nbc's rehema ellis is at laguardia airport with more on that. rehema, good evening to you. >> reporter: good evening, lester. new york airports are getting back to the business of flying. but air travel is still far from normal tonight. there were more than 1800 cancellations at new york airports alone over the past few days, because of the storm. at one laguardia airport, about 20 stranded passengers spent the night sleeping on cots provided by the airlines. a few others camped out on the floor. the airport was virtually deserted. today, crews worked to dig out from under nearly a foot of snow at laguardia to get some flights operating again. amtrak passengers traveling between new york and boston, however, had no luck at all. as train service on that route was shut down again today. passengers we spoke to have been extremely patient and extremely understanding about all this. many of them saying it's because they had plenty of warning about what to expect. lester? >> all right, rehema, thanks. just where is this storm right now? the view from

rehema ellis is at new york laguardia. she was ordered outside the airport when the inside was shut down late today. rehema, looks pretty quiet there. >> reporter: indeed, brian. this is how the storm is impacting travel. look here at one of the nation's busiest airports. new york's laguardia airport is virtually empty on a friday evening. the monitors inside the terminal tell the story. more than 1,800 cancellations at new york's area airports. connecticut's bradley international airport shut down earlier today. 4,700 flights were cancelled nationwide yesterday, today and tomorrow. good news for passengers. airlines waived the cancellation fees, hoping passengers would make other plans. overnight, 200 pieces of snow removal equipment will be used to clean the planes and runways, hoping to get operations back on track sometime sunday. and speaking of tracks, amtrak has shut down service between new york and boston earlier this afternoon with limited service tomorrow. and as ron mott mentioned, a travel ban is in place in c

rehema ellis, we'll stay on it. thanks. >>> authorities in southern california have positively identified the body found in that burned-out cabin in big bear as the ex cop turned cop killer, christopher dorner. they i.d.ed him with dental records. dorner was killed in a stand offwith police on tuesday. that chain of events started when the owners of the mountain vista resort, karen and jim reynolds, went to get one of their cabins ready for vacationers who were arriving. they found themselves staring down the barrel of a gun and staring at dorner. dorner tied up the couple, took off in their car, but left behind a cell phone, which they then used to call 911. >>> in washington tonight, republicans in the senate blocked a vote to move along the nomination of former republican senator chuck hagel as secretary of defense. this doesn't stop him. the nomination isn't dead. it is, however, a delaying tactic, as several senators press the white house for more information on the attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi last

rehema ellis with us tonight. thanks. >>> we have an update tonight on the case of chris dorner, the ex cop, accused cop killer, who died in that standoff with police near the california resort of big bear on tuesday. that chain of events started when a couple, karen and jim reynolds, returned to their rented cabin and found themselves staring down the barrel of a gun and staring at dorner. and last night they talked about their role in this story. >> he was very insistent. >> he didn't have a problem with us. he just wanted to clear his name. >> dorner tied the couple up, took off in their car, which t call 911. >>> in washington tonight, republicans in the senate blocked a vote to move former republican senator chuck hagel's nomination along as defense secretary. it's a delaying tactic, as several of them press the white house for more information on the attack in benghazi last september 11th. >>> it may just be appropriate timing on this valentine's day. a major corporate marriage made official. american airlin

our report from our chief education correspondent, rehema ellis. >> reporter: the college classroom ishanging. courses from some of the world's most elite universities are now available to anyone for free. at a furious pace, schools are participating with start-up companies like coursera to deliver online courses. or m.o.o.k.s. >> much faster than any of us were expecting. we reached our first 1 million users faster than facebook. >> reporter: physics, poetry, astronomy, even guitar, all just a click away. university of virginia retooled his modern history course for this semester's online debut. the class usually open to 120 students saw enrollment soar. >> 42,000 students around the world. >> reporter: to put it in perspective, in order to reach the same number of students, this professor would have to teach his course here at the university of virginia for 350 years. since 2011, some 2.5 million students from hundreds of countries have signed on, even though m.o.o.k.s are not offered for credit and completion rates are low, some educators say the potential exists to revolutionize hi

let's go to rehema ellis, live at laguardia airport.ed to learn that the airport stayed open, despite not having flights. >> u.s. a technicality i believe, alex, because as you can imagine, have you a flight destined to take off from miami, you are not having any weather problems there, so those folks would want to know that there is an airport technically open that can receive a flight in new york. a few minutes ago, i looked out. could see snow plows clearing the runways and there are no planes at the gates from the window where i was looking. this hallway behind me is the way to terminal d, the gates to terminal d for american airlines. the gate is closed. nothing leaving or coming in from this particular area right now. very quiet here. expectations they might be able to get the airport up and running, hopefully before the end of the day. new york's airport did not get hit with a amendment of snow that some were fearing, might be able to get things moving a lot faster than expected. some people who didn't get the word or couldn't af

thanks to rehema ellis reporting there at laguardia and bill and al. we're going to keep our eye on this storm. we'll update you throughout the hour. thanks, gang. >> we want to turn to the war on drones. considering a bill that would set up a special court system to regulate drone strikes. after nbc news revealed a secret memo justifying the killing of americans abroad, if they are high level terrorist targets, lawmakers interrogated john brennan for over three hours yesterday over the drone issue and other war tactics. it was explosive at times with brenn brennan defending the action. >> with the exception of mr. panetta, i feel like i've been jerked around by every cia director. >> 11 united states senators asked to see any and all legal opinions but when i went to read the opinions this morning, it is not clear that that is what was provided. >> we only take such actions as a last resort to save lives, when there's no other alternative to taking an action that's going to mitigate that threat. >> they won't even tell congress what countries we are k

rehema ellis is at laguardia in queens and what do you have for us, rehema? >> reporter: not so busy right now. in fact, take a look around me. this is how the bliz ard is affecting one of the busiest airports in the country. follow me here to the monitor everybody checks on. everything in yellow, that's the color of the day. canceled all the way down. a lucky group of people now boarding. they might be one of the last flights out of laguardia. more than 3,000 flights canceled across the country. greater new york area. and the flights are going to be canceled tomorrow, as well. the airlines have tried to get ahead of the storm and they have also said to passengers, do the same. they have waved the fee that cancelation fee to make it easier and also less expensive for passengers to change their plans and at this point it is not much else will be flying out of this airport for the rest of the day. tomorrow, they say they're -- and during the night, they hope to have some 200 pieces of snow removal equipment at work making certain that the planes are cleared, th

for more on this, let's go to nbc news correspondent rehema ellis. great to have you with us tonight. it's been a busy day out there at la guardia. what is the latest? >> reporter: the latest is here at the new york city area airports, ed we had some 1700 flights canceled as part of that 4700 you mentioned. and what you see behind me is basically an airport, one of the busiest airports in the country on a friday night, it is virtually empty. this is unheard of. and it is the threat of the storm that has gotten everybody to move out of here. and the airlines trying to encourage passengers to do the right thing. and that is change their plans. they waived the cancellation fees, hoping passengers would do that. i have to tell you, i think people got the memo, ed. >> was very light here at the airport as we saw cancellation, one after the other, all day today. the busiest part of the day here for folks at the airport was very early in the morning. i think some people were trying to get ahead of the storm and to get out on those early flights. right now v

>> that is key, rehema. thank you so much for that.orning, a lot of the stats were a couple thousand flights, but it's quickly been upped. >> quickly building. >> yes. >> amount of destruction in terms of planes stranded, it will take days potentially to work this all out. >> amr could be -- >> the root structure, when you put the two together, latin america -- >> it's going to be a powerhouse, no doubt about it. especially the latin american routes and -- that's why it's likely going that way. they seem to have agreed to a 72% or so share, in terms of the creditors owning 72% of the equity. >> jim, you're leaving for vacation. and your birthday's coming up this weekend. >> on sunday, yes. i've waited until after the football season. >> in sort of the "six in sixty" mode, we'll do six cupcakes in 60 seconds. >> thank you very much. >> have a great one. >> you are the man. >> when we come back, jim will burn those off in ten seconds. >>> you know and love "six in sixty," cramer will rattle them off when "squawk on the street" comes righ

"outfront," rehema, a journalist working for eyewitness news in capetown was covering reeva's funeral today. i know you had a chance to speak with reeva's brother as well as her uncle. what did they tell you about reeva and about her relationship with oscar pistorius, which as i understand it, was still a relatively new relationship. >> reporter: yes, erin, it was a relatively new relationship. it started around november last year. reeva's family had really shied away from talking about oscar pistorius. they say that reeva seemed very happy at the time. there was no -- there were no signs of trouble. >> reeva's uncle spoke to reporters at the funeral. i want to play a little of what he said. i know you were there. here he is. >> today it's family. there's only one thing missing. it's reeva. >> it's okay. >> and the statement she stood for, abuse against women. >> abuse against women was something very important to reeva. the day before she was killed, she tweeted a message by a south african singer that read wear black this friday in support against rape and women abuse, black friday.

well, we like the positive spin at the end there, thank you very much, nbc's rehema ellis. >>> righttill without power in hartford 22 inches of snow have accumulated. that's the second highest total ever. joining me now on the phone hartford mayor pedro segala. let's get the latest status on your city. how do things look outside now? >> it's still very sloppy. we've been concentrating on our major roads. those are the roads that basically provide access for our hospitals. we have three major hospitals in the city that service the whole region. so we've been trying to keep those clear for traffic to go through. but we still have a couple of people out that should be home. and are still driving around. it just slows up our operations. we've issued a no driving ban. the governor has also issued a state of emergency and a no driving ban. but we're hopeful that those people can get off the roads. it's just slowing things down. we need to get to our side roads. we have a lot of people that want to get dug out. the quickest we finish those we'll be able to move onto the side streets. >> you