And welfare programs. The dreaded fiscal cliff can potentially affect a wide range of health programs. Cbs news Wyatt Andrews explains. Reporter professor mallen like hundreds of medical researchers has already fallen off the fiscal cliff. Her budget which relies on federal grants is being cut by 10 now. As the nih, the National Institutes of health, prepares for the possibility of budget cuts later. Its as much bigger than just my lab. Its affecting allacademic labs across the country. Reporter mallen understands the nih decision but calls it a setback. My lab will have to shut down Research Projects that we know would could have profound impacts on curing human disease. We may have to get rid of some staff members. Reporter the nih tells us because of uncertainty in the budget awards at 90 of what was perhapsed to researchers promised to researchers will be the standard at least for now and the threat of the cut raised alarms. Some of the cuts reporter at Johns Hopkins the doctor is under pressure to reduce the experiments he designed in mice in search for a cure for childhood leukemia. Does that make a more uncertain science . Not only that we actually lose ten years. Reporter the downside of turning off a variety of experiments is what . Weve killed innovation. Because the most innovative projects are the projects that will go first. Reporter the pending budget cuts have also forced labs to slow down the hiring of promising younger scientists. Turning them down because i have to say to them, in all honesty, i dont know whether i can take you on on that four to five year commitment. Reporter the nih hopes to restore the lost 10 if the agencys funding restored but this is one danger from the fiscal cliff that isnt waiting for new years day. The reduction in medical experiments and the hold on Laboratory Jobs is happening now. Wyatt andrews, cbs news, washington. 5 04 now. Some of them dont even know it yet but dozens of former california Prison Inmates got pardons for christmas. Governor brown issued the pardons to 79 convicted felons who have done their fulltime and have been time and have been crime free now for more than a decade. They include ken benedict who got involved with a bad crowd. Christmas eve to find this out. What a gift. To finally have some closure to you know a long story that i did something dumb when i was younger. He joined an inmate fire crew in prison and he saved a boys life back in 1993 in a malibu fire and was paroled after two years and now he is a School Volunteer and hes engaged to be married and has got his life back together. Well, right now volunteers are starting to prepare a Big Christmas feast for the less fortunate right here in San Francisco. Yeah, theyre planning to serve lots of meals today. And cbs 5 reporter is at glide Memorial Church with the annual effort to help the homeless. Good morning kate. Reporter good morning and Merry Christmas to you both. Theyre actually going to serve up 5,000 meals. Were expecting volunteers within the next hour or so. Im joined live with gene cooper with glide memorial. Merry christmas. How are you . Reporter im great. Whats the big rundown of today . Today well start serving breakfast at 7 00 a. M. The volunteers show up at 6 00. We get them dressed and ready to go. Some of them will come down here and start carving ham and turkey and cutting up the vegetables for the meal later and then well serve breakfast downstairs. At 9 00 well start serving the christmas dinner from 9 00 until 2 00 and well have a couple of celebrations today. Two services up stairs can the big news is at 11 30 well have the craft hunger bowl players. The guys from Arizona State will be coming to help us make bag lunches. Reporter this is not something you just do during the Holiday Season. This is basically a year long effort and i know there are a lot of people who want to chip in. How can others help . You know the best way to do it of course is to donate and so if you go to the website, www. Glide. Org, and theres a click on give and theres different ways that you can support the organization. You can make a cash donation on the website. Which is something that we can this is a time we raise the majority of our funds for the entire year. So people want to donate now, that would be great. Also by volunteering and were good for volunteers today but actually starting the 27th, you know we go back to our regular business and most people a lot of times dont come you know to volunteer on those days. Reporter thank you so much jean and thank you so much for the work you do at glide memorial. Again if you are interested in volunteering again its the yearround effort not just during the Holiday Season. So come on out or donate. Reporting live in San Francisco, back to you guys. All right kate. Thank you very much. Merry christmas to you. It is now 5 07 now. The Salvation Army brings christmas to those who are home bound and alone. For nearly two decades the nonprofit provided meals to seniors and people with illnesses. This year is no exception. Out live to the Salvation Army central kitchen in San Francisco on harrison street and you can see the volunteers right now theyre busy preparing more than 4,000 meals. And its a traditional christmas meal too complete with ham, yams, vegetables, hot chocolate, and cookies. Volunteers dont stop after cooking. They deliver the food. They walk it to people, spend some time with those who are alone today. Its nice. This christmas is a busy workday for crews in east palo alto. Theyre racing to repair a levee there ahead of the next storm. They got hit hard over the weekend the sundays heavy rain caused the San Francisquito creek to spill over the levee and it caused flooding in a few neighborhoods near the creek. Crews are putting in overtime working the holiday. Theyre bagging and make sandbagging and making Emergency Repair as more rain is expected later this afternoon. And people in much of the country are getting some real winter weather. Shop White Christmas. Snow hit parts of the mid atlantic area yesterday. Today much of oklahoma and arkansas are under a big winter storm warning. There is a blizzard watch if you got family in western kentucky. Theyre going to have a White Christmas. Along the gulf coast storms could bring strong winds, hail and lightning to parts of mississippi, alabama, and eastern louisiana. And as ed payne shows us the White Christmas means travel delays. Reporter ground crews were out in force in Oklahoma City treating roads and bridges ahead of the expected Christmas Day storm. It was a similar scene at Oklahoma Citys Will Rogers World Airport where some flights have already been canceled. Operations director mark cannenburg says the plows are ready to go. Web we get out on the runway and start clearing, typically its a crew of seven to 12 people in trucks and we have spotters. Reporter the airport uses a hightech vehicle that checks friction levels to make sure its safe for airplanes to land. Ice is very tough. If you completely dont have any friction at all, with aircraft to land, then thats a real problem. Reporter and springfield, missouri, residents are stocking up on supplies as they prepare for the snowstorm that could dump up to 8 inches of sleet and snow on parts of that region. Salt truck driver jared spoon expects to be called into work even though its christmas. We just take it as any other day. Just come in and do your job. Reporter the weather is expected to be frightful in little rock, arkansas as well. They could see 4 inches of snow with higher amounts in other parts of the state. But theres one way to avoid the travel headaches. The best thing to do is try to stay at home and enjoy your christmas. Reporter winter storm warnings, watches and advisories are posted from washington state. Texas up to new england. And Severe Weather is expected in the southeast. Im ed payne reporting. Okay, we dont have any snow in the forecast but we have some rain. Look at the doppler, come on its the holiday. Some showers moving in throughout the day today. I think really picking up toward the middle of the day and the afternoon but hidef Doppler Radar is seeing showers out there early on. At least in the north bay. It looks like that will be picking up outside. Cool start to the day. A lot of clouds out this right now and well the temperatures 39 degrees in Police Officer more. It is 42 in live more. It is 42 in san jose and 46 in San Francisco. By the afternoon probably very stormy outside. Some heavy rainfall. Maybe a couple inches of rain on the mountain tops of course. Weve got to watch all the creeks for the possibility of some flooding. Well have more coming up in a few minutes guys, back to you. All right, thank you lawrence. Time now is 5 11. The season for giving continues on the gridiron. The lucky fan who left this game with a one of a kind souvenir. Well talk about that. Two kids from one to 92. How embarrassing . The christmas greeting from our newsroom. Sung from the most part on key. Not entirely. Not entirely. Okay. Well be right back. Whats cool about your school . Submit your nomination on the website. Cbssf. Com coolschools. Maybe you have a choir there thats fantastic. Maybe. Come and feature school right here on our show. Well be back on this Christmas Morning right after this short break. ,,,,,,,,,, sweden. He traded in his traditional sleigh ride fore tough santa. Lets see him popping a wheelie. Santa showing off in sweden. He traded the traditional sleigh ride for a motorcycle. It didnt stop him from popping wheelies for the cameras. Santa gets around doesnt he . Some of the elves are dressing uplock santa up like santa. Santas already been here. Guess what . Hes got some pretty good weather here right now. He came to my house already. Ive been so good that it was loaded with presents. He gave you this tie. He gave me the christmas tie today. You sure he gave you the tie today . Ive been naughty. That was around last year. Hey folks around the bay area today we got a serious storm headed in our direction. On this Christmas Day. Lot of clouds pouring in across the skies right now not much in the way of rain although we are beginning to see a couple of rain drops show up in the north bay eight now. Just some scattered showers out ahead of the main cold front. The winds are going to be kicking up throughout the morning and it looks like into the afternoon. Theyre going to get a pretty good soaking as system moving on through. The good news is a fast mover and not ton of rainfall although it will be heavy at times once it moves on through. Even a possibility of isolated thunderstorms. Then the weather is going to stay unsettled after that probably some showers into tomorrow as well. And then maybe we catch a break. But this storm system again the low the core of it right off the coastline. Thats going to push it through the bay area and that means its going to dump pretty good throughout the day. Traveling through the state. Some showers and thunderstorms in the Sacramento Valley this afternoon and lots of snow in the Sierra Nevada and winter storm warnings going up there. Watch out for that. Maybe another 2 feet of snow. Lets see if we can time it out for a little bit here. Not coming through until the middle of the day. About 4 00 or so. Starting to linger over the central and into the afternoon and then it sags to the south through san jose and then the scattered showers in toward tomorrow. So looks like a pretty stormy afternoon around the bay area with some pockets of heavy rainfall. The temperatures expected only to be in the low to mid50s so a cool day. A nice day to stay at home and enjoy your family. The showers continuing into wednesday i think thursday we catch a break. Maybe some more rainfall on friday and saturday. Thats a look at weather guys. Back to you. Thank you lawrence. And unfortunately we have a couple of accidents on the road if youre traveling the n yummy itz northbound 880 at fruit vail all lanes are temporarily blocked in the northbound lanes. Theres debris in the road. Fortunately traffic is superlight in the area and theres not much of a delay and likely traffic can squeeze by on the shoulder but this is a live look further south. This is actually closer to the Oakland Coliseum and you can see that so far its a pretty nice trip at least according to the drive times. But again theyre working to clear the accident temporarily all lanes blocked approaching fruit vail avenue. Elsewhere this accident in marin county northbound 101 pretty close to the dumps is what were hering theres an accident there blocking one lane. Another half hour or so to clear. Golden gate bridge almost empty this morning heading into San Francisco. Royalty now salvation right now Salvation Army volunteers are busy preparing Christmas Meals for folks here in San Francisco. These meals will go the seniors and people with illnesses all alone on christmas. And well take you out live right now to the Salvation Army central kitchen on harrison street . San francisco. Anthony price is going to join us now and looks like you are a chef. Working hard today anthony . Reporter its christmas and this is where you find me every Christmas Morning along with the volunteers producing meals for those folks who cant get out. You have a big crowd behind you. How many volunteers help out this time of the morning . Well, well have about 30 or so here. But during the last two weeks weve had maybe 150 volunteers come in and make boxes and fill bags and help us get ready with the ham and the yams and all that other stuff that goes into making the meal. You have yam and hams and what else . We couldnt find anything to rhyme with ham and yams and were going to just serve vegetables and then a little apple sauce on top of ham. Then they get a cold bag with hot chocolate and juice and fruit can cookies in it. Ask cookies in it. We understand if there are some folks who cant get down and pick up a meal you guys actually deliver the meals and then you spend time with those that are less fortunate without family right . Frank, that is the story. The real story. I mean its the people giving up their time here and volunteering and those who deliver the meals throughout the city. But its also the knock on the door, Merry Christmas. This could be some of the only human contact these people get. Anthony youre awesome. People appreciate it. Anthony. Thanks so much and Merry Christmas. Thank you. For your hard work this morning. Thank you. Its is 5 19. It is bowling season for College Teams all around the country and here in california. Yeah an amazing t. By the fresno touchdown by the fresno bulldogs in a game yesterday. Youre going to see it as the play of the day coming up next. ,,,, jack what happened . Me and jason came back with drinks and all 20 nuggets were gone. We got nugged. There was a nugging. This guy just came running up. Dip dip dip shoveling em into his face give me your nuggets were like no save some for our boyfriends need more nuggets . Jacks crispy, allwhite meat Chicken Nuggets come with a choice of seven awesome sauces. An order of 20 is only 4. 99 we should probably call the cops. Ill just get you more nuggets. No, thanks, im stuffed. Uverse high Speed Internet. You know, in my day you couldnt just start streaming six ways to sunday. Youd get knocked off. And sometimes, it took a minute to download a song. Thats sixty seconds, for crying out loud. We know how long a minute is sitting, waiting for an album to download. I still have back problems. Youre only 14 and a half. He doesnt have back problems. You kids have got it too good if you ask me. [ male announcer ] now uverse high Speed Internet has more speed options, reliability and ways to connect. Rethink possible. Storm clouds racing to the bay area on this Christmas Day. Its going to pack a punch too. The gusty winds and possibility of some thunderstorms, more about imit coming up. All lanes are shut down northbound 88 at fruit vail. Theres an overturned injury crash. So theyre temporarily detouring cars off to that high street off ramp. Fortunately things are superlight and volume is extra light on this Christmas Morning but just a headsup you will be detoured through oakland whether busy day how . A play of the day now comes from the hawaii bowl. Fresno states adams of palo alto high alum with an impressive touchdown catch from the quarterback carr. But they lost to Southern Methodist but they got to go to hawaii on Christmas Eve. A great catch. The linebacker for the Arizona Cardinals surprised a lucky fan by giving him an early Christmas Gift before the team took on the Chicago Be