From the dakotas to new england. Brace yourself. Its going to feel a lot more like the north pole this morning. A deep freeze chilled millions. People are running across the street to get to where they need to go. The city of portland, oregon, was brought to a virtual standstill. Their first snowstorm. A new report claims Vladimir Putin himself directed the russian hacking during the election. No one is speaking. No ones on the record. If it is true, theyre leaking it. And thats a crime. The president elect has some guy if its a 400 pound guy. It was a 400 pound russian guy. Evacuations are under way in aleppo, syria, as a fragile ceasefire appears to be holding, at least for now. Hackers have stolen personal data from more than 1 million yahoo yusers in whats being called the largest Security Breach in history. If youve got information on yahoo youre pretty worried tonight. California has put a halt to ubers selfdriving cars regulators banned the service until the company gets a state permit. Amazon has made its firstever prime drone delivery. It just took 30 minutes. In china firefighters saved a man who was about to jump from the rooftop of a 30 story building. Oh a major attack larry nance with a grown mans move. And all that matters. Some of the top names in all the tech world gathering at trump tower here in new york city. The ceo of twitter is not meet with donald trump im guessing for the same reason doctor frankenstein never went out of his way to meet the monster. On cbs this morning. Kanye west tweeted a photo of a Donald Trumpsigned copy of time magazines person of the year issue. Thank you, kanye, you are a great friend and everyone knows the perfect gift for a great friend is your autograph. This mornings eye opener is presented by toyota. Lets go places. Welcome to cbs this morning. American intelligence Officials Say they are convinced that russian hacking of our president s election was approved by president . Sources confirmed to sources they believed putin was aware of attacks that began in july of last year. Now an official investigation is still going on but this is the first time that the hacking that plagued the Democratic National committee until election day has been linked to putin. Jeff pegues is in washington with new details about the cyber attack. Jeff, good morning. Good morning. The hacks were so widespread, and sustained over such a long period of time, that u. S. Intelligence sources say it could not have been carried out without knowledge of senior levels of the kremlin. Cbs news has learned that investigators believe the initial cyber attack that ultimately crippled the Democratic National committee involved thousands of malicious emails aimed at u. S. Governments, military, and political organizations. First attempts by foreign hackers to disrupt the election came in the form of malware and phishing emails which investigators say allowed russianbacked hacking groups to burrow into the computer apparatus of the Democratic National committee. U. S. Intelligence sources tell cbs news this type of cyber hacking could not have happened without Vladimir Putins blessing, saying, quote the orders to do it would have had to come from the highest level. After the breach it took months for federal investigators, and dnc officials, to take action. The fbi called the dnc help desk. Reporter adam hodge is with the dnc. It took several months before the dnc realized that it had been contacted by the fbi . Its hard to believe but thats the reality. Reporter congressman nun es, the chairman of the House Committee on intelligence argued lawmakers are being denied a briefing on the hacks. We want to clarify press reports of the cia that it has a new assessment it has not shared with us. But director of National IntelligenceJames Clapper released a statement which said we will not offer any comments until the review requested by president obama is complete. Republican senator Lindsey Graham said wednesday the feds knew who cracked his emails over the summer. We were told by the fbi, in august, they were hacked in june so they pointed us to the fact that the russians did it. Yes, the russians did it. Reporter but president elect donald trump has brushed off intelligence assessments, blaming the russians. They have no idea if its russia or china, or somebody. Reporter mr. Trumps doubts about russian involvements are also at odds with the Obama Administration. White House Press Secretary josh earnest accused thencandidate trump of pushing the hackers to continue their assaults. Their involvement was having a negative impact on his opponents campaign. Thats why he was encouraging them to keep doing it. Reporter in addition to damaging the prospects of the Democratic National committee in the 2016 elections cycle some u. S. Officials are concerned about the hacking attempts that have yet to come to light. The thousands of malicious emails that were initially launched may have been probing weaknesses for future cyber strikes. Charlie . Jeff, thanks. The response to putin and the russian hacking will be a key question during Rex Tillersons confirmation hearing for secretary of state. This week former defense secretary and cia director robert gates endorsed tillersons nomination. He called the exxonmobil ceo a person of great integrity. On pbs last night i asked gates about tillersons relationship with russias president. Gates once told president george w. Bush that he looked into putins eyes and saw, quote, a stonecold killer. So how does Rex Tillerson when he looks into Vladimir Putins eyes, what does he see . I havent asked rex that question. I would make the case that being friendly is different than being friends. I think that rex had an understanding of what his interests were. I think he dealt in a businesslike fashion with putin. I think one of the challenges facing the next president is how do you thread the needle of stopping the downward spiral in u. S. russian relations that is potentially quite dangerous, and at the same time, push back against putins aggressiveness, bullying, and general thuggery. And having somebody who understands where putin is coming from, who knows him and knows how he negotiates, i think is a big asset. I think its a mistake to think that because Rex Tillerson successfully did business in russia that hes best friends with Vladimir Putin. I think thats just a completely false narrative. What is not false is this is a very serious business. Yeah. Because of the revelations about putin. Michael morell was on with me and said the United States and president obama has to respond and has to respond in a very public way. Including sanctions, and other means. And sooner rather than later. As we learned that president obama delayed blaming the russians publicly during the campaign, he was afraid about politicizing intelligence, even though this was known within the administration. But the repercussions that a Foreign Government tried to influence our elections is a serious one and theres got to be a serious response. And Michael Morell called it equivalent to a political 9 11. It should be whether youre a democrat or republican. This is not a partisan issue. And it has to happen by president obama. This is not something that can wait. Right. Yeah. Because it happened on his watch. To be tend for sure. In a cbs news poll just out this morning americans remain deeply divided over the president elect. 36 expect donald trump to do a poor job as president. 34 think hell be very good or good. The president elect met with Tech Industry leaders yesterday including the ceos of apple, google, and amazon. But not twitter. Mr. Trump calls the platform a great form of communication. But our poll shows that 50 of americans believe that he tweets too much. Nancy cordes has the highlights from the meeting yesterday. Good morning. Well they did not get a dressingdown from mr. Trump the way media executives did a few weeks ago even though Silicon Valley leaders were largely critical of the president elect when he was running. Instead, he and they declared the meeting very productive. And he told them his door would always be open to them. Theyre going to call me, reporter mr. Trumps meeting with facebooks sheryl sandberg, apples tim cook, and others lasted more than 90 minutes. The groups discussed jobs, taxes, and quote, specific Innovative Solutions that have been blocked by narrowthinking in washington. I wont tell you the hundreds of calls weve had asking to come to this meeting. Reporter its a shift from the campaign when some of these Industry Leaders kept their distance from mr. Trump. Wikileaks revealed Googles Eric Schmidt had been working with Hillary Clintons campaign since 2014. Teslas elon musk said mr. Trump is not the right guy for america. And amazons jeff bezos publicly duelled with the president elect. Thats not an appropriate way for a president ial candidate to behave. You know its amazon. He wants political influence, so that amazon will benefit from it. Thats not right. Reporter twitter Ceo Jack Dorsey was not invited to the roundtable, even though mr. Trump is a famously avid tweeter. That led some to assume the trump team is still nursing a grudge after twitter reneged on an agreement to provide a special emoji to go along with the crookedhillary. In a statement twitter said they ultimately decided not to permit this particular format for any political advertising. The conference table was only so big. Reporter rnc Communications Director sean spicer insisted there was no attempt to shut twitter out. If you go down the list of the top Tech Companies, i guarantee you youll find additional ones that werent there. Reporter and twitter is smaller than the other companies that were represented in the room. Also in the room were mr. Trumps two sons, eric and don jr. , despite his vows to turn his business over to them, and create a wall between the business and the white house. Thanks, nancy. John heilemann is the managing editor of bloomberg politics. Welcome. Hello. Hello. Happy almost holidays, guys. Thanks. I assume you all have magnificent plans coming up. Lets talk about Vladimir Putin and these reports. Yeah. Theres increasing pressure, political pressure, on president obama to respond and respond in a strong way . Well i think theres two different kinds of pressure. The first question is going to be how to investigate this and can already see the way in which this debate is lining up with the question of whether it should be a congressional inquiry on a bipartisan basis or whether more of a 9 11 commission kind of model. A lot of democrats want to do that. A lot of republicans in control of Congress Want to do the investigation in congress. So theres a rift but the white house investigation is under way right now . And will come out before the president leaves office . It will. And theres also the question of whether there should be a response. And that, you remember joe biden when the first reports of this came out back in october joe biden threatened the notion that there could be some kind of response, whether a Cyber Response or some other kind of response. I think if there is beyond news reports, if there become more credible reports from this investigation that putin, for example, is directly involved in this, i think theres going to be a very Strong National security case being made by many people that something needs to be done about this as opposed to just looking for the truth of the story. Which is important on its own. What can be done . Suppose everything is true that he was involved, that he knew about it. What can be done . What does it change . Well, theres a theres a the United States engages in cyberwar fare also. And has engaged in cyberwar fare against a variety of states in the past. One of the pieces thats always within the case in this area is that you could strike back against russia, against putin personally, against his assets. Exposing information about putin and his holdings. Much of which is shrouded in mystery as Donald Trumps financial ses tets. You could do that im not saying thats the right thing to do but its certainly an option on the table that has been considered and would be considered in the future, i think. I guess the more interesting question to me is, most interesting, why would putin want trump as president . And what are the implications of that . And how does that affect who his secretary of state is . Does it make it more or less likely that Rex Tillerson those are questions, quickly in my ear. Vladimir putin has always had bad feelings about Hillary Clinton because she was one of the leaders of sanctions against russia after the crimea invasion. Donald trump has made more conciliatory noises towards russia and putin than clinton did. You can imagine why there was a policy preference there on the basis of what their stated positions were. How that plays in to the tillerson nomination, going to be a huge question. Confirmations are almost going to be exclusively about this issue. Its a good debate to have. And the question is going to be i think the central question of that confirmation hearing. John you did it very quickly, and very succinctly. What did donald know and when did he know it . And what about vladimir know and when did he know it. And whats going on with donald trump and kanye west . That is another large question. Thats more complicated than anything else you talked about. Thank you. Schools and businesses are closed this morning in portland, after rare snowstorm crippled the city. Parts of oregon received more than a foot of snow yesterday. The conditions caused dozens of accidents. Hundreds of people were stranded for hours in cars. And buses. And at school. Brent wiseberg of cbs affiliate is in portland. Good morning. Here in portland this tencar pileup is the result of treacherous driving conditions. The decision to keep schools and offices open yesterday left many stranded outside in dangerous conditions for hours. Thousands of people were stuck for hours along streets and highways in portland wednesday, as the storm brought the city to a grinding halt. I was waiting up on the hill for over 45 minutes before i decided to walk down here. Reporter icy roads left many cars skidding or unable to move at all. The Oregon Department of transportation rarely uses salt to deice the roads, because of environmental concerns. Whoo reporter conditions caused dozens of accidents. Dominoes. Definitely you dont want to get in the middle. Reporter this video captured a school bus as it crashed into a parked car. Hundreds of students were stranded at school or on buses for hours after classes ended, because of heavy traffic jams. Were just a few students who couldnt get out. There were plenty of students who walked in this weather all the way to southeast portland. Reporter outside the city, at least three offlaunches were reported shutting down highway 20, near a popular ski resort. Further south in bend, oregon, more than a foot of snow fell by nightfall, trading near whiteout conditions. Dozens of cars and tractor trailers got trapped in snow banks along highway 97. A few Good Samaritans showed up to help this stranded driver. And this moving van had to be towed so it wouldnt be stuck for the night. Its ridiculous. You know, you got to come prepared for being out here. Reporter the Portland Public School system has closed all schools and offices for today with more snow in the forecast, temperatures arent expected to rise until sometime next week. Theres even more snow in the forecast for saturday. Gayle . Thank you. Chief weather caster lonnie quinn of our station wcbs is tracking the wintry weather all across the country. Your weather map aint pretty today. These numbers are crazy. Look this is wintry feel from one end of the country to the other. Toughest is the Northern Plains and midwest into portions of northern new england. International falls will feel like 12 below zero when you factor in the win and thats the warmest. Thats at like 2 00 in the afternoon. As far as snowfall goes, theres a big system thats moving in to the northwest, and as this thing rumbles across its dropping huge amounts of snowfall. Its rain at the shore. Its higher in the elevated spots and snow. Future cast, this will drop snow at some point in time from portland, oregon, all the way to boston, massachusetts. And we have Winter Weather advisories and winter storm warnings, i mean a bunch of them. Theyre really concentrated for you folks out west. There are 12 states that are under winter storm warnings today. But again the bulk of them are focused right there in the western half of the country charlie. Lonnie, thank you so much. A desperate evacuation is under way right now in the syrian city of aleppo. Video appears to show a convoy of ambulances bringing injured people from the tiny area still held by rebels. Syrian government buses are ready to remove thousands of trapped civilians. Holly williams is following the story from istanbul. Holly, good morning. Good morning. Weve obtained a video as it appears to show an attack on a convoy of civilians as injured people fight proSyrian Regime forces, reportedly wounding at least three.