Are out from the dakotas to new england. Brace yourself. It will feel a lot more like the north pole this morning. A deep chill freezes 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 after a rare snowstorm. Go, go a new report claims Vladimir Putin, himself, directed the russian hacking during the election. Why didnt they tell the e no one is speaking and no one at all on the record. If it is true they are leaking it and that is a crime. Reporter the president elect said it could have been some guy in new jersey. If its a 400pound guy it was a 400pound russian guy. In aleppo, syria, a fragile ceasefire appears holding at least no now. 1 billion yahoo users is Security Breach in history. California put a halt in ubers selfdriving cars. Regulators ban the company until the company has a personality. Amazon made its first drone delivery. It took just 13 minutes. All that. A man about to jump from a ho rooftop of a 30story building was saved. The grill some of the t tech world gathering at trump tower in new york city. The ceo of twitter did not meet for donald trump im guessing for the reason dr. Frankenstein never went out of hi ws way to meet the monster. On cbs this morning. Donald trump signed his Time Magazine cover to kanye. Saying you are a good friend and Everybody Knows a great gift this morning sponsored by toyota. Lets go places . Welcome to cbs this morning. American intelligence Officials Say they are convinced that russian hacking of our president ial election was approved by president Vladimir Putin. Sources close confirm to cbs news they believe 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 played the democraticommit election day is linked to putin. Jeff pegues has more. Reporter 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 Democratic National comm its hard to believe but thats the reality. The chairman of the House Committee on intelligence argues lawmakers are being denied a we want to clarify press reports that the cia has a new assessment that it has not shared with us but director of National IntelligenceJames Clapper released an Intelligence Community statement which said we will not offer any comment 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 that we were hacked in june so they pointed us to the yes, the russians did it. Reporter 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 involvement are also at odds with the Obama Administration. White House Press Secretary josh earnest accused then candidate trump of pushing the hackers to continue their assaults. Their involvement was having opponents campaign thats why he encouraged them to keep doing it. In addition to damaging prospects of Democratic National committee in the election cycle, they are concerned abo hacks that have yet to come to light. Charlie . Launched may be probing for u. S. Cyber strikes. The response to putin and russian hacking will be a key question during Rex Tillersons confirmation hearings for se secretary robert gates endorsed tillersons nomination. He called him a person of great integrity. Last night on asked gates about tillersons relationship with Vladimir Putin gates say he looked into putins eyes and saw a, quote, a stone cold killer. He see . I havent asked rex that question. I would make the case being friendly is different than being friend. I think 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, 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 he is best friends with Vladimir Putin. I think that is a completely false narrative. What is is not false this is a very Serious Business now. Michael morrell was on with me last night 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. 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 has been known within the administration. But the repercussions that a Foreign Government influence our election is serious one and has to be a serious response. Michael morrell equals it an equivalent to a political 9 11 e. It should be chilling whether youre democrat or republican. This is not a partisan issue. It has to happen by president obama. Its not something that can wait because it happened on his watch. To be continued for sure. A cbs news poll out this morning americans adeeply dividd think he will be good or very good. He met with tech leaders yesterday including the leaders of apple and amazon and google but not twitter. Mr. Trump calls it a great form of communication. Our poll shows that 60 of americans believe he tweets too much. Nancy cordes has the highlights of the tech meeting at trump tower yesterday. Reporter they did not get a dressing down by mr. Trump the way media executives did a few weeks ago. Even thougli 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. We are going to be there for you and youll call my people or call me opinion doesnt make any difference. We have no formal chain of command around here. Reporter mr. Trumps meeting with Sheryl Sandberg and tim cook and others lasted more than 90 minutes. The group discussed jobs, taxes solutions blocked by narrow thinking in washington. I wont tell you the hundreds of calls that we have 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 way for a president ial candidate to behave. You know its amazon. He wants political influence so that amazon will benefit from it. That is not right. Reporter twitter Ceo Jack Dorsey was not invited to the round table, even though mr. Trump is a famously a vicious id tweeter and led some to assume after special emoji to go along with the crooked hillary. The conference table was only so big. Reporter rnc Communications Director shawn spicer insisted no attempt to shut twitter out. If you did 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 so jr. , despite his vow to turn his business over to them and create a wall, charlie, 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. Good morning. I see you all have magnificent plans coming up soon. Lets talk about Vladimir Putin and these reports. Yes. Is there going to be increang pressure, political way . Well, in terms of i think there are two different kinds of pressure. The first question is how to investigate there and u can see the way in which this debate is lining up with the question of whether there should be a congressional inquiry on a bipartisan basis or whether go to more of a 9 11 commission kind of model. A lot of democrats want to do that and a lot of republicans in control of the Congress Want to do the investigation in congress. A risk that but the white house investigation is under way right now and come president leaves office. There will and whether or not there is a question there will ab response. Remember joe biden when the first reports of this came out in october joe biden threatened the notion there would be a response whether a Cyber Response or other kind of response. I think beyond news reports, if there become more credible reports from this investigation, that putin may further, for example, was directly involved in this i thi a Strong National security case being this, as opposed to just looking for the truth of the story which is important on its own. What can be done . Supposed everything is true that he was involved and knew about it. What can be done . What does it change . Well, there is a the United States engages in cyber war fare also and against a variety of states in the past. One of the pieces of thinking that has always been the case in this area you could strike back against russia, against putin personally, against his assets, exposing information about is a shrouded mystery as Donald Trumps financial assets. You could do that if you were i dont think the right thing to do but certainly an option on the table is considered and considered in the future i think. I guess the more interesting question to me is the most interesting is 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 they are saying quickly in my ear Vladimir Putin has always had bad feelings about Hillary Clinton because of the fact that she was one of the leaders of sanctions against russia after the crimea invasion and donald trump has made more conciliatory toward ruscsia. How that plays into the tillerson nomination is a huge question. The tillerson confirmation hearings i think will be exclusively about this issue. And norahs question is going to be, i think, the central question of that confirmation hearing. John, you did it very quickly and very nicely. What did donald know and when did he know . And what did vladimir know and when did he know it. And what is going on with donald trump and kanye west . That is another question and Demarco Morgan is in adams, new york, which is under a snow warning. Good morning. Reporter good morning. About 10 inches of snow have accumulated so far and its almost kneedeep in this sitting area in the strf town. The holiday lights are still on so that is always a good sign that things are okay. People, if you just have to get out on the roads, you want to play it safe. A camera captured the moments the lakeeffect snow barreled into buffalo, new york. The storm brought along some rare thundersnow. Strong winds reduced visibility to zero making driving even more dangerous. A few Good Samaritans helped this driver whose car struggled with the heavy buildup. We need to be on our game at bruce reom has been operating a snowplow in Jefferson County about five years. He says dealing with lakeeffect snow can be like playing a Never Ending Game of catchup. You get your roads cleared up and removed from snow and ice, and then another band comes through, and youre right back to square one starting all over again. Reporter another major challenge, impatient drivers. People will try to pass a plow vehicle and be we will find them in the ditch after they have reporter lakeeffect snow, very unpredictable . It is. Reporter Jefferson County sheriff says the nature of these storms make them especially dangerous todrivers. Its a clear sunny day out. You hit the lake effect band and the visibility is zero and change just like that. Reporter lakeeffect snow warning will be in effect until friday morning and windchill advisory, i should say, will be in place this evening. You have cold temperature and for a lot of people, but youre always welcome to join me on this little bench here, gayle, for a nice warm cup of coffee and you have to keep your heels on. Demarco, please dont hold your breath she wont get here. Ill give you a hug. Thank you, demarco, very much. Chief weather caster lonnie quinn of wcbs is tracking the cold. Looks bad out there, lonnie p. M. Its a rough situation where demarco is. Cold air. This is our third arctic blast of the season. International falls is 12 below zero what it feels like when you factor in the wind. The warmest point of the day, guys point of snow to go along with the cold air which will stretch into the northeast. Today, we focus on, you got it. The great lakes. That lakeeffect snow putting bands of snow. Tough to pinpoint exactly where its going to be but i bet you watertown, new york, where feet of snow out of it. The big story is what is brewing out west. The storm pushes onshore and drop snow anywhere from portland, oregon, to boston, massachusetts, and by the time you get to saturday, an interesting setup. A him warm front pushes in and all of that snow is going to turn to rain, except for maybe northern new england. Charlie . Lonnie, thank you very much. A desperate evacuation is under way right now . The syrian city of aleppo. Video appears to show a convoy of ambulances bringing injured people from the tiny area held by rebels. Syrian government buses are ready to remove thousands of p forces. Reportedly wounding at least three. The ambulances and cars were trying to ferry people out of instead, they came under fire. This man was apparently shot while traveling in an ambulance. This comes a day after yet another ceasefire fell apart and an evacuation of fighters and civilians was cancelled. An offensive by the Syrian Regime backed by russia and iran has left the rebels with only a tiny pocket of territory in aleppo, around two square miles, where several thousand are thought to be trapped. After four years of fighting, the Syrian Government is in control of the rest of the city. Its a victory for the regime and its allies, russia and iran, norah . Awful situation there. Holly, thank you very much. Ahead, new research that raises serious questions about toyota. Lets go places . . Life is better when we celebrate together during toyotathon. Toyota. Lets go places. 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Dr. Scholls new custom fit Wellness Center measures your leg in 3d. And recommends our customfit support thats right for you. New dr. Scholls custom fit ankle and knee supports. Good morning everyoneim mike curkov with this cbs 58 news update. Its 7 26. This is one of those days you really have to limit your time outside. If not. You could put you and your health at risk. Cbs 58s Michael Schlesinger is in front of burbank elementary sc