Been pretreated, despite problems that the cold and ice can bring, some people dont mind it at all. In fact, they say they welcome in. Kristen wright is at an outdoor skating rink in southwest d. C. How, kristen. Hi, doreen. If theres anywhere to be when the weather is this cold, this just may be it. But you know, the roads probably not the best place to be. D. C. Tells us theyre working hard to make sure theyre not bad. This is the full deployment for us. Well have over 200 of our vehicles out. In d. C. , the salt trucks will be out starting at midnight because were about to see a lot of this on the roads. D. C. Says they pretreated across the city. We have been treating them with a liquid brine and not with rock salt, given the current ground temperatures, the brine is much more effective at making sure that any snow or rain the tropics arent a bad place to be on a day like today. Isnt it wonderful . I love it. Elma and her friend ann came to the u. S. Botanic garden to feel the warmth. I love it. Of course, i love the warmth. And the beautiful plants. This is my love. Its about 80 degrees in the conservatory. Im going to stay inside. Because right outside the botanic gardens, theres ice. The birds dont seem to mind it one bit, but shannon day, on the other hand. I dont like it. Its so cold. Theyre visiting from North Carolina. I want to go back right now. I cant do it. Im too cold. But theyre here on a bitter cold day. If it snows, if its snowing now, i would be like, its snowing. Its okay. But its not so its just cold. Fernando, chico, and chulo are dressed for it. Got to be a good mother, put all right, so our managing editor says she was most impressed by my skating backwards at 5 00. Thats how im going to leave you and say good night. Stay warm. Backwards skating. Thats impressive. Go kristen. Look out thats pretty cool. Hey, the weather blanketing most of the nation, parts of 35 states under Winter Weather advisories. A large storm stretches from one coast to the other. Its bringing snow from the plains and the midwest into the northeast overnight. Bitter cold to much of the country. This blast of Winter Weather is also causing trouble on the roads and making driving downright dangerous. This was the scene in upstate new york. Lake effect snow combined with 50mileperhour winds to create intense blizzard conditions in pulaski, new york, last night. A thunderstorm created sleet outside of salt lake city, utah, today. Light rain and ice pellets seen a winter storm warning issued there. Close to two feet of snow and strong wind gusts are expected. The weather here also prompting a delayed start to some School Activities tomorrow. For more on that, download the nbc washington app and turn on weather alerts to get the latest updates on the wintry weather. President obama just wrapped up a News Conference where he talked about russian interference in our election. And he got in a few digs. The russians cant change us. Or significantly weaken us. Theyre a smaller country. Theyre a weaker country. Their economy doesnt produce anything that anybody wants to buy except oil and gas and arms. They dont innovate. They can impact us if we lose track of who we are. Just before that News Conference, we learned that the fbi and the director of National Intelligence agree with the cia assessment that russiaha faith in our electoral system and eventually help Donald Trumps campaign. Edward lawrence is on capitol hill with details. Jim, the president wanted to send a message to the world. He really aunted to talk about his legacy, saying that all the screwups in his administration were his fault, he takes responsibility for that, and the successes are shared, but what he had to address was russia and the hacking before the election. Good afternoon. In his last News Conference of the year, president obama says russian hacking contributed to an atmosphere that got donald trump elected. But stopped short of saying it was the reason republicans won. Mr. Obama adds, he warned russian president Vladimir Putin directly. Told him to cut it out and there could be serious consequences if he didnt. In fact, we did not see further tampering of the election process. New tonight, the cia says it has agreement from the fbi and director of National Intelligence that the elected. President obama says the u. S. Will retaliate at a time and place of its choosing. Our goal continues to be to send a clear message to russia or others not to do this to us. Because we can do stuff to you. President elect trump on twitter reminded voters that his election was a movement, not the result of russian hacking. Republicans on trumps Transition Team say this is just sour grapes by democrats because if president obama was really worried about russia, he would have done something during the campaign. We won fair and square. Even if they try to hack our system or do something to influence the election, we won anyway. And it didnt really have an impact. Nbc news says russian leaders are challenging the cia and president obama, calling on them to reveal the evidence russia hacked emails. And Hillary Clinton told donors that theres a direct line between the russian president s anger towards her because she during the campaign. Reporting live on capitol hill, edward lawrence, now back to you, jim. Thank you, edward. Now to a controversial move within Donald Trumps transition. He intends to nominate bankruptcy attorney David Friedman as u. S. Ambassador to israel. Friedman has served as mr. Trumps attorney on matters that involve Atlantic City casinos. Friedman is considered hard right on matters that involve israeli politics and supports moving the u. S. Embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. He has also been critical of the moderate Jewish American group jstreet. Today, jstreet announces it opposes friedmans nomination. A guilty plea from a man who made online threats against local high school students. He was tried under a new law in maryland. Chris gordon has more on the case and the big role Prince Georges County played in getting the law passed. It was just a month ago on november 15th that High Point High School today, the young man responsible pleaded guilty and was sentenced in court. Prince georges county states attorney discovered just a few years ago that maryland had no law making the threat of Mass Violence a crime. She helped draft the law and pushed for it to be passed. Its putting ten or more people in fear for their lives, causing them to shelter in place or otherwise adjust their everyday schedules. On november 15th, High Point High School was placed on high alert. After 20yearold alejandro avilar posted a tweet saying i will be bringing an aker47 with two pistols to the stadium. Im also armed heavily with bombs. We stopped by his home today, but there was no answer at the door. His lawyer says he had no weapons and meant it as a joke. He was in favor of trump having won the election, and all these against it. So thats what it was. Avilar got a threeyear suspended sentence, two years of probation, and must perform 100 hours of community service. He graduated from High Point High School and is now studying to become a mechanical engineer. His lawyer tells me he hopes some day his conviction will be wiped off his record. Reporting from Prince Georges County, chris gordon, news 4. A family left homeless just days before christmas. The homeowner tried to put out the fire, but it was too much to handle. Tonight, investigators tell us it was intentionally set. News 4s Meagan Fitzgerald broke the news on twitter that the familys 19yearold daughter has now been charged with arson. She has the story from silver spring. Reporter this is whats left of a home on Sea Island Court in silver spring. Restoration crews worked quickly, boarding up windows and cleaning up des. Hours earlier, at around 1 00 a. M. , it was firefighters who were rushing to get the blaze under control. Firefighters arrived, pretty heavy fire kilsh conditions. Pete is with Montgomery County fire and rescue. Investigators determined the blaze was started in an upstairs room by the homeowners 19yearold daughter. I dont think there was any intent to burn down the whole house, necessarily, but materials at hand and it just got away from them. We spoke with the homeowner who didnt want to go on camera but says he ran into the room and used a blanket to try to extinguish the flames but it didnt work. Thats when he says he and his family ran out of the home. In this particular case, in their attempts to smother the fire, it really just made things a little worse and got bigger. He says using a blanket to extinguish a fire is extremely dangerous and is not advised. While getting out of the house quickly and safely is always the focus, he says if theres time, close the doors behind you. It can stop thep stops that flow of air in most cases, its also a barrier, a protection barrier for you. Its too late for the structure, a family of four calmed home. But fire Officials Say everybody managed to escape without being injured. He says the homeowner tried to extipguish the blaze with a fire extinguisher like this one. Its not advised to use one of these unless you have been trained on how to use one properly. The man behind that shooting at comet pingpong is back in court. Why his lawyer is fighting back after a recent jailhouse interview with the New York Times. Social media setup, how three men used facebook to rob a victim looking for love, and what you can do to keep Something Like this from happening to you. Plus, a closer look at russias role in our election. Chuck todd joins us next to break down the findings and why dald trump isnt takinong a not guilty plea from the man accused of shooting an Assault Rifle inside comet pingpong in the district. Edgar welch will remain in jail until his trial. Hes facing more than three decades in prison if hes convicted. Mark segraves explains why welchs attorney was upset about an interviewhi it started when edgar welch drove from North Carolina here to comet pingpong, went inside with an automatic weapon and opened fire. Today, he appeared before a judge, and he finally entered a plea, not guilty on all three charges. Welch is facing 35 years in prison. He had asked the judge to let him out of prison pending his trial, but today, his attorneys withdrew that request. And he will remain in jail until his next Court Hearing in early january. But his defense attorney did have something to say about the press coverage. She told the judge shes upset that a New York Times reporter was able to see her client in jail and interview him without an attorney being present. The New York Times issued us a statement saying that that reporter identified himself as a New York Times reporter and did try to call his attorney but the attorney never returned those cal segraves, news 4. Back to politics now and what we learned from president obamas final News Conference of the year. Chuck todd is the nbc news political director and moderator of meet the press and hes here with analysis. So many questions and so little time. Lets start with what the president said about his administrations response after learning that russia was behind the hacking of the dnc. A couple things to take away from this today. It was, when you think about what was happening moments before the News Conference began, the confirmation that now the fbi was joining the cia in its conclusion that not only did russia hack, try to hack, they were trying to do something on behalf of donald trump. So it created this drama, and you thought, oh, boy, thats the type of thing right before the press conference, there must be something more here, but it seemed, i got the sense you had a president today who wanted to figure out how to get the partisanship out of this a little bit. Deescalate it a little he also in doing so went after the media and some might say went after the media harder than he went after putin. And that seems to be a little bit of a debate among some. But overall, i felt as if the president was trying to say, look, we have to deal with putin. We have to deal with russia. And perhaps hes making the calculation that hes got to bring the president elect along to this conclusion, and he doesnt want to alienate him, and he didnt. He went almost out of his way not to do that today. I think we probably cant ignore that aspect of perhaps what president obama was trying to say or not trying to say. Meanwhile, chuck, donald trump doesnt seem to be taking this matter very seriously. Talk about his reaction to all of this still. And thats what is a head scratcher. I mean, look, theres some its interesting hire. There are some people in the trump orbit that are starting to say, okay. You know, we know obviously something nefarious happened here. The rnc said russia tried to hack in, we stopped them. Thats what is the response going to be . I think thats the sense i got from, you saw donald trump yesterday hit josh earnest, the White House Press secretary really hard. At the same time, said i dont think hes talking to president obama. Today, president obama did not sound like josh earnest today, as tough on trump as his press secretary was. You do wonder how much he realized, okay, can not start a partisan fight, we need a peaceful transfer of power. It was almost, he was trying to protect institutions today. He defended the fbi against John Podestas oped. He was doing, you know, and you got the sense thats what he believed he had to do in the position that hes in. I can tell you, some partisans on the clinton side probably not happy with some of the tone he took today when it comes to sort of deflecting blame of the fbi and deflecting blame on putin. I think its hard to understand why russians cyberattacks against us in an efrt is even a partisan issue at all. Thats what you heard, and that was also part of, you heard president obama today lament the state of our polarized environment and then note that somehow, he quoted a poll number about one poll showed that more than a third of republicans had a more positive view of putin, essentially believed putin over the democrats type of thing. Look, this is a dangerous game here that were so hyperpolarized that now an outside entity, a foreign entity, perhaps an enemy, we dont know, but some people think hes more of an enemy, is somehow more believed than a member of the opposing Political Party in the same country. That is a rough place that were in now in our politics. This has been escalating, escalating, and here we are. No end in sight. Is this something that could derail his nominee for secretary of state, do you think . I think it has the chance confirmation hearing is about rex tillerson, hell be confirmed. If the confirmation hearing is a proxy fight over Donald Trumps relationship with putin and his conclusions, look, its very possible that some republicans that believe that trump is being too soft on putin almost use the tillerson nomination maybe as a threat to the president or maybe as a wakeup call to president elect trump. On the russia issue. Well see, but i think it has the potential to be a proxy fight about russia, and thats something if youre rex tillerson, thats out of your hands. Thats not a fun place to be when youre in the middle of a confirmation process, when you dont feel like you get to control your own destiny. Got a big show coming up sunday morning, we know youre going to have john podesta, and also defense secretary former defense secretary robert gates. Well look forward to that on meet the press. Was head of the cia, by the way. So heres a exactly. Lots to talk about. Well look forward to that. Thanks so much, chuck. Up next, mystery solved. New information about an American Hero and the priceless medals his family left behind at a goodwill store. You can check out now on my facebook live, the video of a stafford marine surprising his son dressed as santa, but ahead on news 4, were going to tell you the story behind it and a bitter blast of cold air is sweeping the region. Has us in weather alert mode going into the weekend. Doug and amelia tracking it all. Doug, lets start with you. Its cold now, its going to get even messier soon, isnt it . It really is. The High Temperature today, 27 degrees. Thats the coldest afternoon we have seen in december since 2010. Extremely cold air mass moving in. That sets the stage for what were going to see overnight tonight. If youre heading out tonight, no problems. Dress for the cold, but were not going to see any snow or ice or sleet or freezing rain tonight. So if youre heading out, no problem, as long as youre home by 2 00 or 3 00 in the morning. Now, temperatures, 27 degrees, the kurbt number. Winds out of the south, 9 miles per hour. Still dealing with a windchill of around 19. Still very cold. 25 in 27, dulles. Anything that falls will be frozen. We have warmer air aloft. As it moves through, it will change to rain. When it hits the ground, it turns back to ice. Were talking freezing rain. Nothing right now, storm team 4 radar looking okay. We tracked snow back to our west, but thats just on the radar, not hitting the ground. The atmosphere just too dry. Storm system itself, well see if we can move farther down to the south and west here. Starting to see it taking shape. You can see a little return here. Radar return, but not much going on. It will start to move into