path across long island. but the snow continued to pile up. and visibility continued to drop. as the last of the rush hour commuter trains rolled into their stations, the long island railroad announced that friday s rush hour would run on a weekend schedule. people we spoke with were just hoping to make it back to new york. not bad actually. i m impressed. the trains are running. hopefully it stays that way tomorrow, as well. my plan is to wake up early tomorrow, look out the window. see what it looks like, get the snowblower out. try to get to work. reporter: the snow will not blanket the metropolitan area in snow, but the blizzard-like conditions will leave snow drift that could wreak havoc on the highways and the commuter rail lines. abc news, suffolk county, new york. our blizzard coverage does not end here. later this hour, more live reporting from the snowy streets of new york on this state of emergency impacting tens of millions.
those in favor say aye. aye. those apose eopposed no. the ayes have it. the gentleman from indiana. i ask for a recorded vote. okay. luke res effoussert, you hav watching what s been going on on the floor of the house. there was some discussion about the possibility of working on saturday. did i hear that correctly? what you saw there is often called a colloquy when cantor and hoyer go back and forth. i wasn t able to see it, only able to hear it. from what i heard it seems that eric cantor has said the weekend schedule would be determined on friday. there s all sorts of rumors we could be in saturday or sunday with both sides trying to work on a government shutdown. that s what you heard right there. behind me since i last spoke to you, it sort of opened up. there are now folks who are allowed to walk from one side of the capitol to the other on this side. so as the day goes forward, we get closer and closer to being more of a normal capitol hill
crookshank says there is a new twist. al qaeda s leader in yemen, once osama bin laden s personal secretary, is now reportedly the second command in the organization worldwide. is this an opportunity, potentially, then, for him to make his mark? it may well be. this is his coming out party as the de facto number two of al qaeda. the plot was in the works at the same time as this announcement was going to come out that he was playing this bigger role in the al qaeda global terrorist network. reporter: president obama stuck to his planned weekend schedule, golfing and going to camp david for his birthday. a white house official says the president will continue to be updated about the threat through the weekend. the white house says it will not comment on intelligence in this case, particularly as it relates to a new york times report that says some of this intelligence came from intercepted electronic communications between senior al qaeda operatives.
meanwhile, he s continuing with his routine weekend schedule, golfing, going to camp david to celebrate his birthday. the embassy closings are officially for sunday, but could be extended to more days. yesterday, we were talking about a number at 21. it was updated overnight to 22. that includes the u.s. consulate in basra. these stretch all across north africa and middle east. germany and britain have said they plan to close their embassies in yemen sunday and monday and now, france has said it plans to do the same. all of this coming from the terrorist chatter described by officials as credible and something they re taking seriously, yet nothing that s specific, so a former u.s. ambassador to iraq explains how he views this response to the threat. there have been incidents where they ve closed down a number of embassies in the middle east because the information is not specific enough to say that embassy x will be closed as opposed to other embassy, but i think
same time as this announcement was going to come out that he was playing this bigger role in the al qaeda global terrorist network. president obama stuck to his planned weekend schedule, golfing and going to will camp david for his birthday. a white house official says the president will will continue to be updated about the threat through the weekend. the white house says it will not comment on intelligence in this case, particularly as it relates to a new york times report that says that some of this intelligence came from intercepted electronic communications between senior al qaeda operatives. our terrorism expert paul crookshank says regardless of what happens as a result of this threat, the terrorists have caused enough concern to prompt close urz and travel alerts like we re seeing. an anna? emily, thank you. the threat is not limited to embassies. the state department issued a global travel alert yesterday. even if you don t see the extra security at airports, you can b