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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

For military families with loved ones serving in Iraq, this holiday season comes with varying degrees of relief and anxiety, as the nine-year war in Iraq winds down and deployments come to an end. Members of the Kentucky National Guard, deployed nearly six months ago, are beginning to come home from Iraq.

Brenna Angel, from member station WUKY, has the story of one soldier who has mixed emotions about his desire to serve and the toll it takes on his family.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Bill Bratton is the former chief of police in Los Angeles, as well as Boston and New York. He helped introduced the system of predictive policing, and calls it the next era of crime prevention, and an evolution of community policing. Chief Bratton's now chairman of Kroll, a risk consulting company, and he joins us on the phone this morning. Thanks very much for being with us, chief.

BILL BRATTON: It's good to be with you, as always.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

As a young reporter, Tom Wicker covered a beaver dam for the Sandhill, North Carolina Citizen. He went on to travel the world as a White House reporter and columnist for the New York Times and was in Dallas on November 22nd, 48 years ago this week when John F. Kennedy was shot. It was in a world before cell phones and text messages.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The holiday shopping season started even earlier this year in hopes that consumers would spend more in these economic times. Macy's, Toy R Us, Target, all moved up their opening times - in some cases to Thanksgiving Day. Joining us now to talk about Black Friday is NPR correspondent Yuki Noguchi. You've been reporting the scenes in stores. What can you tell us about the volume of shopping?

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This year's Christmas Grinch may be Mother Nature. The Associated Press reports that historic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma have killed thousands of evergreen trees in those states, including trees being grown for sale at Christmas. Karen Barfield joins us now. She runs the Tinsel Time Christmas Tree Farm with her husband in New Caney, Texas.

Mrs. Barfield, thanks for being with us.

KAREN BARFIELD: You're welcome.

SIMON: What's your farm look like now after the drought?