healthy you. fox news alert, u.s. military aircraft shot at in africa today. some of our people are hurt tonight. it has been breaking news on on this saturday and now fresh reaction from washington. welcome to "america's news headquarters." i'm harris falkner. several were injured by the gunfire after three osprey were hit from small arms fire from the ground by what we are told now are unknown forces. the troops are trying to evacuate american citizens from an area that has seen some of the worst violence in the war torn nation. the four service members we are told in stable condition and one is still listed as serious at this point. the white house is issuing a statement saying, quote, any

effort of trying to seize power through the military force will result in the end of long-standing support from the united states and the international community. and congressman michael mccall and chairman of the foreign affairs committee says i condemn the attack on u.s. troops in south sedan. the united states has been a strong supporter of south sudan and we will not tolerate violence on our soldiers evacuating american diplomats. we will update you as more news comes forth. and here at home, president obama has headed to hawaii for his christmas vacation along with his family just days before a critical deadline for the affordable care act. as many americans call it, obamacare. president obama arriving in honolulu hours ago. it comes days before another key deadline for the health care law. amid lingering enrollment

issues, today is the 21st and that deadline in two days. doug mckelway, wow it is gorgeous there, doug. >> it is beautiful, and it feels even more gorgeous than it looks, harris. i have to tell you the deadline you mentioned just two days away now. that's december 23rd. and that's when people who want to be covered through the exchanges have to be signed up. that's the deadline if they want the coverage by the first of january. we are looking for a surge and it is another test of the website on december 23rd and another test for the insurance companies who say they have been besieged with changes. the most recent change are tweaks to obamacare. as you know it came on thursday when the administration announced it was granting an exemption to the individual mandate for those people who lost their insurance coverage. and those people would get catastrophic coverage in exchange for that. the president calls this just another safety net for those people, but the insurance companies say this is a major obstacle to effective prayings. effective operation.

>> allowing people to buy policies outside of the market or to opt out altogether really under mends -- underminds the fundamental structure and what is needed to ensure we have a stable market place and to prevent premiums from going through the roof. >> the republican opponents describe these kinds of tweaks as rule by executive fiat, add strafe -- administrative fiat. he says he will make these tweaks as long as necessary. >> i just want to help as many people as possible feel secure and make sure they don't go broke when they get sick. we will just keep on doing that. >> in his gop weekly response, the gop congressman from illinois said he just wants to repeal the whole darn thing. that's sentiment we continue to hear. he says we ought to scrap it and continue with the approach of lower costs, more choice and more freedom and competition. so these two deadlines are extremely important. december 23rd and the actual start up

of the affordable care act on the first of january. all while the president is here on a working vacation emphasis on the working part. harris. >> and of course the deadlines are so sharp for those people who received the cancellation notices. now they are cramming and trying to shop for health care. thank you very much. the president was grilled about spying on american citizens at his end of the year news conference they called yesterday and it was going on about this time. and today the director of national intelligence has declassified more documents about the nsa surveillance programs including new details about how that agency was first authorized to start collecting bulk phone and internet records in the hunt for al-qaeda terrorists. today's move comes as president obama is reportedly considering some major changes to the agency's controversial surveillance program including possibly shifting data storage away from the nsa and leaving it up to the phone companies instead. police have picked up four

men in connection with the deadly carjacking in new jersey. all of them are accused now in the death of 30-year-old dustin freedlant. he was shot in the head in front of his wife last week after the couple just returned to their car after doing some christmas shopping. bryan is live in new york. this has a lot of people really nervous, bryan because they are all shopping. >> of course. it was a horrific event and the five-day manhunt came to an end last night and early this morning when the four men were arrested and charged with murder and being held on $2 million bail. they now face up to life in prison. now police say really they have no other motive for committing the crime except for truly they wanted to steal his luxury range rover. the suspects are identified as 31-year-old ford, 33-year-old roberts, 29-year-old thompson and 32-year-old henry. in addition to murder they face several charges including carjacking and possession of a weapon. police say the four men were

targeting freeland's 2012 silver range rover in the mall parking garage. he was about to get into the driver's side of the suv when he was approached by two of the men and shot. the range rover was later found about 10 miles away in newark. really the attack was just the latest in an epidemic of carjackings in essex county, new jersey. this year there have been 450 carjackings. that's an all-time high. according to the national insurance crime bureau, they say there was a national increase in car thefts in 2012 for the first time in eight years. and that number is expected to rise again this year. the nicb also says the new york, new jersey area has the highest number of suv and cuv thefts in the nation. just this week officials in the new york tri-state area sent out an alert warning drivers that more luxury cars are being targeted while technology has made it more difficult to steal cars it could be a reason we are seeing more violent

carjackings. >> the old days of hot wiring a car are pretty much just that, the old days. you can't do that in a lot of new cars today. your only option is to get the key or the device that starts the car from the owner, and then you've got the car. if you can only do that when the owner is present at the vehicle, you have a set up for a carjacking. >> experts say be aware of your surroundings when you are parking your car, and from you confronted, give up the keys. your life is more available than the vehicle. harris? >> basic stuff that sometimes in the heat of it though you sometimes can forget. people think they can change things for themselves. thank you very much. it is officially winter today, and i guess nature knows that. like clockwork a winter mess is cooking up and on the move. never a good time, but with millions about ready to travel for christmas it is dangerous. let's go to our weather center now. >> it is very spring-like harris. we have tornado watches and warnings right now.

this watch is until 6:00 p.m. local and 8:00 p.m. local here and we have some rotation with some of these cells east of shreveport and up toward memphis, west of meme fess. some of these tornadoes could be wrain wrapped and the rainfall could be in excess of 4 to 5 inches. incredible rain and the threat for severe storms including tornadoes through the afternoon and the evening. on the cold side fed storm, six to eight inches of snow and then an icy mix as we head across the great lakes and the new england area. in some cases we could get over an inch of ice which could be crippling for this area. heavy rain and a lot of snow and this very dangerous ice over the next 12 to 24 hours, harris. we will continue to monitor it and bring you the latest. back to you. >> janice, thank you very much. we will come back to you as the news warrants. the salvation army is struggling to overcome a double blow to the holiday fundraising efforts. recent icy and snowy weather,

speaking of weather, have cut into the amount collected by the organization's red kettle campaign. and a later than usual thanksgiving has reduced the number of days which the campaign can receive donations as well. >> we knew that we were going to have a problem this year because of the five fewer days. and we knew exactly how much money that was going to be represented, 22.7 million, and so from the very beginning we have said to people, you know, it is important that we get the kettles out there and that everything -- everybody be told that it is important to go on and give. >> people interested in helping out can host their own on-line red kettle at on-line red kettle .org. and you can text the word kettle to 80888 and let me make sure that's at the bottom of the screen. it should be. we will do that for you later, before we get off this half hour to donate $10. we need it up for to you do it. drama on the high seas. caught on tape, two men

outside their boat clinging to a cooler. they are waiting for help to arrive. and there it is on the other end of that camera. and as we mentioned moments ago your time is running low if you need to sign up for obamacare if you want to make sure it goes into affect on january 1st. they are continuing to tweak the policy. how will that affect the troubled rollout of the law and what you need to do in two days coming up.

a a it was more than an hour of reporter questions yesterday even though some were decidedly not very hard. before going on vacation in hawaii president obama talked about his signature health care law in the end of the year press conference. >> the fact of is it didn't happen in the first months, the first six weeks, in a way that was at all acceptable.

since i am in charge we obviously screwed it up. >> screwed it up. i was anchoring our coverage for the fox broadcast stations. our senior editor of "the daily caller" joins us now and i was looking on twitter as i was anchoring at the same time and people were dismayed by the softball questions that were tossed at the president. there was a particularly difficult one at the top. and that was was this the toughest year of your presidency? let's take a quick look at that and i want to get your thoughts on it. they are shaking their heads at me in the studio. we don't have that ready, but we will roll it in a second. jaime, did you watch much of the news conference yesterday? >> i did watch it. i watched it again last night, a little bit of it. it showed a president who is kind of trying to defend policies that are unpopular with the american people, a press that seems a little more skeptical than they were of him before, even though sometimes they ask softball

questions like what is your new year's resolution? so this is a president who has lost some of his magic, i think. >> they will let me know when they have that ready, but meanwhile i want to talk about what you called magic right then. other people may look at the polls and call it popularity or favor blilt, if you will. and there were stunning numbers that came out of fox news polling. those are popping up on the screen. you and i were tweeting about this earlier that the fox news poll says 46% have a favorable opinion of obama and 52% have an unfavorable opinion. look how it stacks up with bill clinton and george w. bush. i know it is toughest when you actually have the job at the moment. but what are your thoughts about this? >> i think there are two things i take away from this. one is, yes, president obama's approval has dropped dramatically, especially in the wake of the health care implementation failure. i think it will continue to drop as some of the things

that he continues to say are going to happen don't happen or i think are dishonest. i think there is actually a silver lining in here for the president. and that is he can see no matter how far his poll numbers fall, americans tend to forget with time why they dislike the president after he is out of office and their poll numbers begin to rise again. you can see that with president bush and president clinton. they get the benefit of the fact that they are not engaged in the knity gritty of politics and policy when they are out of presidency and their popularity tends to increase. >> during the course of this our own ed henry asked about the nsa and he called him particularly out on, well, six months ago you said that what you were doing in your spying programs were on balance with what needed to be done to protect the country, so on and so forth. and now you are calling for changes. what did you think about the president's answer? >> well, you know, this is a whole scenario that goes back from when he first campaigned against john mccain.

he referred to president bush's policy on the war on terror as a false choice between freedom and security. and that there didn't need to be a choice and it wasn't difficult decisions. it was fairly easy things that could be done to protect the country and avoid infringing on american civil liberties. we come to find out that he has increased the security state. depending on your perspective might be necessary to protect the homeland, but it does not go to what he said originally which was you didn't need to do these things because there wasn't as difficult choices to be made. and now he is saying just the opposite, that there are difficult choices that need to be made. sometimes you have to do things that may infringe upon americans' liberties in order for security. so it is a flip-flop from what he said when he was campaigning. >> wow. those are tough words to hear, flip-flop, especially whether you looking at an approval rating that is presipitous in the last few months. the president is talking about the pr about obamacare. pr moving forward for this president because the next

fight he faces is the deficit battle. >> well, you know, i think he faces a deficit battle and of course there is going to be -- the debt ceiling battle. but i think he will be facing this health care battle through all of next year. i still think he is saying things to the american public that are not quite true. which is, you know, you might be losing your health plan, but it is a small number of people. even the administration has added -- has admitted that a small amount of people expect 91 million americans and a midrange estimate to lose their current health policies or have to see them significantly changed. i think there is a lot of balls to drop on this. as much as he goes into facing the debt ceiling battle he will be followed by the health care daubach kill and it will help him -- debacle and it will help him going into membery have been telling him that and talking about it openly in public. thank you for joining us today. tense moments and it was necessary for them to do this to finks something.

we will talk about it. one of the astronauts lost one of the o rings. detailed on that next. >> one of those o rings, houston. >> it floated out, but it is still -- i can get it. >> okay, copy that, rick. best effort and get that in the trash bag as well.

drama at sea caught on tape. two fishermen rescued after their boat started taking on water off australia. they were found early this morning, 15 hours they hung on to a large cooler in the middle

of the ocean near south wales. we're told they will be okay. important and dangerous work underway on the international space station. a key part of it in the history books today as two american astronauts ventured outside the station and successfully removed an old cooling pump. also during the space walk, a small oaring started floating away. >> it floated out, but it's -- i can get it. >> okay, copy that. best effort and get that in the trash bag as well. >> i got it, i got it, i got it. barely. have it. >> don't let that go. that's a stucking stuffer. >> yeah. don't tell my wife. >> yeah, they're like 50 million people watching. but don't tell my wife. joining me now, former nasa astronaut, jose hernandez, with the details on this. it's good to see you. tell us about that o ring.

will it fit inside a stocking? >> yes. it's a small o ring, part of the parts as they unscrew the screws to remove the pump, little parts that come out and he should have caught that and makes a nice souvenir for christmas. >> this is dangerous work, though. that's the whole point of this. what can go wrong? >> one of the things that could go wrong, of course, is that it -- undoing the screws, they tend to get real tight and astronauts sometimes have trouble loosening up the screws to remove the whole fuel pump. fuel pumps, are as big as a large size refrigerator. so these are one of the parts that do fail. so we foresaw that and we had one waiting as a spare. that's what allows us to replace it right away. >> i want to talk to people about five hours, 28 minutes, that is a long time to be doing what they're doing.

>> actually it was a short space walk. they usually last from six to seven hours. but because they were moving ahead of schedule, they believe that they could perhaps do this whole replacement of the fuel pump, of the ammonia tank pump in two space walks as opposed to three. >> wow. i know i was reading it as it was crossing the urgent wires. they've done it in an hour under schedule. it's hard to concentrate that long. but on average, this was really good. what went right here? >> what went right is that we choreographed these type of repairs. what happens is we have a swimming pool where we have about a third of the international space station underwater and we actually choreograph these type of replacements. i even participated myself in one of these replacements under water. so every step is choreographed. we do about ten space walks per one space walk that we actually do up in space. we train ten under water.

it's something that the astronauts are very well trained for. >> fascinating. good to have you along with your expertise. next part of the mission is early next week. good to see you. thank you. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. >> before we go, i have to keep a promise. mentioned earlier people interested in helping out the salvation army can host their own on-line red kettle mission. on-line red kettle.org or text the word kettle and there it is at the bottom of the screen just like i promised. 80888. you can donate $10 when you text the word kettle there. busy half hour. glad you watched. i'm hair russ faulkner. in 8 seconds, my friends on "the five" are on of the we'll see you at 7 for the fox report.

i'm kimberly guilfoyle with bob beckel, dana perino and greg gutfeld fell and others. this is the the five. the fire storm over phil robertson's gay comments continued today. a & e might be fine walking away from phil, but the robertson family made clear they are sticking by him. in a statement, the family said, quote, we are disappointed that phil has been placed on hiatus for expressing his faith, which is his constitutionally protected right. we can not imagine the show going forward without our patriarch at the helm. we are in discussions with a & e to see what the future is with "duck dynasty." the gay community has since