and you know for november we were just about three degrees above normal. stretch that over month? that's a ton. up in buffalo, new york, they were at six degrees above normal for the month of november. today will actually be a few degrees above average. here's a look at the day planner where temperatures start owl chilly. 35 right now in washington. some of the suburbs in the mid 20s with 40 by 9:00 and 50 by noon. top out in the mid 50s with a 5:00 p.m. temperature of 52 and the winds will shift to the northwest at 5 to 10 miles per hour. there's a front coming with clear skies. you can see the results of it up here into michigan. ontario. coming through northern indiana now with some rain and snow showers there. that front arrives during the afternoon. the weather with that cold front, that's going to stay well north of us. so probably not even seeing a cloud or two at that. temps as i said are cold in th