we can share them on the air and online. >> we'll have the latest tonight at 6:00. see you then. on the broadcast tonight, firing back. the head of the cia calls reporters to the inner sanctum and defends his people for what they did while at war. monster storms turning roads into rivers, knocking out power. a dangerous night ahead in the west. a growing crisis at a major hollywood studio. it's a full-on hacking crisis now that should worry anyone who uses e-mail. a new accuser with frightening allegations with bill cosby. this time she's a well-known super model. more confusion after this newest study that says many women are getting a lot more radiation treatment than they need. so what are women in the middle of the fight supposed to do now? "nightly news" begins now.

from nbc news world headquarters in new york, this is "nbc nightly news" with brian williams. good evening. it's not often the director of the cia invites reporters and cameras inside that fortress, the repository of secrets just outside washington. then again it's not often the cia's own people are accused of torturing prisoners, even if it was in the days after an attack on our nation that killed thousands of innocent people. while he criticized those who went outside the bounds, the director today wouldn't talk about torture. and he had no answer for the larger question, are we better off? it's where we begin again tonight with our chief foreign affairs correspondent, andrea mitchell. >> reporter: the cia is fighting back. going public in an unprecedented live press conference from the agency's secretive headquarters in langley, virginia. cia director john brennan, invoking 9/11. >> this agency did a lot of things right during this

difficult time to keep this country strong and secure. >> reporter: while acknowledging some of the tactics since abandoned were abhorrent, he challenged the report's conclusion that harsh interrogations did not help find osama bin laden. >> do you think the bin laden case can be attributed in some part to enhanced interrogation techniques, or torture? >> the detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided information that was useful and was used in the ultimate operation to go against bin laden. >> reporter: brennan says it's impossible to know whether the cia could have gotten key intelligence without the harsh techniques. >> it's an unknowable fact. >> reporter: senator dianne feinstein watching from capitol hill live tweeted in part, study shows it is knowable. cia had info before torture, #readthereport. while president obama calls what happened torture -- >> as i've said before

constituted torture in my mind. >> reporter: his cia director would only call it eits, short for "enhanced interrogation techniques." >> waterboarding, slamming people against the wall. >> we are not contemplating at all getting back into the detention program using any of those eits. >> reporter: morale is a problem here after the senate report. the cia director acknowledged concern and dismay among the workforce, but says they remain focused on their mission. obama is standing firmly by his cia director, one of his closest advisers. >> the president wakes up every morning pleased to know that john brennan and the men and women of the cia are at work. >> reporter: brennan admits that the cia was unprepared to run the interrogation program. and that some officers went too far. tonight, that has given adversaries like russia the chance to crow. moscow is saying it is shocked by gross human rights violations by the american authorities. brian?

>> andrea mitchell back in our d.c. newsroom to start us off tonight. andrea, thanks. again tonight we turn to this huge storm crippling parts of the west coast. after months of zero relief from severe drought, californians are getting hit hard by the kind of rain they haven't seen in years. hundreds of thousands are without power right now. nbc's miguel almaguer has been out in it all day. tonight he's in hard-hit san francisco. miguel, good evening. >> reporter: brian, good evening. for the past 14 hours, we have seen stead rain here in san francisco. the city by the way, in some parts is under water. this storm delivering a vicious one-two punch. not just the rain but also the wind. chaos this morning on the streets of san francisco. a transformer explosion, leading to widespread power outages. mass gridlock shutting down the nation's fifth biggest city. downtown shut down with no traffic signals.

freeways were a mess. so much fog and rain drivers could barely see. 140 flights canceled at sfo. the weather too dangerous for ferries to alcatraz. those iconic cable cars grounded across the city. overnight the bay area was pounded. the rain flooding streets, the wind snapping power lines. by sun up 226,000 were in the dark without power. >> a lot of damage down there. >> reporter: no lights, no heat, no school or work. >> it would have been much better if i had known i didn't need to come to work. >> reporter: smashing waves battered the pacific coast all day long. monster swells topped 20 feet. in the sierra mountains, up to three feet of snow. whiteout conditions expected tonight. near lake tahoe, hurricane-force winds, enough to surf on. they were kayaking in wine country. some vineyards are under water.

flash flooding threatened to sweep drivers off the road. blame it on the pineapple express. >> the pineapple express is a nickname for an atmospheric river of moisture that develops down near the hawaiian islands and it carries heavy precipitation up to the pacific coast. >> reporter: in washington state a bridge collapse. others are threatened tonight. erosion washed away two homes. a third teeters on the edge. >> this is incredible. and this was wind-driven waves over the top of my deck. wiped everything out. >> reporter: in part, what makes this storm so dangerous is how slowly it is moving. in some regions it's dropped up to 12 inches of rain overnight. now it's moving to southern california. in parts of l.a., there were wildfires last month, there could be mudslides. brian? >> miguel almaguer in san francisco for us again tonight. miguel, thanks. we turn now to this massive electronic attack against sony

pictures. just today even more embarrassing, and make no mistake, stolen internal documents were put out there for all the world to see. but this raises concern that goes well beyond a movie studio in hollywood. it goes to every user of e-mail. we get our report tonight from nbc's stephanie gosk. >> you want us to kill the leader of north korea? >> yes. >> what! >> reporter: seth rogen and james franco hit the red carpet, for the premiere of the interview. they won't be interviewed themselves. sony pictures isn't inviting tv and print reporters to an event that is supposed to be all about publicity. in the wake of the cyber attack the hollywood giant is in damage control. every day facing new revelations. like the e-mail exchange between sony co-chairman amy pascal and movie producer scoot rudin, reported by buzz feed. in it racially tense speculation about president obama's taste in movies. today amy pascal issued an apology saying in part, the

content of my e-mails to scott were insensitive and inappropriate, but are not an accurate reflection of who i am. rudin apologized as well. private e-mails written in haste can result in offense where none was intended. i am deeply sorry. across hollywood e-mails are drying up. and the phones are ringing again. >> they know if there's anything sensitive or anything that they don't want to be read by the whole world, they're shifting those conversations to the phone. >> reporter: but this hack is not just e-mail. ed lee is the managing editor of the tech website recode which partners with nbc news. they have access to the documents. >> the hackers they claim they downloaded almost 100 terabytes of data. reams and reams of it. >> reporter: 100 terabytes are equal to 100,000 gigabytes, or roughly the data that can be stored in 781 of the most expensive new iphones. it's kind of the wikileaks of hollywood right now, isn't it? >> it's a little bit like that. the difference is they are

clearly out to damage sony and it's going to hurt the company in ways we haven't seen yet. >> reporter: whether it's a media giant or any other business, privacy is vital. now sony pictures and hollywood itself are exposed. stephanie gosk, nbc news, new york. another woman has come forward to accuse bill cosby of drugging her. this time the allegations are in "vanity fair" magazine. this time it's a woman who grew to prominence as a history making supermodel. we get our report on this tonight from national correspondent kate snow. >> reporter: beverly johnson was a ground breaking figure, a supermodel in the 1970s. now she's joining more than two dozen women who publicly accuse bill cosby. >> she was a supermodel, she was the first black woman to appear on the cover of "vogue." she does not have anything to gain by coming out and making an accusation. in fact, she probably has a lot to lose. >> reporter: johnson says she thought she was auditioning for a part on "the cosby show" when

she went to cosby's new york brownstone in the mid '80s. she claims cosby insisted she drink a cappuccino. i knew by the second drink of the drink cosby had given me i had been drugged and drugged good. she says she expected cosby would expect her to bend at his will, she fought back. he yanked her down the stairs, she says, and shoved her into a cab. an attorney for cosby had no comment on these latest allegations. johnson says even when she heard other women come forward, she still struggled with whether to tell her story. a voice in my head kept whispering, black men have enough enemies out there already, they certainly don't need someone like you, an african american with a familiar face and a famous name, fanning the flames, she writes. she says she thought about trayvon martin, michael brown and eric garner. >> we're living in an era where those young men were seen as thugs. so she wanted to combat the skepticism of black males' identity on the one hand, while holding this horrible secret on the other. >> reporter: johnson writes, i

reached the conclusion that the current attack on african american men had absolutely nothing to do with bill cosby. he brought this on himself. johnson's story comes one day after a defamation lawsuit against cosby. cosby's attorney responded to that suit saying we are very confident we will prevail in this proceeding. but the court of public opinion is already judging him. kate snow, nbc news, new york. we turn now to what's going on in washington. you might call it tonight's chapter of your congress at work. congress has a midnight deadline to pass a giant spending bill to keep the government funded and avert another shutdown. in plain english it's a massive mess, an attempt to get enough votes to pass something that may now anger too many lawmakers to pass anything. we get the very latest from capitol hill tonight from nbc's kelly o'donnell. >> reporter: as a gentle snow fell on the capitol, house speaker john boehner was in no mood for any threat to the $1 trillion government funding deal. >> and i do expect it to pass. but, listen, if we don't get

finished today, we're going to be here until christmas. >> reporter: but a democratic revolt was on. >> this is a ransom. this is blackmail. you won't get a bill unless wall street gets its taxpayer coverage. >> reporter: the outrages over proposed changes to financial reforms that would permit big banks to take high risk investments, using bank deposits insured by taxpayers. a last-minute addition that surprised many democrats. who are angry not only at republicans but their own president too. >> and i'm enormously disappointed that the white house feels that the only way they can get a bill is to go along with this. >> reporter: but privately president obama was already calling law-makers and dispatched his chief of staff to capitol hill to lobby for the 1600-page bill. pelosi fired off an e-mail to colleagues, claiming they had the leverage to fight to make late changes to this huge package. a deal that would keep the government running for a year.

hammered out by both democrat and republican negotiators. >> it does fulfill some of the -- many of the top line priorities that the president himself has long identified. >> reporter: but the liberal wing's newest star, senator elizabeth warren, was pushing back too. >> this is not about partisanship. this is about fairness. >> reporter: democratic votes are so essential because a block of house conservatives already said they wouldn't support it either. now, tonight both parties say they have a backup plan, passing a kind of short-term band-aid that would keep the lights on beyond the midnight deadline. brian? >> kelly o'donnell on capitol hill. thanks. still ahead for us tonight, a lot of understandable questions from women who are in the thick of the fight after this new breast cancer study that says a lot of patients are getting radiation treatment longer than they need.

we sometimes say around here, if you don't like the results of the newest study from the world of health and medicine, just wait for the next one to come out. well, this week's study however was no laughing matter. it's about breast cancer treatment and a finding that many women are getting radiation therapy for much longer than they need. and it may make for a confusing time for some who are in the middle of the fight at a time when treatment standards have been slow to change. we get our report tonight from our chief medical editor, dr. nancy snyderman. >> hi! >> hello.

>> how are you? >> reporter: at the breast cancer survivors network center near atlanta today, volunteer rebecca single remembers her experience with radiotherapy for early stage breast cancer was grueling. >> you're too tired to do anything after. >> reporter: her experience is typical, but need not be. a new study finds a shorter course of treatment is not being used despite being just as effective. this shorter treatment delivers a higher daily dose but over just three to four weeks. it's more convenient, has no more side effects and is less expensive than the longer course of treatment. at this san antonio breast cancer symposium today, experts say, despite strong evidence doctors have been slow to change how they treat patients. >> we are going to believe longer is better and more is better when it comes to cancer treatment. but the evidence tells us for some women less is actually more. >> reporter: today at nyu's cancer center, 57-year-old arlene shaner is happy to be getting the shorter course.

what questions should a woman ask her physician about radiation options? >> so definitely a patient should ask about the possibility of shortening the classical six or seven weeks of regular therapy and ask would she be fitting the criteria for shorter programs. >> reporter: so when you thought three to four weeks versus six to seven weeks, what does that mean? >> it means that there's a much closer end point. that i will be able to go back to thinking about my real life, my not-cancer life. >> doctors say the study shouldn't confuse women but should, in fact, enlighten them and give them the courage to ask their doctors, can a shorter course of radiation treatments work for me. we're talking about individualization. and this makes sense. >> important story tonight. nancy, thank you as always. we're back after a break. in a moment with an amazing

discovery tonight, hundreds of years after it was believed hidden by a man named paul revere.

golden globe nominations are out. and while you might want to see the entire list of nominees on our website, the biggest nomination getters were the films "bird man" and "boyhood." where the tv noms are concerned one critic said today it's clear they're watching the new stuff. some of the old stalwarts have faded away. no nominations for "modern family". "transparent" was nominated along with two netflix series. fresh evidence tonight of what we've become as a nation. only 64% of respondents in a new "new york times" poll say they still believe in the american dream. that's the lowest result in almost 20 years. speaks to deep pessimism about our upward mobility. a lot of americans still feel held down by debt. the feds report nearly 20% of americans with credit records

that's close to 43 million people are carrying unpaid medical debt. it's more than half of all credit debts. some people blame it on confusion over payments to insurance companies and hospitals. and they've made a happy discovery in boston completely by accident. what may be the oldest time capsule anywhere in our country. they it were excavating during repairs to the state house when some coins fell out of a green box. they say it might be the one that was buried in 1795 by paul revere and sam adams before he was a boston lager. we all get to find out what's in it when it gets opened next week. when we come back, that moment when young people learn that the sky is truly the limit. it's tonight's "making a difference" report.

good evening. i'm meteorologist jeff ranieri. we're tracking the strong storm across the bay area. we'll let you know when it moves out and full storm coverage in a few minutes. we'll see you then. most pilots will tell you they remember the moment when they first pulled back on that yoke and it seemed like the plane itself wanted to fly and then they were in the air. but you don't get to that moment without hours of direction, discipline, dedication, exactly what so many young people need to chart a course through life. we get tonight's "making a difference" report through one

of our resident pilots, nbc's ron mott. >> clear for takeoff. >> reporter: learning to fly isn't for the timid, what with all those buttons and moving parts. >> looking good. >> reporter: not to mention the lingo, the cramped quarters, and the occasional gut check, the cross-wind landing. but for these high school seniors, fear isn't a motivator. failure to accept daunting challenges is. >> can't lives on wall street, which means if you can't do it, you won't do it. you don't just learn how to fly, you learn how to think. overall it's one of the best experiences you can have. >> reporter: their confidence echoed here every thursday, inside an old converted fire house in a tough new jersey neighborhood outside newark. they're members of the eagle flight squad, nonprofit with the military bent, turning out private pilots since 1975. it was started by the reverend russell white, a former police

officer who didn't like the options facing a lot of young people around here. >> there's only three things out here in the streets, jail, hospital and cemetery. which one do you want? >> three takeoffs and landings within 90 days, correct? >> reporter: leadership, discipline and order are gospel here as much as fuel checks and touch-and-gos. >> wanted to fly ever since i can remember. >> reporter: hundreds of alumni like this pair of united airlines pilots make a point to stay in touch with each new class, making what's possible with preparation and focus. >> i would not be a pilot without eagle flight and reverend white, because this program exposed me to aviation. >> reporter: while flying certainly is the draw for eagle flight squadron. >> what we want to do is find out what are you going to do with your life, that's what we're talking about. your life. >> reporter: it's how one source outside the plane they care about most. ron mott, nbc news, east orange, new jersey. that's our broadcast on a thursday night. thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams. we, of course, hope to see you right back here tomorrow evening. goodnight.

nbc bay area news begins with a micro climate weather alert. right now at 6:00, one of the most anticipated storms in recent memory hits the bay area. as expected, it's packing a punch. never seen anything like this. >> roads overcome by rain and homes and businesses filled with water. >> you've got 4 inches of water. >> strong winds knocking out power and dealing crushing blows. >> it felt like an earthquake. the whole house was shaking. >> despite the chaos, some people finding a way to enjoy

this storm. want to show you a live look at the radar now. you can see a lot of green, which means the storm isn't quite done with us yet. good evening and thanks for joining us. i'm jessica aguirre. i'm raj mathai. we've been on most of the day with coverage. this is in san jose. the roof collapsed at this safeway store. we have a team of reporters across the region. let's begin with jeff ranieri in studio with us. like we said, it's not done yet. >> you know, the real thing that we're so concerned about at this hour is in a four-hour time that we've been here just tracking at least throughout the afternoon, team, we have seen this storm system move little to nowhere. our flooding threat remains very high at this hour. you can see the areas of orange and yellow on the radar. that is the heaviest rainfall we're tracking. the good news, marin and