the powder keg along the korean peninsula, the war games begin amid rising tensions. will the north take more action? the wick wo wikileaks worries. hundreds of thousands documents could be released a any moment. why are officials concerned? a new development in the case of the alleged christmas tree bomber. live with the up to the minute latest on those stories. checking out the bottom line on holiday shopping, too. are you in the spirit to spend more? good morning. i'm richard lui in for alex witt. it's 11:00 in the east. 8:00 out west. first off, watching what is happening in the yellow sea. the u.s. and south korean war games are under way there. you're looking at pictures of south korean war ships taking part in the military exercises. north korea says if those ships or any others come too close to its territory, it will attack them mercilessly. china says it's time for diplomats to come together to diffuse the situation and is proposing a meeting in december between all six countries that took part in the stalled nuclear talks. let's go to adrienne monk live in beijing. the latest, of course is response from china, a statement by china, as well as the focus on how important china is to the progress going forward. >> reporter: yes, good morning, richard. a flurry of diplomatic activity today as there has been the last few days here in beijing. it was confirmed that state counselor was overnight in seoul, meeting president bak and this afternoon a last-minute press briefing, very unusual on a sunday afternoon here in bay jip beijing to announce china's proposing an emergency session of delegation heads to meet early in december. this is not a resumption of the official six-party talks designed to end north korea's nuclear weapons and the parties involved in the talks of course are china, u.s., both koreas, russia, japan. now, seoul and tokyo have not responded very positively to china's suggestion that they have this emergency meeting. they have been fairly cautious in their responses. it's also not clear what north korea thinks. although the chairman of the north korean supreme peep's assembly, it's parliament, will be paying a state visit near beijing tuesday and rumored to be a close confidante of kim jong-il, so there may be further development there's. it's been tense on the korean peninsula, of course, calmer in seoul. but on the island that was the center of the skirmishes on tuesday, the south korea defense ministry asked all journalists to leave because the situation was unstable and dangerous. a lot of the residents who were evacuated last week have said that they don't want to return. of course, this is all happening as the u.s. and south korea, as you pointed out, went ahead with their planned joint naval exercises despite north korea's warnings it will take retaliatory action if it thinks that its territory has been invaded in any way. of course, china has also expressed concern about these exercises. now, back in south korea, the president is due to address the nation tomorrow morning. it will be the first time he's publicly made any statements since last tuesday when the skirmishes took place. back to you, richard. >> the story, obviously, a major headlining here in the united states and the west. how much of a story is it in china? how important is it for news agencies there? >> reporter: well it's a big story. despite china's muted public statements, it's been carried everywhere in all of the media, on television, newspapers, online. the reports tend to be very neutral. china has been very careful not take sides in this although it does appear to be backing north korea by not condemning pyong wang for having fired on the island. much discussion on the web where many chinese, ordinary chinese folk wonder, what's in it for us why are we engaged in this relationship with north korea. back to you, richard. >> thank you. new word from top leaders in washington this morning on the tense situation in southeast asia as well on today's "meet the press." democratic senator dick durbin saying the threat proposed by north korea demands cooperation here at home. >> at this point in time, we need to make certain we stand as one nation, strong in our alliance with south korea, determined to stop this effort by north korea to provoke aggression. this sort of thing, i think, really calls on us to be more bipartisan, more constructive, in our efforts in washington. >> okay. in washington, nbc's mike viqueira live at the white house. how's the situation developing in terms of response there in the capital? >> two themes seem to be emerging today about the situation on the cokorean peninsula. one, u.s. officials, senators from both side of the aisle, as well as the secretary of state, saying we need to stand up to north korea in the face of these constant provocations and bring china into the equation here, have them exert more influence, get more involved, exercise what they can over north korea and its economy. putting pressure on that way. we heard dick durbin, you saw him earlier on "meet the press," he said he spoke with secretary of state hillary clinton last night, and they both agreed that the chinese role in this has got to be elevated, that china was very important. john mccain, on another program today, richard, went so far as to call for regime change in north korea. he said it's not militarily regime change but thinks that china, again, should be brought in because the situation now getting out of control with the succession of kim jong-il to kim jong-un. jon kyl, another leading republican on foreign affairs in the senate, also on "meet the press" talking about the need to get tough with north korea. let's listen to kyl. >> the iaea from the united nations just released a report a couple of weeks ago detailing how north korea was proliferating nuclear technology to iran and syria, and clearly this is a country that needs to be dealt with and i think we need to focus a lot more on it. >> reporter: kyl highlighting another problem, despite sanctions in place over the course of some years on north korea, economic and nuclear sanctions they managed to have put together a nuclear enrichment program not only plutonium but a revelation last week uranium enrichment, further advanced than anyone thought possible with north korea, now also under construction. and online any day now, richard. >> mike viqueira at the white house. in portland, oregon a fire in a mosque attended by the suspect in the alleged bomb plot, jim forman with king tv live in portland. tell us more about the fire. we're just getting news about it within the last couple of hours. >> reporter: well, fortunately, we're hearing the fire's out and it was fairly small, but it is very troubling for leaders in the islamic community here. mohamed mohamud attended that mosque, that islamic center in that college town of corvallisen and an hour and a half from here, targeted by what fire investigators say looks like arson. so, last night the islamic leaders appealed for calm here. they reached out to the greater portland community and said, look, what is alleged in the bomb plot does not represent our religion, our faith, our community. this young man, mohamud, certainly does not represent the neighborhood that they came from here in portland. so that's the latest on that. mohamud remains in jail, scheduled to go to court tomorrow to go before a judge facing that charge of attempted use of a mass weapon of mass destruction. he faces life in prison, if convicted. >> i want to ask you this. we've had the response from the muslim community as well as the mosque. what about a local official, elected officials? >> reporter: the mayor here tried to instill calm and was very -- gave high praise to law enforcement who had been working on this for six months. he said it was the patience of law enforcement, the persistence, and the professionalism that allowed them to go all the way through with this without anybody ever being put in real danger. but at one point they did take, according to the affidavit, mohamud out to a rural county and detonated a bomb. so the plot was very real. it's just the bomb that was a dud. >> i guess the key here, jim forman, coming from the mayor, calm, as many do not want more incident there's to develop in the portland, oregon, area as the story develops. jim forman at our affiliate king-tv, thank you. police in michigan are looking for a pair of suspects in connection with a shooting at a busy mall near detroit. two people list in critical condition after gunfire erupted between rival groups of teenagers. one of the victim a bystander working eight nearby clothing store. in los angeles, a car driving into a restaurant killing a woman inside and injuring three others. yesterday's crash occurred when the driver lost control while driving to make a left hand turn. police are trying to figure out how this happen bud say the driver passed a sobriety test there. a look at airline travel this thanksgiving week. it is up 3.5% from last year with an estimated 24 million people flying. today and tomorrow should see the most traffic as holiday travel ofs, many of you trying to get home. mike taibbi at one of the many locations, laguardia airport. it was quiet two hours ago. how does it look now? >> reporter: it's still is. you expect people to go, what holiday crush? i mean the numbers, as you point outing suggested a huge travel day, it and will be a huge travel day before it's over. some of the aircraft coming in on major carriers, 75%, 80% filled. look around at security line the wait to get through tsa security has been four, five minutes all morning long. all of the things people were concerned about, the crush of volume of -- the sheer volume hasn't had an impact. tsa enhanced security measures have not added to the time people need to get to security and it's been pretty much a hassle-free, stress free to this point. >> it hasn't been that bad. i mean, it's been actually kind of easy, it's better the way they're making it. i didn't have any trouble. >> i wasn't delayed. flights were on time. security was supposed to be heightened, it didn't seem like it was. so no problems. >> reporter: no problems so far. things may change this afternoon. we're told one major carrier, all flights this afternoon and this evening are overbooked so the volume will pick up. it's expected 277,000 passengers will have come through this airport some 650,000 at jfk, 400,000 in newark. so in the new york area a lot of passengers waiting to get home from grandma's house. right now, not bad at all. >> i left yesterday to avoid all of the traffic coming back from grandma's and it was dead. i could have come back today. >> reporter: you could have. people this morning came early. >> mike taibbi. spokane, washington, declaring a state of snow emergency after a major storm blasted the state. cleanup crews look like this, plowing day and night as a result of get the cars and trucks off the road. they face an uphill battle as another storm expected to hit the region monday night. let's get a check of the national forecast with the weather channel's alex wallace. >> good sunday to you. finding ourselves continuing to follow the system that brought some of the snow. parts of the northwest tracking eastward a bit. it's now moving through parts of the rockies, dumping some snow there. eastward, things are quiet for us. high pressure in control of that, keep things dry out there for us as we head on out for the sunday afterthanksgiving, of course, a busy time for us. pretty much the problem's here in the west in terms of our travels. heading on roadways, i-15 tracking through utah into montana, dealing with snow and there will be a slow ride in those spots. eastbound, look at this, very very quiet. continuing to deal with dry skies. a lot of sunshine out there for us. 77 from cleveland down into south carolina looking good. i-20, shaping up nicely as well for our sunday. now, that system in the west is going to be pulling east for our early part of the week. so we're quiet in the heartland for our sunday but once we track into monday, we're going to be finding ourselves dealing with a wet time through the mississippi river valley and snow through parts of the northern plains. >> more stuff to come. thank you. the number crunching on black friday shopping it's done. how do the final figures add up for you. it's not sarah palin in alaska. she's heading to iowa selling books or selling for 2012? 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>> i think the message is going to be mixed. i think the president's going to make his point that we've heard him make since the election no party has a monopoly on good ideas and looking and listening to the republican leadership in the new majority in the house of representatives and on the senate side as well for proposals on all of the issues from tax cuts and creating jobs to reforming our energy system, possibly immigration, other things that remain on the president's agenda. i think he'll probably be firm and say that no is not a bipartisan cooperative solution. he didn't want to hear any more of it. so i think he's going to try to be firm and let him know that he is still relevant, but that he is open to probably moving to the center on policy. >> you mentioned moving to the center and no not being an answer in bipartisanship. will we see some of what you just talked about in the congress? can they get anything done? >> no, this is going to be -- just take a look at this week. this is an incredible -- they're going to meet on tuesday, the same day that unemployment insurance expires for 2 million people. we won't see a deal likely that day unless the under for seen happens. you also see the government shutting douing down on friday unless a stopgap measure is passed quickly. they haven't come to on agreement on two parties on that. of course the tax cut battle continues and those expire december 31, they have a little more time. they'll be distracted also, richard, by the don't ask, don't tell report being released by the pentagon as well as the debt commissions report coming out this week and whatever they say happened at that meeting. everyone will have their own version. lots of political theatrics and lots of digging in. they plan to stay late in december, possibly close to christmas eve. maybe some compromise then. i wouldn't expect any of this week. >> so if you pull out your scoresheet what do you think will make it through? >> i think they will come to some agreement on tax cuts and possibly on extending unemployment insurance once it lapses. i -- obviously they'll come to some agreement on keeping the government operating, but it will be tough to do so. and i think probably the only thing we'll see this week, as i said, some kind of bill to keep the government going spending bill. the democrats hoped for a different kind of spending bill, you know, much more ambitious one but they're not going to get it. that tax cut battle will wage for weeks afterwards and they're worlds apart on that issue. >> it's a busy december, certainly in lame duck congress. it's also busy december for the marketing dynamo, sarah palin, pushing her new book in small towns like 4,000 people. so, a.b., is she pushing the book or is she pushing 2012, you think? >> well, the good thing for sarah palin and anyone who is considered a prospective member in the gop field for the presidential nomination, also writing books, and there are many of them, you need to hype your stature as a possible contender to sell more books and going to places like iowa to do book signings only helps that end. if she's planning to run in 2012, which most people in the party believe, then it's going to help her get there, raise her visibility even more, get, you know, the crowds who love her to the stores all lined up buying the book. but also if she's really kind of just playing a game here and she just intended to sell more books that will help her do that as well. >> sounds like a no lose situation by your description. >> no lose. >> associate editor and columnist for "the hill." thank you for joining us. surveys show many folks are shopping for voalue this season but does it moon they're forgoing the bran names? 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