i'm going to be 85 years old and weigh 85 pounds. >> claiming the tsa agents at jfk airport pulled down her pants and strip searched her. now she's talking about taking action on this "american morning." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com all right. good morning, everyone. it is monday, december 5th. ali and carol are both off this monday morning. i'm christine romans along with alina cho on this "american morning." nice to see you. >> good morning. nice to see you. a highly classified u.s. stealth drone may be in the hands of iran. iranian officials are claiming that they shot down the drone after it invaded its airspace. >> american military officials confirming one of their drones is missing. now iran is vowing an aggressive response. here is pentagon correspondent barbara starr with more. >> reporter: christine, alina, iranian authorities say they shot down a highly classified u.s. unmanned spy plane over their territory along the eastern border with afghanistan. iran says the drone they shot down is an rq-170. one of the most secret drones in the u.s. military, and intelligence arsenal. it's a stealth drone that can fly largely undetected gathering intelligence and targeting information. so far what is the u.s. saying? it's saying, you've seen the nato alliance in afghanistan to issue a statement only saying this -- "the uav to which the iranians are referring may be a u.s. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western afghanistan late last week. the operators at the uav lost control of the aircraft and have been working to determine its status. the flight crew operating the drone did report a loss of flight control before it went down. they are not saying it was shot down and they're not saying it was one of these rq-170s. the key question is, shot down or not, do the iranians have they're hands on classified u.s. intelligence technology, and if they do, the u.s. knows its not getting it back. alina? >> more than a few people saying that if the iranians have it, the chinese or someone else on the open market will likely have it. we still don't know where that drone is. and president obama called pakistan the president with condolences. president obama says the air strike was not a deliberate attack on pakistan. he and pakistani president adarrie reaffirmed their equipment to the bilateral relationship between both countries. now to the courting of herman cain. the candidate suspended his presidential campaign on saturday unable to overcome allegations of sexual harassment and a 13-year extramarital affair. now his former rivals are scrambling for a potentially game-changing endorsement. cnn deputy political director paul steinhauser is live in washington for us. paul, a lot of speculation cain could endorse newt gingrich as early as today? >> a lot of speculation. on saturday when cain suspended his campaign, newt gingrich was quick to compliment, both from georgia, both friendly on the campaign trail. at 1:45 today newt gingrich added a news conference up in new york city. we don't know why and we don't know if herman cain will be there, we're calling trying to find out what's going on. last week all eyes are on herman cain to see if and when he would drop out. he suspended his campaign on saturday. >> i am suspending my presidential campaign. >> reporter: the ride's over for the cain train, but herman cain promises he'll still make an impact in the race for the republican nomination. >> i will be making an endorsement in the near future. >> reporter: new front-runner newt gingrich was quick to compliment cain. >> i think he deserves a great deal of credit for having had the courage to run, the courage to have big ideas and the clarity to say them in a way that many of americans found very, very positive. >> reporter: many tea party activists liked cain and tea party supporters from the grass root movement home cain will come their way. >> go somewhere in the next week or so. that's going to happen. i'm optimistic keel pick up some votes. >> herman cain calling our office and coming over to our side. part of that, because people see i'm the tea party candidate in the race. they saw herman cain as an outsider, and i think they see that my voice would be more reflective of his. >> reporter: cain remaining supporters may go a bunch of the candidates. the one who may benefit most is gingrich. the former house speaker, surging at the right time. without cain in the race gingrich stands at 28% in a new nbc news poll in iowa with the former massachusetts governor mitt romney and congressman ron paul of texas, each at 19%. as for gingrich, today, just before that news conference in new york today, he'll meet with donald trump. of course, he becomes about the fifth candidate that will meet with trump. alina? >> never a dull moment. paul steinhauser live in washington. thank you. democrats today unveil a payroll tax cut compromise plan. harry reid will introduce this proposal which would extend a cut in the pay roll taxes used to pay for social security. it's a compromise between duelling plans rejected by the senate last week. no word yet of specifics of the plan. a hefty $200 million price tag will be fully paid for, say democrats. if they don't do there, americans will have a $900 increase in taxes next year. a cash-strapped united states postal service unveil as new cost-cutting plan this morning. under the proposal, first class mail would no longer be delivered the next day. they want to change the nashltil standard to two to three days for delivery. they've racked up more than $5 billion in debt this year. we have this just into our newsroom. minutes ago we learned wikileaks founder julian assange won his chance to appeal against his extradition from the uk to sweden. he will make his case to britain the's supreme court. assange is wanted for questioning over alleged sex crimes in sweden. he's accused of sexually assaulting two women back in 2010. also new this morning, syria facing sanctions from the arab league after it failed to meet a deadline. monitoring the government's response to protests. on sunday, at least 22 more demonstrators were killed. the number of deaths now reaching at least 4,000 since the government crackdown began in mid-march. syria's government says it will survive sanctions. tense of thousands of people without power if last week's wind storms in southern california. forecasters warn another blast of high winds could be a problem this morning. that's raising big concerns in fire-prone areas like malibu and western los angeles county. 300 firefighters are in position this morning just in case. also in position this morning, rob marciano in the extreme weather center. good morning, rob. >> good morning, guys. it's going to be two days of fire danger and high winds across parts of southern california. they had a break yesterday, but it was a long weekend of cleaning up. hopefully a lot of that debris has been moved off of areas that could be dangerous. winds, 30 -- 40 to 60 miles an hour. the debris will get blown around and calm down this afternoon and the winds come back tonight. today and tomorrow, critical fire danger across the coastal regions of southern california and the canyons and dry areas and the mountains around los angeles county. also, to the east of the system, heavy snow again across parts of the southern rockies including most of new mexico. blizzard conditions potentially today. 14 to 20 inches of snow with this system. a lesson in degrees. the cold air mass, that makes the santa anas worse. out ahead of the very slow-moving front, 58 degrees in new york city. 42 degrees in chicago. in between, we also have a flood threat stretching from cleveland all the way to the eastern parts of dallas with heavier rain with a slow-moving system across the western great lakes, back through cincinnati, across the midsouth. memphis, potentially you could see flooding with two to four inches of rainfall there and rain heavy now in dallas. a cold rain at that. just northwest of dallas and across the red river, some snow falling with this system. so you've got it all today. the best weather probably is across the northeast. temperatures near 60 degrees. enjoy it. next week, downhill. >> thank you for the nice weekend as well, rob. thank you. coming up, a fierce face-off at occupy d.c. why police brought in a cherry picker to remove some of the protesters. a big win and a big scare. fans trampled on the football field after thousands pushed their way on to the field, they went over to take down the goal post. details straight ahead. this stare realory really g attention. tsa agents at jfk airport went way overboard. a claim by this woman. what she plans to do. you're watching "american morning." it's 11 minutes after the hour. ♪ [ multiple snds ng melodic tune ] ♪ [ malennounc ] at northrop grumman, makthworld a feplace. th's value performance. northr gruan. [♪...] >> announcer: now get a $250 airfare credit, plus save up to 65%. call 1-800-sandals. certain restrictions apply. welcome back to "american morning" on a monday. it is 14 minutes after the hour, and an hour's long standoff between police and occupy d.c. protesters. those demonstrators were given just one hour to dismantle a wooden straur they built inside a park. >> when they refused to leave, police moved in with a cherry picker. here's athena jones with the details. >> reporter: hi, alina and christine. after more than nine hours and an intense standoff between occupy d.c. proesters and d.c. police came to an end with 31 arrests throughout the day. it began in the morning when police ordered demonstrators to take town a structure they erected overnight. there were safety concerns, police said. demonstrators refused to take town the structure. many of them occupying it themselves. some climbing on to the roof where they held on for hours. they led chants with the crowd of demonstrators here who have been camped out in this park since early october. many of the democrat are straighters in the crowd threw food and water to the people on the structure over the course of day. ultimately, police use add cherry picker, a giant inflatable cushion, too ladders, vrs ropes and harnesses to get the last protesters off of the roof of the structure. the process of getting these demonstrators off of the structure was at times dangerous because of the safety concerns and structural integrity concerns with the building. at one point you had police warning people, warning cohorts to stop because of concerns one of the rafters might break. ultimately, they were able to get all of the protesters off the structure. 31 arrests here in this park, mcpherson square a few blocks from the white house. back to you, alina and christine. >> thank you very much. ten people injured at the oklahoma state football game over the weekend. did you see these pictures? they were getting trampled. >> so happy. it did not turn out wet. >> thousands stormed the field. a postgame celebration. fans rushed the field tearing down a goal post. victims taken to the hospital with various injuries, include twog with ankle injuries. the cowboys beat the oklahoma sooners 44-10. that's why the fans were so happy. >> well, a very big game got the best of them. u.s. investors looking to europe this week. the european union looking to overcome its debt crisis. angela merkel meets today to discuss a possible new eu treaty. the big question, can the euro be saved? live in paris, to say they're scrambling to fix it, it's going to be such a long process for investors and politicians there. >> reporter: yeah, such a long process and according to senior euro crats in brussel, only five days left to solve all this, christine. we have an initial summit going on, a bilateral summit between france and germany because they're the richest countries and the biggest economies in the eurozone. they're calling a lot of the shots here. what they're going to be do, setting up some sort of legislative framework encouraging other euro countries to exert more budget discipline. balance their books and keep them from overspending. germany wants this to be, let's say, automatic. an automatic process. one that would involve severe penalties for countries that overspend. on the other hand, france says it's want a more soft approach. one that wouldn't impinge upon these individual country's sovereignties. what is crucial here, the help of the global economy, and just a note we should also mention here to show how important it is for the united states, we'll also have the u.s. treasury secretary, timothy geithner arriving here in paris in two days' time to talk with the french finance minister and other european figures. at the end of the week, the final summit of the entire year for these eu heads of state in government, expected to see some kind of grand plan to solve this crisis that threatens to enter its third year, christine. >> oh, my. nina, thank you, from paris. and vice president joe biden is in greece meeting today with that country's president and the new prime minister, lucas papademos. the agenda, of course, greece's crumbling economy, and how to best implement the eu's controversial bailout plan. we're watching the next phase of egypt's parliamentary ewlekzs. running in lower races for the lower house. the process ends tomorrow coming one week after they cast ballots the first time since the toppled former president hosni mubarak. moderate islamic parties are in the majority of seats. in russia's parliamentary elections, the prime minister vladimir putin the united russia party holding a slim majority any those elections bringing in fewer votes than expected. the party could lose as many as 60 seats in russian parliament. russian police cracked down on election protesters. about 100 people were arrested in moscow. it's a celebration of the arts. the kennedy center honors five stars of stage, screen and music and the gala happened in washington yesterday. this year's honorees, barbara cook, neil diamond, sunny rollins and yo-yo ma. president obama on hand to toast them. and saluted chinese-american cellist, yo-yo ma. >> the most extraordinary thing about i donyo-yo ma is that evey likes him. you've got to give me some tips. it's remarkable. >> i would say the first tip, stay out of politics. the president also thanked the honorees for sharing their talents with the world. >> you know, meryl streep is playing margaret thatcher in an upcoming film called "iron lady." i saw it recently. it is extraordinary. i encourage all of you to go see that film when it comes out in december, this month. still to come, ten murder victims dump and the shores of new york's long island. coming up, the new clues that could point to a serial killer. something we haven't seen since 2009. tiger woods back in the winners' circle. you're watching "american morning." it's 20 minutes after the hour.♪ it's easy to see what subaru owners care about. that's why we created the share the love event. get a great deal on a new subaru and $250 goes to your choice of 5 charities. with your help, we can reach $20 million dollars by the end of this, our fourth year. the new spark card from capital one. spark miles gives me the most rewards of any small business credit card. the spark card earns double miles... so we really had to up our game. with spark, the boss earns double miles on every purchase, every day. that's setting the bar pretty high. owning my own business has never been more rewarding. coming through! [ male announcer ] introducing spark the small business credit cards from capital one. get more by choosing unlimited double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. what's in your wallet? welcome back. "minding your business" this morning. u.s. stock futures are higher following a stellar week with u.s. markets last week up more than 7%. a move like that is rare, folks. the markets continue their run, this depends on negotiations in the eurozone where leaders are working feverishly to save the euro. pushing european markets up this morning, the unveiling of new austerity measures this weekend dietly the new prime minister. italian borrowing costs are falling this morning. a good sign. a sign of confidence from investors that the country is moving in the right direction to balance its budget. all right. french crude prices are up above $110 a barrel this morning. that's the type of oil most used in europe. it would take a big hit in the region decides to slap iran with oil sanctions because of the country's nuclear aspirations. you're seeing oil prices up in europe but also up at home. here at home as well, the price of home heating oil is expected to rise 10% this winter. the energy information administration says unrest in the middle east, particularly libya, is partly to blame for this year's increase. the average cost for this winter's heating season from october through march is supposed to be about $2,500. gas prices, though, down 9 cents in the past two week, despite an increase in crude oil prices. the weekly lundberg survey says the drop is because of lower demand due to hard economic conditions. right now the average price for regular gas, $3.29 a gallon. another big weekend at the box office. "twilight," breaking down, the vampire movie brought in more than $247 million so far in the u.s. "american morning" will be right back after this break. fore! no matter what small business you are in, managing expenses seems to... get in the way. not anymore. ink, the small business card from chase introduces jot an on-the-go expense app made exclusively for ink customers. custom categorize your expenses anywhere. save time and get back to what you love. the latest innovation. only for ink customers. learn more at chase.com/ink mike, thanks for doing that discount double check. you saved us hundreds. what was that? the discount double check? it's when we comb through your policies and make sure that you're getting all the discounts you deserve. no, i get that part, but you guys are doing my move. the discount double check move? that's my touchdown dance. so you're a dancer? no, i'm a quarterback. oh, a quarterback. mrr. i'm a robot. mm, mm. ee, er, ee, er. get out of here. [ male announcer ] aaron rodgers got his. how about you? rodgers! discount double check! [ male announcer ] get to a better state. state farm. they won't be beat. oh, actually... then i'd be like, you rule! and my kids would be like, you rule! i'd be like, yes, i do rule! ohh! that rules! oh, load up the sleigh; this is going to be a great christmas. yeah. ring dinga-ding, ring dinga-ding, ring, ring, ring me up. [ male announcer ] no need to wait with our christmas price guarantee. we're so confident in our prices if you do find a lower one between now and christmas, we'll give you the difference on a walmart gift card. save money. live better. walmart. courting herman cain. the georgia businessman may be out of the republican race, but his endorsement could help decide who wins it, on this "american morning." all right. welcome back. it's about 30 minutes past the hour. time for this morning's top stories -- a highly classified u.s. stealth drone may be in the hands of iran. iranian officials say they shot down a drone after it invaded its airspace along the afghanistan border. american military officials only confirming one of their drones is missing, but they maintain they do not fly over iranian airspace. iran is now vowing an aggressive response. senate majority leader harry reid will unveil a pay roll tax cut compromise plan today. it is a compromise between the duelling plans rejected by the senate last week. no word yet on specifics, but democrats say it includes a "serious way to pay the more than $200 billion pri