Virginia, maryland, North Carolina, virginia and tennessee. Blizzard conditions expected in washington where more than 2 feet of snow could fall. More than 4500 Flights Canceled in the u. S. Today and tomorrow. Cnns rene marsh with the mess at airports up and down the east coast. Rene. Reporter the potential for more than 2 feet of snow is threatening to shutdown operations in the northeast. We have already seen Airlines Cancel thousands of flights. We expect today throughout the weekend to continue to see the cancellations build. What a lot of airlines did ahead of the storm is offer passengers the opportunity to change flight plans free of charge. At this point, if your reservation has not been changed yet, your chances of getting out before the storm, slim to none. There is no clarity when things will be back up and running smoothly. Normal operations for the airlines. Back to you. Thank you, rene. We will get into the storm track a little more. Im watching the storm totals for new york city. They are going down a bit. Depending on where the models shift, you could get a lot of snow in the new York Metro Area or a lot of snow. Derek is coming soon. Turning to politics. Breaking overnight, donald trump is now slamming the conservative magazine the National Review. It comes ahead of the special issue released today which opposes trumps president ial bid. This will feature an editorial as trump a threat to conservative conservativelies. Trump speaking in las vegas dismisses the National Review entirely. The National Review is a dying paper. Its circulation is way down. People dont even think about the National Review. I guess they want a little publicity. I guess its a dying paper. Pretty much a dead paper. The publisher has disinvited its role as a partner in the debate. Jack fowler cited this special edition of the magazine as the reason. Calling it a small price to pay for speaking the truth about the donald. Ten days to the Iowa Caucuses and trump firming up his lead in the cnn poll. 30 of likely caucus goers say they are behind trump. Cruz and rubio are the only ones in double digits. If you factor in the people who attend the caucus in 2012, it is ted cruz who takes a narrow lead. That narrow is within the polls margin of error. Sara murray has more from the campaign trail. Reporter good morning. Donald trump took a break to rally crowds in vegas and launch a spate of new attacks against ted cruz. With a week to go to the Iowa Caucuses, he said cruz has missed had his moment and his campaign is going down the toilet. All this happening as more Republican Leaders are distancing themselves from ted cruz. There is a bunch of big money in this race. The washington establishment right now, they are abandoning marco rubio and rushing to donald trump. Reporter and donald trump seemed to be relishing in ted cruzs latest attack saying it is okay to be a little establishment. There is a point which lets get to be a little establishment. There is total gridlock. Guys like ted cruz will never make a deal. No, you cannot have that. Reporter donald trump isnt taking a long break from iowa. He will be back on the trail there this weekend with three events and not much longer until the Iowa Caucuses. And jeb bush looking for a boost from his mom. He needs a strong shows in New Hampshire to keep his campaign alive. Jeb has Real Solutions rather than talking about how popular they are or how great they are. Hes doing it because he sees a huge need and it is not being filled by anybody. A cnn poll showed bush tied for third place in New Hampshire. Marco rubio taking his campaign to the tonight show. He went back and forth with jimmy fallon over footwear after his boots were a joke on the campaign trail. Now he says he saves the boots for nights and weekends. Rubio said for him, it is the white house or bust and hes not willing to be number two on the ticket. So if you dont win the nomination, would you consider being Vice President . No. Thats not what im thinking about. I want to be like commissioner of the nfl, which is more powerful than president sometimes. You want to be commissioner of the nfl. They have one now, but i want to consider it the next time it comes up. You have a lot of power in that job. You can suspend people. Yes, of course. Obviously the president. Thats my first choice. Second is i love that. Youre a dreamer, man. On the democratic side, a poll paints a similar picture in iowa. Bernie sanders turning the tables on Hillary Clinton. He jumps to an eightpoint lead. The numbers show he needs to get new voters to the caucus or the lead could evaporate. The numbers flip when we asked previous caucus goers whom they support. In 2008, it gives the edge back to clinton. All these numbers fall within the margin of error. Hillary clinton hoping a celebrity endorsement can help. Demi lovato stumping for her. Im voting for her because i truly believe there is nobody more qualified to run this country our country, than our secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Clinton and sanders ready to make a final push in iowa. Cnns senior washington correspondent jeff zeleny has more. Reporter Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are both campaigning in New Hampshire on friday. Starting a contentious tenday race to the caucuses. There is a fight over the more establishment candidate. Bernie sanders supporters believe he is an outsider. Hillary clinton on thursday told wolf blitzer, not so fast. He has been in congress. He has been elected to office a lot longer than i have. I was in the senate for eight wonderful years representing new york. He has been in the congress for 25. So, i will let your viewers make their own judgment. Reporter but secretary clinton says she is a candidate of change. She would be the first woman president and has many policy ideas. We see the contour lines of the campaign shaping up. They rally voters on friday before coming back to iowa before the final week long stretch of the caucuses. Back to you. Jeff, thanks for that. The age old question is who will get the most snow. Lets get the answer from meteorologist derek van dam. Good morning, alison and christine. One thing is for sure, washington, d. C. Is falling within the large swath of heavy snowfall. As we tweak this forecast, it is new york and boston still in question. Look at the snow totals. 36 inches potential near washington, d. C. All computer models are green on that fact. One thing that happened overnight, one american model, this is calling for over 1 feoo in new york city. We dont believe that will happen in the cnn center. Blizzard watches in effect from new york and philly. Winter storm warnings extending to nashville and little rock, arkansas. It has already received over 2. 5 inches of fresh fallen snow. The american model. The bullseye over the nations capital. Taking the snowfall out of new york. One thing for sure it will bring it to carolinas and southern kentucky. The storm has been taking shape. Severe weather on thursday and the potential again for the Florida Panhandle and southern portions of georgia. By the way, there were over 50 reports of Severe Weather across louisiana and alabama. The back side of the system bringing in colder air and also changing that precipitation over from rainfall into snow. So, one things for sure here, alison and christine. Flight cancellations or delays. Certainly going to happen today and through the weekend. Road closures, coastal erosion and potential of Power Outages as we Pay Attention to the major noreaster developing. Back to you. Derek, when can we expect the snow to fall in the d. C. Area . We expect that to take place late friday evening and ramping up by Early Saturday Morning. The worst will be done by saturday into sunday. Derek, thank you for that. Breaking news this morning. American student arrested in north korea. The student is said to be from a university in virginia. Pyongyang says the student was planning to carry out a hostile act agains the regime. The u. S. Embassy in seoul is aware of the reports. We will have more information as it is available. U. S. Stock futures are higher this morning. Europe posts gains. Stocks in asia rallying with a huge gain in tokyo. Look at that 5. 8 pop in tokyo. That is a big move. The oil prices are pushing higher right now. Comments from the European CentralBank President will push more stimulus. The dow gained more than 100 points. If the dow can gain 105 points today, it would be a rare positive finish for the wild holiday shortened week. The catalyst, crude is rising above 30 a barrel. Stocks have a lot to gain. The dow is off 8. 8 . Nasdaq down 10 . S p 500 down 8. 5 . Heading into the 14th trading day of the year. It feels like it has been an entire year the past three weeks. Two of the americans freed from prison cells in iran back in the u. S. The emotional homecomings next. Two of the americans freed in the prisoner swap with iran now back on u. S. Soil. Saeed abedini reunited with family in asheville, North Carolina. You are seeing lots of hugs and tears there. He had spent more than three years in an iranian prison. Also back home is amir hekmati. The u. S. Marine was accused of spying five years ago. He says he is happy to be back. Thank god for your support. Everybody from the president and my family and every day americans. Im standing here healthy and tall with my head held high. Breaking in the last few minutes, Jason Rezaian, released by iran, now headed back to the United States. Cnns phil black is live in landstuhl, germany, where rezaian has been staying since regaining his freedom. Phil, he is on the way back to the u. S. Whats the latest . Reporter as you touched on there, it is happy breaking news. All three americans who were treated here and assessed physically and psychologically to determine whether or not they are up to getting the process of reintegrating into society. They all left. The last to leave is Jason Rezaian. He was detained in july 2014. He released a statement saying he is overjoyed to reconnect with his family. They are all traveling together back to the states. He talks about the plan from here. Simply being relaxation and home cooked meals and movies and sports. He also went on to talk about his gratitude. I want to read you a specific quote. In it he says this, at some point i will be ready to discuss my ordeal, but for now, i just want to express my profound appreciation for the tremendous support i have received. And the two other americans returning home yesterday. I know you showed the video of saeed abedini, the emotional welcome by his mother there on the tarmac as he comes off the aircraft and amir hekmati, back in flint, michigan as well. From here, it is an important step these three men have taken, but the doctors and specialists who work at the facility here specializing in the trauma and longterm ordeals, they say this is the first step in the process. Phil, you talk about the trauma. Something we are yet to hear about. You see these men step off the planes and they look like theyre in great condition. They obviously look overjoyed as understood. They just look healthy. Reporter yeah, i think thats true. Everyone has observed that. Everyone who has seen and heard from them. These are three happy, healthy men who appear to have endured their ordeals somewhat successfully. That is not to downplay how difficult it was or how hard it will be to reintegrate. They have all endured really difficult hardship. Only touched on it briefly. I think we have seen a great degree of stoicism in the time we have seen them. They have not wanted to go into the detail of the hardships, but talked about it slightly and talked about the great pressure that was often inhumane. We know from comments that Jason Rezaian made about the isolation he found to be the hardest part of the ordeal. There is no doubt these men have a difficult, long road ahead. What has taken place so far is clearly very positive and they are all very overjoyed. No doubt to finally be going home. Alison. Definitely happy to see them with their loved ones. Phil black, thanks. Cnn takes you inside iran and what residents are saying about the nuclear deal and the countrys new relationship with the u. S. We have that for you next. Welcome back. Could decades of anger and frustration subside with the passage of the Iran Nuclear Deal. Every day iranians hope so looking for Economic Relief and place on the world stage. Cnns Frederik Pleitgen is in tehran and has more on the view of the progress. Fred. Reporter good morning from tehran. Christine and alison, there is a great deal of optimism after the nuclear agreement. People are thrilled that the deal has come through and frankly, many of them say, they are happy this prisoner swap took place between the u. S. And iran. They believe that one more obstacle that is out of the way for iran to get back on the world stage. Now, many of them believe there will be a great deal of Economic Activity here very quickly. Iran, of course, wants to sell some 500,000 additional barrels of oil on the world market every day. When you look at the flights that are coming in here to tehran, they are absolutely packed with Foreign Investors looking to get in to what they believe will be an important emerging market. People here believe that all this will happen very quickly, but so far although many of the sanctions nominally have been lifted, but it is still impossible to pay electronically. You still have to pay with cash. And some deals take time to negotiate. At the same time, there are also the hard liners here in iran. Many of them still remain very skeptical about the nuclear agreement. They are not sure it will hold and some want to remain in a confrontive state. And al shabaab paris style attack in the capital of somalia. Government forces engaging gunmen in an hours long gun battle. 20 people were killed and 17 were hurt. The government Officials Say all of the attackers are dead. Bracing for a monster blizzard here on the east coast. 75 Million People from the deep south all the way up north in its path. Thousands of flights already canceled this morning. We are tracking when and where it will hit and how much snow. Thats next. The east coast set to be crippled by a monster blizzard. 75 Million People in its path. Thousands of flights already canceled. We are tracking when and where it will hit. The National Review with a scathing report on donald trump. Good morning. Welcome back to early start. Im christine romans. Im alison kosik. The first winter storm bearing down on theest east coast. States of emergency declared in virginia, maryland, pennsylvania, North Carolina, georgia and tennessee. Blizzard conditions expected in washington where more than 2 feet of snow could fall. Major cities like new york and philadelphia could get slammed. More than 4500 Flights Canceled in the u. S. Today and tomorrow. Derek van dam is tracking the storm. We will get to him in a moment. Lets first get to cnns rene marsh with the mess at the airports up and down the east coast. Reporter the potential for more than 2 feet of snow is threatening to shutdown airport operations at major airports in the northeast. We have already seen Airlines Cancel thousands of flights and we expect today throughout the weekend to continue to see the cancellations build. What a lot of airlines did ahead of the storm is offer passengers the opportunity to change their flight plans free of charge, but at this point, if your reservation has not been changed yet, your chances of getting out before the storm, slim to none. There is no clarity at this point when things will be back up and running smoothly. Back to you. Rene, thank you. The big question is who is getting how much snow and when . Lets get to meteorologist derek van dam. Good morning, alison and christine. Well this is new to viewers and new to you at home as well. We have now extended the blizzard warning, the National Weather service, into new york city and philadelphia. Remember, blizzard conditions not defined by snowfall totals, but by rather 35mileanhour winds for a sustained period of three hours or longer dropping visibility below. 25 of a mile. We still certain that a major winter storm is bearing down on midatlantic states. Still some uncertainty with computer models. One thing is for sure as we see the bullseye, time and time again. Model and model setting up over the greater washington, d. C. Area. Again, just whether or not the northern periphery will reach the new york city area. We will monitor that closely. Here is the weather watch in place. Winter storms from nashville to little rock, arkansas. Arkansas has received 2. 5 inches of snow from the back side of the storm. It is not only a snowmaker, but icemaker. We have upwards of. 50 to. 75 of ice in the carolinas. Lesser as you travel further to the west in kentucky and tennessee. We are also coinciding the peak storm time around Early Saturday Morning with high tide. That is coinciding with the full moon. The coastal beach erosion from long island to the coast of delaware. Here is the storm system evolving over the next 24 to 36 hours, our major weather story will be our noreaster. Please