. aoss the nation, millions wille waking up to subzero dangerous temperatures. already there are reports of multiple fatalities but today will also be a turning point in the weather. bill will explain. fire and ice. while much of america is in the fren grip of mother nature, down under a completely different story is unfolding with extremesn the opposite end of the scale. shocking new revelations from special counsel robert mueller about a new effort to disrupt the investigation. apparently coming from within russia itself. to a massive fire at a new jersey landfirk. ghters braving the frigid elements while residents in new york were warned about the smell. plus a horrific highway accident caught on camera and the miracle rescue. a couple of heroes that

followed. "early today" starts right now. good morning. hope y're waking upnd putting layer after layer this morning for a lot of you. i'm >> i'm phillip mena. the brutal cold is sweeping the country and it's been blame for at least seven fatalities. officials believe the death of anowa university student is weather related. he was found unrespsive behind a building just before 3:00 a.m. wednesday morning by cams lice. chicago is using city buses as warming shelters to offer protection in areas popular with the homeless.av temperatures dipped to as low as negative 27 there. local media reports tha chicago is literally colder than hell right now. they're referring to hell, michigan. hell has froze over. the city saw temperatures of negative 8 on wednesday. feelinghe northeast is the arctic cold. the new york state police responded to this crash involving more than 20 vehicles. tevernor cuomo directed non-essential s employees in this area to stay home today. and the u.s. postal service i suspending service today in

michigan, indiana, illinois, ohio, and pennsylvania. to s if your zip code is affected by the service and the disruption there, you cane view alerts on usps.com. let's turn now to nbc meteorologist bill karins to see when this is going to come to an riend. >> his doesn't even begin to tell the story of this. negative 70 windchill yesterday in eli, minnesota. chicago had its second coldest day ever recorded in their city's history, which goes back to late 1870s. very historic stuff.s todayhe third day of it. yesterday was the peak. today is still bitterly cold. 're going to slowly come out of this. friday and saturday a lot of relvery. windcharnings continue still from the dakotas all the way through the northeast. windchill advis for all the big cities and i-95 as the cold pushed in with those snow squalls yesterday. avght now the coldest windchill temperatures we is still located in areas near fargo and also northern portions of minnesota. green bay at negative 40.

chicago, negative 39. you probably won't even notice the differencf you head outside today. the negative numbers have arrived in new york ci and also in boston. i'm going to give you the forecast windchills as we go throughout the day today. this is at 8:00 a.m. as we take you through the afternoon, notice we start to warm up. kansas city and st. louis. chicago not as bad at negative 7. single digits from boston to new orrk. tomorrowng at this time, this is bearable. this is more typical of winter with singl digits. none of this extreme stuff. we're almost there. >> who would have thought we' be happy about zero? chicago there? yet here we are. extremetemperatures, they've become a major story all around the globe right now. of course here in the millions are feeling that bitter cold. but around the world, people are feeling tat extreme nbc's tom costello has more on this and what it means for the change. clima >> reporter: across the globe, the weather picture is one of re and ice. bone-numbing record cold in the midwest. fire and record heat in austli 120 degrees and hotter this month. >> what that really means is

that fires will be they'll be fast-moving. >> reporter: and yo-yo weather cycles in ththe deep freeze u.s., a 50 degree rebound in some cities within days. hard to believe when you're frozen like an icicle but experts say that arctic blast is further evidence of climate change. in response to president trump's skepticism, the weather experts at noaa tweeting, winter storms don't prove that global warming isn't happening. here why. the north pole, scientists say the melting sea ice and ocean temperatures have caused the walls of the jet stream or polar vortex to break open like a dam in places. that hasow alled arctic air to s escape,ng south into the midwest. >> not only is greenhouse gas warming impacting the planet, but it's really beginning to kick in, and it's kicking in in the parts of the planet that are most sensitive. in particular, arcti sea ice regions and the arctic. >> reporter: all of us are feeling the effects.

still over the past decade, the u.s. has set or broken high temperature records twice as often as cold ones. phillip. >> tom costello, thank you.> the political standoff in venezuel continues to intensify this morning as a large and increasingly violent protests oke place in supportf the opposition leader. president trump aino offer his own support on thephone. nbc'sel andrea mitchl has the story. >> reporter: massive crowds supporting opposition juan guaido calling for the ouster of venezuelan's embattled leader, nicolas maduro guaido supported by the u.s., challenging maduro, bankrolled by russia. appearing on television thanking vladimir putin. madu even accusing president trump of ordering a hit squad to kill him. u.s. officials warning maduroag nst any violence toward guaido or americans. president trump tweeting that he

olled gua and reinforced strong united states support. >> this is not a u.s. initiative. this is an initiative for which all the credito belongs the venezuelan people. >> thanks to andrea mitchell for thatreport. major developments in the alleged attack of "empire" star jussie smollett. after poring through hours of surveillance footage, chicago police are looking for two potential personsf o interest. nbc's ron mott has theatt from their investigation. >> reporter: chicago police say detectives have spotted potential persons of interest in the alleged assault of "empire" actor jussie oltt. this after poring through hundreds of hours f surveillance video. smollett says he was the victim of an attack early tuesday morning. police confirm the actor was captured on video inside a subway restaurant near his apartment before he was attacked. police were called to the alleged attack.tes after the when the officers responded, the actor was still wearing a rope he says was used in the assault. according to the authorities, he had light and a scratch on

his face. police say officers arrived with their body camer rolling. as is aocedure, theyed smollett if he wanted them to stop recording and tha he told them yes. they confirmed they're expandi o the searchthe city's surveillance network, one of the most extensive in the u.s. smollett has notesponded to our request for comment. a search for potential persons of interestanted for questioning in a now high profile alleged assault. ron mott, nbc news, chicago. president trump is opening up about how he plans t handle the russia probe. in an interview with the daily caer, the president was asked whether he'll sign off on the final report. he said, quote, they'll have make their decision within the justice department, adding, i've chosen to sta out of it. meanwhile, there is a revelation from special counsel robert mueller about a new effort to disrupt the investigation. apparently comingrom within russia itself. for more we go to nbc's tracie potts in d.c.r: >> reporood morning. this is all coming out in federal court with robert

mueller, the speci counsel, asking a judge to protect sensitive information in this case because nonseitive information that was turned over to one of the defendants landed on twitter. this all came out at a hearing yesterday with the federal judge bein asked now to take a close look at how this happened. l and a of observers wondering if the motive here may have been to discredit the investigation. >>ueller has been fighting turning over sensitive discovery. they turned over nonrmnsitive inion to themnd a protective order. it was supposed to stay only with the attorneys and other people in the company. it showed up on twitter in a russian disinformation campaign along withabricated materials, making clear that all of this information he's turning over to the lawyers is going to theov russiannment and being used again against the u.s.r: >> repornow, in this information that was filed in court yesterday, theueer team says that at least one person has admitted stealing the

information and posting it on twitter. although the company itself that was indicd as part of this investigatn into social media influence on the election, that company, concord management, says they w e nothacked. the fbi says they weren't either. frances. >> wow, anoth nget to consider with all of this. tracie, thank you. a massive fire broke o at the landmark marcal paper plant in new jersey, bringing down itn ic sign. the plants has been around since the 1940s. plumes of smoke and flamesould be seen for miles along route 80. at least 150 firefighters battled that fire in frigid temperatures too. the smoke got so bad, officials had to shut down an exit on the highway, and people living in the surrounding area had to be asacuated. luckily, nobody hurt. a truck driver is lucky to be alive after officials say the bridge they we traveling on collapsed, causing the semi to fall into a river. theident happened in arkansas around 8:00 p.m. a local sheriff says t 18-wheeler was on dale bendge brhen it gave way and that

the bridge was, quote, not fit for a truck of that size. several agencies including emergency services and the fire department had to rescue the driver, who was not >> back to the brutal cold and bill karins joining us again. >> we onlyou have ae hours left to see if we can break the all time record coldicn o. we're at negative 20 right now. we'd have to drop to negative 27 t yesterday b way was negative 23. it ended up tying f the fifth coldest low temperature they've ever had. the daytime high was so cold, it ended up bei the second coldest daytime high. a lot of recordsere broken. this morning we're at 5 in morning city. chicago, negative 20. still at negative8 in international falls in northern minnesota. for today, nice warm-u the whole southern half of the country looks beautiful. unfortunately still bitterly cold, even some snow showers in the forecast in chicago withf highro. that's a look at the big weather story of the day. here's a closer look at your day ahead.

the single digits are with us in areas of northeast. at least it will be sunny. the winds will be dying off as we go throughout the day.dc the worst wll values in the northeast will be early today. look at that temperature recovery today. heading almost near 50 in wichita. the story of the going to be the big warm-up. the nice thaw into february. >> more reason to get excited for the weekend.ha bill, you. in today's quick hits, the u.s. navy will honor its first female fighter jet pilot at a funeral with a first all female piloted flyover inshtennessee. died last week of ovarian cancer at the age of 65. > ben affleck is hanging up his batman suit. affleck will not star in the upcoming movie, the batman, which will focus on a younger bruce wayne. and the lord of the rings irector peter jackson is planning a documentary about the beat it will feature footage and audio of the fab four as they recorded the album let it be in 1969. hilton.com, and i get all

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♪> at cape canaveral florida, the rocket is ready for america's second attempt to launch a space satellite. any one of tens of thousands of

things can go wrong with catastrophic results. but all that can be done to assure perfection has been done. the moment is at hand. the countdown reaches zero. >> on this day in 1958, the u.s. entered the space age with its first successful launch of a satellite. it was used to detect cosmic rays but was only operational for about fournt months, the batteries died. it was an emotional day for tom hanks as he puts woody on the shelf for good. thector shared this photo on twitter, recording his final line as woodyor toy story 4, signing off with "we rode like the wind to infinity and beyond." hanks has played the toy cowboy nce the franchise began in 1995. the fourth installment comes out this june and will be the final y story film. it's going to be emotional. toy story 3 was kind of emotional even for parents. so can you s imagine toyry 4 finally putting it to an end? >> it's a whole generation. it's been in our lives for 24

years now. >> calling all cheese lovers now. kfc is teaming up with cheetos and calling this the ultimate sandwich mash-up. according to a company okesperson, the fried chicken chain is testing out a dangerously cheesy sandwich, but only in a few select states. the sands witch will reportedly cost $4.79. it's an extra crispy chicken filet topped with a layer of cheetos and doused in a cheetos sauce. th put it between a toasted bun. the company is testing select locations in north carolina, virginia, and georgia. cardiologists there will be busy >> if they're doing that, why don't they just smashup the cheetos a then dip i in the batter so you've just got some fried chicken right there. then ultimately it's going to be orange finger lickin' good. >> they shouldor pay you these sort of ideas. maybe next year. remember. you said it first. just ahead, nfl commissioner

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good morning,on e i'm eun yang. >> and i'm aaron xwgilchrist. bundle up. it's a dangerously cold day. >> people are t tryin keep warm. the steps being taken to keep folks in our.rea sa >> limit your time outside as best you can. it will be a very col day to be

news 4 begins with a storm team 4 weather alert. >> frigid, freezing, pierci, no matter what word you use to describe it -- i have a talking about the same thing. it is downright cold outside.

it's a family pgram and 's 4:00. >> they will have to hit that delay button in the control room. >> oh, yeah. i'm eun yang. >> i'm aaron gilchrist. another world beingsed to describe the temperatures is dangerous. for that reason, the region and local schoo districts are taking steps to make sure you stay safe. allegheny county schools are closed. in virginia -- >> now, to the delays. montgomery, prince george's,er frk and washington county schools will open two hours late. invirginia, fredericksburg city, arlington,fafax, stafford, and king. coun