The ms. America Organization Takes Action suspending sam haskell after he came under fire for emails allegedly mocking and degrading contestants and winners. This morning what hes saying in his own defense. All that plus the relentless 270,000 acre fire in Southern California becomes the largest in the States History overnight. Bitcoin takes investors on a wild ride plunging more than 30 in just one day. And what was that . A stunning scene in the skies over Southern California. What was that . Have conspiracy theorists guessing it was everything from a north korea rocket launch to an aililien invasion. We can put those to rest saturday, december 23rd, 2017. Announcer from nbc news this is today with sheinelle jones, kr craig melvin and dylan dreyer. Live from studio 1 a in Rockefeller Plaza. Welcome to today. Im craig melvin. Im sheinelle jones. Dave price is in for dylan. What was that strange sight in the sky over Southern California overnight . I dont know. In fact, i do know. My first guess would probably not be an alien. A buddy of mine sent me a version of the video and he thought this was the beginning of the end. My first guess was an alien so im reclelieved this morning. Lets get to the top story. The big mess thats waiting for millions of travelers. More than 100 million be planning to hit the roads in the skies this weekend making for an expected record breaking week of travel. You could be in for a wintery mess as you try to make your way to your holiday destination. Mia rodriguez is at the worlds Busiest Airport in atlanta. Lots of people in line at atlanta. Between now and the new year about three Million People will travel through this airport. Around the country the biggest travel impacts will be on the roads. On the move. Americans taking to the sky. And hitting the road. A record breaking 107 Million People traveling between now and the start of the new year. Thats up more than 3 from last year. At chicagos ohare the crowds overwhelming. When i walked through the door i could not believe theres all these people. This is crazy. Reporter much the same at new yorks la guardia. So if you think its crowded here, its not your imagination. It really is. Reporter and the overwhelming choice to get where theyre going, cars. A whopping 97. 4 Million People hitting the highways. Easy so far, yeah. This is the first stop. Im concerned about the heavy traffic and people not paying attention, getting distracted. Reporter a drive that could soon get complicated in parts of the midwest and northeast. A snowy winter blast this weekend expected to make Holiday Travel even more difficult. Im worried about the snow, getting snowed in, not being ail to get back home. Reporter in atlanta travelers relieved to find no major problems at the worlds Busiest Airport just one week after a massive power failure left thousands stranded in the dark. We watched it and i know it was a big headache for people last weekend but it seems to be running smoothly now. It doesnt seem like Holiday Travel. I know its going to pick up over the weekend. Reporter so far only a couple of cancellations and a few dozen delays around the country. Thats according to the misery map from flight aware which tracks flights across the country. As you know, youll still want to check with your airline to make sure your flight is on time. Things already bustling there. Dave price is in for dylan this morning with a look at where that storm is headed and how it will affect this weekends travel. Hopefully this wont be a misery for you. There is a lot going on. We have snow in the mountains out west. This is the real troublemaker as we zoom into the midwest and northeast. Its snow and heavy rain that were going to be dealing with. Lets break it down over the next several days what we can expect. Today its rain and snow thats going to be the big disrupter. Snow from the midwest all the way into sections of new england as you head to the interior and right along the coastline well be dealing with heavy rain. Washington and boston because of rain. And that stretches all the way down to the south and west of pittsburgh. As we head into tonight rain right along that i95 corridor from boston to new york to philadelphia to washington. Then snow continues up through vermont and into new england. Now we advance the maps and we take a look at what we can expect for the rest of the day today. Of course were talking about mountain snow out in the Northern Rockies to sections of the cascades. Very chilly weather in the mid section of the country. Well talk about Christmas Day and well talk about the rest of your forecast when we see you in a little while. Back to you guys. We are learning more about the california man and former marine who is charged with plotting a Christmas Day attack in San Francisco. The fbi says the man planned it for months before getting cold feet. Pete williams has more on that. Reporter the fbi says a former marine talked about carrying out a Christmas Day attack on San Franciscos popular pier 39. Investigators say 26yearold Everett Aaron jameson saying he supported isis in the attack on a bike path. He was willing to stage a gun and bomb attack on Christmas Day and asked the fbi operatives who he thought were connected with isis for a semi automatic rifle and bomb components. Court documents say on monday he suddenly told them i dont think i can do this after all. Ive reconsidered after an fbi employee in washington mistakenly dialed his cell phone and then hung up. A search of his house turned up a letter dated december 16th calling the u. S. Nationalistic and godless and complaining about President Trumps decision to recognize jerusalem as isreals capital. Family members say he converted to islam and became radicalized after Child Protective Services took away his children. He lost his kids and he might have lost a little bit of faith of jesus or something and switched over. He appeared briefly friday in federal court to face the allegations. His lawyer says hell soon enter a plea to the charges. Hell plead not guilty to those on january 5 when we learn what they actually are. San Francisco Police say even before this arrest they had planned to step up security for the holidays. Pete williams, nbc news washington. President trump is spending the Holiday Weekend at his florida estate. He arrived at maralago on friday afternoon hours after signing the tax bill into law. Nbc White House CorrespondentKelly Odonnell is in West Palm Beach with more. Reporter good morning. Sun, golf and family time is part of the trump family tra t tradition. He got what he wanted for christmas. The tax plan is now law. Air force one returned to palm beam for the holidays where President Trump found a present of sorts waiting for him. A crowd of cheering sign waving supporters. The president used the friendly response to mention his tax cut win. Earlier at the white house the president did a rare solo bill signing to make the tax cuts law. I am keeping my promise. I am signing it before christmas. Reporter the president said despite polls showing the tax cut package is unpopular he does not need a public tour to promote it. I dont think im going to have to travel too much to sell it. I think its selling itself. Reporter having failed on a full repeal of obamacare, the president touted the tax cut law which eliminates the Health Insurance individual mandate and its tax penalty. I think it leads to the end of obamacare. Reporter President Trump ended Something Else too. A 15 year tradition of past president s who held a white house end of year news conference. On capitol Hill Mitch Mcconnell did wrap up the year with reporters with some dry humor about sometimes being the target of angry trump tweets. With regard to the president s tweeting habits, i havent been a fan until this week. Im warming up to the tweets actually. Reporter and on prospects for their agenda in 2018. We Work Together seamlessly. I think we go into the new year with a high level of confidence in our ability to Work Together with the administration. Reporter with no democrats supporting the tax cut plan, President Trump projected that some might regret that when the positive effects he projects will happen are felt by ordinary americans. He also says he hopes to work with democrats on infrastructure sometime in the new year. Kelly, thank you. Steve cor nabbing kis a corr nbc news. Always good to see you. This is a big win for republicans but this is still a tax plan that is quite unpopular in just about every poll. How do republicans go about selling this plan . How worried are they about how this might weigh them down during the midterms inconext ye theyre now they can point to an accomplishment. As you heard the president say, what theyre counting on here is that people start seeing that less withholding in their paychecks in the new year. Maybe the economy continues, the momentum that weve been seeing. You get news reports like our own company here and many others with reports of bonuses for employees, that maybe that changes voters minds. The problem is the economy has already been improving and voters have been saying they feel it and they havent been giving trump and the republicans credit so far. Its tough so see when they would start doing that. Mitch mcconnell saying he feels like he established a good working relationship with President Trump. Do you think this weeks legislative victory marks maybe a turning point . Obviously theyve had a rocky relationship or he has with republicans in the past. What do you think . Im a little skeptical. Well see. They were able to Work Together. Remember the urgency. This was urgency that everybody in the Republican Party from trump on down felt to have something to show for this year. Plus this bill when you strip it all away it really was sort of a typical republican tax cutting bill. There was a wide consensus in principle. If the president wants to go to infrastructure, i can see divisions. If republicans on capitol hill say we want to talk about informing entitlement programs, i can see big divisions there. Republicans have been talking about repealing and replacing obamacare sips there was obamacare. Now they have managed to kill the individual mandate. Can they claim a victory when it comes to obamacare and what does this mean for the future of the health care . Theyre certainly going to try as you heard trump say. Im surprised this didnt get as much pushback from democrats. They had a lot of political success over the summer. Why do you think that was . There was so much in the tax bill about this groups going to benefit, this group will be targeted. Think back to the summer when republicans were trying to repeal and replace obamacare. Democrats won that issue. You can make the argument with the mandate, you get rid of that, it could have many of the same effects over the long term. One thing that gave democrats pauses, the one thing that never pulled well is the individual mandate. Its the least popular individual component. So to try to make the case you need to keep it, maybe that was tough to do. If we pull back and look at the picture, he ended on a high night. Overall how would you sum up President Trumps first year in office. This is a presidency like weve never seen before. I will say republicans can now point to a few big ticket items that happened. A new jis tustice on the suprem court. You got the tax bill through. They will try to say we fulfilled our promise on obamacare. Well see if thats enough for their base but they do have something to say. Lots of judges on the lower courts too. Now to california and the thomas fire. Its now the largest in state history. As of last night the fire was 65 contained. It has burned well over a quarter of a million acres and 1,000 buildings. It has also claimed two lives. A 70yearold woman who dried trying to escape and a firefighter who leaves behind a 2yearold daughter and pregnant wife. Firefighters in colorado worked late into the night to control an oil rig fire there. Flames and smoke shot into the sky overnight in windsor. Thats about an hour north of denver. Neighbors said an explosion shook their homes. One worker on the site was hurt. Hes in the hospital. Investigate overs are treating the fire as an industrial accident. This morning investigators are looking into a shootout in downtown harrisburg pennsylvania. The gunfight moved through the city friday. One officer was slightly injured. The suspect was killed by police. He is identified as 51yearold ahmed almafti. He recently traveled to the middle east and terrorism is under investigation. Bitcoin had a bit of a problem on friday. Trading was halted as the value of bitcoin fell about 20 . Its been one of 2017s hottest investments shooting up from 1,000 at the start of the year to 20,000 last month. Friday it had lost nearly half that value. It is making a bit of rebound this morning. Now to the incredible light show over the Southern California sky. Social media lit up with photos. Everyone posting and wondering what exactly that odd shaped light cloud could be. This morning we have the answer. Heres nbcs steve patterson. Reporter the launch lit up the california sky. What was that . Reporter a spectacular show from hollywood to the central coast. San diego to as far east as phoenix. Of course we know now. That was the Spacex Falcon nine rocket. But at the time. I thought it was some aliens coming into town. People out west were spooked taking real time fears to social media. Did you think it was north korea . The first thing i think is its an angel. Spacex founder eli musk was pretty amused tweeting nuclear ufo from north korea. Nice troll, dude. Lighting up the night sky as brightly as our imaginations. Steve patterson, nbc news, laeng. Dave price is back. Hes got a check of the rest of the countrys forecast. Nice to see you. Everybodys trying to get in the christmas mad ood as we head in the weekend. Lets go to the maps and take a look at snow cover around the country. As you can see some in of the mountain areas weve got plenty of snow on the ground through the upper midwest in through the midwest and then through new england. Much of the southern half of the country is not going to see a white christmas. Whats going to go on as we head into Christmas Eve . This is where were going to get a big batch of more snow especially in interior sections of new england. Thats what were keeping an eye on. As we head into Christmas Day, happy snow will continue across sections of Northern New England into maine. Bitterly cold as we head into Christmas Day in the mid section of the country through the northern plain states. Snow continues as we head into the rockies. Sunny but cold in the southern half of the country. As we head to florida, places like sun rise its definitely another cold start across the bay area, but were slightly warmer in some spots than yesterday. Oakland 40 degrees and santa rosa at 36. Yesterday some of these spots were in the 20s. Overall highs today up into the upper 50s. We should warm up nicely to about 59, 57 for oak lend. Thats a quick look at your weather picture. Coming up, ceu suspended. The Miss America Organization taking action after vulgar emails came to light. Plus the moment that will m make you go ahhh when a little boy befriend time now for the download. The most sweeping tax plan in a generation was signed into law. Meryl streep and rose mcgowan got into a war of words and tragedy struck in Washington State when an amtrak train full of passengers derailed. Reporter off the rails. An amtrak derailment on the high speed run from seattle to portland. Twisted metal. It was bone chilling to see the train, like, erie that my husband was on that. Three people were killed. Nearly 100 others injured. In the dark, Atlanta HartsfieldJackson Airport hit by a massive power outage that brought the key hub to a standstill. Today more lines. And more frustration. Beyond irritating. The power at the worlds Busiest Airport was back on this morning. Still more than 400 flights were canceled today on top of the 1,100 canceled yesterday. Horror in Melbourne Australia when a driver rammed his car into a group of pedestrians during evening rush hour. This was no accident. The victims mowed down by a man whose intentions say police was to injure or kill. Witnesses say the driver accelerated through a red light ramming into 50 or 60 people crossing the road. From the world of sports to hollywood, Sexual Misconduct revelations continue to unfold this week. Overnight a Sexual Harassment stunner in the sports world. Carolina panthers owner Jerry Richard son saying hell sell the team at the end of the season