all these counties in orange and that includes philadelphia , philadelphia county. taking a look at actual wind speeds, these are sustained winds in the 20's, almost every where, say for wildwood, more westerly wind flow, so we have wind southwest yesterday because of the advancing cold front now just starting to shift westerly. it will shift more northwesterly and help usher in that cold air that eventually knocks our temperatures back. here's where we stand at the moment on storm scan, moisture across poconos, rain drop or snowflake but more than anything, skies are beginning to clear and you could tell where that chillies starting to funnel n we are in the 40's , 30's at best in the blue contour shaded areas, mild in philadelphia but temperature is set to drop, meisha. >> katie, thank you for. that we are looking outside, speaking of windy camera, ben franklin bridge you can see we are not shaking too much here, still dark, early out there but we were talking about that earlier, they are out there. wind is going to play a factor in our morning commute, this morning. in doubt. all commercial vehicles banned from the pennsylvania turnpike , northeast extension between mid county and man honing valley. heads up on this, for all of, all of our drivers out there taking oversized commercial vehicles today. we have down trees down there this one in shamong 206 southbound blocked at aston road. use an alternate. route 73 is your best bet. our down trees that we had early this morning some moved out of our way, some have not and mill street at sycamore avenue is still out there by the way in the too far away we have a outdoor electrical fire sycamore avenue between linda lane and orchard way. is there more to discuss in the next 10 to 15 minutes. jim and rahel, back over to you. this morning philadelphia mayor jim kenney is presenting his budget to the city council $4 billion budget includes reductions in the city wage tax. it is falling to just under 3.9 percent for residents, it is also included in the budget proposal with more than 100 million-dollar for street resurfacing. there are increase increases to higher more paramedics. the cities fiscal year begins july 1st. pepsi meanwhile is blaming philadelphia's new sweetened drink tax for cutting jobs in our area. beverage giant announced it will eliminate 80 to 100 jobs over next few months. pepsi says it recorded a 40 percent drop in sales, since the 1.5 cents per ounce tax, on sweetened drinks went into effect on january. "eyewitness news" reporter trang do will have more and the cities response in a live report at 5:30. this morning top ranking democrats are demanding that attorney general jeff sessions , step down after allegation that is he met with russians during 2016 presidential campaign. "eyewitness news" reporter jan car way owe has the latest from the cbs-3 news center. >> good morning. >> reporter: two meetings happened while attorney general jeff sessions was still a u.s. senator and his spokesperson says that the meetings were among many he had with foreign ambassadors at the time. the justice department, confirms to cbs news that attorney general jeff sessions spoke with russian envoy sergei, twice during the presidential campaign but spokesperson for sessions says those conversation where is part of the many conversations he had with foreign ambassadors as a member of the armed services committee. meetings were first reported in the washington post on wednesday. sessions was a top advisor to the trump campaign and he did not disclose encounters when asked about possible contacts, between members of the president trump's campaign and representatives of moscow during his january confirmation hearings. >> i have been called a surrogate at the time or two in that campaign and i did not have any communications with the russians. >> reporter: attorney general released a statement saying i never met with any russian official to discuss issues of the campaign, i have in idea what this allegation is about, it is false. democratic house minority leader nancy pelosi is calling for session toss resigned claiming he lied under oath. >> there may be nothing there but if there is something there that the fbi believes is criminal in nature, then for sure you need a special prosecutor. >> reporter: story broke on the same day that the new york times detailed efforts by members of the obama administration to disseminate information about possible contacts between associates of then president-elect trump and russia. >> if is there nothing to further investigation, there is nothing continue on investigate. >> reporter: president trump aids were told by white house counsel to preserve e-mails and other materials connected to investigations of russian interference in the 2016 election. now, post contacted all 26 members of the 2016 senate arms services committee to see if anyone else met with the ambassador 20 responded and none met with him last year. rahel, back to you. jan, thank you. president trump's cabinet is getting closer to being filled, senate is expected to confirm doctor ben carson as next secretary of the housing and urban development. last night mike pence swore in former montana congressman ryan zenke as secretary of the interior. there are no plans to discipline white house counselor kelly ann conway after she promoted ivan contact trump's fashion line. bipartisan group of lawmakers called on the government ethics office to investigate. white house lawyer say conway 's comments were inadvertent and quote without nefarious motive. lawyers say conway has been briefed on endorsement rules and is unlikely to violate them again. more than 46 million people watched president trump 's address to congress tuesday night by comparison about 53 million turned in for president obama's, first address in 20 on the. numerical you'lled from all 10 networks that aired the president's remarks which received overwhelming support from viewers. in the cws news poll 76 percent of people surveyed approved of the speech. hundreds are expected to gather in philadelphia today to speak out against vandal icing a local jewish cemetery with other recent anti sem met i can incident. jewish federation will join with other religious leaders for noon time rally on independence mall. so nature there have been no arrests after hundreds of tomb stones were toppled, at mount carmel cemetery in philadelphia's wissonoming section. receipt ward has now grown to $69,000. also at noon haverford college will observe a moment of silence, students take a stand against recent string of hateful acts. this comes after backwards swastika was discovered, pinned to the bulletin board inside campus dorm room. college, holocaust survivor, shown here, who shared his story and lessons we should all learn from the holocaust. haverford college says anti sematism will not be tolerated elderly woman attack during a home invasion is now talking exclusively with "eyewitness news". the attack happened february 17th in the typically quiet community of parkesburg chester county. helen reynolds had just returned from the store at 3:00 in the afternoon when she said a man forced his way into her home. he removed her clothing, threw her face first on the bed. the 88 year-old woman said she relied on quick thinking to ward off a sexual assault. >> i said would you do this to your mother? would you like somebody else to bother your mother like you are doing me? he said shh. that is when i told him i had hiv and my husband died of it, which is a lie. he didn't bother me. >> we recently told but similar incidents that happened in east brandywine township where a seven two-year old woman was knocked out, locked in the closet for four days. so far no arrests in either case. two teenagers are behind bars after police say pair beat and robbed an upper darby man and we have learned he was not their own victim. we told but the crime last week near sansom and fairfield close to get road in west chester pike. authorities are now saying that the 16, 17 year-old suspect from west philadelphia were involved in a week long crime spree, they say two specifically targeted elder liz and people who could not speak english. two victims of a serial child rapist have come forward to share their stories. two young woman appeared yesterday, identifying themselves as jm and js. both say they were sexually abused as children by bucks county handy man williams charles thomas of falls township who is now facing charges. >> this is not my fault because i was not old enough to understand. i was being taken advantage of by a grown adult child molester. in one should ab shamed, embarrassed or difficulties couraged. i have been there. i for the the depression, the anxiety, and you can too. >> thomas is accused of abusing a total of six girls including his own daughter. well, coming up lots of areas are cleaning up from damaging storms, we will show you some damage up next. also this morning we are getting a better look at destruction left behind by deadly tornadoes in the midwest, hear what president trump is saying about the storms. find out what the driver of this car was doing before crashing into a frigid pennsylvania lake. >> ♪ >> kanye west to get you started on this thursday, it is windy out there. take a look at these flags. it sounds like that. >> sound effects. >> do you hear that outside your window? that is not jim donovan, that is the wind. >> it is. >> we will be right back. welcome back to "eyewitness news" this morning while police say it was distracted driving that led a woman to crash her car in the lake in northeastern, pennsylvania. now this happened just before noon time yesterday, police say woman was looking at her phone for directions when she drove her car right into harvey's lake. fortunately she was able to get out of the chilly lake without any injuries but it took a tow truck to fish her car out of the water. >> that it did. follow-up to the severe weather in the midwest, one man was killed in missouri and two people died in illinois after a string of powerful tornadoes. take a look at drone video of the hardest hit areas in illinois. blocks and blocks damaged cars and is what left of the homes, filled the streets. spokesmen to the president sean spicer says white house will provide federal support as needed. severe weather caused quite a bit of damage in parts of the south. forceful winds knocked down trees, power lines in gibson county, tennessee. we are told towns seeing most damage during the storms peak more than 8,000 residents lost power, fortunate liz though no one was injured. now take a look, storms in alabama produced golf ball sized hail making driving difficult for people in birmingham, but there were no serious damage reported. storms, caused a roof of this car dealership to craps in forest city, north carolina you can cestuis row foam littering the parking lot. it appears most did not have major damage though. we're talking about quite a bit of severe weather. hail freaks me out. have you been inside of a car when hail storm hits it is like being in the tin can and you are being shot at. >> baseballs being tossed at your car. yes, it is scary stuff. and, the way this and out yesterday, we had no where near those kind of severe storms. remember that even as we were hitting lunchtime, we still had cloud cover that hadn't scoured out yet. we need that had sunshine to bake basically at the surface to get that instability going. we had gusty thunderstorms but it was nothing, like what we saw across midwest because atmosphere could not destabilize itself quick liz enough. looking right now at the center city, all clear but what you don't see on cameras that are mount add pope eighth liz here like this one here is that you have a lot of wind out there. it is not necessarily obvious by looking at this say for readings that we get with that wind but as strong as 24 miles an hour. we do have another disturbance a clipper crossing our area, wind throughout most of the day will stay westerly and in short you will not see surge of cold rush in but this next clipper will reenforce this, with that said it may in the feel vicious with wind chills but the wind will be whipping. here's storm scan and storm that did come in yesterday and left behind definitely a lot of puddles on the road and strong thunderstorms that rumbled through. but we are in the wake of it and we will see things clearing out quickly, that is where wind comes in. then we have a streak of snow right now as far south east, northwest iowa. that will move in tomorrow. clipper. it is very moisture starved but we will back things up here, look at today has up its sleeve. nice clear sky but just windy out there. now we will move things forward and jump all the way to tomorrow afternoon, and yes , it does look like it will be cold enough with this clip per coming into bring in snowflakes but this has significantly slowed down. this doesn't get here until midday. we have sun to work with and some warmth to work with and we are looking more at scattered variety of rain and snow showers, but nothing that will accumulate. so scattered, but it is snow. always worth a mention, right? here's current wind gusts, they are noticeable in the 40 's in millville and atlantic city. forty-five in lancaster. very blustery day. start to the day. high wind warning in effect for most of us. sunny, cooler day, we will level off at 50. that is where we stand right now, dropping down in the lower 40's tonight as clouds rebuild, in anticipation of those scattered showers of rain and snow we were just talking about. chilliest day comes on saturday, at best we will crack out of the 30's to hit 40 but we will rebound back to the 60's already by next tuesday. >> meisha. >> thanks, katie. good morning to you. gateway to the weekend. we are looking at camera. talking about that wind. katie just mentioned it. i will talk bit again as well. you can see very, windy out there. not just shaking cameras and flags and all that we are seeing debris looking around out there we are talking with more serious issues like down trees. this is i-95 south at cottman and schuylkill headlights moving in the eastbound direction near king of prussia those two areas are okay. i want to call your attention to this as well for all of my drivers, oversized commercial vehicles will take a look at this, your banned because of the high wind. pennsylvania turnpike between reading and new jersey, northeast extension between mid county, and heads up on. that lets talk about other issues, like high wind warning in philadelphia. that will be out there until 10:00 a.m. because of that i would check your flight status on line and then, of course, we are talking about down trees still out there 295 southbound past route 206, right lane is blocked because of that down tree. we have another one in shamong that has not yet cleared, this was 295 southbound blocked, your alternate route 73. more coming up next 10 minutes rahel, back over to you. and new for a look at newspaper headlines across our region. >> front page of the delaware county daily times, nurses at delaware county memorial hospital say they will go on strike two days sunday and monday after 12 hours of talks , between their union and hospital's new owners broke off. union had given notice two weeks ago they planned to strike, if they could not reach an agreement. in the news journal a delaware nurse is accused of forging co-workers names to get opiate pain medication and other drugs. joe and of dover faces forgery charges in what police say was a scheme to obtain prescription drugs while working as a nursing director of new castle health and center. speaking before the state legislator this week new jersey governor chris christie proposed using lottery revenues to sure up the state 's public employee pension system. challenged law make tours send him a revamped school funding formula, within the next 100 days. and that is the newspaper headlines from around the delaware valley. up next, pat's here with sports, hi there, pat. >> we have good news and bad news, coming up, good, carli lloyd and u.s. women's team were in chester last night, the bad? joel embiid's knee. we have updates next in sports welcome back. we're glad you are waking up on cbs-3 "eyewitness news". >> pat's here with sports and tough news for sixers fans. >> i feel like every time i sit down here it is filled with negativity. i'm sorry for that. it is not my fault. it is a mere formality but does not make it easier to take. joel embiid will misery mader of the season. he had an mri that showed his problem is more than they thought but no mention of surgery as of yet. heat, they were surgical last night. sixers in my aim. we saw jahlil okafor because that is not bad defense, that is just no defense. just zero effort from okafor. he had only six points in 22 minutes. it got progressively worse for sixers. he kicked out to wayne ellington and he bangs the three. the sixers, they get destroyed 125-98. the knicks are next, tomorrow at the garden. on friday we will necessity exactly where eagles will select in the 2017 draft, which, of course, right around the corner at the art museum. if they win a coin toss they will get 14th pick with the colts going 15th. according to philly.com carson wentz played hurt last year. report claims wentz developed elbow soreness as season progressed which threw off his mechanics. wentz began strong throwing seven touchdowns and one pick in his first four games but by season's end he threw more passes then he did his entire career at north dakota state. delran native carli lloyd close to home as team u.s.a. battled germany in the she believes cup in chester. chris ton press, with a wicked hit off the cross bar but lynn williams sends it through. u.s. women's team wins one to nothing. they will play england saturday in north jersey. we can claim history made at city hall but nothing to do with launching things out of window. mayor kenney provided at cyst for a shot by harlem globetrotter, rhea swish young , nailing that shot from four stories up. yes, first time, a trick shot, i believe, first time, a trick shot has been pulled off like that at city hall. >> isn't that awesome. >> you just interviewed her. >> i did, yes, globetrotters the other day. >> hometown hero, proud. >> love it. >> thanks, pat. well, coming up next of "eyewitness news" we are live at new york stock exchange which is opening today after another record setting high. plus, it business to get easier for internet providers to sell your personal information without your permission. plus hear from president george w. bush about his new book a collection of portraits he has painted of americas veterans, katie. jim, ever closer to the upcoming weekend. even though we had crazy weather this week so far i think weekend is looking pretty good. granted, it may be breezy on saturday and chilly as winter makes its return but not as harsh on sunday and at this point we are still expecting sunshine for both days, we will be right back. windy, cool tore day as we look live at the lehigh valley katie's tracking snow showers for tomorrow but today much of the area under a high wind warning. good morning, i'm rahel solomon. >> i'm jim donovan. katie and meisha will be along in a minute but first here's what you need to necessity to start your day in the morning minute. loss in sales dictates loss in jobs. >> cutting jobs and pointing the finger of blame, pepsi says it is shedding jobs amid plunging sales and blaming mayor kenney's sweet and beverage tax. sessions under fire, calls for the attorney general to step down over conversation was russia during the presidential campaign. bound and beaten in her home, 88 year-old's quick thinking scares off a young intruder. >> that is when i told him i had hiv and my husband died of it, which is a lie. >> gusts are out there, very noticeable. making it feel harsh outside. temperatures are beginning to plumet. >> unaudible. evacuate the building. >> james corden from telling jokes in the late, late show. if is there a fire, i'm out the door. >> we would be tethered to this desk. >> not me. >> yes, they are. we are going to get another taste of winter before the week is all said and done. we will start off on a chilly note too. partly because we did just have a cold front rolling through but this morning we are feeling extra harsh because of the wind that is just whipping out there. high wind warning posted for most of the region in the