temperatures in the upper 60s. next chance of rain by wednesday. >> it is friday night. brian williams is next. we'll see you back here at 6:00. >> good night folks. on our broadcast tonight, no relief as we head into a weekend that's going to feel like the middle of winter across much of the country. more records shattered today, and another big storm is on the way. an emergency fix being ordered for u.s. nuclear weapons after a shocking report about how our arsenal is being handled and now the boss wants changes. campus tragedy. another awful incident in a frat house. a teenage pledge has died. it renews a lot of questions for a lot of parents. and troubled waters headed into this holiday shopping season. why so many christmas gifts may be trapped just offshore. "nightly news" begins now. from nbc news world headquarters in new york, this is "nbc nightly news" with brian williams. good evening.

the changeover we've been talking about has now arrived as we get you situated to head into the weekend tonight. this so-called arctic blast has now taken two-thirds of the nation, and tonight that includes part of the south where they broke a record today in atlanta. the northeast is dealing with freezing precip. full-on ice is the problem in parts of the northwest while parts of wisconsin are dealing with 55, five-zero, inches of snow. and none of this includes the next weather system expected to roll in across the country. we begin tonight with nbc's gabe gutierrez in atlanta. >> reporter: from coast to coast today the unrelenting, bone-chilling wall of arctic air kept marching. in oregon an icy nightmare. cars and trucks sliding all over. >> it was so slippery. like i could barely walk. >> reporter: record snow piled up fast prompting amazing images on social media.

huge snowdrifts blanketing cars, burying backyards and almost reaching old glory. >> i can't walk on this. >> reporter: the frigid temperatures and ice proving to be a challenge for this tv reporter. the midwest, ohio and indiana, may be used to this weather, but not so soon. this part of wisconsin saw four feet of snow this week. and more november records were shattered today. cities in south dakota and montana negative 17 degrees. north dakota minus 15. >> love it. >> reporter: denver saw a record low of 14 below this week. this kitten was rescued from the cold just in time. in oklahoma a sign of the times. a water main break left this icy mess. the polar plunge extending to the south. two people died in this mississippi crash blamed on slick roads. in atlanta lee gorley sells firewood. today he was much busier than usual, especially following last winter's ice storm here that brought the city to a standstill. how worried are people here after last winter's ice storm? >> pretty concerned. they want to get all the wood

ordered and in the racks before the real cold weather hits, and we're pretty much there now. >> reporter: tonight other parts of the south are even bracing for snow this weekend. for many it's shaping up to be the coldest november in decades. here in atlanta the temperature dropped to just 26 degrees. that's just a few shy of the record. and more cold air is expected through the weekend. brian. >> gabe gutierrez starting us off from atlanta tonight. gabe, thanks. which brings us to meteorologist janice huff in the weather center tonight. janice, what do you have for us? >> well, brian, tonight atlanta will be back down in the 20s. and look at all these areas shaded in pink down at the gulf coast. places like new orleans, mobile and tallahassee will see their first freeze with temperatures down to near freezing, near 32 degrees, and maybe 20s in some of the suburbs. keep an eye on this area of purple here as it moves across the northern plains and dips down through the ohio valley eventually moving back to the east coast again. this is yet another wave of arctic air which will start out

this weekend and progress across the nation. by wednesday morning temperatures in atlanta could even be down in the teens by then as the cold air starts to move in once again. and, yes, there is another storm system coming with more snow. it will move out of the rockies this weekend and into the central plains. from minneapolis down to st. louis spreading across parts of the ohio valley. another wave will develop south of st. louis. and that will shift to the east coast and parts of the great lakes by monday, brian. >> always something to look forward to in your line of work. janice huff in the weather center tonight as we head into the weekend. janice, thanks. tonight, the secretary of defense is ordering emergency fixes in the management of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. a new and shocking report has come out revealing big problems in the way the system has been allowed to decay since the end of the cold war. we get our report tonight from our pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. >> reporter: after years of decay, neglect and mismanagement, america's nuclear arsenal is in a serious state of

decline, that according to two new pentagon studies. defense secretary chuck hagel his face bandaged after a minor accident warned of potentially dire consequences. >> if we don't fix this, eventually it will get to a point where there will be some questions about our security. >> reporter: after the end of the cold war, the nuclear mission lost much of its urgency and funding. blasters on aging missile silos fell into disrepair. supplies so scarce the air force had only this one tool kit, essentially a wrench, to lock nuclear warheads onto 450 ballistic missiles. when needed that single tool was actually fedexed back and forth among three separate nuclear bases. >> but that's not the way to do it. we now have a wrench for each location. we're going to have two wrenches for each location soon. >> reporter: the nuclear mission soon suffered from lack of leadership and cheating scandals broke out at several nuclear bases.

>> it's reflective and indicative of a system that's been allowed to kind of slowly back down hill. >> reporter: the pentagon will spend an additional $10 billion and increase the nuclear force by more than a thousand service members over the next five years. for defense officials the alternative is unacceptable. jim miklaszewski, nbc news, the pentagon. there is more promising news on the economic front tonight. falling gas prices now at their lowest levels in years appear to be boosting consumer spending as we head into the holiday shopping season. that's news a lot of companies were hoping to hear. retail sales were up nearly across the board last month as americans with extra money in their pockets spent more at big tickets and small, car dealerships, malls and restaurants. and a potentially huge economic story playing out tonight on the west coast. and the timing is bad. labor problems at dozens of ports including the biggest in the country, the port of l.a. in

long beach, have caused a full stop of big containerized ships loaded with cargo just off the shore. we get our report on that tonight from nbc's hallie jackson who is in san pedro, california. >> reporter: thirteen ships wait to get into the country's biggest port complex. >> nothing is moving here. >> reporter: normally there's no line at los angeles, long beach, but congestion's been building at west coast ports including tacoma where gary snyder says hundreds of his perishable christmas trees are stuck on the dock. he expects to lose $50,000 this season since his shipments probably won't make it to asia in time for the holidays. >> we had to cancel half a dozen containers going to singapore. it's because we can't get them into the dock. and if we did, it's going to sit there. >> reporter: it's not just goods headed out, it's merchandise coming in at risk of going nowhere. like rob feldman's glass jars from china used to package his gourmet popcorn. >> glass jars set us apart so

that would be a huge blow to our company. >> reporter: so why the port paralysis? management is accusing the longshoreman's union of staging an orchestrated slowdown at some point shortage of truck drivers, rail cars and a surge in cargo volume. is there a slowdown on the part of the union? >> there's absolutely no slowdown. we're doing double shifts. we've got guys working around the clock. >> reporter: a coalition of retailers has asked the president to send a mediator calling these crisis levels of congestion saying a shutdown would be catastrophic. international economist jack o'connell says that could mean a backlog that eventually leads to layoffs. >> i would very much hate to be the manager of a factory who has to send their workforce home during the holiday season. >> reporter: and while many manufacturers work to ship holiday gifts in advance of the shopping season, there are some things you just can't send early. containers are piling up here at the port of los angeles, which is seeing its worst congestion in at least a decade. that's how long it's been since the port last shut down, which is something nearly everyone hopes to avoid this time, brian.

>> hallie jackson at the port of l.a. tonight, hallie, thanks. three days after our nation was declared ebola-free, another ebola patient is on his way to this country for treatment. dr. martin salia is expected to arrive tomorrow at the nebraska medical center. he's a permanent resident of the u.s. originally from sierra leone where he was volunteering treating the sick when he came down with ebola symptoms. that same hospital in nebraska by the way has already successfully treated two americans, a doctor and the nbc news cameraman. overseas tonight the u.s. campaign of air strikes against isis has been underway now for months, but is it working? there have been some successes. today iraqi forces, for example, supported by u.s. air strikes took back a strategic refinery town from isis militants. but there's also new evidence that isis attacks have actually increased since this air campaign got underway. we get the story tonight from our chief foreign correspondent richard engel.

>> reporter: the air strikes are easy to count. each plume of fire and debris has been numbered. the pentagon says there have been 883 u.s. air strikes on isis fighters, safe houses and vehicles in iraq and syria. the reported cost since air strikes began, $300,000 an hour. but the effectiveness of the air campaign is more difficult to quantify. new data obtained by nbcnews.com shows that isis attacks are actually on the rise. >> isis attacks have been increasing steadily. particularly since the fall of mosul and then again increasing further since the beginning of the air strikes. >> reporter: the respected uk-based terrorism insurgency center says there were just over 100 attacks in june and then again in july. in august when u.s. air strikes began, the number actually jumped to 171 and stayed relatively high in september and october.

>> in response to the air strikes it's intensified its insurgency. >> reporter: as we saw firsthand in syria, air strikes have played a major role in the recent battle for kobani. but as u.s. military officials have said from the beginning, without an effective ground force, they aren't enough to stop isis. >> air strikes alone are not going to do this. they're not going to fix this. >> reporter: u.s. bombing has had an impact, forcing most isis fighters and all of its top leaders into hiding. but isis is still carrying out massacres. lieutenant general mike barbero was one of the top u.s. commanders in iraq. like many of his colleagues, he has doubts about the u.s. strategy. >> this isis state must be degraded and destroyed, you're not going to do that with the level of commitment we have now. it's too small, too late. and it's going to lead to a stalemate. >> reporter: brian, the picture isn't totally bleak. there has been some progress, but the progress has generally been piecemeal and sporadic. and the data shows the u.s. air

campaign hasn't turned the tide on isis, at least not yet. >> richard engel who is back over the turkish border tonight. richard, thanks. tonight we should tell you richard will have an hour-long special airing on msnbc about the battle against isis. that's at 9:00 eastern time. here in new york we heard today what it was like for those two men, the window washers, who found themselves dangling in their broken scaffold outside the 68th floor of the tallest building in the hemisphere, the new world trade center tower, earlier this week. they made it to safety after a couple hours when fdny rescuers cut through a window to get them. today at a news conference one of them, juan lopez, was asked what was going through his mind. >> in the beginning it was panic and pretty much survival, kind of instinct for a few minutes. after that kind of clear your mind and try to get hold of the situation.

obviously got home to see my family for another day. >> as for getting back to work, lopez says they'll start by washing windows on the ground floor getting their head in the game before they head back up there again. while nothing you're about to hear should take anything away from the audacious mission to land a spacecraft on a comet while both are hurtling through space at 40,000 miles an hour, give or take, there are some issues. for starters, they're not sure exactly where it is on the comet's surface. it took a big bounce upon landing. it actually made a few landings. and while it has started drilling itself into the surface, battery life is now an issue. think of your cell phone battery on a good day and then remember this lander has been flying through deep space for ten years. still ahead for us on a friday night, shock and sadness as a teenage fraternity pledge dies. a big university is now in crisis mode as parents once again confront a terrible fear.

also, yes, it's a figure of speech, but have you ever seen someone actually search for a needle in a haystack?

as we mentioned, a big university is in crisis mode tonight after a teenage student found unconscious in a frat house has died. and there are a lot of questions about the events leading up to his death. and what's happening right now at west virginia university in morgantown is just the latest tragic incident involving fraternities at colleges all across our country. we have our report tonight from nbc's rehema ellis. >> reporter: west virginia university is a campus in mourning. >> nolan meant so much to so many people, it's hard to know where to even begin. >> reporter: 18-year-old nolan burch, a freshman, died today after he was found late wednesday night unconscious on the floor of the kappa sigma fraternity house. >> that certainly breaks all of our hearts because that's not what students go off to

college -- i mean, that's not what's supposed to happen. >> reporter: according to the student newspaper, a big brother ceremony was scheduled that night for fraternity pledges. burch's final tweet that afternoon, "it's about to be a very eventful night to say the least." last week another fraternity on campus, sigma kye, was suspended after 19 pledges were cited for underage drinking. yesterday the university suspended all fraternities and sororities. >> i think it starts with us, and we have to take initiative and change the culture for this whole school. >> reporter: nationwide greek organizations have come under close scrutiny following recent deaths of pledges. in september a 19-year-old pledge died during a fraternity run at clemson university in south carolina. this past summer a 19-year-old pledge at california state university, north ridge, died on a fraternity trip. and last december a 19-year-old

pledge from baruch college in new york died from head trauma at a fraternity retreat. professor elizabeth allen is studying what colleges are doing to prevent dangerous behavior. >> this is about changing the campus culture and helping students rise to, you know, the occasion. there are group situations and peer pressure. and people end up doing things they wouldn't ordinarily do. >> just two days before nolan burch was rushed to the hospital, the fraternity's charter had been revoked by its national organization due to an unrelated incident. tonight, police are investigating what happened and whether anyone should be held accountable, brian. >> our chief education correspondent rehema ellis, rehema, thank you, as always. we are back in just a moment with the salute being seen around the world tonight and the story behind it.

being a private banking client isn't what it used to be. from san francisco to silicon valley, boston private bank works with all kinds of people who are innovating, building, contributing -- individuals, business owners, private partnerships, non-profits, families planning their financial futures. people like you. if you want the individual attention and expertise your financial needs deserve, this is your time. this is your private bank. jane byrne has died. she was the first and only female elected mayor of chicago.

she served one term starting in '79. she won in part because chicagoans weren't happy with the snow cleanup after a blizzard. she ran as an outsider and had a tumultuous time of it in office. jane byrne was 81 years old. the staff at the nursing home in upstate new york could sense that justice bellfield, a world war ii veteran, wanted to mark this veterans day the way he always did in uniform. but this year he was just too weak to do it himself, so they helped him into it. they took a photo as he saluted. justice bellfield, jay to his friends, was gone the next morning. he said he wanted to go home and he did. jay bellfield was a veteran of the battle of the bulge, who retired at the rank of master sergeant. he was 98 years old. we all know the expression it's like finding a needle in a haystack. and it's evocotive and powerful because it sounds hopeless. but could it ever be considered art? how about the art of the possible? an italian artist decided it was art, and so for two days he sat

out trying to find a needle in a haystack. and he did. granted as needles go, it's a big one but maybe we'll be a little less cavalier about tossing that expression around in the future. well, you won't be hearing from al roker a whole lot this weekend. he is down until further notice as the new world record holder for the longest, uninterrupted weather report, 34 hours. it was made official this morning on "today." sounding a bit like harvey firestein toward the end, he was tired and raspy and loopy, normally he's just loopy, he is resting comfortably after raising more than $75,000 for the uso. here's to our friend al. when we come back, making a difference. finding success in life, and in this case how it all started in the barbershop.

"making a difference" brought to you by new aleve p.m. aleve p.m. for a better a.m. our friday night "making a difference" report comes to us from a viewer who watches us on wmaq in chicago who told us about his barber, a man who's discovered the key to success is sharing the wealth of what he's learned along the way. and we get his story tonight

from nbc's ron mott. >> i work at both stores or whatever, but i'll take care of them. >> reporter: for jerome williams taking care of number one means taking care of others. what's interesting is the location in a grocery store, how has that worked out? >> fantastic. >> reporter: he's a fixture at barbershops of northern indiana outside of chicago. an operation that started humbly five years ago with three barbers and now boasts 37. >> i took guys who didn't have any kind of clientele and put them in a place where a lot of people needed haircuts. >> reporter: after a career in the marines, williams went to nursing school but was honest with himself and got out. >> i realized that you don't want a person in health care that's just doing it for the money. >> reporter: so he tried his hand at barbering. and with his personality and penchant for wooing people has built a successful business as diverse behind the razors and scissors as those underneath them. >> the way he focuses on business and like how he makes things happen.

>> reporter: williams isn't merely satisfied with giving opportunities, he mentors, teaching his crew the ups and downs of ownership. ivan duncan has joined those ranks, partnering with williams in a shop that opened this summer at o'hare airport. >> jerome gave me that opportunity to work 24/7, said you could make as much money if you like. >> reporter: though williams clearly has financial goals for himself, seeing others reach theirs motivates him to keep jay's growing one barber at a time. >> perfect. >> it's important for me to help barbers become owners because once you're an owner, then you can help others. >> reporter: a philosophy he never wants to see out of style. >> it's good. >> reporter: ron mott, nbc news, highland, indiana. and a reminder, we are always looking for people who are making a difference. you can nominate someone in your life, in your community, share their story with us on our website, then perhaps see it here on our broadcast. that is our broadcast for this friday night and this week,

thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams. as always, we hope to see you right back here on monday night. in the meantime, have a good weekend. good night. funny thing about quarantine is everybody knows who you are. >> at 6:00, the doors are open. a stanford doctor ends his self-imposed quarantine on the peninsula. good evening. i'm raj mathai. >> i'm jessica aguirre. ebola-free and back seeing patients. for the first time in 21 days the bay area doctor was back at work treating patients at the stanford medical center. his ebola quarantine carried out in isolation at his peninsula home over. michelle roberts is live at

stanford medical center where that doctor i imagine is glad to be back among lots of people. >> reporter: yeah, he is received to be with his family and back at work. things have changed on campus since he's been away. there's a new ebola training facility so med students can learn firsthand what he experienced in west africa. >> nice to see you, welcome back. >> thank you. >> reporter: 21 days since dr. colin bucks has been in an exam room. until today he was limited to skype conversations from his redwood city home. the funny thing about quarantine is everybody knows who you are. >> reporter: the stanford doctor voluntarily quarantined himself following a trip to liberia where he treated ebola patients. >> it can be a devastating illness. it's a slow progression. >> reporter: dr. bucks arrived in the states days after california health officials set mandatory quarantine regulations for health workers returning from west africa. regulations bucks says aren't based in science. >> if i'd been in a restaurant, if i'd gone to a