david lee miller has the story of the airline nightmare. >> airport counters across europe are quiet. this eruption takes place in iceland with the plume of toxic acid spreading across europe. >> concern about navigation and ash in engines. >> that's why planes are parked. not just in europe but worldwide. >> i have been here for days and days and hours and hours. just waiting. and that's all i can do. >> i am frustrated. irritateed. twitter and disgusted. >> here in new york, frustrated passengers, have been forced to campout at jfk after a number of transthank flights were scraped. >> absolute nightmare. nobody tells you anything. they said they would come down and tell us within the hour. and nobody came down and told us anything until the next day. >> you have some food and few beds but nothing more. >> predicament is expensive. travelers lucky enough to get hotel rooms are forking over big bucks, not so lung he are left in airport terminals. >> i want to be home. so, yeah. lost. >> provide us with food and water and drinks. and a blanket. the floor is hard. but we got through the

in charlotte, north carolina, david lee miller, fox news. >> chris: one industry that is doing fine these days is the lobbying business. that is despite promises from president obama to change the way washington operates. correspondent william la jeunesse reports it hasn't worked out that way. >> we have to take action on both ends of pennsylvania avenue to end outside influence of lobbyist and do the work openly. >> reporter: how open the administration has been is open to debate. but there is no doubt about the influence of lobbyists in washington. >> while companies are slashing jobs, while the companies are scaling back other operations, they are in fact boosting operations when it comes to influence lawmakers. >> special interest spending on capitol hill topped $3.4 billion last year, all-time record. leading the pack, health and pharmaceutical products, 266 million. followed by general business, oil and gas, insurance and utilities at $144 million. >> organized interest who do lobbying are making a cost benefit trade off. if they want to get policy that they are interested in, they'

david lee miller vz more details now. >> reporter: tales of terror on the busy subways of new york. according to the new york daily news, disturbing details about the thwarted al-qaeda plot in new york city. sources say najibullah zazi and two other suspects planned to strap on explosives, head to the grand station and explode during rush hour to get the maximum amount of death and destruction. >> domestic terrorism is what we have to worry about. at the mall of america, in the subway system or at long beach harbor. >> reporter: this news comes after the arrests in pakistan. zazi confessed that they travel l to pack tan in -- traveled to pakistan in 2008. they were recruited by al-qaeda in manhattan. kt mcfarlands said it is a perfect example of why the patriot act needs to be renewed. >> because at the end of the day, you're not going to prevent something when the guy has got the backpack walking into the mall. the only time is to prevent it from happening and that means intelligence and working with domestic groups and finding out where the terrorists are. >> reporter: the attack

kinds of things, engines have shut down and safety concerns are real about the situation and david lee millerhe newsroom in new york city and where planes are not leaving airports for europe, right, david. >> indeed you are right, martha, let's say viewers who are watching us this morning, in an airport lounge, planning to travel to europe, better get comfortable, and there is a good chance they'll be in those airports, for at least a few more hours, possibly a few more days and the situation now is that the cloud has caused a ripple effect around the world. the number of transatlantic flights to europe, today, out of the normal 300 that land in europe, today, only 120 made it. at least 17,000 flights within europe, to europe, have been cancelled to date and have a laundry list i'll take you through, some of the countries affected. no particular order, britain, ireland, france, denmark, norway, sweden, finland, belgium, poland and germany and underscoring how serious the problem is, the romstein u.s. air force base in germany at this hour, has been shut down because of the volcanic cloud. mar

$100 million expansion and the addition of nearly 300 new jobs n charlotte, north carolina, david lee millerfox news. >>> the president will be in north carolina today to talk about jobs. yesterday, he was in massachusetts talking to emergency workerfollowing his torque floods in the northeast. coming up next we'll get an update on the scene there this morning. >>> ahead, a crime alert on howard university's campus. what has students on edge there. we'll talk about that coming up at 60. -- at 6:30. >>> washington isn't forgetting flood-ravad new england. besides a briefing, the president wanted to personally thank emergency worker. he says when these kinds of natural disasters hit, what matters are the people on the ground. >> he said one the process starts going, he will do everything to make it happen quickly. >> homeland security secretary janet napolitano and the top fema official will be in rhode island today. that state was hit especially hard. >>> let's check in with tony with another look at the forecast today. we hate to see what is happening up there but we are not having much to w