bedroom property zuckerberg gave oprah a tour of last month. we have no word where he may be moving to next. nbc nightly news is next. and more local news on the bay area at 6:00. showdown. president obama back home after a saturday defeat over tax cuts. blast of winter. a big headache for air travelers where is this storm headed next? firestorm. americans on their way to the front lines to help. and going home. our extraordinary journey out of harm's way with some of our extraordinary journey out of harm's way with some of america's wounded warriors. captions paid for by nbc-universal television

good evening. back from a whirlwind visit to the war zone, president obama today faced the twin realities of stubbornly high unemployment and a big decision over what to do about the bush-era tax cuts. the president was traveling to afghanistan yesterday when we learned the unemployment rate rose to 9.8% last month. and then today he got home in time to witness some colorful political theater on capitol hill over one of his key campaign promises, middle class tax relief which tonight is looking more like class warfare. nbc's mike vickera is at the white house to start us out. mike, good evening. >> reporter: the clock is ticking on the bush-era tax cuts and tempers are running high and some are hoping that a partisan clash in the senate can lead to a bipartisan compromise within a few days.

arriving home with the dog. the president after his surprise trip to afghanistan. and later at midday, offering his first reaction to the latest bad news on unemployment. despite 11 consecutive months of private sector job growth. despite creating more than 1 million private sector jobs this year, it's not enough. >> but the big issue today, taxes. with rates for all americans set to go up at the end of the month, the fight in congress spilled over into the weekend. >> because you new yorkers think you can make us midwesterners look bad. >> senate democrats forced votes on keeping rates lower for the middle-class, but allowing them to rise for wealthier americans. >> let us not give tax breaks today to the millionaires and billionaires of this country who in many ways have never had it so good. >> republicans counter that any tax hike now would be a blow to a still-fragile economy. >> we feel you should not raise taxes on anybody during a recession. >> a solid wall of republicans joined by a handful of democrats

voted no. >> the motion is not agreed to. >> leaving supporters short of the 60 votes needed to pass. with the outcome never in doubt, republicans called the debate a waste of time. >> until the partisan votes have been cast and then and only then will people sit down to seriously negotiate how we're going to resolve the issue. >> those negotiations are already under way. with top administration officials meeting with congressional leaders behind closed doors. many expect mr. obama to agree to a temporary extension of cuts for the wealthy cupped with renewal of unemployment benefits. with today's votes out of the way, the president called for a quick agreement with republicans. >> it will require some compromise, but i'm confident we can get it done. >> reporter: with the jobless rate a top concern, mr. obama touted a breakthrough, new agreement with south korea on the tariff lowering trade pact, poe ten shapoe -- potentially the biggest of its kind since nafta.

>> including the opening of the korean services market will support 70,000 american jobs. >> lester, that trade deal is is not a done deal quite yet. it requires congressional approval and while trade is one area where republicans are expected to cooperate with the president, already one prominent democrat has come out against the deal. lester? >> thanks. long time nbc capitol producer, ken strickland joins us now to offer his insight. based on what we saw today the votes are not there to limit tax cuts to the middle class. so what happens behind closed doors now? >> we move from the public spectacle of partisan bickering and move into closed-door, hard-core negotiations. republican leaders are going to meet with democrats in this very, very small group with two white house officials to hammer this out. with only a few weeks left to go in this congressional session, many of the president ae priorities are also on the table as part of the negotiations. the top two, unemployment insurance benefits. those expired for millions of americans this week. and the nuclear reduct, treat

with russia. so far, republicans have been able to keep that from coming to the floor for a vote. >> assuming the president and democrats are forced to make compromise do's they come away empty-handed or get something out of the deal? >> it all depends on how the negotiations play out. it's harder to find out who wins and who loses, but one thing is clear. it seems that at the end of the day there will be a tax extension for all americans, both the middle income and the high income earners, so at end of the day republicans and democrats will still be able to claim some level of victory. >> ken strickland, good to have you on. thank you. >> the battle lines over jobs and taxes will be part of the conversation tomorrow morning on "meet the press." david gregory's guest includes republican leader of the senate, mitch mcconnell and democratic senator john kerry. chicago's first real snowfall this season made it slow or no-going for some travelers in and out of o'hare airport today, one of the biggest and busiest hubs for travel, and tonight that same storm system is on the

move. the weather channel's jeff morrow joins us from o'hare. jeff, good evening. >> good evening, lester. yeah, the calendar may say winter isn't here for a couple of more weeks, but for all intents and purposes it arrived today. we got about 3 to 4 inches of snow around the shig area that did snarl the traffic here at o'hare airport. 325 flights had to be canceled and delays ran from a half hour to over an hour at times and the snow is not quite done here yet and while the airport didn't fare so well, other roadways were doing a little bit better. to be honest this kind of storm happens a lot in the midwest over the winter, 2 to 3 to 4 inches, but what people might not be prepared for is the magnitude of the cold air that is going to be coming here into the central and eastern parts of the country as we head into the next 24 to 48, even 72 hours. by tuesday morning we're talking about temperatures running some 10 to 15 to 20 degrees fahrenheit below average for this time of year. it will feel more like

mid january than early december. and while a little bit of snow in the air today may people feel in the holiday spirit, i'm afraid lester, that the cold air may have them hoping for maybe another holiday, say, maybe the fourth of july. it's going to be that cold. >> sounds good, jeff morrow with the cold, hard facts from chicago tonight. thanks. >> across europe, 60 people are now dead from severe weather. bitter cold and lots of snow. britain is still struggling to recover after transportation came to a screeching halt for several days this week. in vienna, parts of the tram system are frozen and poland is bracing for more snow tonight. the world now including the u.s. is helping israel to fight a deadly forest fire, the worst in israeli history near the port of haifa. one big problem, israel doesn't have fire fighting planes. john ray of our british partner, itn, has an update on the effort to get the fire under control. >> reporter: they're fighting a running battle with the flames and often losing.

the village of reinhardt, was a haven for artists and now a picture of destruction. 17,000 people have fled their homes. this fire has been too big for israel's emergency teams to combat alone. they have lacked numbers, but not courage. among the dead, 16-year-old alyad rivan, a trainee fire fighter shown here last year. on thursday, he skipped school to join his crew and lost his life in a doomed attempt to save a bus carrying prison guards. most of the victims in the fire perished. as for the cause, police have made two arrests. >> the initial results that we have at the moment is that it was -- it took place as a result of negligence. our units are continuing that investigation which is obviously going to be a thorough investigation. >> the burning hillsides are now being attacked from the skies. aircraft from many nations answering israel's call for help. even the palestinians have offered what aid they can.

flight after flight, dumping water and fire-killing chemle kalz. chem chemicals. the biggest so far, this plane sent by russia, but even it will be dwarfed by the american super tanker due to arrive overnight. and as darkness fell, another outbreak, and another emergency call. the fires have been raging now for three days and three nights and all around me here the trees are still smoldering. this has been a huge, natural disaster and a terrible human tragedy. and for israel, a wake-up call. in a nation where every acre of land is so precious, might more have been done to protect it? john ray, nbc news in northern israel. he is one of the most wanted men in the world and tonight an arrest may be imminent for julian assange, the man behind wikileaks and there are new problems tonight for his website which which has gone public with millions of classified military and diplomatic records. nbc's peter alexander is live in london for us with the latest. peter?

>> lester, good evening to you. even as julian assange's window of freedom is closing, the wikileaks site continues exposing more of the sensitive diplomatic cables. the newest documents released detail extensive computer hacking operations in china. why were chinese leaders so obsessed with the web? according to the cables, they were googling themselves and unhappy with the criticisms they found. even as julian assange reveals more documents threatening damage and embarrassment to the u.s. and its allies, the legal process to detain the wikileaks founder for allegation s of sex crimes is moving forward. >> in case he's arrested, he will fight the extradition from whatever country he's arrested in. >> while assange battles for his personal freedom, he's also fighting to keep his site online. the latest difficulty, paypal

cut off donations for wikileak s saying the service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. >> meanwhile, an internet game of cat and mouse continues with two american service providers dropping wikileaks and france, working to ban the site from its servers, too. still in sweden, assange's service remained safe in an underground former military bunker. >> as long as there are no legal claims from the proper swedish authorities they will stay. >> the 39-year-old australian computer hacker is wanted in sweden for accusations of rape and sexual molestation made by two women in august, detailed in this 68-page court document obtained by nbc news. assange adamantly denies the allegations and his attorney insists the investigation is dirty tricks. the swedish prosecutor disagrees. >> this has been handled exactly as every other case we have been following the normal procedure.

>> reporter: assange remains defiant. he wrote, the cablegate archive has been spread to over 100,000 people in encrypted form. if something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically. also in that online q & a, assange says no matter what happens to him, lester, quote, history will win. the world will be elevated to a better place. >> peter alexander, thanks. >> still ahead as "nightly news" continues this saturday, my trip on a special flight carrying america's wounded soldiers on the way out of afghanistan. also ahead, who killed ronni chasen? who police are saying about the man who supposedly bragged about her murder. and later, an emotional reunion nearly 70 years in the making against all odds.

president obama did not have a chance to see the battlefield in his short trip to afghanistan yesterday, but he did see the war through the eyes of injured soldiers he met at the bagram military hospital. we began our own journey home in afghanistan by way of germany at the same hospital just a week ago in the company of wounded warriors. thanksgiving night, two more soldiers are going home the hard way. the bagram airfield hospital, the last stop for the wounded on their way out of afghanistan. inside, the staff can already see what kind of night it's going to be. >> i see one, two, three, four, five traumas there and this

tells you rpg blast? >> yeah, we've got -- it looks like a couple of traumas from the eastern part of afghanistan, along the border. >> most of the wounded are first treated at field surgical hospitals close to the battlefield. many will undergo surgery at bagram, but it won't be their last. >> it's a mistake they found to try to do everything at once. you know, you do what you can to initially stabilize and then maybe you do the second stage surgery and even a third stage surgery while they're here in theater. >> next it's on to germany. that's where army medic keith chummily is headed tonight. >> where were you hit? >> i got a lot of, like, shrapnel. >> peppered up and down my legs and my waist. >> chummily, an iraq veteran as well, was wounded by an ied blast while treating a soldier from an earlier attack, but he's already talking about going back. >> you know, a lot of people would say you've done enough already. you went to iraq. you've been here.

you've been wounded. why do you want to go back? >> it's kind of like your second family. you don't want to kind of leave them hanging. >> for now chummily and 16 others are carried on stretchers, bussed to the flight line and taken aboard a c-17 cargo plane where a medical team awaits them. >> there's a lot of pride in taking our troops home, taking care of them. >> reporter: the plane designed to carry everything from tanks to paratroopers is specially configured for this mission. the patients make the long journey on litters stacked three high. a flying hospital ward. >> we give them medication, but we let them rest because those guys have been through a lot. >> a soldier wounded in war today has a 98% survival rate and will usually be back in the u.s. within three days and that compares to a 75% survival rate back in desert storm in the '90s. wounded from afghanistan and iraq all stopped through landstuhl military hospital in

germany which since 2004 has treated almost 13,000 battle injuries. >> what's the most difficult part of this job? >> um, i think the patients when they -- when they die. our mission is to help them, but also send them back home because then their family can see them and take care of them and be there and when they pass away here, that's the hardest for me is the families, the mothers and the dads that don't get to see them. >> the bagram flight arrives at ramstein air base on a snowy friday morning. the patients are bussed to landstuhl. keith chummily will spend at least a night here before heading back to the states while a wounded 19-year-old navy corpsman who was also on the bagram flight was granted a simple request. >> we've got you a flag, man. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you for your service. thank you for all that you've done. bless you. heal fast. >> i was in -- >> okay? go home to those who love you.

>> a simple request for a noble sacrifice. that thursday night medevac flight we were on is one of several scheduled throughout the week. business, sadly, has been that brisk. up next here tonight, the latest strange twist in a murder, a hollywood murder mystery.

it has turned into a real hollywood whodunit. who murdered publicist ronni chasen. police thought they had a strong lead in the case, but the man they wanted to question killed himself when officers arrived to talk to him, now they're raising new doubts about where he fits in if at all. nbc's george lewis now with the latest twist in this murder-mystery. >> reporter: a to days after

ronni chasen was gunned down in this beverly hills neighborhood. >> she was rushed to the hospital, but died an hour later. >> a tipster called the tv show "america's most wanted" to say this that man, ex-convict harold smith had been bragging that he did it. after the show's producers alerted police, smith killed himself wednesday night as officers approached him. multiple law enforcement source s called smith a suspect. but in a press release, the beverly hills police department said, quote, at this time it is unknown if this individual was involved in the chasen homicide. >> we've had a lot of cases where people have admitted to murders they didn't commit and that's where you have to be very careful and be very fact oriented. >> reporter: now it's been widely report ed the gun the man used to kill himself was not the same weapon useded in chasen murder. beverly hills police would neither confirm nor deny those reports. chasen's brother, larry cohen offered his own theory about the murder.

in an interview with the website showbiz 411 he said, i'm sure it was road rage. i'm sure it was some kind of random thing. but people who knew chasen say she was a careful driver and not likely to be a victim of road rage. was ronni chasen being threatened by someone before her death? a close friend and executor of her $6 million estate says she doesn't think so. >> there was no indication to me this summer. we talked a lot about a lot of things, that, you know, she expected that anything like this would happen. believe me, this woman expected to live on and on. >> reporter: and now her violent death has hollywood on edge. george lewis, nbc news, los angeles. we have some video to show you that may make your heart race. at a train station in madrid yesterday a man fell on to the tracks. closed-circuit video camera was rolling when it happened. passengers of the opposite side

began screaming and gesturing to alert the operator of an oncoming train. then an off-duty police officer, a rookie who just graduated from the police academy ran on to the tracks and pulled the man to safety, just seconds before the train arrived. a very, very close call. here in new york city, it's a deal after a month of talks that at times were pretty testy. derek jeter and the new york yankees have come to terms on a new contract and jeter will stay with the only pro team he's ever played for. newspaper reports say jeter who will turn 37 in june will be paid between $15 and $17 million each year for three years. up next, two cousins torn apart in the worst of times back together with a lot to share.

finally here tonight, an emotional family reunion nearly 70 years in the making. two cousins separated in world war ii sent to concentration camps by the nazis, not sure if they would live or die are back together now. nbc's ron mott has their story. >> reporter: if absence makes the heart grow fonder, 85-year-old saul dreier and his 82-year-old cousin lucy weinberg have a lot of pent-up love to share. >> 65 years. 65 years. >> a holocaust survivor, saul thought everyone in his large family was killed during that traumatic time except for a great-grandfather who died before world war ii, but in the '60s he learned cousin lucy made

it out alive with him and spent more than four decades looking for her. >> amother? survivor with me. an embrace long in the making. >> we were in a family of 35 people, and everybody perished. only i survived. when i hear that she survived, at least we got two people. >> we are always together. >> reporter: in april saul found out lucy was living in canada. >> it's a miracle. >> reporter: thanks to the red cross which has helped connect survivors like saul with lost loved ones for 20 years. >> it was amazing that we were able to get them together, able to get them down here in south florida to spend the first night of hanukkah together after more than 60 years. it's incredibly amazing. >> reporter: saul says he pretty much had given up ever finding lucy, a fruitless search that went all of the way to israel. rumor has it, lucy was at a big event in saul's life all those many years ago, but he doesn't recall it that way. >> she claims that she came to my bar mitzvah, but i don't remember. >> reporter: what high knows for

certain is the sustaining power of love, how it grows even stronger especially when apart. >> thank you very much. >> reporter: ron mott, nbc news. and that's "nbc nightly news" for this saturday. i'm lester holt reporting from new york. i'll see you tomorrow morning on "today" and then back here tomorrow evening. for all of us at nbc news, good night. good evening, i'm diane dwyer. friends of t