gets up a couple of hours. our sky cam lookinpretty. our temperature in durham is 43. it's 41 here at the tv studios. town by town, 34 in south hill and mid 30s. and 41 fayetteville. mid 30 to say low 40s. right now. by 8:00 a.m. we should warm up into the mid 40s and th afternoon. that puts us close to a high most of the day we'll be sunny but we'll have a quick blip of rain. wel talk about how much rain we'll see in a few minutes. in the repeat ryan gets caught up othe roads. >>it is 7:01 and we're off to a slow start in terms of how many accidents i have to talk about. it's fast on the roads overall. there on the northeastern side of wake county. it's as you head out of roseville on 401 bound an accintat forestville road. we are pick up delays on the sensors as you approach. give yourself a few tra minutes leaving rosevillthis moing. as soon as you get beyond that it's a smooth ride down toward 540 and once you're on0 westbound a smooth trip to the i-40 interchange as ll. we are ck up dela thugh clayton bypass. bythe time you get beyond that to 440 you're in good shape into south raleigh. we zoom intothe beltline it's looking good this morning. 40 westbound to haonroad clos. it will reopen in time for your rning communicate. work zone it's a smoothtrip out to rt in durham this ing no accints to report. 501 getting busy leaving durham. but 40 eastbound oks good and the freeway is looking fine in both directions. back to you. ryan, thank you very much. the list of names under consideration by the donald trump transition team continues to raise eyebrows, and it is hard to believe who is headed to trump tower this weekend. >>tracey potts washingtonlus the trump team's dih to decrs. >>thpresident-elt an open po. >> reporter: lieutenant general mike flinn has been offered the job of national security advisor. flinn controversial for his foreign policy, would not require senate approval, even more controversial ... >>donald trump is a phony, a fraud. >>mitt is a very sad guy. >> reporter: a trsition source says president-elect donald nominee mitt romney sunday to discuss romney as a possible secretary of state. >>mr. romney will be quite capable ever doing a number of thin, but he'll be one of those, i'm sure, that's reviewed. >>repoer: with his transition taking shape mr. trump tued to foreign pocymeeting japan's ime minister. >>i renew my cviction that together with mrtrump i will be le to establish a relatish of trust. >> porter: the selling hiboss' agenda democrats. >>we're beginning to discuss areas that we might move forward on together. >>we'll try to find common ground where we can and stand our ground when we can't. >> reporter: pee back in familiar territory setng up the firs100 days. tracey potts, nbc news, washington. >>a durham information advocacy hispan commuty. el centro hispano held a meeting in durham. the group has gotten doze of calls from parents worried out their children, some are afraid to go to school. the second meeting is set for in carlboro. the governor's hurricane recovery committee will be held today. >>this will be in edgecb county. >>you'll memb the recovery committee set up give the governor held its first meeting. the group discussed what's next, finding flood victs rmanent housing as a top priority. community members had an opportunity to ask questions and offefeedback. there is still plenty of work to do, more meetings are planned in some of the hardest t areas. the committee is turning its teion to edgecomb county recovery after flooding ter matthew. today's meinetis at edgecomb county community college from 10 to 12. fema has approved extending the time victims of hummer have pply for del sistance. survivornow have until the 9th of january to register. the new deadline applies to homeowners, renters and businesses in 45 counties submitting applications for low-interest disaster loans. many of the counties in our viewing area will be under a of the wildfires out west. th is a morate concn for those who e unusually sensitive to air llution. the air sun healthy in the western half of the state whe thousands of firefighters continue to work the front lines of the wildfires. there's also a $10,000 rewafor information leading to the arrest ose reonsible for perhaps setting the rinagwildfires in r state. so fart state has dancers landed a pretty big gig. the macy's thasging day parade. they're one of only two dance studios in north carolina invited to the paradethis year. >>they'll be practicing in adjustit care to show us your moves? >> reporter: i knew you were going to do that, but i'll only dancif you dance, and maybe it'll be later this morning, but this macy's thanksgiving day parade is really big. it is more than two and a half miles long. the actual route it itself, and three 1/2 million peopletimeline up to watch it. a group of dancers wi be on that big stage from north carolina. e are pictures of last nig's rehearsal. 11 girls will be heading to new york to perform with the spirit of merge dance group. the parade. you can watch the 90th annuaparade live thursday on wral a9:00 a.m. e group leaves tomorrow for the big apple. they'll have rehearsals some as long as 8 hours. before they leave they're going to give us an exclusive preview of their dance and costumes coming up in one hour. bill and lena this is going to be fantastic. you don't want to >>the rumor is you could do the tootsie roll or the harlem shake for us right now. i just heard that has a rumor. >> reporter: yeah, yeah, something like that. [ laughter ] >>i don't think that was either of what we just said, but okay. thank you. >>did we finally embarrass her? >>i think we did. the dancers are the only local group going to the join them on the big stage. it they were one of the 10 high school bands chosen to join them in the parade. they'll head to the big apple this sunday. this is video from last year. 7:09 our tomorr. a costly wifor the panthers last night in thursday night football. >>what happened to the star linebacker that left him in tear. >>we'll find out more about him today, plus new fall-out this morning at volkswagen. wral news on fox 50 is back tollette. the panthers managed to beat the saints last night. >>as jarrod reports, one especially disturbing moment saw the defensive leader carted off the field. >>in the last two weeks the panthers have been outscored 34-0 in the 4th quarter. thankfully last night it didn't matter. was big enough. the lasting image of thursday's night game, luke keefy being carted off bank erica stadium surrounded by teammates with tears, tears in his eyes. >>you know him, he wants to play, and then i guess getting hurt is tough for him to take. >>you play this game with a lot of emotion, a lot of passion, but those are our brothers, whether it's my team, their like that with injuries. i'm just praying it's precautionary and he'll be back sooner rather than later. >>you just don't know. i thought it was a foot, knee. i didn't know it was his head. >>you hate to see a guy like lou go down. i'm just praying for the best. >>the panthers have a little added time to prepare for oakland, 10 days of preparation time. hopefully that will be enough to t the lineup. wral sports charlotte. >>ron rivera will take later this morning about his condition. he'll have an update on that possible concussion and we'll have more today at noon on wral news. we're about to hit the biggest travel time of the here. >>the dispute at one of the nation's busiest airports atth could wreak some havoc on kicks into high gear today. it's a cheap christmas if all it takes is love. >>oh love is worth so much, bill. >>i love the way i get educated. >>we just got poe etic. -- poetic. >>playing this because of tomorrow's parade, which should be very exciting. >>the weather going to be great for it. we were trying to figure out how long the christmas parade has been around. >>this is going to be the 43rd in its present format. >>i think it went earlier than that also. i was looking online trying to find out. >>the original ones were held at night. >>how about that? >>i remember growing up we had night parades in charlotte where my grandparents lived. >>and then you see all the lights? exactly. >>well it's going to be during the day tomorrow. we're not going to change that tradition. and so let's take a look at what you're going to experience heading out this morning. and speaking of christmas, look how beautiful it is in south hill this morning with the christmas decorations there right outside the colonial theater. beautiful this morning there. our temperatures at the airport about 41 degrees. we're seeing a little bit cooler temperatures up around south hill where it's been mainly in the mid 30s this morning and then mid 40s down south. so 40 is our dew point currently. roxboro. 36 in rocky mount and else with. high pressure keeping the sunshine with us today but gradually it'll start to change as it shifts offshore and we get into a southerly slow today. and as we the winds shift we say see a westerly blow briefly and could push smoke from the wildfires into our area. don't be surprised if you smell some smoke in the atmosphe. back to the west comes a cold front. behind t front the winds will be out of keep us out of any smoky conditions pushing the smoke down into south carolina. today everything is beautiful taking us into the evening, clear tonight and starting tomorrow. there's 7:00 a.m. with the rain starting to push into the mountains and they'll be so happy to have some rain. they need more than what they'll get, probably a quarter of an inch or less, and we'll see maybe a 10th of an inch or less. everything nice and dry at lunchtime unless sure to tune into our evening newscast for the latest. it doesn't look like the front gets here until 4:00 or 5:00 in the evening. behind the front turning much, much colder. these color contours are showing the warmth and that's true through today and even tonight. but here comes the colder air. there's saturday morning. we're looking good there. front comes through and then we get into a norther flow flo and by 4:00 saturday you're going to start to notice the chill and then temperatures will rebound a little bit monday morning. what a change we'll see. 76 today, 73 tomorrow and then 49 sunday, 29 on monday morning. of course, the specific forecast for the christmas parade looking good. it starts at 10:00 a.m. broadcast on wral, 61 degrees at the start. it finishes at noon with 68 degrees, so you're not going to have to bundle up on we start to warm our temperatures back up by wednesday and thursday, and of course, thursday's thanksgiving. it looks like it'll be a nice day with partly cloudy skies at lunchtime. 63 for the high and down to 55 at 5:00 p.m. that's going to be close to normal for our temperature. brian's taking a look at at i-40 and typically that's a spot that's slow. >>fridays tend to be quieter. it is let's head to out the clayton bypass. it's busy but it's moving. the last time we checked it was stop and roll through the interchange. we're down to about 17 minutes to make the trip up to 440. not looking too bad. as you continue through the work zone we're looking okay as well. don't forget about the ramp closure from 40 west on to hammond road. it's close right now and remain closed until monday morning. out toward u.s. 1 and wade avenue. let's check in on louisburg road. still have a report of a crash at the inteection and heavy delays on the inbound side of 401 headg ouof roseville this morning. you want to give yourse a couplef extra minutes rough at intersection. in done the raleigh getting a report of a minor crash at hillsboroughat morgan street, not seeing any de swing up on the sensors in that roundabout at the moment. we'll keep our eyeson it and let you know if changes. head over to durham d check on conditio there. right now no accidents to report. major routes st lightly traveled between i-40 and downwnon either side of the durham freeway will take u or minutes. we're approaching onof the busiest travel times of the season and one of the busiest airports of the country may lose some staff. they he voted to thworkers are demanding better working conditions and higher pa new overnight volkswagen is cutting 30,000 jobs in an attempt to recover from the emissions cheating scandal. the move would allow them to save more than $4 billion. company officials say most of the jobs, 23,000, will be cut in germany. vacs wagon has agreed to pay $15 billioement with the u.s. and owrs of some around 11illion cars worldwide had the deceptive soware. jp morgan has agreed to pay more than $260 million in fines to settle charges that the firm hired individuals in exchange r business contracts. the settlement ends a nearly three-year investigation into whethethe company violated u.s. antebribery laws. executives earned lucrative business deals from firms in friends of client executives. wells fargo says customers e pulling back in doing business with the bank in a b day. they say new account opengsfell 44% in october from a ye earlier and account closings rose 3%. the bank also w a 50% dr in credit card applications. they have been under fire since the discovery that a number of employees opened up 2 million bank and credit card accounts without customer authorization in order to meet it will take a couple of days for a three-member crew to reach the situation station. the roet launched yesterday from russia. board a cosmonaut, a french astronaut and nasa astronaut y witson. shis the oldest woman ever to travel into space. this is her 3rd mission to the iss, her more than a week after the election and the state's gubernatorial race is still unresolved. plus t effort going on good morning. your top stories now air quality is worsening as the wifires continue tourning in north carolina. many of thcounties in our viewing ar will be under a code llyewarning today meaning a moderate concern. for those are unusually sensitive to air pollution, the aiis unhealthy in the western half of the state. state leaders gather to help the hummer recovery committee holds a meeting at the edgecomb community college today. beautiful weather to love the sunrise. >>we haven't had a cloud in the sky this morning. here's alo at our skcam. you can see the sun shining on dotown raleigh looking absolutely beautiful. our temperature is 41. it's 43 in roxbury. 42 in southern pines. mid 30s in it's chilly. we keep talking about the warm-up. it'll be warm saturday, but the front comes through mid to te afternoon, so we're talking 4 or 5:00. a quick blip ofrain, skies clear later that night and then on sunday turning much colder with a high of just 49. brian. 7:27 now elizabeth. let's take a look at some drive times. we'll start off in garner with 42 and 440. about 15 minutes from 440 to wade avenue and a reminder at the ramp to hammond road will be closed through the weekend. beyond that from wade to 540 no delays heading out of the airport. thanks, brian. students across the state are filling out college applications. next on the time is now 7:30. elections is getting closer to making a decision on whether votes will be recounted or not. >> this continues more a week after the election as the decision to determine who the next governor will be. amy victor is live with details on the big ballot battle. >> big ballot bottle indeed. today is the second hearing they're having in durham to talk about this. it's the day that all the supposed to hand in their final total results over to the state so today the board of elections needs to decide whether they have enough evidence to decide -- on wednesday the board voted to proceed with a second hearing to talk about the 94,000 votes in question. a petition was filed. whether the board decides or not to count again is critical in an unfinished race for candidates within 4600 votes of each other. roy cooper holds a tight lead. mccrory is challenging the votes in 52 counties right now. the hearing is going to start at 11:00. the state may have to extend the deadline for county counties to give in their final total of votes. >> thanks for the update. the delay in terming who won can cause especially for those planning the inaugural ball. this year they don't know who they'll be honoring. in past years the election night winner heps lto choose the food being rved. in order to get them out in time, official invitations likely won't include the name of our next governor. >> we've been eager to host the ball. we've been ready to have things in order and everything to sort of falin place. it has been a little bit after work in progress. league of raleigh says the party will go on. the main events take place january 7th. police in fayetteville will be seeking information in a cold case. they're trying to figure out who murdered craig johnson, who was found shot to death at a barbershop 11 years ago this coming sunday. detectives and john sob's family members will be out distributing fliers. a high profile murder case goes back to court in lumberton today. lawyers for daniel green, the man convicted of michael jordan's father in 1993 want more evidence from the state. green and another man are serving life sentences for the crime. green's attorneys have argued he helped to get rid of james jordan's body but did not take part in the carjacking and murder. we're working to learn more about a crash involving a durham police cruiser. this happened on highway 70 shortly before 10:00 last night. when our crew arrived a wrecker was hauling away one of the two stone, hitting an unmarked police car. no one was hurt. the inland is back open after a cargo ship was stranded there. it ran aground yesterday. it was on its way to the state board at moorhead city. there is no damage to the ship. tug boats helped to move it at high tide. it is on its way again. >> hard to believe it is close to december and you could still go to the beach. you could almost get in the water. >> water temperatures getting a little bit on the chilly side, but the air temperature wonderful. they're looking at mid70s down around the wilmington area today. upper 70s for tomorrow. gorgeous. sunday will be another story across the state. sure it's a pretty morning in fayetteville. all that sunshine over downtown. 43 is our current temperature in chapel hill. it's 41 in erwin. 46 degrees in roanoke rapids. mid60s at lunchtime. 70s by 2:00 in the afternoon. at 5:00, back down to 6. no matter what you have planned for today, if it continues into the evening it's going to feel great. enjoy it if you can. tomorrow will feel great too. even if you're not coming to the christmas parade. more about that coming up. mid40s into the 8:00 and 9:00 hours. 76 degrees on the way home with lots of sunshine. we'll talk about our grma ryan is here with a check of the roads. any slow spots? >> looking at one in durham. some sun glare delays and congestion this morning. 40 eastbound at 55. i check back around 54 and 751, traffic is moving well in those areas. it does slow down a bit. away from 55 toward the durham freeway. the overall ride not so bad to 147. the trip taking about 11 let you know if sun glary delays start to affect things. we have a few more accidents that have popped up in the past couple of minutes. working to confirm some specific locations of some of these crashes. looks like there's one near downtown apex. another accident on the northeast side of raleigh. heading out of roseville, you'll notice the delays begin in advance. and even when you -- it's a little slow heading give yourself a few extra minutes through there. in downtown raleigh, we have another earlier crash reported. at the moment we're not seeing delays showing up around that intersection. we'll watch it and let you know if it changes. elsewhere, looking good on our major routes through downtown. as we look at dour. and chapel hill, picking up delays starting to build on the durham freeway northbound. heading up toward ellis road. not adding too much to the we'll let you know if 55 becomes a better alternate route. 85 looks good in both directions. >> thank you. it's been a busy week for high school seniors across the state. >> up next the benefits of college application week and how students can save money before an important deadline. pick 3 numbers now. extra help by giving them time to fill out admissions applications during the school day. some colleges and universities are waiving application fees for some students. joining us this morning to break all of this down is the college fund of north carolina. good morning. thank you for joining me. >> thank you for having me. >> so about three and a half million students are expected to graduate in 2017. only 69% of those students will now enroll to college. like this to help students navigate the admissions process? >> it's extremely important. college application week is a college access initiative. students, high school seniors in the state of north carolina to assist them with completing their admissions applications. this initiative started approximately 11 years ago. it was designed to help first generational students in particular to get assistance this week was created to get kids excited about completing applications. we have partnered with many colleges and universities across the state of north carolina to actually waive their college application fee by going to our website. c foundation of north carolina. -- college foundation of north carolina. we encourage students to create account and passwords so they can take advantage of this. >> and utilize any resource that's available. >> exactly. >> common questions you get about how to apply and i'm sure the financial process as well, financial aid, fafsa and all that. >> absolutely. that is one of the main questions is about the money. of course they're wanting to make sure they meet the requirements to get into the institution. gpa requirements. s.a.t., a.c.t. what is the deadline. all of that information can be found on our website. college. this week we've had thousands of students across the state of north carolina visiting our website, completing their admissions applications. college application week in years past has been five consecutive days. this past summer cfnc went through a revamping of our college application section. we had a few technical issues the first couple of days. so what we've done is extended the college application week this year to 22nd. so rather than them having five consecutive days they will have nine consecutive days. any student that had issues on the first couple of days we encourage them to go back scene complete their application. >> i wanted to ask because this is important for any students who are still looking to access that application waiver, how do they do that? >> they can go to cfnc.org/ca wseniors. >> thank you so much. send it back to you. pumpkin pie may be the most thanksgiving day dessert ever. if you have room for something a little bit richer, stick around for local dish. brian and lisa are cooking up something super fantastic. ? well, become a winter wonderland several times of year. >> it does. not right now. there wishing that it would be because, you know, the ski season and they depend on some snow for the economy up there. they may get a little bit sad night. it's not going to be enough to really stick or anything like that. >> you can slide down the mountain. you might not be able to ski. >> right. you can sit there and go oh, look, i saw three flakes fall. better than what we'll see here. it'll be cold enough. it's not going to snow here for us. let's take a look at happening around here right now. we're dealing with a warm day today. we head out to rdu. you can see terminal 2 there. not a cloud in the sky behind it. 41 is our current temperature. our winds are calm. our dew point is 40 degrees. one thing you may see, especially later this afternoon is a little bit of haze in the atmosphere. we have the potential to see some of the smoke from the wildfires back in western north carolina. 36 in roxboro. 35 in south hill. mount and wilson. 41 in erwin. mid30s to about 40 degrees is where we're sitting right now. it's chilly out there. you'll need your coat this morning. then you'll want to take it off. dress in layers kind of day. we've been talking about the wildfires in western north carolina. one of the main contributors to the fact they can't seem to get these fires out is the drought situation. the drought monitor comes out on thursday morning about 9:00 a.m. so we couldn't show it to you during our newscast this is last week's versus this week's. watch this line here and how far it shifts eastward. it puts it right on our doorstep. bumping right up to the edge of our viewing area. this yellow section is abnormally dry conditions. we've been well protected. we had the flooding rains during matthew. folks back to the west are dealing with a lot of drought. extreme in red. exceptional in the darker red. eastward. high resolution satellite image from nasa from yesterday. you can see a few small fires over here. not too far from morganton. close to asheville one. another one down here. not too far from franklin, north carolina. so air quality wise it's not going to be too bad for us. you may notice a hint it have. our air quality will be moderate. not terrible. back to the west around the triad and charlotte. de sensitive folks. kids and older adults. and then of course unhealthy for everybody closer to the mountains. we're going to see the shift in wind direction which will help to pull some of that smoke in our area over the next 24 hours or so. we're watching our cold front back to the west starting to produce a little bit of rain ahead of that front and that arrives here late on saturday. not in time to create any problems for the wral raleigh christmas parade. it begins at 10:00 a.m. come on out. weather. 61 at 10:00 a.m. and finishing up at noon, 68 degrees. we'll have the rain that rolls through late in the day. so 4:00, 5:00, 6:00. it quickly moves out. it will be a chilly day on sunday. we go from 73 on saturday to 49 on sunday. and the normal is 62. a big, big change there. a cold start monday morning. by thanksgiving day, temperatures are right about normal. ryan is here with a look at roads. you've got a number map. >> just in the past couple of minutes. it's gotten busy in terms of accidents. it's 7:48 right now. let's take a look at the live commute map. we'll start off with that accident on louisburg road at forestville road. still picking up heavy inbound delays come manager from roseville. allow extra time heading through there. inside the beltline. a few accidents. no delays on the west side of raleigh. a minor accident on morgan street. and a report of an accident this morning on wither mill at atlantic avenue. over between apex and cary we have a crash. notice on that side, very heavy delays. because of those backups looks like we're seeing slowdowns heading away from holly springs on up toward 1010. a little slow in that area. also a report of an accident in downtown apex on 55 or williams street at hughes street. some slow downs on the durham freeway northbound. not too significant at this point. >> thank you. if you're looking for a sure fire winner for thanksgiving dessert we are here to help. >> sharing a favorite and this one is from lisa's grandma. >> we're going to make a brown sugar chest pie because i love a chest pie. it's an easy go to recipe. e don't know. thanksgiving is kind of like pie dessert holiday. >> just eat pie. >> it makes function or one to the other. >> or eat one yourself. >> combine brown sugar with softened butter. ed a four beaten eggs, vanilla extract and lemon extract. >> just heightens the flavor. >> all right. >> mix all that together. >> when it's combined we prepare the crusts. prick them with a fork and then pour half of the brown sugar mixture into each. >> we have our two pies. we'll pop them in the oven at them for 35 minutes until a knife inserted between the center and edge comes out clean. >> a lot of instructions. >> well not bad. >> just a few ingredients and you have a decadent dose of dessert. >> that is so good. that is delicious. >> you just need a thin little slice. >> yeah, it's rich. >> the crust. that's so good. wow. happy thanksgiving to us. >> get a wral.com. enter recipe in the search box. brian and lisa celebrate 10 years of local dish with some of their favorite moments. recognized for making a difference in a community. they are winners of the gsk $40,000 gift. brian who is everywhere today and yesterday. delivering the keynote address. awards were given to organizations that help build healthier communities by tackling issues like unemployment, housing and literacy. a look at what's tr >> we need to rein bill in. imagine having the same name as controversial political figure. people have been tweeting to mike pence thinking it is indiana governor mike pence. some are setting the record straight. take a look. no, mike pence's twitter is not at mike pence. that's just a sweet man who didn't do anything wrong. look at his bio. writer, speaker, marathoner and grandpa. another tweet says mike pence, good luck with your mentions over the next four years. another guy says i feel your pain, brother. look at his name. michael bolton. chris williams tweeted make mike pence great again. the elect mike pence. they're probably on the opposite ends of the political spectrum. you don't verify the twitter handles, you're just sending it to the software developer guy. >> long four years. hey! is this enough? a little more... grandma! there you go... i know i had one more... hmmm... more. how's it looking? 20 more minutes... 8, 9... we need 1 more yes... let's enjoy. we need more rolls there was a little girl, and she became friends with every animal she met. it's getting late, grandma should go. in the end, all we really need more of, is each other. happy thanksgiving from publix. it's 7:56. here are your top stories. the durham county board of elections holds a hearing today on a complaint over the counting of thousands of ballots. attorney thomas stark questions the accuracy of exhausted election workers had to manually enter votes due to a technical flip. looks like we won't be sure who won the governor's race this week. governor mccrory is contesting the election results in 52 of the state's 100 counties claiming voting fraud and irregularities. election officials hope to have votes certified by today. going to be a beautiful day. >> starting off on the chilly up nicely. nothing but blue sky other downtown raleigh from the north carolina museum of natural sciences. 41 at the airport. 36 in rocky mount and wilson. 41 in erwin and fayetteville. 42 in southern pines. 3 degrees from the record. 73 saturday. we do have a chance of rain late in the day. rolls through quickly. sunday much colder with a high of 49. 7:57 now. h this morning. some affecting major routes. let's take a look at the live commute map starting off in the northern part of raleigh. look out for an earlier accident at forestville road. slow traffic as you head in from roseville toward 5:40. an accident reported on lynn road near glenwood avenue. look out for an accident getting cleared up from whitaker mill road. wade avenue. looks like earlier delays cleared up there. creating delays on 55 or williams street. as you head between cary and apex, 1010 road and smith road. the triangle is sending major talent to the big apple