Hiatus. Today, thursday, december 19th, 2013. From nbc news, this is today. With matt lauer and savannah guthrie. Live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning. 7 00 a. M. On the west coast on a thursday. Im savannah guthrie. Im matt lauer. Attention target shoppers. Some 40 Million People had perhaps information from their debit cards and their credit cards revealed. Its hard to fathom. Couldnt come at any time and think it would be good. At the holidays, the height of the holidays when everyone is shopping, it is bad timing. This is our top story today. Went on for weeks at one of the largest retailers. Cnbc Mary Thompson has been looking into this. Mary, exact lly how did the breh occur . Impacts customers who use their debit or credit cards at one of targets 1,800 stores. The breach took place for 19 days starting on november 27th through last sunday, december 15th. In a statement ceo saying we take this matter very seriously and are working with Law Enforcement to bring those responsible to justice. Target is also working with a third party Forensic Firm to investigate the incident. Do we know exactly, mary, what kind of information could have been called by this breach . On its website including the ca cardholders name and the Expiration Date and the threedigit security code. Its embedded in the magnetic strip on the back of a card. Security experts say it can be used to make fake credit or debit cards and a lucrative business for thieves sells for three to four times more than a thief may steal from an online purchase. Secret service involved in this. Mary thompson, thanks very much. Turn now to breaking news out of london. Voicemail messages from Prince William to Kate Middleton have just been played in court. Jim, good morning, what can you tell us . Good morning, savannah. The trial revealed for the first time today that in addition to movie and sports stars, authors and victims of violent crime, now the royal familys voicemails were hacked, as well. Todays revelations refer mostly to the hacking of the duchess of cambridge cell phone a Rupert Murdoch tabloid that he later himself shut down. Messages to the jury, including a voicemail left boy Prince William in 2006 while dating Kate Middleton saying he was almost shot in a Training Exercise. I got horribly lost and i walked into some other reg minutes ambush, which was slightly embarrassing because i nearly got shot. Not by live rounds but blank rounds, which would be very embarrassing. In another message william called saying, hello, baby, its me. Another voicemail from william, this one to his brother, prince harry, he mimics the voice of then girlfriend Chelsea Davies the message proving, too, prince harry had been hacked. The trial began in october and all seven defendants are facing various charges of phone hacking, paying bribes to officials for information and a cover up. The defendants so close to murdoch she was known as his adopted daughter deny all the charges. They could face years in jail. The prosecution claims that phone hacking was Standard Operating Procedure at the news of the world. Editors were not only aware of it, but financially supported it. Jim maceda in london, thank you very much. Lets go to washington where a group appointed by president obama to look into surveillance programs is recommending big changes and they include a Major Overhaul affecting the phone calls of every american. Pete williams has the latest on this. Hi, pete. Matt, good morning. Civil liberty groups are applauding this report, especially the recommendation that the phone companies themselves, not government store the records of all phone calls made in the United States to be checked only when theres a specific need. Commissioned by president obama after the revelations in Edward Snowdens leaks, the report says the government has a legitimate reason for wanting access to the records of all phone calls made in the u. S. But it recommends ending the way theyre gathered now in a massive collection by the National Security agency. Instead, the group says the phone companies themselves should store the data or some private entity they set up to hold it all. And it calls for tighter legal controls on how individual phone numbers are checked to see if there is a connection to terrorism. The report recommends stopping very little, if anything. What it focuses much more on is the way in which the information should be collected, who should approve that and how that information might be used in the future. Reporter among other recommendations, the nsa should get a court order each time it wants to check a phone number in the data bank and phone and Internet Companies should be allowed to reveal what kind of information the government requires them to turn over. It also says the director of the nsa, who has always been a senior military officer should, instead, be a civilian. Confirmed by the senate to provide more oversight and recommends cutting back on surveillance of foreign leaders and exploring agreements with more countries to stop spying on each others officials. Civil liberty groups say its a good start. If these 46 recommendations were implemented and if the president and the review group took the recommendations, we would be back to the america we knew prior to the nsa surveillance program. These recommendations are not binding but provide new ammunition that want to make the kind of changes that the report calls for. Pete williams in washington on this story, thank you very much. That Urgent Mission to station has taken an unexpected turn. The astronauts doing the spacewalk will be wearing snorkels after the last astronaut performed one nearly drowned when his helmet filled with water. Lets get to tom costello with more on this. Hi, tom, good morning to you. The snorkels are not unlike the snorkels we use in the pool or the ocean, but cut from rubber tubing onboard. They think theyve solved the water leak problem and the snorkels are just in case. Its the kind of mcgirve moment is famous. Using what was available to bring a crew home safely. We have to find a way to make this fit into the hole for this. Reporter now, another urgent repair mission some 230 miles above the earth. Astronauts will conduct three spacewalks to remove and replace one of two 780pound ammonia pumps that keep the space station cool. Its been down for more than a week forcing the station to conserve power. But the last space walk ended with an italian astronaut nearly drowning in his helmet after it started filling with wallimater. Astronauts pulled him back into the station and when they did, water poured from the helmet. Nasa ordered no space walks until they solved the problem. They think they know what happened swamping out many space suit components. Now theyre checking their suits for saturdays job, but nasa engineers have a few on the flight fixes in case the water returns. So, this is our first line of defense. Reporter an absorbent pad worn behind the head to collect any extra water and a snorkel cut from rubber tubing. This snorkel is installed the suit with the crew member. Between water restraint bag and the suit. This is your last resort if water is they it use this to lean down and breathe. One of the most demanding challenging physically difficult and fun things you could ever imagine doing. Each spacewalk is scheduled for 6 1 2 hours. Not an unusually dangerous walk, but any time you have an astronaut on a spacewalk, everyone at nasa is on high alert. Savannah . I think they are incredibly courageous. Especially when they say, take a snorkel with you. Theres new developments this morning tied to a controversial arrest that occurred here in new york city. Natalie has details on that. India today is demanding the u. S. Drop its case against a diplomat who was arrested here in new york city and strip searched. The female Deputy Council general is accused of lying on visa documents about bringing a baby visa and paying the worker about 3 an hour. The case has killed relations between the u. S. And india. Defending the treatment of that diplomat. As a humanitarian crisis in syria is getting more critical, the u. N. General assembly is now accusing the Syrian Government of widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights. The long conflict in syria has claimed more than 100,000 lives and having a profound impablct children. Good morning, natalie. Both sides in this war are increasingly ruthless. Today a report by Amnesty International says one Extremist Group is torturing people and imprisoning children as young as 8. Whole families to flee here to damascus. At this soccer stadium, Children Play while parents register for food. Gunfire rings out. This man waits for help an explosion. His sons hardly notice. Soccer coach is trying to give these children hope, but its not easy. An explosion, just as were talking. He says mortars have landed here before. Thiss where it landed. One 10yearold boy tells me his family fled terrorists. Yes, he says, very. And nearby these children wait to be given food to their family. 4yearold helps his family carry away basic provisions from this distribution center. The u. N. Is trying to feed more than 4 million syrians. The humanitarian crisis is getting to a point that ive never seen in any other country ive worked in. Reporter 11 brothers and sisters, all hungry. She gets hot noodle soup. Strug toogles to carry the heavt home. No time for a childhood here. Mean whwhil meanwhile, natalie, that report condemned widespread violations and suburbs of this city are cut off by the government. Being used as a weapon of war. So sad. Well, if you are in the market for a new car, we do have some good news this morning. A lot of safe, new cars to choose from. The latest new car crash test found 39 new cars did so well that the Insurance Institute for Public Safety has chosen all 39 as a top safety pick for 2014. And of those 39, 22 got an even higher ranking of top safety pick plus installing front crash prevention systems. As the list is too long to name all the top cars, well give the top three small cars. Honda fourdoor civic, the mazda 3 and the toyota prius. Check this one out, a christmas greeting for some students in texas with a little bit of a scary twist as the students and teachers are recording their Merry Christmas. They have no idea that lurking inside that tree is another student. Gets you every time. The project by the schools media class a big hit. You can see why on youtube. Thats amazing. We can do that here out of our rock center tree. Perfect. Exactly. Yeah. Natalie, thanks very much. Tracking another storm. I cant believe it. Starting out west and is going to continue to make its way to the east, but right now, Beautiful Day in San Francisco. Youre going to see plenty of sunshine now not too bad as we look at all the satellite equipment on the roof here. Just moments ago we had a lovely shot of the bridge. Thats how it gets here. Has to go through that. Out west, we are looking really from michigan all the way to california up into the pacific northwest. Winter storm warnings and winter storm watches and freezing rain advisories out of this system. Heres what we have for you today. You can already see activity spreading from Salt Lake City and denver you should be okay today. Were looking at partly cloudy skies to cloudy skies and 45 degrees. Billings, montana, awfully chilly. 11 degrees. Salt lake city light snow and phoenix still on the cool side. 69. Look how chilly los angeles is today. 59 only a degree warmer than San Francisco. Seattle looking at 41 degrees and the way it looked right now. As you can see for today, sunshine up and down the east coast and well have 79 degrees in beautiful downtown miami and 40 in boston. Icy conditions. And this is going to start spreading out even further today, tomorrow on into saturday and sunday as this system makes its way across the country. Look for light snow making its way throughout the plain states and the good news for southern california, southern nevada. Looking at wet weather temperatures about 59 degrees and gorgeous day and some snow down in parts of southern alaska today. How about on hawaii . We did have snow in hawaii. Yes. About 12,000 feet above, they got some snow. Thats whats going on around the country, but were going to this is what al was trying to show you. Look at how the start to the day is in San Francisco. Temperatures mostly in the 40s. Headed towards the 60s for today. About 60 degrees today, well be in the low 60s. About 60 degrees, mid60s in the east bay and the trivalley thats your latest weather. You guys ready for nearly 70 degrees on sunday . I thought we were going to the islands or something. Thanks very much. The future of the popular reality show duck dynasty could be in doubt this morning. Suspended the shows star over remarks made in a magazine interview. People are already weighing in, including sarah palin. Reporter the duck dynasty characters led by their patriarch Phil Robinson are undeniably stars. On Barbara Walters list of the most fascinating people of the year. Talking with matt on today about their phenomenal run. Business is really good, yeah. Reporter Phil Robert Zorn called home sexuality sinful. He said morph out from there the beastiality the swindlers, they wont inherit the kingdom of god. Its not right. A es reaction, extremely disappointed. Placing phil under hay aus the from filming indelaware. What happens to the other duck stars . Will a e fight for the show . This is their hit show. It remains to be seen how it affects their viewership and how it affects their advertising. Reporter the show is getting huge support on social media, including a photo ought group posted by a former Vice President ial nominee sarah palen, those instole rants hating and taking on the duck dynasty patriarch are taking on all of us. Still, reality tv stars often become stars because they live on the edge. As robertson once pointed out. There is only a thin line between genius and infinity. Im right on that line. Reporter a crisis for one of the genres hit shows that could go on its way. For today, nbc news, los angeles. Well, carson is back in the orange room. I thought that was exciting. Then i saw his special guest. I love you. Its great to be back, thank you, guys. Its good to see al roker. Guys, so much thanks. Im excited to be here with the winner of season 5 on the voice. Tuesday night people watched this moment as i got to hand this to you tessanne. How has it been the last 24 hours . Its a beautiful one. Im so happy. Im living it, enjoying every moment. I took it right back. I handed you a microphone. Time to go to work, right . You feel like you are working . I feel like the voice trained me. We are glad to have you on today. We will sit down and talk to you today. I got the queen of music, guys. We will chat with her in the next half hour. That is cool. So beautiful. Now about you, carson. No problem. We love you, too, carson. All right, also ahead this morning, president obamas decision to skip the sochi olympics and send the openly gay athletes as a part of the u. S. Delegation. Getting a lot of headlines. We will talk to that person coming up. How the winner revietnamed how she picked the winning numbers. First, this is today on nbc. Coming up, a passenger on a seattle bus fights back against a gun wielding robber, an incredible story. From heart break, to triumph, a look back at how we brought you the biggest stories from 2013. We will look at the headlines we covered here on today the news we broke, our biggest grandma is so happy to be here for your very first christmas. I hear youre quite the expert at waking people up in the morning. Let me show you how grandma does it. Youre daddy made this when he was a little boy. This is your dad in my house, where he had his first christmas. Thanks for making the coffee. Well look whos up. Im really glad youre here, mom. Me too. Look whos here [ chicken caws ] [ male announcer ] when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast with tums. Heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact and goes to work in seconds. Tum, tum tum tum tums [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of all day pain relief. This season, discover aleve. All day pain relief with just two pills. This season, discover aleve. Why wouldnt everyone get a Straight Talk wireless plan . With savings like that yeah, theres unlimited talk, text and data and you can save up to 950 a year. With savings like that you could buy a lot of things. Like an industrial size blender. We could have smoothies for days. Tuesday smoothies. Wednesday smoothies. This phone plan sounds delicious. Own the season with the latest Straight Talk smartphones. Get nationwide coverage on americas largest and most dependable networks. And pay only 45 a month for unlimited talk, text and data with no contract. Walmart. Ill tell you what we do. I want you to go out on the field and look for anything with an o. We will win this for mother russia coach, eat a snickers®. Whys that, chief . You get a little loopy when youre hungry. Better . Better. Now lets go for it [ male announcer ] youre not you when youre hungry®. Snickers® satisfies. To share with family. [ woman 2 ] to carry on traditions. [ woman 3 ] to come together even when were apart. [ male announcer ] in stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and more, swanson makes holiday dishes delicious. A very good thursday morning to you. A man is under arrest accused of leading deputies on a chase before crashing into a gas station in oakland. It happened at the 76 station at 98th and eves. Sheriffs deputies tried to stop the vehicle, but the driver took off