Afternoon northwest 10 to 20 Miles Per Hour, maybe a little gusty at times but highs near 50. Thats just about average for today. Ill give you a look at the whole weekend in detail coming up in a few more minutes. Over to melissa. Looks like all green on the beltway. Good here, beltway moving nicely there. Chop 4 over the top of the beltway. Outer loop. We will show you that picture in just a minute. Everything else on the beltway okay. Hearing about a problem branch avenue ramp to the outer loop of the beltway as far as a car in the ditch. We will get moren 270 southbound see your slow spots as youre coming out of frederick down into gaithersburg, germantown and rockville area youre fine. Same thing headed outbound, southbound 29, we have a crash reported there as well. Travel times in ten. Aaron . Melissa, thank you. It is 6 01. Developing right now the outer loop of the beltway back open after a crash that left one person dead. Virginia state police had lanes near exit 57 in springfield shut down for hours. On the outer loop. Police say one car caught fire there. Police say three people were taken to the hospital and theyve already been treated and released. An adult male was thrown from an suv and he was riding in and died at the scene. Metros general manager will go before a House Oversight committee in just a few hours. The purpose of the hearing is to find out if metro safe track program which has affected so many is working. News 4s justin fitch is live this morning with what justin . Hey there, thats right. Good morning. Today metro goes under the microscope in the congressional hearing, one that will take a closer look at Metro Safetrack progressp take you to twitter where news 4s adam tuss and Scott Mcfarland posted insight into todays hearing. Scott saying the chair may discuss oversight of metro and wiedefeld a cooperative partner. Adam tweets wiedefeld has 13 pages of remarks including announcements of more than 150,000 grace period credits and that safetrack is not over budget. Todays hearing does come after yesterdays metro Committee Vote to reduce service over two years to ramp up repairs. That plan, of course, is getting push back from d. C. Officials. Of course, back live, that twoyear plan would require a board in which the d. C. Members could possibly veto that position and that is likely some say. Adam, rather, aaron, back in to you. All right. Justin fitch live for us, thank you. A proposal to cut metro hours remains unresolved issue despite a Committee Vote yesterday. The Committee Voted to slash Service Hours for two full years to allow more time for safety repairs. The proposed cuts would end saturday and 11 00 p. M. On sundays and start in july. Metro Board Chairman jack evans says the district is compromised enough and would only sign off on the changes for one year. Its not a threat, mr. Goldman. It is what i it is no. [ inaudible ]. It is the position of the district of columbia. We believe weve compromised enormously. For someone to say that we need to compromise more, is not a problem. A full board votes in two weeks and could veto the plan completely. Developing this morning, one person is dead and another hurt after a shooting in northeast d. C. D. C. Police say that shooting happened on capitol avenue northeast last night and they say five to six men were seen running away from the scene after that shooting. Police didnt have any specific suspect information that we could tell you about at this to be sentenced. David everest pleaded guilty to the death of his classmate in february. Police say he gave 17yearold Alexa Springer a morphine pill at a party. Springer never woke up. He could face a prison sentence of at least five years. Fidel castros ashes are on th right now and he will be interred there on sunday the end of a nineday period of mourning. Youre looking at new video from the central town of cannaguay. Others waving cuban flags. News 4s david cullver is in cuba covering the death and the massive worldwide response. Hes following the procession east and will have more live twitter david underscore cullver. Im Kristen Wright at the live desk. We are watching the awful wildfires in tennessee. Today as the sup comes up thousands of people are evacuated from the town of gatlinburg. Well get a better sense, a better idea of how bad the damage is. We know that hundreds of peoples homes, businesses, as you look there, have been damaged or worse, 11 people have died in these wildfires. Now the good news, though, today is that theyve had a lot of rain out there this week and that has helped firefighters and hopefully will put an end to the loss of life out there. So erika and aaron, investigators saying that they dont think this occurred naturally. They do think that somehow someone actually sparked these massive wildfires. Back to you. Kristen, let me follow up burn through a surveillance camera. He lives in kentucky and got an alert that a smoke alarm was going off and when he turned on that camera, he just saw the place going up in flames. Smoke, flames, took over the entire house. Nobody was inside or was hurt. But the family has lost a lot of memories. 6 07. President elect donald trump is nominating retired marine corps general james mattis to he during a postelection victory rally last night in cincinnati. Mattis retired in 2013 after serving as the commander of u. S. Central command. In a tweet on sunday trump referred to mattis by his nickname mad dog describing him as a generals general. Trump says he is narrowing his choice for a Supreme Court nominee down to four candidates. One of trumps four decisions will be to nominate a replacement for the late justice antonin scalia. Merit garland. Trump says he will announce his nominee soon. The president elect is hitting the road to thank his supporters who elected him to the white house. As we reported trump kicks off his thank you tour with a Campaign Style rally in ohio yesterday. And he pledged to unary in fi the country unify the country while continuing to take shots at his doubters. How many times did we hear this. There is no path to and the people of this great state answered and youre going to be very happy. Trump also made a stop in indiana where he celebrated his deal with carrier air conditioning to keep a thousand jobs from being shipped to mexico. Hes accused of setting a Northern Virginia woman on fire killing her and this morning he is behind bars. Where officials managed to track him down. Keeping drunk drivers off the road. Canada hope will work. Take a look outside right now where a lot of you are waking up to temperatures in the 40s. A look at how the weekend is shaping up when we check back in a little after 6 11 this morning. Want to check in with storm team 4 meteorologist chuck bell with how things are shaping up for today and more importantly for the weend this weekend. From Christmas Tree shopping to Holiday Shopping and enjoying december sunshine. Planning your outdoor activities, the morning runs will be on the cold and breezy side. Tonight if youre going out to holiday parties quite chilly but not ferociously cold and the wind which lay down after the sunset this evening. Navy game, hopefully a big mid shipmen win and on the ravens game chilly and dry. Near 40. Good day to be outside for today. The forecast, navy temple game tomorrow the aac championship game kicks off at noon in annapolis and game time temperatures in the 40s. Christmas tree shopping on sunday no problems with that at all. Temperatures once again near 50. Lets go over to Melissa Mollet and the first 4 traffic. Delays on metro to mount vernon square. Earlier malfunk causing a slowdown there. Chop 4 over the t beltway at georgia avenue, inner a and outer loop everything looking good this morning. No worry top of the beltway. Travel times on 270 from germantown, on time. Top of the beltway no worries there. 66 inbound from Fairfax County parkway to the beltway is fine. Same thing 95 from quantico to the beltway on time at 22 minutes. Remember to listen to wtop, when 6 14 right now. Covering Northern Virginia the man Alexandria Police found dead in a park had just escaped from a california Halfway House. 41yearold Colby Mcclellan was found in powhatan parks when night. He was murdered behind a townhouse where he lived years ago. He allegedly escaped from a Halfway House in san diego last month. Police dont believe his murder was random, though. This is the seventh homicide if alexandria this year. This morning were working to learn when the man accused of setting his girlfriend on fire will be e county. Police arrested lewis reeder near richmond last night, caught just hours after Delores Williams died. Reeder is accused of setting williams on fire inside their Fairfax County home last month after an argument. He had been on the run since. Police say a citizens tip helped track him down. Developing this morning, a former nfl player is dead in a case of suspected road rage. Joe mcknight was fighting with another driver in new orleans yesterday when police say that scene. And theyre still sberg interviewing him and other witnesses as well. Mcknight was a running back in the nfl and played for the new york jets and the Kansas City Chiefs as well. Hundreds gathered last flight to honor fallen Tacoma WashingtonPolice Officer reginald jake gutierrez. . Gutierrez was shot and call on wednesday. Police say the shooter was killed by police after a nearly 12hour standoff and they say he used two children as human shields. Representatives from a number of other Law Enforcement agencies attended last nights vigil to show their solidarity and that ended with a rendition that you just heard there, amazing grace. An airline is no longer operating in bolivia after that tragic plane crash earlier this week. Bolivias Civil Aviation the Airlines Charter flight using its only operational plane crashed in the mountains on monday. The crashed killed all but six of the 77 people on board. Many of the victims were from a brazzon soccer team and their bodies are being prepared for the journey home. Violations at a Veterans Hospital in wisconsin are putting hundreds of patients at risk. 592 veterans are being notified they may be infected with hepatitis, b, c or hiv. The patients all received care from one the dentist was allegedly using his own equipment and then cleaning it and reusing it which violates regulations. A word for parents this morning, we have important recall information for you. Thousands of baby bath seats are being recalled because they pose a drowning hazard. That recall involves all baby bath seats and cha irs intended for six months and up. That product fails to meet the federal Safety Standards so the seats can tip over when the baby these bath seats and chairs were sold online at amazon. Com, wayfair. Com and young explorers. From january 2013 through last august. More tornadoes sweeping across the south. Take a look at video of one that struck in atlanta. This is from inside a school, but theres other video that shows a tree that comes crashing to the ground. You see it it there. It looks like nobody was hurt in these storms in georgia, but we do know that five people were week. Chuck bell joining us here now. Weve been looking at the rough weather i guess east of the mississippi, not quite going to be that bad here. Luckily no. Even the bad weather is moving out of the southeast so everybody gets a chance to clean things up down there and for us, quiet weather is moving back in after thats a nice shot. Isnt that pretty. Sun is not up until nine minutes after 7 00. A ways to go but a little brightness in our eastern sky. Clouds around this morning. These are not rain making clouds, though. Our next chance for even a drop to come out of the sky doesnt show up until late sunday night or maybe the predawn hours of monday morning. Always stay ahead of the weather with our nbc washington app download and put it on your phone, follow me on twitter chuck bell 4 and on twitter as well. Theres the area of low pressure over the parts of quebec. It is draining the cooler, drier northwest flow dow as we get through the weekend, but not much moisture with the system so we will stay cry today unless driving i68 west into far western maryland and the mountains of west virginia. Future weather to bear that out. Sunshine around here, chance for wet snow or light rain drops across far western maryland this afternoon into this evening. Dry weather around here. Heres 9 00 a. M. On saturday morning, bathed in sunshine though. Temperatures right now in the 30s and 40s. So not terribly terribly cold at this very moment but later on today highs near 50 degrees. It will be a breezy and cool day to be outside. Northwest winds today 15 to 25 Miles Per Hour and by the time you wake up tomorrow morning temperatures back down into the 30s once again. Your weekend will be for the most part dry for your outdoor plans and a sprinkle in the predawn hours of monday morning. Our best chance for rain shows up on tuesday and thursday of next week. The whole ten day coming up at good morning. Good morning chuck bell. You have a new problem, 270 south there. We will be looking into that one in the next couple minutes. 66 overall no major problems. 95 northbound and southbound rolling along okay this morning. Inner loop and outer loop, no big worries there. Chopper 4 showing us just a little bit of volume there and thickness near New Hampshire avenue. Southbound 29 at broken land parkway we still have that crash hanging around there this at old hundred getting slow there as well. Guys . Thank you. 6 20 right now. A very Unusual Campaign to prevent drunk driving at a canadian town this morning. Police in kensington say people caught driving drunk will have to listen to nickelback on the way to the police station. Now they posted their threat on their facebook page. It says if you are foolish enough to be to get behinds the wheel after drinking, this is, quote, the perfect gift for you. Lets not ruin a wait a minute. I got a tweet from the Alexandria Police department that says our friends over at the wyoming Police Department started a joke with one direction and says that canadians caught on or copied. Okay. I dont get it. Whats wrong with nickelback . Somebody told me theyre horrible. I dont know. There are worse things. Our producer would beg to differ. Worse things right . I dont know any nickelback songs. Night going. I dont know. 6 21 our time. Stolen artifacts, thousands of years old are headed home. How federal agents are getting them back where they belong. A Popular Grocery store back open again this morning, but not before major health concerns. What we are now learning about the closure of that d. C. Safeway that had so many people talking youre watching news 4 today. They are precious artifacts ripped from the cradle of civilization. Your alooking at several items smuggled out of egypt headed back to their countrytry. The Egyptian Embassy in washington hosted a repatriation ceremony. Immigration and Custom Enforcement returned five recovered by agents over the last few years that include a child sarcophagus found in a garage in brooklyn, new york, scifi movie prop. People who traffic and elicit cultural artifacts while some may think thats not that big of a crime, it is because it robs a country of its identify ti. That was sarah saldana. The investigations that led to the items uncovered a criminal network of smugglers, money launderers and purchasers linked to at least five other countries and returned some 80 pieces to thousands of pieces returned to other countries, smuggled out and sometimes broke noon parts and broken into parts and shipped to places linked to historical pieces. Incredible to think Something Like that has value and importance was found in a garage. Yeah. Incredible stuff. Did you know that mcdonalds chicken mcnuggets come in four shapes and they have names. The boot, the bell, the bow tie and the ball. Ensure consistent cooking times for food safety if case you were wondering. Things you did not know. They all look the same. And theyre all going down the hatch the same way anyway. Never looked at it. 6 26 right now. Metro safety crisis whats expected to happen during a big hearing on capitol hill today. A highspeed crash recorded on Facebook Live. The first look at what happened while the suspect was streaming clear and cold today. Chuck has an eye on your weekend in the four things to know about . . . . . . Distracted driving, police say thats an understatement. This highspeed ride on Facebook Live. Safety concerns, metros leader is headed to the hot seat on capitol hill. Back open, a Popular Grocery store is welcoming customers back this morning. News 4 today starts now. Hi, good morning, everybody. Im Erika Gonzalez in for eun to know about our forecast, at least theres no rain this weekend. Looks like most of the weekend will be rainfree. That is welcome news but there are more needed chances for rainfall coming up as we get into next week. Ill give you the whole tenday forecast coming up at 6 51. The four things you need to know about the weather, chilly breezies continues, northwest winds 15 to 20 Miles Per Hour