good morning, everyone. it's 6:00 a.m., and here is your wednesday morning kick start. in news, a woman and her two sons missing this morning. deputies in highlands ranch need help finding them. jennifer laber was last seen tuesday afternoon picking up her kids from bear canyon be protecting children now stands accused of sexually assaulting a student at ponderosa high school in parker. gary postel is a security officer at the high school. he was arrested monday shortly after the report was made. throughout the town of gatlinburg, tennessee, there is hardly anything left, just the concrete or stone foundations where buildings once stood. fast-moving wildfires tore through the city this week, forcing thousands to evacuate. so far three people have died.

from that crashed plane in colombia will reveal what caused it. it happened monday night. 77 people were on the plane, only six survived. cuban president raoul bid farewell to his brother tuesday night. tens of thousands of people pack add plaza in havana to mourn their former leader who died friday. two more announcements are expected from the top trump team today. campaign finance chair, steven mnuchi the treasury secretary and william ross will be tapped as commerce secretary. >> still up in the air who's going to be donald trump's secretary of state. mitt romney and president-elect trump had dinner last night to discuss the position. the former massachusetts governor says he is increase -- he has increasing hope about the president-elect. c.u. football keeps creeping up. the college football playoff rankings. their win over utah last saturday bumped them up from number 9 to number 8. they will

championship on friday. >> big night friday. freezing temperatures overnight and 10 degrees here in the 9 news studios. it will warm up a bit today as the sun comes up, meteorologist marty coniglio is in the 9news back yard. marty, just over a week ago we were in the 60s, a 50-degree drop, but what is that among friends? no big deal >> it's what we do around here. it is a calm, cold morning this morning. d.i.a. bumped up now to 13. we do have a pretty good spread in the temperatures depeg town,running from the low teens in some spots to the upper 20s in others. that is pretty consistent over the front range. it is very cold ?fin the mounta

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they can't say much because of privacy concerns, but they have sent a letter out to parents. postel is on unpaid administrative leave and he's banned from campus while this investigation takes place. postel has an initial court date set for friday. douglas county sheriff's office says they are looking for more information on this. they say if you have any information on this, they'd like you to get back to them on that. cheryl. >> all right, andrew, thanks so much. it's 6:05 now. a member of a biker gang admits to his role in year-old taralewindowsky. scott henchette pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first- degree murder. he's one of seven people involved in the september 2015 stabbing death of lewindowsky in the town of pierce. court documents show that former town board member tara orchestrated her murder along with hench et and other members of the biker gang. he says he killed the woman over an argument about drugs. two lafayette businesses were vandalized within moments of each other, now police need

people who did it. one of the crimes appears racially motivated. someone spray painted two racial slurs on the las montanas market on public road. that was on monday night. a few minutes later somebody threw something through the window two blocks away of the eats and sweets restaurant and then ran off. you can see a customer was inside at the time and had to just get out of the way to avoid being hit. finding a warm place to stay is a struggle for homeless people during the winter collins hopes to help. it's called a safe place to rest and it creates shelters at community-based sites in the city which only has two permanent shelters where people can stay right now. the team over at in connection talked to chief sustainability officer jackie cozach which is based off a similar model being used in nashville, tennessee. >> it is also a flexible model that allows for some of the things that maybe our permanent shelters can't, so some of the

pets, so we're really piloting this year to test our community capacity to have mnan ongoing program like this as th city's e two main shelters. if those shelters are out of spe, they will transport people to the community sites where they can stay. labels on all sun visors of all new vehicles. the labels would have instructions ow to file tyn they provide could bring about an investigation or possible recall. the agency uses consumer complaints to spot safety problems and wants a be way tolwvz?wmore people to comain and tell them about potentia?u ?rsa sues bause a complaint could mean safety for some others. >> sure. >> you heard it here first,

heard that? >> let's just not take that too far though, okay? >> exactly. let's check the weather. marty has that. so, may, it says 10 degrees on the bottom of the screen there. is that here at the studio? >> it is not. you know what? i don't know where that is, seriously. >> oh, sorry. >> i got to ask the chief engineer that question. i ask a dozen times. he has never given me a satisfactory answer. >> maybe the d.i.a. temperature. >> it's not. d.i.a. is 13, so i honestly don't know where that >> scott, if you're listening, i'd love to know where that comes from. snow moving into the area here friday morning into the afternoon, foothills and down toward monument hill. we continue to see snow piling up in mountain areas for this next system. we could see a good four to eight inches of snow in the central and northern mountains, getting closer here to the front range. i'll put it in what they call that trace to two-inch range

live, you would get some of those higher amounts. we're going to revise this as we get closer. we could actually revise this downward a little bit. it's not going to be a big storm. >> all right, marty. >> but it's going to be cold. >> it's going to be cold. >> for the parade of lights. bundle up. >> sorry for asking that question. >> contention with him. nine minutes after 6:00 right now. so as the race for donald trump's secretary of state gets even more heated, some of the other spots in the cabinet are starting to fill up, though. >> we'll tell you morebo the president-elect is tapping for his administration. i never, ever expected a turnout like this. >> a homeless veteran who died just as he moved to a new city

mnuchin. he's a former wall strt banker and ?+goldman ?etrump's finae chair. no has been ta e as seump has al madeis choice for commerce l cret q selected wilbur ross, a billionaire who made his money buying failing companies, restructuring them and selling them. candidates and advisers have been floating in and out of president-elt. ting with the they ?1?3ainclude nn

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students on campus was a soldier of the grou the terror group made no indication as to whether abdull razac artan had connected them but says he heeded their worldwide appeal to strike the u.s. and its allies. arton drove his crowd on campus monday h?and th started attacking people with a knife. he?t? injured 11 people before h him. ohio state students and faculty provedday tuesght terrorism. cower in the face

service. >> just so ?$grateful. i never, ever expected a turnout like ?rthis or all that i've been given. >> most of the veterans themselvesho pay their respects to one of their fallen brothers. the power of social media. >> is just incredible. >> that is such a good story. >> that's a good use for social mere s. neighbors with the over-the-top

good christmas lights ?'diy. but th're ?c??w?hnot always lov them. however, we found some people

no need to. >> we're really good with them. we jokingly tease. i put up my one strand of lights and call it good because there's >> she literally has like 12 snowflake lights. we were curious, we had t@pbto up his display every year. $150, 30,000 rights, only $150 in electricity for the two jf? months that they're up. hardest part. >> because you're excited when you're setting it up. >> where do you keep all thfkat stuff? >> i forgot to ask him.

accusations of a sexual assault on campus by a security guard here at ponderosa high school. the charges and what ?y coming up. thousands forced to flee their homes, devastating fires

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?q?pcalm sce?!ne. but there is a huge fire crews and police. it's all taking pl?"ace ?along ziia near so 1420 soutzinnia and colfax ]qand ?ziajor intersections there. a lot of restaurants c$along colfax there. it's erciala sidential just to south. it's all staying south of the stapleton neighborhood. so you could wake up to a little bit of an active start there. to opt for those express lanes southbound to get around the backups that kick off near 58th avenue. across the maps, not a lot happening on the freeways which is great news. but out to the east, cory, a new crash along buckley and mississippi and that's our second aurora crmash of the morning >> amelia, thank you. right now deputies in highlands ranch are looking for a missing mother and her two sons. dosay jennifer laber went missing at about 2:00 tuesday afternoon after she picked up her kids

elementary school. the 36-year-old mom is 5'6", 250 pounds, was last seen driving her 2011 chrysler town and country with colorado plates 300-rqq. if anyone sees the family or has any information,call 911. a high school security officer responsible for keeping kids safe is facing charges of sexual assault ising a student. douglas county sheriff's deputies arrested the ponderosa high school officer on monday. 9 news reporter andrew sorenson is andrew, they're still waiting for formal charges on this. >>reporter: gary, deputies initially charged 49-year-old security officer gary postel with suspicion of sexual assault. deputies say they got an initial report on this around 5:30 monday afternoon after talking with a student. the deputies decided there was enough to go on here toook to the case further. they arrested postel at his house.has worked here

investigating what hathe ?t?qme unpaid administrative leave. he's banned from e1?ocampus, we to?eld. he's out on but ?r?k postelhas an initial court date for these charges scheduled for friday morning in dolas cot.ty sheriff's office says they are asking for ?'?are home @r-ia years in prison for the 10 ?wfshito do i

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scorchtown. three people have dieda?4aat ar? ?4cemnecon is th?ffire for the history books. >>reporter: and when you look at these pictes, ar?e thre? thi happening over there in such a quickly, cheryl, in part due to wind guststours just so tough at least 14 totaling almo 15,000 acres burning outside knoxville. it's the largest fire the state

everywhere. >>reporter: so they don't know how the fire started just yet, although nbc is reporting offices say it appears to be human caused. many of you may have vacation memories, great smokey mountain national park one of the most visited national parks in our country. i know on my facebook feed a lot of people posting pictures of themselves on there right now, just trying to, you know, spread the word, pray for these really ug ?2?tin?l?w?9g over there right now. was on their way to try and win theicity a championship their plane went down. now they are forever remembered as champions. the team has formally asked that their opponents be posthumouslyrowned champions. 71 of the veerch people on board died when the plane inteas

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buintroduce was competing in a race, trying to qualify for state when she started feeling woozy. as she got close to the finish back up, she cannot go on anymore. under minnesota state high are not allowed to help each other, and it's grounds for both to get disqualified. but 12th grader leanna blumgren had seen enough of her opponent's struggles, she simply could not run past. it was her nal race, her final race of her or year, and she didn't care. she bent do finish line. >> it was so instinctual on her part. she didn't stop and look to somebody or listen to the people that were saying don't uch her, don't touch her. somebodyin trouble and she saw made ?dthat decision to help he >> she did the right thing. for her act of sportsmanship and kindness, though, leanna

room after the race where doctors learned she had an undiagnosed case of monowhich explains her collapsing. gracey did her d a ca as wells a qu you know, since she's got ?hreason she go disqualified, dqed, you know. by the way, the league has decided to change its rule force next year. it's going to allow runners to >> seems like a silly rule in the first place, but wonderful that she did that. and you could tell, she and

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of booked 49stel on suspicio assault of?"child.? frid. led t in cot ?>z#ports are showing ??o?uthe charter plane volved in the deadly h ?t?f co?67 authorities say they're still investigating all of the information found in the blac 71 people were kill?b0?edbrazil six othersveare still three ha already been massiv killed. high winl:ds fueled the flames near gatlinburg and pigeon forge.