Huge Snowstorm Moves East; Dow Opening At All-Time High; Russian Ballet Acid Attack; Best Buy Ends Work-From-Home
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And enjoy it while it lasts. Another big company going Yahoo!'s way, saying no more working from home.</s>ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN ANCHOR: Boohoo!</s>BERMAN: We don't get to work from home.</s>SAMBOLIN: That's true.</s>BERMAN: All right. Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone.</s>SAMBOLIN: I'm happy for the folks that do, you know?</s>BERMAN: Some people need it. Welcome back, everyone. I'm John Berman.</s>SAMBOLIN: And I'm Zoraida Sambolin. Nice to have you with us. Wednesday, March 6th, 30 minutes past the hour. Right now, snow falling on the nation's capital. Winter weather alerts are in effect for much of the central eastern part of the country. Take a look at that map. This monster storm blanketed several cities, grounded flights from the Dakotas to Ohio. Chicago saw record snowfall for the day with 10 inches at O'Hare International; 3 1/2 inches fell on Indianapolis. Columbus, Ohio, had nearly four inches of snow on the ground and forecasted for today in D.C., three to eight inches, with up to 15 in the eastern suburbs. Those poor folks. Karen Maginnis is monitoring the storm for us and Shannon Travis is live at Dulles International Airport. So, Shannon, let's start with you. This is expected to be the worst storm the nation's capital has ever seen. How are they preparing for this?</s>SHANNON TRAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Zoraida, I prepared by pulling out my big puffy red coat, but more importantly, officials throughout the region are preparing by taking the most important steps and that really is to save lives. We've seen road crews out on the roads all morning, even here at Dulles, putting salt on the roads for any motorists that might be going out. Obviously, we reported that federal offices here in the area are closed due to the storm and flight cancellations. The five major airlines, Zoraida, have canceled over 1,000 of them for our viewers listening, I'm going to list them off by airline. United, 650 flight cancellations so far that we've tracked. Most of them in and out of Dulles. U.S. Air, 350. American, 20 just for today, but 360 from yesterday. Delta, we're still waiting for a firm number from them, but 120 flight cancellations yesterday. And Southwest not reporting any major cancellations. One couple that we spoke with here at Dulles, they're trying to go someplace much sunnier than this and they're hoping that they get out. Take a listen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going halfway around the world to the Philippines to meet her parents.</s>TRAVIS: And you're going to get there?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pray we do and hopefully everyone that's watching pray for us too.</s>TRAVIS: Zoraida, we got an update from them and they say their flight is still on track. Some other people we spoke with said that they're not so lucky, they'll be sleeping here. Most of the airlines are offering passengers a chance to change their flight status, their flight times for one time for no fee -- Zoraida.</s>SAMBOLIN: That's really good. You know, that's kind of the problem, right, Shannon, that that ripple effect that happens. You take one flight, you know --</s>TRAVIS: That's right.</s>SAMBOLIN: -- the other one canceled, it becomes a nightmare. Thanks for that. We appreciate it.</s>BERMAN: This is turning into a really difficult storm to track. Karen Maginnis has been trying. He is live right now at our weather center in Atlanta. Karen, what do things look like right now?</s>KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John, just watching what has happened at the Capitol and the White House, the snow has really increased just in the last hour or so. I want to show you a picture of that right now. The snowfall rates are increasing it looks like and the wind has increased as well. Beautiful shot coming out of there, but if you are trying to get out on the roads this afternoon, we are going to see significant snowfall. They are saying it is going to really impact greatly right around the metropolitan area, with maybe four to eight, five to 10. The forecast models have really been all over the place. Even for New York, it looks like a heavy wet snow there. Boston estimated to be four to eight inches. If Washington, D.C., sees anything in that eight to 10-inch range, it looks like it could make the top five March snowfall totals that we have seen since records were kept. For the Northeast, the storm system is going to stall a little bit as it moves out toward the Atlantic, so that's the reason why we're still forecasting this event to take place across northeastern New England, along that I-95 corridor with those winds gusting up to near 50 miles an hour.</s>BERMAN: All right, Karen. Karen Maginnis, our thanks to you. We will keep on watching. Meanwhile, all eyes are on Wall Street this morning. Investors are pinching themselves wondering how long this incredible run is going to last. The Dow making history yesterday, closing at a record high, 14,253 after gaining 125 points. And we could be heading up from there in just three hours when the market opens, because Dow futures are pointing higher, suggesting a bounce at the opening bell.</s>SAMBOLIN: And a developing story this morning from Russia. A possible case of rage, jealousy and revenge at the ballet. Police say a star dancer with the Bolshoi ballet has confessed to attacking the theater company's director with acid. He's one of three people that are now this custody. CNN's Phil Black is following all of the developments for us. And we learned earlier that there was a confession on camera. Did all three of them confess to this?</s>PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it looks that way, Zoraida, indeed. I want to show you some of that video now -- the video which you should hopefully be seeing -- is Pavel Dmitrichenko, who is the leading dancer with the Bolshoi ballet and this video clip was released by Russian police. In it, he is heard confessing to this attack. He speaks in Russian and he says, "I organized this attack but not to the extent that it happened." And there was also video of the other two people who have been arrested in connection to this. Now, what happened? Well, that was back in January. Bolshoi's artistic director Sergei Filin was outside his home in Moscow. And he says someone called his name, he turned around and someone through sulfuric acid, a jar of it, into his face. Police say of the two other people that they have and who are confessing on this video, one of them is the man who threw the jar of acid and the other who one acted as a driver that night -- Zoraida.</s>SAMBOLIN: This is crazy. Why would anybody do something like this? Do they have a motive in this case?</s>BLACK: Well, the motive, as mentioned by police, is hostile relations between the two men professionally. But that has been what everyone in Moscow has been talking about and speculating about right from the beginning, because there's potentially a very long list of people who would fit that description, who could have hostile professional relations with Sergei Filin. As the artistic director of the Bolshoi ballet, he makes and breaks careers. He decides productions, decides who gets what parts, decides the overall artistic direction of the company. And this is something that people within the Bolshoi have lots of very passionate, strong feelings about. So other than just this very simple description from the police, hostile relations, we haven't heard the details. We'll listen to hear those in court -- Zoraida.</s>SAMBOLIN: All right. Phil Black reporting live from Moscow, thank you.</s>BERMAN: We have new developments in the Trayvon Martin alleged murder case. Gunman George Zimmerman will not seek immunity under Florida's "stand your ground" law. His lawyer just cancelled a hearing next month to determine whether the law applies. Instead, he will try to convince a jury that Zimmerman shot and killed the teenager in self defense. Zimmerman's second degree murder trial begins on June 10th.</s>SAMBOLIN: And apparently despite all the anticipation, there is no rush to choose the next pope. The cardinals of the Catholic Church say they plan to keep the same measured pace today. After two meetings on Monday and another one yesterday, the cardinals took time for private talks and for research. Two-thirds of the electors either don't live in Rome or they come from faraway diocese and they generally need more time to get to know one another and the potential contenders. The timing of the conclave is still not set.</s>BERMAN: Taking a look at the top CNN trends on the web this morning. Best Buy becoming the latest company to end its work from home program. Four thousand non-store employees who have been telecommuting must now get manager approval to continue working from home or on flexible schedules. Just last week, everyone remembers that Yahoo!'s new CEO, Marissa Mayer, banned all employees from working at home at the struggling internet giant.</s>SAMBOLIN: Good night and good luck. Deadline reports that Jon Stewart will take a 12-week break, just a break from "The Daily Show" to direct his first movie. It's a drama called "Rosewater" from a screenplay that he wrote. Regular contributor John Oliver will fill in the anchor seat for most of the time, we understand.</s>BERMAN: So we know that the U.S. military uses drones overseas, but would our government execute a drone strike right here on American soil? The answer here might surprise you. We're going to go live to the Pentagon, coming up.