for "nightly business report," i'm susan li. >> thanks for watching, everybody. see you back here tomorrow night. [theme music playing] narrator: this year, judges mary berry and paul hollywood couldn't have asked for more. paul: the bakers have been unbelievable. i mean, after last year, i thought, "it can never get any better." but i was proved wrong again. narrator: they displayed exceptional talent as they strove for excellence. mary: really lovely. very good. we've had very difficult challenges this year, and so timing has been so important. narrator: and at times, they almost snapped under the pressure... aah! my mind's gone blank. that was stressful. it's not hot enough. i'd sooner have another baby. narrator: but ultimately produced bakes of outstanding quality. mary: queen victoria would be proud.

for "nightly business report," i'm susan li. >> thanks for watching, everybody. see you back here tomorrow night. announcer: a kqed televi♪ion production. sbrocco: and everybody say "opa!" together: opa!

susan li for "nightly business report." >>> a ban on ear marking has been in effect for six years. as hampton pearson reports, some on capitol hill would like to bring it back. >> reporter: when vice president-elect mike pence met with house republicans today, the focus was on a legislative strategy to jump-start the trump agenda. likely to include massive infrastructure spending and tax cuts. house speaker paul ryan says that toolkit might include a return of earmarks, the old washington practice of allowing lawmakers to target spending on specific pet projects. >> our members are worried that the executive branch, unelected bureaucrats, have been given far too much power and we've seen violence done to the separation of powers. restoring the power of the purse truly to the legislative branch so elected officials can hold the unelected branch of government more accountable is the genesis of that concern. >> reporter: ten years ago, earmarks were viewed as a symptom of out of control spending, including a million-dollar woodstock museum in new york championed by then senator hillar

live at >>> good morning, i'm susan li at cnbc headquarters. walmart is hoping to lure some black friday shoppers but with high end luxury goods. "the wall street journal" reporting that the retailer is pitching $18,000 watches, other pricey gifts on its website. walmart.com has vastly included it could attract an elusive group, the higher income shoppers. with your cnbc morning business report, i'm susan li. >>> 6:5 is your time right now. four things to know before you head out the door this morning. the powerball jackpot, that would help you with all the shopping a lot of people are doing today. 137 million people to take part in black friday shopping. they say most of that shopping will be done online with retail foot traffic dropping by 3.5% this year. > the story of survival by a woman smauld by a bear. >>> florence henderson has died. she died of heart failure. she was 82. >>> fairfax county police investigating a murder inside an apartment on seminary road about 30 minutes ago police towed away this car from the crime scene. suspect is

susan li has been tracking the action there on fifth avenue in new york city. susan? >> reporter: yeah, bill, there's a lot of action down here. a whole list of visitors today. some speculated to be possibly for cabinet positions in donald trump's new administration. now, some we did see entering trump tower. some with a little bit more stealth. we did see congressman jeb hensarling entering the building and we spoke to him after his discussions with the president-elect. >> we were talking tax policy, we were talking dodd frank. we were talking trade. it was a wonderful conversation and i stand ready to help the president in any capacity possible. i have a great position in public policy today. if he wants to talk to me, obviously, about serving somewhere else, we'll look at serving somewhere else. but regardless, i'm on his team. i'm excited for what he can do for america. and it was just a real honor to be here. >> yeah, hensarling, one of the names floated to be possibly treasury secretary. now, in the meantime, we didn't watch sights of nikki haley, the south caro

back to you. >> susan li, thanks very much. >>> the trump rally rages on. the dow and s&p 500 are both higher today, small cap russell hitting an all-time high. financials and consumer digs discretionary stocks are rallying. folks, here is your big money question tonight. did donald trump's win make the fed almost irrelevant to the market, by the way? let's welcome in guy, dan, tim, and steve grasso. does does the fed matter right now? >> the fed has mattered less and less. they've brought that upon themselves. i do think at this present time it's more about growth, it's more about the financials. it's more about deregulating the financials. kre, that's what's been up 20%, regional banking index. let me just finish the thought. that one has the best ability for less regulation. this is the one that will actually come into play in a deregulatory environment. >> i think the fed is the most important player by far. i think interest rates are the call right now. i think in fact the market needs to get a better sense from the fed. the fact that we're at virtuall

susan li has this morning's business news. >> reporter: good morning.re pointing and clicking a lot on thanksgiving. web sales rose more than 13% to $1.1 billion between midnight and 5:00 p.m. on thursday. increase was partly due to heavy discounting. millennials may be more twoilg hit the stores today than say baby boomers would. half of black friday shoppers are 34 or younger. they are also dead set on waiting in line to make their purchases. walmart wants to lure shoppers to their website with higher priced luxury goods. walmart.com is offering $18,000 cartier watches alongside $1 dvds. wall street will be open for half day of trading. stocks ending mixed on wednesday with a dow hitting another record high. dow raising 59 points to 19,083. nasdaq snapping a two day winning streak wednesday falling five points 5380 is where we're kicking things off today. back to you. >>> and we're tracking your forecast for your black friday that includes some chances of rain. we'll take a look where that may happen. a live look outside shows us conditions may be dar

. >> for more on that and the rest of the news before the bell, let's check in with susan li live at cnbc world headquarters. >> wall street will be open for half a day of trading today. the stock market will close at 1:00 p.m. eastern. stocks ended mixed for the dow, another record high. the consumer and financial sectors leading the way. the dow rising 59 points at the end of it. picking up 19,083. the nasdaq snapping a two-day winning streak. we're starting off today at 5,380. shoppers were pointing and clicking a lot on thanksgiving. adobe digital index say web sales rose more than 13% to more than $1.1 million. that increase is partly due to heavy discounting. target says it was one of the strongest days online for them that they saw yesterday, but some retail ammists say traffic was actually subdued at these brick and mortar shops. millennials may leave home today to venture out to the crowded stores. nearly half of black friday shoppers are between the ages of 34 and younger. more than half are women. once at those stores, 31% of the young millennials, between the ages of 18 a

charlie: why does susan li him? an leaves him because he's a writer, he's -- she's been programmed by her family. they don't like him. they believe she should marry someone wealthy who can take care of her. she's quite insecure. she wants to be an artist but she's nervous about it. she falls back on her upbringing. she abandons him for someone she things can provide her with all these things she thinks are going to make her happy. charlie: but he leaves a hole in her. tom: absolutely. she falls in love with him all over again. charlie: what does she do? tom: we can't tell that. it would give away the ending of the film. charlie: she's trying to recapture it. tom: she is. at the end of the film, she is transformed. she has broken with her past life that has made her so unhappy. charlie: this is susan talking to her coworkers about her ex-husband. >> you didn't see him again, did you? >> no. you know me. ex-husband used to call me a nocturnal animal. >> what ex-husband? since when? >> a couple of years, in graduate sch

. >> let's check in with susan li live at cnbc world headquarters. od morning, susan. >> good morning once again scott. let's go to wall street first of all. markets will be open just for a half day of trading today. the stock market closes at 1:00 p.m. eastern. the bond market closes at 2:00 p.m. eastern. students mixed on wednesday with the dow hitting yet another record high. the consumer and financial sectors leading the way. the dow rose 59 points. 19,083 is where we're kicking off. the nasdaq falling five points, 5,380 is where we're kicking off this friday. shoppers were pointing and clicking a lot on thanksgiving. adobe digital index which tracks online retail sites, they say the web sales rose to 1.1 billion between midnight and 5:00 p.m. on thursday. the increase was partly due to heavy discounting. target saw one of its strongest days online yesterday. some retail analysts say traffic was subdued at these brick and mortar shops. walmart hoping to lure people are high end luxury goods. the retail is pushing $18,000 watches, prada pumps. walm

. >> thank you, susan li. now to michelle caruso-cabrera who is live in havana, cuba.ficult was it for you to travel there and move around the country? >> traveling to cuba is still very difficult, melissa. it's getting much easier. the visa process has gotten easier but still, i tried to book one of the new flights from delta. called and said oh no. we have a special cuba desk. we can't just do that on the regular line. put me through to the cuba desk. on hold for a long time. i hung up. still a visa process there. once you get here, because of the huge increase in tourism, the place is heaving and they don't have the infrastructure to handle it. tourism was prohibited until the '80s. there's hardly any decent hotels. very few. that's not just a snooty new yorker saying that. the average middle class american traveling here would find most of the hotels pretty unacceptable and the food unacceptable as well. they haven't had a service culture for a very long time because of communism. add to that it's gotten very expensive relative to what used to be a bargain. thanks

. >>> time now for the cnbc news update with susan li. >> here's what is happening this hour, the u.sarged a yemeni man with attempting to provide material support to advertise lambic state. the new york resident was charge in a criminal complaint file in brooklyn's federal court. protesters clash with law enforcement officials at the dakota access pipeline overnight. they say police fired tear gas and rubber bullets while firefighters intentionally sprayed them with water in subfreezing temperatures. police say that the firefighters are actually putting out fires that were set by the protesters. >>> and jurgen klinsmann is fired as the u.s. men's soccer coach. he led them to the second round of the 2014 world cup, but the team was knocked out of the semifinals and have started 0-2 in the final round of the 2018 world cup qualifier. >>> and hip-hop icon snoop dogg is helping to distribute free turkeys to members of the englewood, california, community. the rapper joining englewood's mayor to hand out 3,000 turkeys, or just about. a do-gooder at the end of the day. back to you, kelly.

. >> susan li joins us with a look at which u.s. ocks stand to win and lose the most from trump's move. hi, susan. >> yes. it was supposed to be a landmark trail deal among 12 pacific rim nations which seems to be history. let's start with the losers for the tpp's extinction and the sectors that were supposed to benefit the most. we'll start with tech and telecom, giants like at&t, facebook, they like the deal because it would have cut restrictions on sale, lower global roaming charges. next up, agriculture. it would have lowered tariffs and prices on american chicken, beef, soybeans likely increasing, sales like conagra and tyson. large manufactures like boeing also -- by the way also liking the deal, boeing is larger exporter by value and could sell their goods at competitive market rates. big pharma, the industry as a whole was on the fence about tpp, but the market seemed to believe it would have meant longer protection for these big players. finally throw in the apparel makers, including, yes, the likes of nike. they would have

lis: you also have susan collins. they are not looking at the number of republicans in the senate. they can be a real roadblock going forward. they are throwing out some random names. crisco bok is the one that scares me the most. what's going on in your circle in terms of accounting for why she lost and the fallout from that? first of all, i think people are coming to terms with she lost and not that donald trump one. my fear is that some people are taking the wrong message from this. talk to theed to white working class or talk to latinos and blacks voters, we need to go with the standard people or with the clinton people. in 2016, we saw all the heavyweights throw its weight behind one flawed candidate and not allow any debate. we should have a chair debate across the country. let's go to all the states that hillary clinton lost that democrats should of one and had a debate. i don't have a favorite in the chair race. jamie harrison is a good guy. ray buckley is a good guy. keith ellison is a good guy. need to have a robust debate about where we go forward. will the company minis

susan. what does she say? >> morales lied about guandique's confession. >> reporter: what are you making of this? >> i thought, oh, my god, this both the prosecutor and the defense team? send it to them! >> the prosecutors met with me first. >> reporter: they couldn't have liked this. >> no. no. >> reporter: but if the prosecutors listened to the same recordings we did, they didn't hear morales confessing. they heard him sticking to his original story. >> he told me he didn't know he killed her. it was an accident. >> he didn't recant his testimony. in fact, he doubled down on his testimony. >> reporter: despite all that, this past july, the bombshell detonates. >> there is a stunning turn tonight. >> prosecutors suddenly dropping murder charges. >> reporter: the u.s. attorney's office drops the case, releasing a tersely worded statement. the office has concluded that it can no longer keep the case. >> clearly something occurred which probably eliminated lot about his thug life and his life as a criminal. >> i sent some peopl

susan touched on. some of it is going to be actual experience and not the channel or the hard material lis i can thing. >> yeah, you said that vinyl sales are going up. >> you know, i remember my very first car was a 740 turbo fire engine red volv objectio and my totalled it. people have a love affair with cars. in the 1960s to 1960s, getting your drivers license and going onto the open road was a freedom and now it has become much more of a burden. you think about how much space in your house is dedicated to hardcover books and dvds that you don't need to utilize that days. in the united states right now, there's more parking in the entire square mileage in the state of connecticut. there's different ways on how you can utilize space. it will be organic. the world is not going to go autonomous overnight. human driven cars and autonomous vehicles operating side by side as technology continues to emerge. it will be interesting to see how this works. >> i would say to contradict what i just said. the next generation could you much less about tangible goods. this could be a generational issue. teenage dau