an emergency session of the council for 4:00. that didn't work out. so he moved it back and never once in public said the name, harry thomas. >> sitting at a conference table adorned with water bottles, five council members waited for an announcement by chairman kwame brown said other council members were unavailable. >> what i want to do is reschedule this until monday so we can have every single member around. i do think it's important that all of the members are here. so we can have this type of discussion. that's all i have. thank you. >> have a great weekend. >> for what? what are you talking about? >> leaving, council members said little. >> i feel for this family and his mother. and i hope they are doing well under these circumstances.

>> have you spoken to them? >> no, i have not. >> what are you aware of? >> that's all i know. >> thank you very much. >> mayor gray is out of town, but he issued a statement saying he supports the investigation so that justice can run its course. but says he wants that investigation to be over quickly. derek, they'll try here again on monday. >> things happening quickly. gary, we thank you for that. how would you feel if you found out that your six-year- old child was being forced to wear some sort of weight belt at school? that is exactly what is happening to a parent and she is the one who told us about it. our kristin fisher spoke to her today and the story is one you'll only see on 9. >> where did it come from? he said my teacher puts it on me. i said how often do you wear it? he says every day. >> tanya payne knew her son was being treated at school for speech problems and impulse control issues. >> he is bouncy. >> she had no idea he was

being forced to wear a weight belt at school. >> as a mother, i was upset. >> tanya was so upset, she went to the county sheriff's office. that is where they took these pictures of the weight belt after her son wore it home from school. tanya says either his teacher or therapist forgot to take it off. >> century belts are used to assist students with an increase in their focus and increase in their attention. >> the director of special services for public schools. >> we do not implement anything within the educational setting without an informed parental consent. >> the sheriff's office agreed. >> the parent signed a form. >> this is the letter from the occupational therapist. >> i can't show the whole letter, but the exact wording, i, tanya payne give permission

for the purpose of educational productivity. >> it doesn't say anything about a miracle belt or anything. >> tanya says she thinks other parents would want to know if the same thing was happening to their child. especially when the school system readily admits that the use of such weight belts is common. >> the use of sensory tools within the educational setting is widespread. >> we wanted to find out exactly how widespread this practice really was. we called around to a will the of school systems in the area and most were actually pretty shocked by this practice. d.c., fairfax county, frederick county, prince georges county, and arlington county public schools all say that they do not use these weighted belts. montgomery county public schools said that they do use weighted vests, but only on children with autism. in fredericksburg, kristin fisher, 9news now. >> paul testified at his own trial today that he did approve the script for those automated

calls sent out during the 2010 maryland election. the long time aid to former governor is accused of trying to suppress black voter turnout by using those calls. the call said governor o'malley had won the election before the polls were actually closed. he faces up to 16 years in prison if he is convicted. could tomorrow be the end of the road for republican presidential candidate herman cain? he said today he will announce his next steps tomorrow at the grand opening of his new headquarters in georgia. cain refused to elaborate in south carolina. >> making an announcement, but nobody is going to get me to make that prematurely. there's all that is to that. >> cain is in georgia tonight. he'll be meeting with his wife about whether or not to continue after this week's allegation of a long-term extramarital affair. he says the relationship was not an affair, but he says he had never told his wife about this woman whom he had given

money. did you just get home from work and after 7:00? a new study shows why some of you are answering yes to that question. the 2011 aerial traffic congestion survey is out and it has the most congested areas in our area. i-395 between washington bull voir dire and route 110 from 8:30 to 9:30 in the morning. the survey says the average speed at that time, 5 miles an hour. two spots tied for second in the interloop from georgetown pike between 5:30 and 6:30 at night and i-395 again. this time southbound from 4th street to 12th street from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. drivers in both of those areas averaging just 5 to 10 miles an hour. so what about your drive? you can check out the full list on wusa9.com. a lot of folks woke up to frost on their cars, but get ready, it's going to get colder later tonight. how cold are we talking? >> 30s around town to even the

20s around the suburbs. the coldest spot maybe mid and upper 20s. right now, temperatures are pretty cold out here. i can feel it. i'm glad i have my jacket on. it's 41 in fredericksburg. but 39 in manassas. 47 in downtown. and in hagerstown, you're at 40 degrees at this hour on this friday night. here's a look at your satellite radar picture. it has been quiet, thanks to high pressure. it's to the north of us. we see some snowfalling in the northern new england area and showers, but thanks to high pressure, we'll see more sunshine. we'll stay dry through this weekend. now tonight, what can we expect? clear and cold conditions. if you're going to be out for dinner, make sure you bring out the scarves, maybe some gloves. it will be a two blanket night. a north wind at 5 to 10 miles per hour. we cool down a little bit for saturday. i'll talk about how mild we get to finish off the weekend and your redskins forecast a little bit later. >> thank you anny. unemployment drops to its lowest level in 2 1/2 years.

so, why aren't more of us jumping for joy? especially our politicians. we'll talk about it up ahead. and it seems now you can rent almost anything from wedding dresses to pets. now there's a new website offering something just in time for the holidays. rental toys. we'll show you how it works. it's interesting. it's up next.

the washington, d.c. veteran's affairs medical center and wusa9 salute all who serve at home and abroad this holiday season. >> i'm lisa jones. we are in germany. we wanted to send holiday greetings out to all of our family and friends in the washington, d.c., maryland area. >> have you started holiday shopping for your kids yet and are you dreading the final tab at the cash register? one company come up with a way to get plenty of toys under your tree without drowning you in debt. it is like a netflicks of toys. every month a box shows up with toys from your list. and the time is up, you pack the toys up and send them back. but no worries about ripping a beloved toy from your friend who is still happy. you have the option of buying the toy at a discounted price. a punch to the groin has a

7-year-old first grader under investigation by his school for sexual harassment? a school system spokesman wouldn't talk about exactly what happened, but says any kind of inappropriate touching would fall in that category. mark's mom says her son was acting in self-defense when he punched the other kid. that boy had choked mark and stole his gloves last month. the schools told the family that mark could be suspended or transferred to another school because of that one punch. so, does the punishment fit the crime if that happens? should a fight between two boys and with one labeled as a sex offender? kids are going to be kids. fights are going to happen in elementary school, or is this school doing what it needs needs to do to stop school violence? the address is mailbag@wusa9.com. one more cold night before the weekend warmup gets here. but could there be rain in that forecast? anny will explain. that's coming up.

but first, hundreds of thousands of new jobs and dropping unemployment. so why aren't the lawmakers more exciting? a budget analyst breaks the numbers down for us coming up next. ñó

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it's simple -- more spectrum means more freedom. for everyone. the unemployment rate in the united states now at its lowest level since march 2009. it fell to 8.6% last month. private companies added 140,000

new jobs. however, here's the downside. that drop was not just from job growth. many americans simply gave up searching for work and that means they are no longer counted when the government figures up how many are unemployed. there is a lot of work to do because there are 13 million folks out there who still don't have work. >> more than 300,000 americans left the labor force last month. that means they stopped looking for work. i think we should all be concerned about that. >> wee need to keep that growth going. right now, congress needs to extend the payroll tax cut for working americans for another year. >> congress has until december 31 to pay that tax cut. more than 150 million americans will lose about $1,000 from their paychecks over the next year or so. what's the real deal with unemployment numbers? andrew field house from the economic policy institute is here to break things down for

us. is this a temporary uptick? or is this the beginning of improvement for us? >> this certainly is. you're right. the headline number looks a lot better than it really is. if you hadn't seen 315,000 americans drop out of the force, it dropped to 8.9%. >> wow. okay, so we are stuck where we were. however, one article did point out to me that a lot of this is based on temporary hiring. maybe go back up again. >> you saw a big increase in retail hiring and that's a seasonal effect around the holidays. that could drop off. over the last year, you have seen job growth, average 133,000 a month and that's not nearly enough to put a dent in the unemployment rate. >> the fact that the private industry is hiring, but state and federal governments are letting people go is sort of making it difficult for unemployment to go back down again. >> absolutely. you have seen state and local government layoffs drag at 11 of the 12 last monthly labor

reports. you have seen a lot of lay yous. and that's because the support from the federal government to the states from the recovery act is out. there's no additional funding for medicaid. you have seen the state budget crisis get worse. >> we heard from both political parties, obviously, they have different viewpoints on what to do about all this. if the payroll tax cut doesn't get extended past the end of this year, how much of a hit will the economy take? >> the payroll tax cut would be about $120 billion of disposable income. you're looking at a 1% bump to gdp if it is extended. 1.1million jobs, that's sizable. >> okay, so 1.1 million jobs, we would miss those a lot. two different versions on what aught to happen to pay for it. the republicans say hey, freeze federal pay, lay off workers. president obama says a 3% tax hike on millionaires is a way to pay for it.

is there an impartial way to decide who has it right? >> it's a no brainer. permanent tax increases have the lowest impact on economic growth of any pay for. and if your goal is job creation, it doesn't make any sense to pay for a jobs bill by cutting jobs. the senate republican plan would lower the federal work force by 10%. extend a wage freeze for another three years. you could be looking at 33,000 jobs lost in the d.c. metro area alone. no sensible jobs plan pays for job creation by cutting jobs. >> thank you for your insight on a situation we were hoping was better. >> job creation has to be the top priority. >> appreciate it. anny. >> derek, we have your forecast. tonight if you are heading out for a night on the town, grab the good jacket and another cold night out there. temperatures are dropping 47 in downtown. 49 in beltsville. 48 for davidsonville. gaithersburg, you're down to 45

degrees already and sterling 48 degrees. we'll have clear skies overnight thanks to a ridge of high pressure. keeping us dry through this weekend. we will see a disturbance come this way over the next few days. for now, enjoy the sunshine. sunny and dry for the weekend. clear and cold again tonight. tomorrow sunny and chilly for your saturday. you want your jackets and your sunglasses and showers arriving next week. here's a look at our future cast. high pressure is in control which means we'll be dry tomorrow. chilly though on your saturday and then what's happening to the west, we have a slow moving cold front again, just like we saw earlier this week. sunday morning, we are dry in d.c. with sunshine and looks like the cold front and the showers will still be in parts of indianapolis, down through parts of southern missouri. and this inching its way closer and closer. at this point, timing out to be in our area on tuesday. for tonight though, no worries for rain. lows 27 to 37 degrees. overnight, around downtown

temperatures should bottom out mid to upper 30s or so. the farther north and west you go, like sterling, you'll get down to 28. leesburg 27. gaithersburg 27. even down in bowie, 31 degrees. so you want your heaters working tonight. for saturday morning, mostly sunny and a cold start. winds will be light. our sunrise at 7:09. afternoon plenty of sun. that's abundant. you'll need your sunglasses. highs will be around 50 degrees. around town, we're going with 50 in downtown. and around fairfax, 49. gaithersburg near 50. bowie in the lower 50s as well. here's a look at your saturday day planner. a cold start in the morning. only in the 40s at noon. still chilly. here's your redskins forecast. partly cloudy and milder for sunday's kickoff. temperatures 49 to 54 degrees. here's a look at your seven days. all right, so we warm up for sunday. the weekend finishes nicer and

milder. and then we'll still be nice on monday. 60 degrees. so well above the average high of lower 50s. increasing clouds ahead of that cold front. tuesday right now is when we want the umbrellas and we have showers in the forecast. but by wednesday afternoon, we're going to dry back out. >> thank you for that. let's get to our weird news file, because all this warm weather is great for anything except for skiing. unless you are bad, bold, and just a little crazy. to austria, where the mountains look like this, but things are looking about like this. not good skiing weather at all. and it's too warm to make any snow. what's the difference between snow and rocks? only the size of your, well your ego i guess. these guys, check them out. they are on the mountain. they are skiing down on stones. these are aally really extreme dudes who just don't want to get out of practice and they don't care what happens to their ski equipment.

they do have mountain bikes, i'm just saying. seriously. >> they need to wax those skis.

in the mail bag tonight, reaction to yesterday's story about a family now getting dozens of troubling e-mails from their mom yahoo e-mail account. mom died a couple of years ago. it's a hacker at work. alfred does not understand why yahoo is taking so long to shut that account down. if the daughter has a copy of her mother's death certificate or can get one, you should send it to yahoo immediately. the question remains, why does yahoo want or need a copy of the death certificate in the first place? yahoo looks like a bunch of yahoos. and we have some similar sentiments on the wusa9 facebook page. there aught to be an easier solution. can't she not block that specific address until they get the account closed? most will allow that level of control. i mean, if her mother passed away, i would think any reason for receiving e-mails, possibly

related to settling of her estate have passed. william, that's a good question. i have an old yahoo! account. while that will not stop the hacker, the family will not have to see those disturbing e- mails. the permanent solution, closing the account. mcginty's e-mail is also permanent as well. go over to the facebook page. that is our report. i'll be back tonight at 11:00 along with anita brikman. don't forget, log on any time to wusa9.com. we'll see you a bit later. bye bye.

now, "entertainment tonight," the most watched entertainment newsmagazine in the world. new information tonight in the natalie wood death investigation. was she left to drown? >> at least a couple of people, saying, we're coming for you, don't worry, we're going to save you. >> fresh clues from a new witness as "e.t." investigates hollywood's most mysterious deaths. >> she had threatened to kill herself a number of times. >> marilyn monroe. george reeves. phil hartman. bob crane. >> murders. suicide? or freak accidents? why these stars died too young.

>> he went upstairs and then the bullet went off. now, in depth on the biggest entertainment stories from around the world. hello, and welcome to "entertainment tonight." i'm mark steines. nancy o'dell is on assignment. "e.t." has been in front of the reopening of the natalie wood death case since the very beginning. well, now, we have uncovered a new witness who was there the night the legendary actress died. here's tonight's natalie wood investigation. >> i did hear the screams and i heard more than that. but i did hear the screams. >> anthony sakal was 9 years old in 1981. on november 28th, he was asleep below deck of the "capricorn," a short distance away from the yacht "splendour." he woke up to screams. >> i heard people screaming on one boat or yelling, hey, we'll save you, don't worry, we're coming for you. i also heard the screams of natalie wood.