plus, stepping down. ceo jack dorsey is leaving twitter. so who is his replacement and how does silicon valley companies fare when a high-profile leader moves on? and could it be the law to overturn? roe v. wade. >> the new abortion challenge facing the u.s. supreme court and why it's so consequential. good monday, everyone. thanks for joining us. >> things are changing rapidly. the immediate impact is travel. foreign travelers from several countries in south african are now banned from entering the united states. president biden says it's not a matter of if the omicron variant is coming here, but when it will arrive. here is chris pallone. >> reporter: president biden sounding a cautious alarm over the latest covid-19 variant omicron. >> this variant is a cause for

concern, not a cause for panic. >> reporter: the world health organization calls the global risk from the new mutation very high, but health experts say it will be a couple weeks before they know true transmissable it is. the best protection still, they say, is to get vaccinated. >> if you haven't already gotten vaccinated or if you have and you're eligible for a booster, do it now. this is the best way to protect yourself against delta, which is still very much with us in the u.s., and omicron, if it comes to the u.s., which it almost certainly will at some point. >> reporter: but it's unclear right now how effective the current vaccines are in protecting against omicron. still the cdc is now strengthening its recommendation for booster shots. director raleigh rochelle walensky says everyone 18 and older should get a booster shot. drugmakers say studies are underway as well as work on new versions. >> understand a little bit better and within weeks i think we will know most of the

information that needs to be known. but every day we learn more. >> reporter: the president defending his order to block foreigners from coming to the u.s. from south africa and seven other nations in the region. >> it gives us time, gives us time to take more actions. >> reporter: japan, morocco and israel have taken similar steps. new omicron cases in canada and several countries in europe. and the president says it's just a matter of time before it's detected here. fearing a winter surge in covid cases, the president will unveil a plan thursday to try to prevent that from happening. chris pallone, nbc news. well, federal workers won't face punishment until next year if they don't comply with president biden's vaccine mandate. the deadline was november 22nd. the white house says its goal is to protect workers, not penalize them. that said, a new deadline set for january 4th. according to the biden administration, more than 96% of

federal employees have already been vaccinated. okay. here we go. masks again. that's what's happening in new york city beginning today. city leaders brought back the mask mandate this afternoon. it calls for everyone in manhattan or new york city to wear masks inside at all times. so far no reported cases of omicron in new york city, but health commissioner says he wants to stay ahead of this problem. and he doubled down on calling for vaccinations. he is asking parents to vaccinate kids also 5 to 11 and for adults to get the boosters. lester holt and his team are working to get answers, including an interview with a global health expert. and a moderna expert about battling had variant and richard engle speaks with a south african virus hunter ahead on "nightly news" right here on nbc at 6:30. twitter co-founder jack dorsey announced today he would step down as ceo of the social media company. dorsey says long time twitter chief technical officer parag

agrawal will take his place. dorsey will remain on the twitter board of directors. in a statement today dorsey said, quote, i've decided to leave twitter because i believe the company is ready to move on from its founders. several tech companies have seen founders leave and power handed over to non-founders. our business and tech reporter takes a closer look. >> we haven't seen the last of jack dorsey. he is still ceo at square and to be honest a lot of people in the tech community thought dorsey's command of two companies simultaneously stretched him too thin. yes, once again we see a founder leave, and someone within the company, not a founder, take over. here is the thing. that's often a very successful move. tim cook, a long-time apple executive, took over after the death of apple founder steve jobs and turned apple into the world's most valuable company.

just recently, amazon founder jeff bezos stepped away from leading amazon after 27 years, handing the power to his long-time deputy. amazon doing just fine. and then microsoft. really the best example of what a non-founder can do satya nadal took over microsoft in 2014 and growth at microsoft has been extraordinary from really on the brink of being a has-been to returning that company to a global tech power. dorsey seems to think twitter is ready for that transformation. with someone who knows the company well, but isn't the company's creator. by the way, we've gotten used to a bearded dorsey. i did an interview with a much, much, younger, much more clean-shaven jack dorsey many years ago when twitter was brand new. i posted that interview to my twitter, which seems appropriate. you can find that @scottmcgrew on twitter. okay. you can see scott mcgrew and the

morning team every weekday, "today in the bay" 4:30 to 7:00 a.m. on nbc bay area. this is a high-profile week at the supreme court. the justices will hear a direct challenge to roe v. wade. it's coming from mississippi. that state passed a law in 2018 to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, but that law was blocked by the lower courts. the high court will now hear arguments beginning wednesday. supporters say the law is intended to regulate, quote, inhumane procedures, and argued that a fetus is capable of detecting and responding to pain by that point. let's bring in our political analyst for more on this case. larry, nice to have you tonight. what's the difference about this case? why do we need to pay attention here in california? >> raj, it's the first challenge to roe v. wade since 1992, and this one has the possibility of going all the way through. remember, we have got a very different supreme court than we

had then. in 1992. so this court's got three new justices, all nominated by president trump, all of them that have ruled one way or another against the roe v. wade case. so you put this -- of course, when they were down further on the appellate level, their three votes together along with the other conservatives on the court, you have at the possibility of seeing roe v. wade turned away or at least minimized. >> that is a big deal. how many women are we talking that could be affected by this case if the court sides with mississippi? >> the number is remarkable. the gut of women under 45 years of age, 25%, one-fourth have had an abortion at some point in their lives. that's a huge number to deal with. it goes well beyond the state of mississippi. >> do you have an indication what's likely to happen and

maybe more so when we'll know? >> yeah. a couple of things. the when is the easy part. we will know probably the last few days of june. any of the tough cases the court takes on all during the year, they often let go of around the last week of june. so that's probably what we could expect. now the what. that's another story. what will the court do? it could do one of three things. one, it could reject this case. the lower courts did. perhaps not likely given what we heard about texas, if you remember that case. two, the court could accept the case on the merits, from now on viability doesn't matter, that 22 to 24-week period for roe v. wade, 15 weeks is fine if that's what the state declares. that would be the shocker. third, and probably the most likely, although you never want to prejudge a supreme court, some kind of combination. some kind of compromise, where the court does not necessarily

toss over a woman's right to choose, but allows states to make whatever decisions they think are reasonable for this kind of case, and all other cases that the states might want to manage. look for that compromise since it's unlikely that this supreme court is ready at this point to overturn the principle entirely. one thing is likely to happen. a lot of eyes are going to be on this case all the way to the east coast to the west coast and every state in between. by the way, by the way, if the court goes ahead and endorses the mississippi case, at least 26 states are likely to approve similar legislation, california not likely to be one of them. >> nonetheless, a lot of things to be happening until next june. thank you very much for your insight. could bill cosby be retried? reuters are asking the u.s. supreme court to review that case. in june, the pennsylvania supreme court set cosby free. the court found it wasn't fair cosby's statements about

drugging woman were used against him because he was allegedly promised immunity in a back door deal. prosecutors are arguing that was the wrong decision and asking the u.s. supreme court to weigh in. cosby spent three years in prison before being released. next, sighted in the streets and near homes, the mountain lions spotted in the bay area and the growing concern in one specific neighborhood on the peninsula. we will take you there. and it's cyber monday. behind scenes to an amazon supply store on the peninsula to see how things are going. and i'm chief meteorologist jeff ranieri. temperatures in the 60s now through much of the bay area. i will show you how cold tomorrow morning and an update on the rain season.

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not something you typically see. ginger spoke to the family who captured this video. >> reporter: this quiet residential street doesn't see much action. so you can imagine the shock and fear that people felt when they saw a mountain lion make its way down the street in the middle of the day. she says she looked out of her window on thanksgiving day around 4:00 in the afternoon. >> we saw a mountain lion in broad daylight giving if self a bath across the street. >> reporter: the first daytime sighting for liz and her three boys. but the night before they took this picture of a mountain lion. >> around 11:00 p.m. we heard some gun controlling and roaring. we looked out the window and sow two mountain lions walking down the sidewalk on wednesday night. we lived here four years and that was the first time we've seen one then. >> reporter: california fish and wildlife says the number of mountain lions sightings has been normal for this time of the year. they say wildlife may be coming into more urban places because

of the drought. earlier wildfires, and also because people are more equipped to catch videos and photos of wildlife. >> when you have a glimpse of a mountain lion, it's natural to feel a little bit afraid. some people might kind of be filled with wonder, amazement. the probability that a mountain lion is a danger to a human is probably pretty low. >> there was two mountain lions. >> reporter: liz and her family aren't taking chances. they are keeping a closer eye on their surroundings, and limiting outdoor activities especially when it's dark out. >> okay. have you pick up that big screen tv or toys or shoes? you have a few more hours remaining on in cyber monday. cierra johnson is in burlingame on this day for online shopping. >> reporter: so we have officially made it past black friday and we are now embarking

on cyber monday, notoriously known for having a lot of those deep discounts across the internet with multiple retailers offering those deep discounts. we have had a chance to speak with a spokesperson. we are here at the four "star-spangled banner" in burlingame to talk about what amazon is don. cyber monday has been something they have been preparing for since the beginning of the year. she says although there has been a lot of talk about supply chain issues, because amazon has multiple sellers for various items, shoppers may not feel that ripple effect as much. so to putting it in perspective, how and when folks are shopping this holiday season, take a look at your screen. thanksgiving day there were more than 30 million shoppers in store or online. black friday about 108 million shoppers. small business saturday, 31,000,062, more than 62 million shoppers are expected for cyber monday. today regardless of which site you choose, it is sure to be a

big day tore retailers. >> from amazon's side, you know, looking just a couple days ago to black friday, we experienced 1,600 items purchased per second globally. so it's definitely we're expecting a similar case today on cyber monday. >> we have had a chance to walk around and speak with some of the associates. they will tell us that those deals you see on amazon are also available in store for the same price. so if you want to pick them up, grab them, wrap them before christmas, you can do so and skip the whole shipping process. i know that's the part that gets a lot of people a little ainge house. grab it, go, be ready for the holidays. here in burlingame, cierra johnson, nbc bay area news. >> i got to get going. i have a few more hours to do some shopping. >> i did some. a lot of stuff sold out already. >> it's going fast. >> it is. >> i got some of those pre-black friday sales. >> yeah, yeah. >> you ever see those? >> oh, yeah, on thanksgiving night when we were anchoring i got an alert on my phone, black

friday starts now. it's like, oh. >> it made it fun. i just did it online. >> makes it so easy. happy cyber monday. trying to get back into thing. we will start it off tonight here with a look at our water year rain update. i know a lot of you are wondering about rainfall chances. what's going to be happening in december, how are things looking for us. i wanted to start off with how we are doing so far. and we are still running a surplus for this rain season which starts october 1. good news there. a lot of this coming from that rainfall we had towards the end of october. over 8 inch surplus in santa rosa, 3.5 inches in san francisco. not too much of a surplus in san jose, 0.55. overall, putting us at 279% of normal in santa rosa, san francisco 254, san jose 132. no chances of any kind of

rainfall, because of this area of high pressure. when we have high pressure moving in it takes the storm track and pushes it to the north. this week sunny, hazy conditions. also morning fog. i should say though any kind of rain chances we have coming our way really more substantial chances are getting pushed towards the middle part of the month. so again mid-december it looks like we could see those larger widespread rain chances return back to the bay. so as we get you ready to go for tomorrow morning, looking at fog in the south bay, right near the bay. if you are traveling down the central america valley this will clear out quickly and plenty of sunshine heading through tomorrow afternoon. lots of 40s as well. have that jacket out. maybe you got a friend, you got a new jacket to sport. 46 in the south bay, peninsula 47, tri-valley 43 and coming in with the 40s for the east bay, san francisco and the north bay. through the day tomorrow i see temperatures warming up a couple of degrees, 70s for the south bay, 71 downtown san jose,

through the east bay, 67 vallejo, 70 fremont. 70 pal alto, beaches 64 half moon bay, san francisco 64 in the mission, 69 in napa and 64 towards point reyes. the seven-day forecast, you will see in san francisco once again no rainfall. we will hold the temperatures here in the 60s. notice we get a system moving by here as we head into next monday. that could offer some shower chances next tuesday and also on wednesday's forecast. again, larger rain chances getting pushed back to mid-december. i think as we were talking about in the 5:00 show, raj, you were in the newsroom, this is good weather news, ease back into the week. >> yeah, sure. i like your perspective on that. >> it's good exercise weather. we can do jogging outdoors to burn off our calories. >> that's a good idea. i thought of you yesterday. i cleaned out my gutters for the first time. >> oh! >> i love being remembered by

gutters. thank you, jeff. >> you are so good at it. >> be prepared. a record travel day. how many people took to the skies to get home for thanksgiving. i did some early shopping this year. one for you, one for me. awww. i love it. i got us a little something, too.

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post-thanksgiving travel is breaking pandemic records. yesterday was the busiest travel day since covid broke out last year. the tsa says more than 2.4 million people were screened in airports. that's compared to just over 1 million last year. also, tsa tracked close to 21 million people flying in the last week and a half. that brings the airport volume to 89% of pre-pandemic levels. can the government help ease our supply chain problems? today at the white house president biden invited leaders of companies from many sectors of our economy. ceos from samsung, walmart, mattel and kroeger's were inside the room there virtually or personally. the idea was to hear the challenges they face. the leaders reported

improvements, but they said they need more help. on wednesday the president will address how his administration plans to strengthen the supply chain, lower everyday costs and ensure that shelves are stocked throughout this holiday season. what does it take to bring christmas to the white house? how about 6,000 feet of ribbon? over 10,000 ornaments and almost 80,000 lights. that's along with 41 christmas trees. the theme is gifts from the heart. president biden and first lady dr. jill biden says it's inspired by people they are inspired by people they met around the country this past year. for instance, to honor covid front line workers and first responders they brought in doves and shooting stars. to top it off, a gingerbread white house. musical games are about to be taken to the next level. >> jimmy fallon debuts his new musical game show that's my jam. it features the musical games fallon likes to play with guests on "the tonight show." four celebrities compete in

teams of two to win money for charity. here is a little sample of what you can expect. >> time for random instrument challenge. ♪♪ >> yes! >> musical genre challenge. you have so sing shot here but in the country rock -- ♪ it's getting hot in here ♪ ♪ so take off all your clothes ♪♪ >> that is fun. hip hop into country. >> yes, so impressive. tonight's premier features the four judges on "the voice." ariana grande blake shelton, watch that's my jam tonight at 10:00 following "the voice." have you been watching the 49ers on a three-game win streak? looking to make it four in a row but they have to do it without two of their best players. we have the leahy latest from team headquarters in santa clara.

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♪ i see trees of green ♪ ♪ red roses too ♪ ♪ i see them bloom for me and you ♪ (music) ♪ so i think to myself ♪ ♪ oh what a wonderful world ♪

few weeks ago, oh, things were looking bleak. tonight sunshine and roses for the 49ers. >> the resurgent niners have won three games in a row and are back in the playoff hunt. however, a setback today. two star players are out. let's start with levi's stadium. beautiful yesterday. it was rocking and it was warm. the niners beat minnesota 34-26. if the playoffs started today, they would be the sixth seed.

here is the downside. their best offensive weapon, deebo samuel, injured his groin yesterday. he will miss this sunday's game against seattle and possibly the following week. also all-pro linebacker fred warner out for the next game with a bad hamstring. nobody wants to, seem to want evander kane, including the sharks. as expected he cleared waivers today and has been assigned to the sharks minor league team the barracuda. he is expected to practice with them tomorrow morning and remain with the team indefinitely. evander kane served a 21-game suspension for violating the nhl's covid protocol. they are hoping he plays well in the minors so they could possibly trade him. kane is working through several off-the-ice problems including gambling issues and allegations of spousal abuse. the warriors have the best record in the nba. congratulate is now hanging out

with the g league team in santa cruz that will allow him more practice time as he gets closer to returning from a torn achi he hasn't played for 2 1/2 years with the warriors. despite getting closer, no set date for his return, but we are hearing before christmas. >> you figure the cruz santa cruz warriors have the hottest ticket in town. >> that's going to be fun. jessica joins us now. what's coming up at 6:00. >> see splash brothers back. new details about the contagious omicron variant and how health leaders are responding. >> we need to be responsive and be aware, but it's also important not to overreact. >> i'm sharon in martinez. three suspects expected to be arraigned today in the nordstrom robbery. only one showed up.

also a personal revelation on the witness stand. elizabeth holmes breaks down and says she was raped. we were inside the san jose courtroom and have the latest from the theranos trial. the news at 6:00 starts now. thanks for being with us on this monday. i'm raj mathai. >> i'm jessica agirry. >> if it's not here yet it will be here soon. the omicron variant raising concern among health officials. what we don't know is how dangerous is this new mutation of the coronavirus. and will the vaccines that we have now work against it? thom jensen talked to one of the bay area's medical experts about what you can do now to lower your risk anyway. >> translator: there is so much we don't know about the coronavirus variant omicron and while some medical experts are worried it could be vaccine resistant they are encouraging people to be patient and not panic.