Thats unacceptable. Thats ridiculous right there. A student assistant under fire for hitting opposing player during a bowl game. He could be particular kicked off the team for good today, tuesday, december 30th, 2014. Announcer from nbc news this is today with matt lauer and Savannah Guthrie live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today. Its a tuesday morning. Im Savannah Guthrie. Im willie geist along with Sheinelle Jones and dylan dreyer. Al is out in los angeles and matt and natalie have the morning off. We have a lot of breaking news to get to this morning. After three days of searching forsearching, the wreckage of airasia flight 8501 has been found. Katy tur is covering the story for us this morning. Good morning to you. Reporter as officials say, they found wreckage and pulled about 40 bodies from the water. Thats not even the worst of it. Relatives found out this news by watching live local television and seeing those bodies on air without any warning t bears repeating that there were 162 people on board this plane. That includes 17 kids and one baby. Overnight, indonesian officials confirmed the worst, having sighted debris and bodies in the water. Helicopter rescue teams were lowered into the java sea to recover the wreckage and victims. Local tv showed pictures taken by the Indonesian Air force of brown and orange objects, nen all, things that could be life vests and luggage, according to search officials. Meanwhile, loved ones were inconsolable. Airasia has chartered a flight that will circle the islands so family and friends can play over the area where the plane lost contact. Tony fernandes tweeting my heart bleeds for all the relatives of my crew and passengers. Nothing is more important to us. Halfway into its journey from indonesia to singapore, seconds before it dropped off radar, pilots requested to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid bad weather but their request was denied because of air traffic. Now as it looks like a debris field has been spotted, investigators will begin to piece together how it all happened and if weather was, in fact to blame. Clearly the investigators are on target. They will now begin in earnest, as long as there is daylight to recover the bodies the personal effects, the wreckage from the plane and also look for the black boxes that are located in the tail of the plane. Reporter even more bad news for airasia as another one of its flights overshot the runway in the philippines. Everyone on board was okay. As for 8501 willie it is important to note this is still a search and rescue. Back to you. Katy tur on this story in singapore for us thank you. Nbc news aviation analyst greg feith is a former ntsb investigator. Good morning. Good morning, willie. We have pieces of debris suitcases, life vests, some bodies. Whats your best guess . I know its early days about what weve seen here. The fact we have bodies and material from interior of the aircraft suggest that the fuselage broke up on impact with the water. The question is how long we know the debris has been floating for at least three days. Where did it come from . Where did it originate from . We know what we have on the surface. That doesnt necessarily translate into a debris field on the sea floor. Reporter most of the images of the bodies weve seen we wont show them here this morning, show body with his no life vests on. Do you read anything into that greg . I think its too early but it would suggest whatever happened was an event that didnt allow for preparation, the crew pilots or flight attendants werent able to get the cabin prepped telling the passengers were in a dire situation, don your life vests. It was probably an unexpected event. The waters are relatively shallow, 160 feet deep in the java sea. Whats the next step . Theyll have to map all the wreckage continue searching a wider area. Because just because we have a concentration of debris doesnt suggest that all of the debris is in that area. So theyre going to have to determine, really how far this wreckage spread, how long its been you know, dispersing and try to use it to backtrack to find the debris field on the sea floor. Despite all the data we may get from the black box and all the other sources, there are things we may never know including conversations that happened in the cockpit, why the captain decided he needed to go from 38,000 feet to 32,000 feet when in fact there were six to 11 plane that is flew through that same area. Any idea about why he may have decided to climb . I hope from the cockpit voice recorder there is a discussion between the captain and first officer as to what their intent was, why they were deviating and what their deviation plan was. We cant be guaranteed of that. A real question is what did those other six flight crews know that the accident flight crew didnt know . They were able to transit that area successfully. Why didnt the accident flight crew have the same information . And what was predicating their decision to climb to 38 . Thats an arbitrary type altitude. Why didnt they go to 34 . Why didnt they go to 36 . Hopefully those questions will be answered with conversation on the cvr. But theres no guarantee we will ever know. Lets hope we get answers in the days and weeks ahead. Greg feith, thank you very much. Savannah . All right, willie. Bitter cold gripping much of the country heading into new years eve. Out west the Las Vegas Strip is preparing for a rare snow storm. Al is out west in pasadena. What can we expect . Well savannah its kind of weird. We are also talking about bitterly cold temperatures here in pasadena for new years day. The morning temperature could be a record 32 degrees. Well watch that. Lets taky look at this other record cold coming across the country. This is a big, bitterly cold air mass. Its not the polar vortex. Dont worry about that. Weve got windchill advisories and warnings all the way from the Pacific Northwest into the upper midwest and down into texas. Temperatures right now are anywhere from 10 to 40 degrees below normal. Look at the windchills. 14 degrees below, it feels like in dodge city. 25 in memphis. 2 below in chicago. Those are current temperatures. Afternoon highs, you can see anywhere from 10 to 40 degrees below normal. Billings will be a high of 6. Minneapolis, 5. 17 degrees below normal and on new years day i should say new years eve day, those temperatures spread further east to cleveland, as far south as dallas 43 degrees. This storm out of the west moves pretty quickly. Its a fast mover. Thats the good news. But it will have its effects felt by thursday morning, new years morning. Some areas in the rockies could see one to two feet of snow. Las vegas, were talking about a Winter Weather advisory in effect right now. Were look at one to two inches of snow. It doesnt sound like a lot. Consider they have almost no snow clearing equipment. Wind gusts could be up to 30 Miles Per Hour. Greg gutierrez right now is there in las vegas, getting ready. I know they got to a low of 32 degrees, which broke a record. 381 days not going below freezing but they are bracing for a real Winter Weather situation. Reporter hey, al good morning. Snow here on the Las Vegas Strip . What are the odds . Now there is a Winter Weather advisory in effect as you mentioned, sin city freezing over . Not quite yet. Forecasters had said up to three inches of snow were expected at one point. Overnight those models shifted a little bit to the east. At this point its a gamble. Still pretty toasty compared to colorado where i just came from. Theyre expecting recordbreaking cold today, as you mentioned. Temperatures barely expected to crack zero. Its all part of that arctic grasp gripping most of the nation. Icy roads in places like montana, iowa and nebraska. Here in vegas, though snow is unusual but not unheard of. Last time it snowed here on the strip was six years ago. But, you know i dont think it will affect the party much al. Probably not, gabe. They probably wont even notice it. Thanks very much. Though they are warning folks to be careful because the roads could become very treacherous. Lets look at whats going on as far as new years eve night. Most of the country will be fairly dry. In the southwest were looking at a bit of a mess. As we look at new years day, again, fairly dry. We are looking at some icy conditions central texas. Look for wet weather, Lower Mississippi river valley. The southwest still has some snow. And some lakeeffect snow still lingering around the great lakes. So were going to be checking that out. And were going to give you more about this really dangerous situation thats going to be developing in the great lakes, guys a little bit later. Were talking some areas could be looking at two feet of lakeeffect snow. Well get to that in a little bit. Happy new year. All right, al. Thank you so much. Highranking republican on capitol hill is dealing with fallout of a meeting he attended more than a decade ago. Sheinelle has more on that story for us. Representative Steve Scalese of louisiana is under fire for a speech he gave at a white supremacist conference in 2002 the third highest ranking house republican. Now other members of congress are calling for an investigation. Overnight House Majority whip Steve Scalise acknowledged he might have spoken at a convention for white supremacist but was not aware of what principles the group stood for. Scalise shot back at criticism saying i didnt know who all of these groups were and i detest any kind of hate group. For anyone to suggest that i was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous. Scalise said at the time he was making many appearances to oppose a local tax plan. I spoke to any group that called and there were a lot of groups calling. One of the groups that called was euro founded by david duke the former grand wizard of the k ku klux klan. Yvette clark, serves as leader of the Congressional Black Caucus called for an investigation into the congressmans actions while others like bobby jindal is offering his support. Im confident that he absolutely rejects racism in all its forms. Meanwhile, Michael Grimm is calling it quits days after pleading guilt toy tax evasion. The republican congressman admitted to underreporting receipts from a restaurant he managed between 2007 and 2010 and employing undocumented immigrants. Former president george h. W. Bush spent another night in the hospital but doctors say his breathing has returned to normal. Nbcs jacob rascon is in houston with the very latest. Jacob, good morning. Reporter sheinelle, good morning. That improvement in his breathing, best news from doctors yet. Despite the daily updates, the former president remains hospitalized. Last night was his seventh night at houston methodist. He was taken here by ambulance as a precaution last tuesday, after he had some trouble breathing. Important to note that if the past is any indication, we may only learn just how serious the 90yearold, oldest former president s condition really is after he gets home from the hospital. Sheinelle . Thank you, jacob. Italian officials still cant say how many more people may be missing from a greek ferry that caught fire off the coast of albania. Dozens of other names are on the ships manifest and some of the survivors arent included on that list suggesting they may have been traveling illegally. Now to a dramatic rescue in phoenix. Firefighters were called to the crash scene where they found an suv in a canal. It was on its side in several feet of water. Rescuers cut out the sbnds pulled the driver to safety. The man in his 60s is going to be okay. Controversy surrounding the actions of a student assistant football coach during mondays liberty bowl against West Virginia. Aggie student assistant Michael Richardson was caught on camera hitting a pair of West Virginia players in separate incidents. Richardson shoved one player in the Second Quarter and just minutes later, he hits another player in the back of the helmet. When a m head coach was made aware of what happened he told the assistant to stay in the locker room during the second half. Someone said further action could follow. Back to Savannah Willie and dylan. This was all over twitter. I bet it was. People were retweeting comments about it. It was a big deal. Its shocking that he thought he was going to get away with it. Its a nationally televised game. Accuracy are there. Officials are standing there. Its shocking. Lets go to al in pasadena, covering the rose bowl this week. Actually savannah does that all the time. Dylan, how many times on the way over to the map does savannah give you a smack on the head . Its a love tap. I told you before. You only hurt the ones you love. Okay. Decent amount of sunshine in the northeast. Gorgeous day. Sunshine in the Pacific Northwest. Windy in Northern California today and wet weather continues in central florida. Thats whats going on. Were going to get to your l we come by almost every day to deliver your mail so if you have any packages you want to return you should just give them to us i mean, were going to be there anyway why dont you just leave it for us to pick up . Or you could always get in your car and take it back yourself yeah, us picking it up is probably your easiest option its kind of a no brainer ok, well, good talk good morning, im meteorologist bill henley. A cloudy and colder start this morning. Clouds to start with. Some breaks of sunshine this afternoon and the temperatures stay in the 30s later today to near 40 degrees. Gets colder tomorrow. 26 in the morning and 36 the High Temperature and the wind will be blowing as we ring in the new year. It will be in the 20s at midnight and down to 23 degrees thursday morning. Sunshine, thursday and friday. Well be replaced by clouds and rain this weekend. Have a great day. Coming up well take a look at the lakeeffect snow situation going on around the great lakes. Savannah guys . All right, al. Well talk to you later. Two american soldiers who tied the knot in hawaii now have a story to tell as president obamas golf outing inging made them scramble to find a different outing. Chris jansing talked to them exclusively. Good morning. Reporter good morning. The golf course president obama plays the most when he is in hawaii. They always warn people planning events when hes in town expect lastminute schedule changes but neither the president nor two u. S. Army captains who got married there sunday expected that the commander in chief might become their wedding crasher. Newlyweds ed and natalie didnt mind when his cell phone rang right after their i dos. Ed and natalie . Hi. Hi mr. President. Both Army Captains their commander in chief phoned in some golf course diplomacy to make sure no one was teed off. Congratulations on your wedding. I feel terrible. Nobody told us. I hope the wedding went okay anyway. It did. Thank you very much. It was a blessing in disguise. It might not have seemed that way at first. Ed an avid golfer wanted to tie the knot at a tee with sweeping views over the pacific, near the base where theyre both stationed in hawaii. We knew two things could mess up the wedding. One was weather and the other was the president. Reporter so when the president decided to play you guys having fun . The couple got word they would have to move their ceremony. Reporter im sure his staffers didnt let him know there was a wedding. Reporter so you werent ready to yell at him . No. Absolutely not. Not at all. Reporter the headlines werent good for white house. Its not the first time that obamas love of golf he admitted his mistake after the beheading of hostage james foley. This photo tells the story of a uniquely memorable wedding. Unbelievable shocked and awed. Incredible. Reporter two west point grads on the phone with their boss. We were watching you golf. That must have been kind of painful. Reporter ed got to ask the president a question the white house wont ever answer. But the president did. He shot an 84. Could you beat him . Probably. Reporter ed is a five handicap. Im told thats really good. And he natalie both did tours in afghanistan. Change in venue wasnt about to throw them. And as west point grads, they both just went into Emergency Planning mode. No honeymoon for now. Many of the wedding guests are sticking around to celebrate the new year with the newlyweds in hawaii. Willie . Chris jansing in hawaii. Natalie and ed congratulations and, mr. President , you better get on that registry crate and barrel. Get them the blender. Exactly. Dylan is in for carson. He has tomorrow nights festivities, getting ready for those. Sometimes its hard to stay awake till midnight. Will you stay awake . Ill try. Its hard. Its also really hard for children to stay awake, too. Parents try to make it easier. 34 of parents admit to pretending that midnight happens a lot earlier than it actually does. Now netflix is trying to help parents pull off that trick. They have created this special threeminute countdown clip featuring the cartoon character king julian. Anyone with a netflix account can log on and start streaming this video. At what age do you let your child stay up for the new years eve countdown . Age doesnt matter says 82 of people. 10 say 9 to 12 years old. Yoly says if they can make it till 12 let them see the ball. Dmoni says im lucky if i can stay up. I might have to tap into that netflix account at about, i dont know 9 00 9 30 . I love that idea. Im going to roll that thing at 9 59. For yourself . Exactly. We had a countdown for the kids at 11 50 in the morning. Theyll never know with the sun out and everything. Am pm. Its kids dylan, thank you. Tragic accident in maryland. States first female bishop on administrative leave after being involved in a deadly hit and run crash. Will charges now be filed . Plus did you have a favorite . Most captivating photos of 2014 according to our friends at time magazine. Well take a look. First this is today on nbc. Coming up on trending break out the leg warmers and feel that burn. Why jane fonda is breathing new life into her famous workout videos more than 30 years later. Thank goodness. Is another behold, the subway steak egg white and cheese start your morning off right with juicy, sizzly steak stacked high with proteinpacked egg whites,