Right now. Consists of three people. The governor, attorney general and secretary of state john merrill. Theyre beginning to certify the results from the special election earlier this month. What had happened is republican roy moore filed a lastminute complaint with the Alabama Circuit Court to intervene and delay the certification based on new allegations of voter fraud and calling for a new special election. But just moments ago, montgomery circuit judge Johnny Harwick denied the order. That means that doug jones by the end of this hour will likely be headed to washington where he will be sworn in by Vice President pence on january 3 next week. Secretary merrills office spoke with me several times today as i tried to understand why this was occurring. Just a quick primer in Alabama State law. You have 48 hours after certification to petition for a recount. There were no circumstances, so moore did this lastminute effort. However, secretary of state merrills office, jon, told me they have reviewed all allegations of voter fraud and found there were no instances of that. Now, Moores Campaign issued a Statement Today saying that alabama will suffer irreparable harm if Election Results are certified without preserving and investigating all the evidence of potential fraud. I can tell you in talking with merrills office, they see that as an affront to the election integrity, if you will, of alabama. They have prosecuted six people for these sorts of things. But we also have Jones Campaign weighing in. The spokesman, sam coleman, saying this is just a desperate attempt by roy moore to subvert the will of the people. It will not succeed. The election is over. Its time to move on. So there you have it all, jon. That meeting is going on. Takes about 30 minutes. They have the formality of the pledge of allegiance, invocation and the reading of the explanation of the certification for an election like this. Then those three members, the governor, the attorney general and the secretary of state, will sign those results. They will become official and there will be nothing left to do in alabama. It then comes to washington. This election means that republicans in the senate will only have one vote to spare in that slim margin, jon. Were watching live pictures from montgomery as the state Certification Board gets ready to certify the Election Results. One of the things that the Moore Campaign charged in their challenge to the certification was the turnout was higher than expected. Is that any great surprise . I mean national attention, International Attention was paid to this race. Thats right. Got a lot of attention. The allegations in the 80page complaint that i read this morning is there were a lot of alleged out of town people because the numbers were so large. But again, secretary of state merrills Office Finding no indication of that being true. The court, its interesting that they ruled just moments before this certification meeting began, jon, because there was no onus, no determination, that the court had to rule and certainly the secretary of States Office wasnt going to stop unless that court intervened. I talked to one political consultant, if you will, that said they felt that moores attempt was really more of allaying of the ground for perhaps future claims that jones was in some way not legitimately elected to somewhat muddle the process. But again, Moores Campaign not telling me anything to that effect. So theyre taking the pledge of allegiance as they get ready to certify the votes. Talking about the certification, griff. 20,000 votes. That is well beyond the margin that would have demanded an automatic recount, right . Thats right. To narrow that down, you would have had to in some way make the case that some of those the majority of the 20,000 were not legitimate voters. In the 80 pages i read, certainly did not meet that standard in any form. This meeting were watching, by the way, takes about merrills office tells me it takes 30 to 40 minutes tops. Essentially, its a formality again. Were watching it. Its not that anything will happen now in the next 30 minutes, half an hour or so. They would essentially just sign it. Its sort of like when the president signs a piece of legislation that has been voted by both sides of the senate and the house. Its just a signature but they add some formalities to it. Thats what you see going on right now. It looks like some signatures. So perhaps theyre moving things quicker to hurry up and get this out of the alabama hands and into the washington hands. Its my understanding under the alabama law, the Moore Campaign can petition for a recount within 48 hours of this certification based on everything they have done so far. We can certainly expect to see that, i would think. Griff jenkins, thank you. Later this hour, we will speak to alabama secretary of state john merrill to discuss the proceedings today certifying the election of doug jones to the United States senate. The irs issue as clarification as homeowners rush to prepare property taxes before the end of the year. Gerri willis reporting from the fox business network. What is going on here, gerri . Anybody know . This is a headscratcher. Were trying to figure it out. And many people going to the tax assessors office, particularly in the blue states with high taxes. One tax administrator has to say this. Listen. This started off as a slow drip and turned into a trickle and then a stream and now a river. We did not anticipate the numbers that have showed up tuesday and then today much less. But its im amazed. So the good news as you mentioned, the irs has put out a statement not completely clear but heres what they say. A prepayment of anticipated Real Property taxes that have not been assessed. Thats the important word there, prior to 2018, are not deductible in 2017. So thats the irs, jon, on what you can expect here. So who determines whether and when a property has been assessed . Thats a local government. Its about the locality. Whoever is sending you the bill, those are the folks that can say whether the tax bill has been assessed or not. You have to reach out to find out. Ill warn people here. Ive been talking to my accountant. Theyre warning against overpaying. If you overpay, you could tip yourself into the alternative minimum tax, which is higher taxes again. Bottom line, talk to your accountant, whoever does your taxes, talk to the local Government Authority to find out whether you can prepare and how you can prepay. Jon . Gerri willis, fox business network. Thank you. Art laffer was an economic adviser for president reagan. Any time the government gets into picking losers and winners, you get into things like, this art, people in the high tax states now rushing to get their taxes prepaid, state and local taxes, because they wont be deductible to the same extent. You cant make this stuff up, can you . Its amazing. And the irs is not being particularly clear about what is deductible and what isnt. They want their money. Theyre saying its not deductible. Is what theyre saying. They want their money badly. I want to keep mine, too. What can i say . Its a fight to the end. New yorks governor is trying to make it possible for people to prepare as many of their state taxes as possible. Partly opens up brings money into the state coffers but partly also a snub at President Trump. This just goes to show you by the way, state and local taxes should not be deducted at a federal level. They should be payable there and so this type of nonsense doesnt make any sense whatsoever for the good government. Its just a tax loop hole that youre trying to get around. Unfortunately, they have set it up this way. The tax codes are so complicated that theyre all sorts of these things going on, jon. Yeah, even cpas in the business of knowing the tax law, theyre scratching their heads trying to figure out what is deductible and what isnt. Have you ever talked to don rumsfeld on this . He writes an idea to the irs every year. I have no idea if this tax return is correct but heres what i think it might be. Its a clever letter he writes every year. Its so true. Look at this last tax bill. 1,000 pages. For what . Cutting the corporate rate from 35 to 21 . Go figure. No. If you read them, those 1,000 pages are full of nasty and nice things. All sorts of stuff in there. Youre in the business of well, predictions, i guess. You know, people like to make predictions. What do you predict as a result of this Tax Reform Act . Ill put my swami hat on. What i want to assure you, im far better predicting the path than the future. That having been said, i think this tax bill will have an amazing effect on the u. S. Economy. I expect to see a lot of strong growth and i think the growth will build up the next couple years. The one that is most important here is i really believe tax revenues will increase as a result of the Corporate Tax rate reduction in this bill, and i think this will lead to prosperity and better budget. So you dont buy the idea that were going to blow a 1. 5 trillion hole thats the silliest thing ive heard in my life. These guys that do that, they have no idea how accountants and corporate people work. When you cut tax rates, jon, they stop sheltering as much income. A lot less tax evasion. Companies will move back to the u. S. None of these have anything to do with economic growth, which theyre good at. This type of stuff, the behavior responses, i dont get. That is enough to way offset the Corporate Tax rate reduction. Effective tax rates will drop by a lot less than the statutory rates. A lot of the polls, you can decide whether or not you believe them, they suggest 30 of the American People were on board with the idea of this tax reform. Do you think that number will change when people start seeing their paychecks . Oh, sure. When they stop seeing the negative press on it. Theres not been a democrat that hasnt said its armageddon, the end of the world. Even the republicans were saying oh, this is a bad provision. All of that stuff makes voters upset. Frankly, so they have a negative view of this. But once the storm clears, once the dust settles, i think youll see people like the growth. Theyll like their tax bills being much smaller than they have been and theyll like the prosperity. Im excited about this. If you look at it from a political standpoint, id rather be on this side of the fence than the other side going into the 2018 election. Happy new year to you, art. Thank you, jon. Thank you. Pleasure. Trying to bring north korea in line. Tough talk from the secretary of state on kim jonguns nuclear efforts. And alabama secretary of state will join us after the meeting that is underway right now to certify doug jones, the winner the Alabama State senate race after a lastsecond legal challenge by roy moore is rejected. Jon a fox news alert. Alabama officials have certified doug jones as the winner for the special election for the u. S. Senate. This comes after a judge rejected a lastminute lawsuit from republican roy moore alleging election fraud. Jones will be the first democratic senator representing alabama since 1992. Well, President Trump is slamming china after u. S. Satellites spotted chinese ships transferring oil to north korea. The president tweeting, caught red handed, disappointed that china is allowing oil to go to north korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the north korean problem if this continues to happen. Retired u. S. Navy admiral robert natter is head of u. S. Fleet forces command. Admiral, are you surprised that the chinese were apparently saying that they would enforce the blockade but not doing so . Not really. I think they have done some positive things to restrict the flow of resources out of korea and the flow of money into north korea. This is a obviously not a positive step, but in large respect, russia and to a greater extent china have been working on tightening the restraints on north korea. Jon but president xi assured. Trump that he would crack down on the north. Is this something that president xi might not have been aware of . That somehow underlings in the Chinese Government were allowing this to happen . Its possible. Theres no way the United States of america can track all of our merchant ship activities 24 hours a day. We dont have a lock on what is going on in the international trade. I just dont know whether this was known to the Chinese Government leadership or not. The bottom line is, we have to continue working with china to tighten down on the constraints with north korea. Jon the secretary of state wrote an oped in the New York Times saying theres time for diplomacy still. He writes we hope this International Isolation will pressure the regime into serious negotiations on the abandonment of their nuclear and Ballistic Missile programs. A door to dialogue remains open, but weve made it clear the regime must earn its way back to the negotiating table until denuclearization occurs, the pressure will continue. This regime has thumbed its nose at every treaty, every obligation in the past. Is there really a chance for talks to get north korea to abandon its Nuclear Program . I think so, as long as we continue working with the chinese and the russians and to tighten down on them. Theres still room for hurtful sanctions on north korea. We had stronger sanctions against iran. Certainly negotiations in these sorts of sanctions are much better than armed conflict. Arent there indications that russia has actually been helping north korea with its Nuclear Program . Well, they certainly are. I would argue that some of those on the part of the russian government but a large part of them were on the part of unemployed scientists and engineers at the end of the cold war who were the elite of the Russian Society and as the cold war wound down, they were unemployed. Some is government, some independent actors. Thanks, admiral natter. We appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Jon frigid temperatures covering much of the United States. Rick reichmuth joins us to tell us how cold we will be as we head towards new years eve. Plus, a deadly terror attack rocked afghanistan as isis suicide bombers targeted a Cultural Center in kabul leaving 40 people dead. Take a look at this. Watch your foot watch your foot watch your foot, dude jon dramatic body cam footage of teens being rescued from a car. Did theyd get them out in time . Officers just like us, every Milwaukee Police district station, even across the country, they would to the same thing. Whoooo. Going somewhere . Heres some advice. Tripadvisor now searches more. Than 200 booking sites to find the hotel you want and save you up to 30 . Trust this birds words. Tripadvisor. For mom, jon theyre called the nick squad. The two Police Officers got to this scene just in the nick of time. The cops both named nick pulled two unconscious teens out of a burning car in milwaukee. It hit a utility pole. The temperature in the Single Digits at the time. The officers are being hailed as heros. One said theres no better feeling than to helping save someones life. Extreme weather alert on the bitter cold sweeping across much of the country with temperatures plunging to record lows and windchills, they make it feel even colder. Snow a problem. Check out this satellite image over the great lakes after parts of the area got pounded with almost six feet of snow. Chief meteorologist Rick Reichmuth joins us with more. Rick . That looked like ice on the picture there. Jon sure did. Thats good. When the lake freezes over, you dont get the lakeeffect snow. So all of your snow is frontloaded in the season in winter around the great lakes. Thats what were experiencing right now. The cold air is certainly in place here again across a lot of the north, meaning north into canada. A lot of it is coming down across the u. S. Warmer here in the southern half of the u. S. Right now that will change. The cold air will be back. We just have the surges of cold air that will continue to come down over the next number of days. Temperatures very cold. Minus 4 in minot. Minus 27 windchill, minus 9 in madison, wisconsin. In the south, we have the frontal boundary here bringing showers. We have a chance for snow across parts of the south. Another clipper system diving across the northern plains. That will mean more lakeeffect snow coming in by tomorrow, by saturday and sunday in pleases like erie that have seen 65 inches of snow. Temperatures remaining very cold. A High Temperature in fargo of minus 17 on saturday. Sunday, minus 10. Notice these areas here across parts of the deep south getting below freezing. Coldest temperature at midnight on new years eve was 1 degree. That was in 1917. 100 years ago was the coldest ever. 100 years later, the second coldest ever. Were about to welcome a million or so people to times square to watch the ball drop. It will be chilly. It will be dangerous. What happens with new years eve, people have to get there for security reasons and they have to stand in these pins for hours and hours. Pens, i should say. That is when youre standing in that cold, you need so many layers on and keep your body moving to keep the energy going. You have to have stuff to eat to keep the body going to stay warm. Were talking about potential for hypothermia, frostbite. A lot of