only for friday night but thank fher for what she's doneor me and so many gi >> get ready for a winter wallop from mother nature includinglizzard conditions, high winds and major trouble for ahead.rs >> this is a case where they flaunted their wealth, sparing no expense to cheat the system so they could set theirn child best success with the education money could buy. >> have mercy. fromi l loughlin, aunt becky from full house, to felity o desperate housewives fame. privileged getting their kidsni into uversities and the ring all.er behind it >> paul manafort already headed to prisonnt for 47 mo in one case, faces another possible ten years when sentenced today in another case.

>> the faa is resisting calls by aviationdv aates to ground boeing jets in the u.s., but what do you do if you're booked on a 737 max 8? we'll tell you. >> and odell beckha ., is going to cleveland while le'veon bell is set to be a jet. nfl cings and goings. buckle up. "early today" starts right now. >> good wednesday morning. i'm phillip mena. >> and i'm frances riorra. a m winter storm moving into the midwest is expected to inte'rify today. looking at heavy snow, strong winds with blizzard warnings already posted for many areas. let's get the latest from nbc meteorologist janessa webb. what are you seeing out there? >> good morning. this is an active weather system that is moving quickly. it will rev up throughout the day. a squall line across centr texas right now. so 6 million under that severe weather risk across the mississippi valleynt arkansas as well. we'll continue to watch that throughout the day.n now,e other side, we

continue to track major snstorm across denver into the dakotas throughout the afternoon. accumulation, look atthis, near a foot in some areas. so spring is ony, the but, man, this is a complex storm system. very gusty winds, up to about 60 miles per hour. >> hopey people s safe in that. thank you, janessa. >> a shocking story involving admissions into the nation's elite colleges. it is t largest admissions fraud in history. in its web it'srapped some of e biggest celebrities and top c.e.o.s with parents allegedly using their wame andlth to get their children into schools stanford, georgetown, and usc among others. the operation dubbed varsity blues was a bribery scheme involving high-profile parents. desperate housewives star felicity lori huffman is charged. here's nbc's pete williams. >> reporter: some of the most

elite, yale, stanford, ucl, eight in all. the fbi said the unwittingly students with inflated test scores paid for by their >> this is a case where they flaunted their wealth, sparing no expense to cheat the system so they could setheir children up for success with the best education money could bu reporter: among those charged, full house actress lori loughlin, desperate housewives star huffmannd top c.e.o.s and lawyers. at the center of the scam is william singer, who ran a coll be prepiness. >> getting into the right college will set the trajectory for the rest of your son o daughter's life. >> reporter: he pleaded guilty admitting parents paid him a total of $25 million to ge students admitted as athletes, many having never played a sport. he photo shopped the faces of their children onto pictures of actual athletes and got sames of a student's handwriting. singer then bribed coaches at the schools who put the applicants into their designated admissions slots. prosutors say the former yale

women's soccer coach was paid $400,000 to admit a student he knew didn't play competitive soccer. singer also admitted paying test proctors toet someone else take a student's admissions exams to get better scores. the fbi said some parents spent as as 6 1/2 mlion dollars for guaranteed admission of their children. and then they disguised their payments to singer as contributions to a charity he ran so they could deduct the payments o their income taxes. >> the parents charged today despite alreadyeing able to give their children every legitimate advantage in the college admissions game, instead chose to corrupt and illegally manipulate the system for their benefit. >> reporter: and prosecutors say more charges are likely. pete williams, nbc news, washington. >> reporter: i'm miguel almaguer in los angeles where actresses huffman and lori loughlin are headed from the red carpet to federal court amid outrage at college campuses across the country. >> that's just so incredibly

unfair and it's taking a spot from someone who rerlly desves to be here and wants to be here. >> reporter: h famous for role on full house, and married to designer massimoo, investigators sailor i loughlin and her msband agreed to pay bribes totaling halflion dollar in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits to the usc crew team despite the fact that they did not participate in crew. court documents say they even had their girls stage photos as athletes. >> i'm going to do a dorm room tour today. >> reporter: loughlin's youngest daughter followed by 2 million people on youtube spoke about attending usc. >> io want the experience of like game days,in par -- i don't really care about school as you guys all know. >> i was pretty pisse off that someone is able to, you know, pay their way into a school that other s dents have worked really hard to get into. >> reporter: oscar nominee felicity huffman is accused of paying $15,000o boost her oldest daughter's ss.a.t.res.

her husband, william h. macy is mentioned in the indictme n, but charged. investigators say huffman arranged for a third-party to purport to proctor their daughter's s.a.t. and secretly correct her answers. >> it'sin disapng because it takes a spot from a kid that did it the right way. >> reporter: hollywood's elite accused of paying top dollar to buy admission to higher education their childn did not earn. here at federal court in los angeles, both actresses will face a judge and both arepe ed to immediately post bail. back to you. >> all right, miguel almagu., thank y >> now to president trump's former campaign manager paul manart, who will face sentencing today for the second time in less than a week, this time for the conspiracy charges brought against him by robert court.r in a d.c. manafort originally pled guilty as part of a deal with the special unsel, but the agreement fell apart after he was accused of lying. outhe judge hand him up to ten years in prison today. for more wgo to nbc's tracie

potts in d.c. this is a separate caserom the one manafort was sentenced in last week. we'll see if the judge is just a sympathetic. >> reporter: yeaot of people thought that judge was lenient, judge amy berman jackson in washington today may not be. she will have to decide if her charges -- ifer sentence runs concurrently or consecutively back to backith the one that we saw last week. now, this is a different it wasn't a trial because he ended up pleading guilty to avoid a second trial.an they are fal crimes, unrelated to the trump campaign, but this is also the case where he ended up not getting that lal to lsen the sentence because of theying and the witness tampering. now the question, will presi hnt trump pard former campaign chair? >> why hasn't the president ruled out a pardon for paul manafort? >> the preside has made his position on that clear and he'll make a decision when he's ready.

>> reporter: this was the first case that was brought -- thef first set cases brought by the robert mueller russia team over at the fb and, by the way, the judge today is the same judge that's ei over trump advisor roger stone's case. stone will find out this week his trial date. >> all right, tracie potts for , tracie, thank you >> the defense department has approved a new policy impacting transgender troops. the new rule will largely bar transgender troops and recruits from transitioning to another sex. and requires most to serve in eir birth gender. the order says military services must implement the new polic in 30 days on april 12th. and it does allow service secretaries to waive the policy on a case-by-case basis. house speaker nancy p responded by calling the ban bigoted and disgusting, sayg it is a attack on patriots who keep us safe. pelosi also vowed that the housu will con to fight the policy, saying it is a discriminatory action that has

no place in our country. >> firefights in yonkers, new york, battled a massive blaze that raged ford seval hours overnight. the fire tore through an apartmentpluilding ding 150 families that lived inside. over 100 firefighters batsed the flarom all sides. officials believe it started on one of the building's top oo , but haven't determined an exact cause. so far there have been no reports of injuries. >> both planned and unplanned avalanches in colorado's high country have all but shutdown one small community. the town 185 mes southwest of denver has been cut o from all points south. there is so much snow, no one can ge in orout. in an effort to prevent unexpected avalanches, helicopter mitig control operations purposely pushed piles of snow onto the highway after more than 40 feet of snow was already covering a highway from anlier slide. state crews say it could take another week to clear out all that snow. >>wow, i feel like this winter we've done so many stories on avalanches and all of that in

colorado and there going to get even more snow coming up, right, janessa? >> right, blizzard warnings in place in colorado. foot of snow accumulation. you can see from our futurecast right now. also what's g tng togger the blizzards are windy conditions. we're talking about gusts here 65 to 70 mile per hour. so this centraln pressure this low is very tight here and that's going to cause those winds to stir up. it will continue to track east here in the next 12 hours for your thursday afternoon, impactinghe midwest. before it starts to slide into the northeast for your friday. that's a look at the big weather story of the day. now here's a closer look at your day ahead. so still very cool air, 35 across colorado, but warmer air, you can start to see it's starting to make its way in. this is sp temperatures, upper 70s to lower 80s from the south to the southeast. so we love the warmer

temperatures, but, man, severe weather on the way. >> all right, janessa, thank you for the heads up. if you went to bed last night and you're an nflfan, you're like, what happened to the nfl? a pair of trades shocked the nfl. odell beckha jr., is joining the dog pound. the giants trading its star to the browns. new york will get a first and third round pick. the new york post summing it up best with today's cover. omg obj. lachlt i don't know bell is heading to the jets he inked a deal worth $52 1/2 million dollars. >> still ahead, the faa refusing to gro jd boeings after a pair of deadly crashes. it mig not be too late for t flierso take action on their own. we'll explain. ilure pill that hd keep people alive and out of the hospital. don't take entresto if pregnant; it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. don't take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren, or if you've had angioedema with an ace or arb. the most serious side effects are angioedema,

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is just about 3%. trebek has vowed to fight t. >> so glad to see him back ere. the faa is facing increasing pressure over the fate of the boeing 737 max 8 jet liners. the planes are still cleartho fly in e u.s. despite two deadly crashes in the last five months. dozens of countries have chosen to ground the aircraft from the united kingdom to china to australia. the planes are not only grounded in india, but are also now banned from indian air space. so far, the faa says no systemic performance issues have been found, but they are completing an urgenteeview of th ethiopian airline crash. >> many want to know how they find out if they're booking a flight on one of those planes that hroe beenunded and what cancel. if you want to for those answers we go to nbc's joe fryer. >> reporter: at airpo across the country, worried passengers are paying closer attention what type of plane they're flying in. on their minds, the boeing 737 max 8 grounded virtually

everywhere exct north america. >> people are already scared to fly and when things lik this happen, it makes the fear even more t >> reporte max 8 completes 8500 flights a week worldwide according to a flight tracking service. we spoke with passengersflfter one ht. >> when i saw it was the same plane, you got a little concern, but there was nothing -- all i could do was pray that the pilots knew wt they were doing. >> reporter: how do you know your plane type? it's easiest to checkhile booking. but if you already have a ticket, you can get that ation by going to the airline's website or app and looking under equipment or aircraft type. if you still can't find it re there, tre other sites, like flight stats and seat guru. but keep in mind, planes can change at the last minute. two u.s. airlines use max 8, southwest and american. >> we thinkt the very least airlines should refund passengers change tees. >> rep it doesn't have

change fees but is waiving fair differen for passengers who want to change flights out of concern. so far american is not changing its>> policies. really good information there from joe fryer. thtk you. >> jhead, meet the guide dogs going the distance for blind marathon runners. and nothing holds a candle to this birthday gift. a son's heart warming surprise for his father. that's up next on "early tod my gums are irritated. i don't have to worry about that, do i? harmful bacteria lurk just below the gum line. crest gum detoxify, voted product of the year. it works below the gum line to

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today is mitt romney's 72nd

birthday, and he tweeted his office birthday celebration saying, my team surprised me with a cake made out of my farite snack, twinkies. which is fitting, like twinkies, romney doesn't age. the weird part, he blew out the candles by picking them up and blowing them out individually. okay, that does it. he's a scroll. there's no way. everything he does is like an alien googled how to do a normal. >> i thought it was weird. it was weird at first, but then i thought he is trying to spreat germs from being >> he's getting his hands, finger germs on it, too. either y,hether you blow and you kind of spit on the cake or pick them up, either way. >> after all we've seen in this country, i'm going to give mitt pass here. two men in florida gave their dad a birthday present. not like this one.

it's different. they turned his phone into a hot line. the sons said they couldn't decide to get h for h 62nd birthday so they got him a giant billboard that ss right outside of atlantic city and includes that photo of their dad, including his phone numher with caption, wish my dad happy birthday. it went up last s week andce then their dad says he has received more than 15,000 calls, texts and facebook hits from all over the world. pretty creative. might cnge his number, but -- >> might gete. expens text and message rates apply. i don't know what kind of plan he has on h phone, but at least it's the thought that counts. >> jammed up. >> a clever father found a way to keep his daughter and himself happy at a soccer game neighboring fan captured this ment of a dad enjoying the atlant united soccer game. look what he's doing.in holdg a phone behind him. see him? there playing a cartoon for his kid. the video has been circulating social mia. people calng him dad of the

year. parents, we know weha do it takes to be able to enjoy everything on our own. >> that's slick.ic that's i have to say. i don't know how many kids would do that. be pulling that move for sure. >> at a restaurant to buy you a full meal with dessert and extra k,drink, a dr cup holder, phone right there. it's all good. >> she knows what's up. when we come back, strong winds wreak havoc on a high school soccer tournament. it could have been a whole lot worse. this video is crazy. details next. first dates! you look amazing. and you look amazingly comfortable. when your v-neck looks more like a u-neck... that's when you know, it's half-washed. try downy fabric conditioner. unlike detergent alone, downy helps prevent stretching by conditioning and smoothing fibers, so clothes look newer, longer. downy and it's done. that's an aggressive yellow. pretty great, huh? if you're a banana.

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new video this morning shows a light pole. look at this, being toppled b strong winds on a soccer field. this happened saturday during a high school boys soccen tournamentestern arkansas. officials say a referee there suffered a broken leg while a student walked away with just cuts to his head and leg. thankfully, they both survived that freak accident. but this could have been much, muchh worse. >> the guy on the bottom right of the seen got pinned. crazy. janessabc meteorologist webb with the forecast. >> i've been telling you about the bad news, severe weather, wint weather. let's talk about the good news. we have shifting warmth across the eastern u.s. look athighs, they're back in the 70s here, but you can see slowly but surely headed into the weekend the cold air returns. oh, boy, all right. janessa, thanku. still ahead, a runner and his best friend ready to make history. you'reatching "early today." the russells travel to a different swim meet every saturday.

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aaron d morning, i'm gilchrist. >> i'm eun yang. college chaos. prospective students and parents of some of thecountry's most prestigious universities implicated in a massive fraud scandal. >> we' taking a look a the investigation. chuck? we're off to a freezing cold start this morning, but it's all about thes warming trend tha coming our way. complete check of the forecast just ahead.

>> announcer: news 4 today begins with breaking news. a very busy morning here on news 4 today. several stories breaking overnight and we're covering all of them for this morning, two people are recovering after crash in northeast washington.

and thieves make off with an atm from a local 711 by smashing a vehicle into the store. this morning news 4 is headed to the scene. is 4:00 a.m., good morning, everybody, i'm aaron gilchrist. >> isle eya . we'll get to those stories and more. we want to check with yndr commut forecast. >> melissa mollet has the roads but first start with chuck bell and your storm team 4 forecast. >> hump day is here. clear ski and light wind overnight. it's been bombs away on the temperatures, almost all the suburbs way below freezing this morning. 27 now in gaithersburg. 24 in manassas. 27 in winchester. 36 in washington, 35 in annapol annapolis. sub freezing temperatures int st. mary's county this morning. bundle up. it's ane cold get going. most areas will climb