Reporter before dawn, people were making lastminute touches to floats for the 87th annual thanksgiving day parade in new york. This is my 25th year. Im excited. Reporter crowds watched as the characters became larger than life as they blew up the balloons. The balloons are cool. Reporter but the weather could ground the famed attraction. They cant fly in wind of 23 Miles Per Hour or if gusts top 34 Miles Per Hour. It will be a lastminute decision. We have our own wind reporting stations all along the parade route. They are up an active. Were monitoring them so we are collecting a lot of data and we are going to be able to get the full picture. Reporter organizers expect about 3. 5 Million People will line these city streets to watch the parade in person. Another 50 million will catch it on tv. The parade is tradition. Everybody looks forward to it, across the country, around the world. People come here for it. Reporter arriving with fingers crossed to see their favorite characters fly by city sky scrapers. Ko im, cbs news, new york. The balloons have only been grounded once in the 87year parade history. Theres one sergeant, about 100 handlers assigned to each and every balloon. Most people are spending thanksgiving with family and friends and a good meal but there are many devouting the day to waiting devoting the day to waiting in line to go shopping tonight. Kpix 5s andria borba reports from best buy in pleasant hill. Reporter twas the night before thanksgiving and in the bay people were sitting waiting to pay for cut rate electronics on turkey day. Getting all these rubber bands thingamajiggies and these dvds. Probably an ipad. I really want an ipad. An ipod. Reporter the tents were lined up on the sidewalk with care, in the hopes the deal fairy soon would be there. Been here since last night. Reporter when from Corporate America there arose such a clatter, shop on thursday . Whats the matter screamed so many a talking head. Santa has won. Ho ho ho. Reporter thanksgiving is dead. Then they turn and they go, hey, can you buy me something . So they all want a piece of the action even though they are kind of laughing at you. Its funny. Reporter on cranberries, on stuffing on football on green beans, how can a holiday about family be reduced to smithereens. But when moaning about thanksgiving day, take a step back, adjust your eyes, family time is here just in disguise. Hang out here, reading and eating snacks. Reporter so its kind of like thanksgiving. Pretty much, yeah. Reporter just without the turkey. Reporter andria borba, kpix 5. Shoppers can start as early as 6 a. M. Thats when kmart plans to open. Best buy and walmart will open at 6 p. M. And macys and target stores open at 8 p. M. One store you wont find open tonight the owner of the sears in New Hampshire says no way. She says family is more important but her corporate bosses are threatening to take away her bonus for the rest of the year. I used to shop there moons ago. Happening today hundreds will serve dinner for those who need a thanksgiving meal in salute restaurante in richmond serving a traditional dinner to 1300 diners. The owners feels a special connection with the homeless guests. I care about them because i was one of them in 1984, i was homeless. Salute is one of eight places in richmond offering free turkey dinners today. A group of American Indians will celebrate thanksgiving in a much different way this morning at a sunrise gathering on alcatraz. They are commemorating the occupation of the island more than 40 years ago. There will be songs, dance, and talks about the Indian Occupation that lasted almost two years ago. Boats will leave from pier 33 here in San Francisco starting at 4 45 a. M. And will run every 15 minutes until 8 45. Looks like the worst is over for people traveling for the holidays this week. The nations airports and highways are getting back to normal after the messy wintry storm blanketed much of the east coast. It brought heavy rain and snow forcing flight delays and cancellations. Here in the bay area, traffic was bad but for the most part, flights were on time out of sfo. Well, its 4 35. Lets hope everyone is Home Sweet Home now getting ready for thanksgiving. Just getting ready to go. I think the weather around here will be nice. We with worried we might see some showers on thanksgiving day. Doesnt look like thats going to happen. Still some clouds rolling across our skies. You can see that area of low pressure that we were concerned about. But that looks like it is heading further south so i think well see clouds moving across our skies but other than that well keep things dry. Now, those clouds also helping to keep the temperatures up in spots this morning. It is 49 degrees in San Francisco. 47 in san jose. But a chilly 37 degrees in santa rosa. By the afternoon, yes, we are looking at a great day ahead. Temperatures moving well into the 60s in many valleys. Mid60s in parts of the bay. And some lower 60s toward the coastline. Well see a mix of sun and clouds throughout the day but a great day to enjoy your family and friends and all that turkey. Lets check your kcbs traffic with liza battalones. Good morning, everybody. Happy thanksgiving. If you are heading out for highway 92, we have great news for you. It had been closed overnight because of a major injury accident. We are jug hearing from San Mateo County sheriffs that lanes are now open. Both directions of highway 92 are open to traffic near skyline boulevard and traffic is flowing well approaching the earlier accident scene. Highway the 2 at the san mateo bridge 92 at the san mateo bridge hardly anybody out there, wide open. Everybody is sleeping in on this thanksgiving holiday, as well they should. Bay bridge commuting leaving oakland heading into San Francisco, everything easy over here at the bay bridge toll plaza. Just keep in mind if you plan to head into San Francisco, all San Francisco parking meters will not be enforced so dont bring quarters at least for today. Thats a look at kcbs traffic. Guys . The bay area teenager who was burned on a bus is back home this morning just in time for thanksgiving. Kpix 5s da lin with more on luke Sasha Fleischmans road to recovery. Reporter Sasha Fleischman sits in the front passenger seat as the family car pulls into the garage home after three weeks at the if burn center. He is really excited to be at home. Just walked up the stairs. Reporter his father took this photo of him smiling in his bedroom. You can see both of his legs are wrapped with bandages. Sasha is tired in general physically and emotionally. Reporter earlier this month 16yearold Richmond Thomas set the agender teens skirts on fire aboard a bus. Police say the suspect did it because he is homophobic. But sashas family says the attack wont stop him from wearing skirts. In fact he won a black one yesterday. People realize that you can wear whatever you want and it doesnt mean that you have a right to attack them. Reporter what will change is sasha probably wont be riding the bus alone. Im sure sasha will ride the bus again. Probably with his friends. Reporter both parents say its been a tiring ordeal juggling between work and hospital visits. They are just glad sasha can slowly go back to his normal life. In oakland, im da lin, kpix 5. His father says his son hopes to be back at school on monday. New this morning in the north bay, two people have major injuries after a high speed crash in santa rosa. Police tried to stop a car for a Traffic Violation last night but the driver sped away on steele lane. Police say he was doing about 100 miles an hour. He lost control trying to turn on to marleau road slammed into a pole, fence and part of a house. Developing news out of southern california, a nine hour hostage standoff is finally over. [ gunshots ] [ sirens ] we hear the automatic fire. Police in inglewood went to check a domestic disturbance call. One shot hit an officers bulletproof vest. He is expected to survive. The hostages were unharmed. An suv hits a pedestrian in oakland and takes off but the driver didnt count on Surveillance Video catching it on tape. Christin ayers reports. I stepped outside and thats when it happened. Reporter Surveillance Video shows Bryant Mendoza seconds before he was struck by a passing car. From this angle we see the suv, a dark Porsche Cayenne make a wide unsteady turn on to 13th street and moments later i realized it was too late so i braced myself for impact. Reporter it hits bryant. Watch again at the top of your screen. Bryant tries to move away but rolls on the hood and falls to the ground. The porsche pauses and then takes off. I just cant believe they dont have enough, you know, love for their human for the human brother to go out and see if theyre okay, even he is even alive. Reporter he had a fractured pelvis, broken femur and pain. Also painful, the mounting medical bills. Doctors had to surgically insert a titanium rod in his leg. So i got a couple screws in here, couple screws up here. Reporter he will be off the job for months. And as a bartender he doesnt have medical insurance. His only hope that the person behind the wheel will come clean. Christin ayers, kpix 5. This weeks court ruling on californias highspeed rail project could have a ripple effect. Monday a judge ordered the Rail Authority to come up with a new funding plan because the current plan differs too much from the ballot measure approved by the voters in 2008. One side effect has to do with the expensive new transbay train terminal being built here in San Francisco. If the highspeed rail system doesnt get the money it wont get money for their this aging fleet. They would have to be redesigned to accommodate diesel and i couldnt tell how much it would cost. Bart and San Francisco central subway are also relying on highspeed rail money for upgrades. The Obama Administration is delaying another part of the Affordable Care act for a year. The online marketplace for Small Businesses to buy Health Insurance wont open until next november. The delay is to let workers focus on fixing the main federal website for obamacare. 4 42. If you are skipping the lines and doing your Holiday Shopping on the internet, you might not be getting as good a deal as you think. The dispute between a bay area startup and the beastie boys over a song parody is over. Why the company decided to back down. Well be right back. ,,,,,,, an oakland based toy compa has agreed to pull its remaf the song girls from a vid ad. The company argued fair us [ music ] an oaklandbased toy company has agreed to pull this remake of the song girls from its video ad. The Company Goldieblox had argued fair use since the song is a parody of the beastie boys tune but goldieblox backed down after learning of a clause in the will. Founding member that specifically bars the use of his music in advertising. He died of cancer last year. When it comes to crazy black friday lines, some people say forget it and they try to find the best holiday deal on the internet instead. But as julie watts explains, just because you click and pay doesnt guarantee you will get it. Reporter every year about a week before christmas, we get flooded with the same complaints about online black friday deals. I went online thanksgiving night. It was there. I grabbed it. I put my credit card information. Got an order confirmation and i thought, im good to go. I dont have to look for any other tvs. Reporter but then days later after all the other black friday deals expired they sent out an email saying the item is no longer available. They supposedly had some type of technical error which allowed more tvs to be purchased than in inventory and they wouldnt be honoring those orders. Reporter Mark Locastro from deal news says its a common problem and an inherent pitfall of the black friday shopping frenzy. Actions are happening so fast that sometimes the online retailers cannot keep up their inventory. Sometimes there could be a Technical Glitch as well. Reporter that was the problem in 2010 when target, buy. Com and frys oversold limited online door buster deals. That meant many a missing present under the christmas tree, but eventually all three stores honored the sale prices and made good on the orders. But when the same thing happened to best buy customers in 2011, the retailer refused to honor any oversold deals citing the websites condition of use, which says it can cancel any order for any reason. So just because you hit check out, does not guarantee that you own that item. By the time they alerted me i had missed all the black friday sales. Reporter words to live by this Holiday Shopping season. The only way to be sure youre going home with a door buster is to be the first in line when the doors open. Julie watts, kpix 5. Go pick it up. And you California Law would you have the right under California Law you would have the right to sue if would seek the same deal elsewhere but it would be a long process in small claims court. It is 4 46. Lawrence, in between chomping on turkey, he has been checking on the weather forecast. I had a turkey cookie already this morning. Your little girl made it. Yup. Some good stuff. Thankful to be here guys with you today on this thanksgiving. And yes, it looks like it will be a good day ahead, clouds moving across our skies. But right now looks like its going to stay dry. Got a great thanksgiving ahead here as we are going to see a mix of sun and clouds throughout the day. A little cool in spots. 37 degrees in santa rosa now 47 in san jose and 49 degrees in San Francisco. As we head throughout the afternoon, well see some sunshine and some clouds moving on through. And then more sunshine and some dry weather as we look toward the weekend. In fact, some of the temperatures probably pushing 70 as we get into sunday. For today though you can already see a lot of those clouds rolling back up into the bay area. We were worried that this might bring us some rain. I think its gusting to be some clouds moving through. The low will drag south today taking clouds with it. So with that in mind not a bad day around much of northern california. 60s and 70s into the valerioly. Computer central valleys. Well see a mix of sun and clouds for today, temperatures going to stay mild. 67 in morgan hill. 64 fremont. 62 pacifica. Numbers as high as 65 in antioch today in the east bay and 66 in the napa valley. Inside the bay a lot of 60s and hazy sunshine. Next couple of days, more sunshine on the way. Temperatures warming up through sunday and then the bottom falls out. Some very brisk Cool Temperatures maybe some showers toward next tuesday. All right. Lets check your kcbs traffic with somebody else im thankful for here today, liza battalones. Im thankful for you, too, larry. Its all love this morning. Good morning, everybody. Happy thanksgiving. Of we are talking about highwa 92. Lanes are open and traffic is fine in bode directions of highway 92 after an earlier accident, between upper and lower skyline. Local transit, there is no Ace Train Service today and tomorrow. There is bart service. However, they are on a sunday schedule so that means the stations are going to open later this morning and when they do, trains will only be running every 30 minutes. Also amended schedules for golden gate ferries an caltrain. Highway 92 across the san mateo bridge. It is wide open. Its empty. Its empty. Very light traffic both ways both this and the dumbarton bridge. Still good options for you as with the bay bridge commute. Very light traffic and you can expect light traffic to continue for most of the morning commute maybe around some of the shopping malls if they have stores open. That could get crowded for you. 580 680 leaving the altamont pass, no big delays. Again, no major accidents out there. The earlier problem in San Mateo County has been cleared up. Thats a look at kcbs traffic. Guys . There is a new tourist attraction on the shores of oaklands Lake Michigan big crowds showing up to see that toppled tree at lake merritt. As don ford tells us, the city is in no rush to cut it up and haul it away. Reporter its a Party Atmosphere here at oaklands latest attraction. This giant eucalyptus tree that was blown down near lake merritt during last weeks windstorm, folks are coming from all over the bay area to see it, smell it and climb it. We came out from union city on bart today. I took the day off and i was hoping that we could come and see this magnificent fallen tree. Dozens of kids and adults too are all climbing over the massive trunk. The stump is nearly 30 feet across. This photo taken from a nearby rooftop shows how big this monster really is. Wow, its like a whale on a beach. Reporter his brother gregory admired this tree so much he made this video three weeks ago when it was still standing. This is one of my favorite eucalyptus trees. I grew up here in oakland all my life. And to see this tree come down, its really you know its like a friend. I lost a friend when this tree came down. We need to go. Reporter merlin is a jack russell terrier. He is in the stumpel and not coming out. Except to get his chance to climb the tree, too. Terry rivers has his plans. Play on it probably take some of the sticks. Reporter photos are being taken, too. Lots of them. Its not often that a 100year old tree this size comes down without hurting anybody. That is something we can all be tha