>> now, abc 7 news at noon -- on your side. adrianna: right now, all eyes back on the white house. abc news has confirmed that special counsel robert mueller is using a grand jury to look into allegations of possible collusion between the trump campaign and the ship. emily rao has the latest from capitol hill. president trump: the russia story is a total fabrication. emily: a campaign-style rally in west virginia, the perfect outlet for an as

collusion allegations. president trump: we did not win because of russia. we won because of you, i can tell you. emily: but the scrutiny continues area special counsel robert mueller convened a grand jury weeks ago, suggesting the investigation is heading into a new, more serious phase. >> it is the ability to get witnesses to testify under oath. it is the ability to get documents. it is the ability to get financial records. reportingters subpoenas in connection with the trump tower meeting where donald jr. was promised dirt on hillary clinton from a russian lawyer with reported kremlin ties. the president's personal lawyers saying on fox news there is no indication the president himself is a target. >> we have no reason to believe the president is under investigation. emily: the top white house lawyer saying in a statement the white house is committed to fully cooperating. with a crowd of supporters, the pres

shift focus to the opponent he defeated nine months ago. what the trump: prosecutors should be looking at our hillary clinton's 33,000 deleted emails. emily: lawmakers appear to be taking notice of president trump's stance. senators have introduced two bipartisan bills that would require judicial review a president trump attempts to fire special counsel mueller. emily rao, abc news, washington. adrianna: meanwhile, the leak of private phone conversations between the president and he heads of state. the department of justice announced a measure to crack down on national security leaks. right now, attorney general jeff sessions is putting out a warning for would-be lakers. according to him, the doj has more than tripled the number of actively investigations -- active leak

investigated and will be prosecuted. let's talk about this gorgeous weather, after a round of storms swept through last night. it looks like we are all clear for now, but have a chance for storms later tonight. chief meteorologist doug hill is here for a look at your forecast area. frames,o separate time late afternoon, and likely after sunset, as a cold front is going to arrive and get rid of the heat and humidity for a little bit. a look at poti high school in laurel. bright sunshine. let's show you a live look at national harbor. stiff.gs pretty a southerly winds developing. that is going to keep temperatures rising, keep humidity levels up, and aid the development of thunderstorms later this afternoon and this evening. 85 now in washington. warm and muggy. temperatures will keep rising. not a lot of satellite details locally. most action

virginia. you see the cold air -- ohio, rather. you see the front making its move. one opportunity will be this afternoon, and later this evening and tonight for a second chance. that is the second batch which may produce the possibility of very heavy, if not severe, storms over parts of the area. satellite radar very quiet in our area, but we will keep a close eye on doppler, because probably around 2:30, we will see is popping up. as far as futurecast, this is set at 5:30. according to this model, not a lot of action locally. most will be over the mountains. later tonight, ahead of the front, showers and thunderstorms could last into the overnight. the winds turned the northwest behind the front. cooler and drier air will move into the region. let me give you an hour-by-hour for the area for the rest of this afternoon. we will get up to about 91, feeling a couple degrees warmer.

likely through the evening into late night. the weekend forecast is a sight to behold, a nice one. i will share that in about 12 minutes. adrianna: see you in a few. the cleanup continues after storms toppled trees and knocked out power to roughly 1400 homes in fairfax county alone. sam sweeney is in late bar craft, were several -- sam sweeney is in an area were several homes were hit by trees. sam: the storms came in strong yesterday afternoon and into the evening. some people saw nothing, and some people saw this. take a look at this. this is on the shores of lake barcroft. a tree fell from this area, came across the road, and slammed into the back of this home. this is just one of the homes that was hit in this area. take a look at this house, just down the street. the roots ripped right out of the ground. more than 20 feet high, and slme

the people live inside this home were inside at the time. theily, not in that part of home. major structural damage. but neighbors believe they will rebuild. people in this area say they have dealt with this before. there is a lot of old growth here, and it comes with the territory. >> it is just torrential and sideways rain, and the wind gusts, and hail started coming down. this big tree fell down here. we had to circle for about 45 minutes just to get here. we are two blocks away, but it took 45 minutes to circle around. two different streets were blocked. sam: in northern virginia, people have have power restored, but it is going to be a long cleanup process. nearly barcroft in fairfax county, sam sweeney. adrianna: an update on the condition of a firefighter who was hit by a ladder truck. the family of 28-year-old dane smothers says he is still in the icu. -- he had been getting the house ready to battle

street when another truck came around the corner and hit him. hovering metro, we are tracking major changes coming this weekend. several stations will be closed on both the green and the red lines. .et's start with the green line the branch avenue and sue bird stations will be closed for two weeks, starting tomorrow. the naylor road station will be shut down august 12 and 13, and again on august 19 and 20. on the red line, you are out of luck if you use the medical center or bethesda stations. it is the fourth and final weekend of closures, while crews finish work to seal those tunnels off from water. we have you covered online at wjla.com, with all the metro changes you need to know, heading into this weekend and beyond. also, follow us on facebook and twitter for breaking news. there is a lot of cash out their up for grabs this weekend. the megamillion and powerball jackpots combine for half $1

ryan hughes has more on the excitement and your chances of cashing out. mega millions mania and powerball pandemonium is taking over the area. there are two big jackpots on the line this weekend. take a millions now at $323 million. the powerball, $286 million. that has a lot of people rushing out, trying to buy tickets. at the exxon station in georgetown, you tell us you had a lot of customers coming in. what has it been like? win half ald like to million. they need to bring numbers and come to play the game. $400,somebody came with $500, to spend on mega millions and powerball. ryan: they hope they can win big. what is it like to have both of these jackpots, a couple hundred million dollars? that is a lot of money on the line?

>> no doubt. ryan: you said you won a couple years ago. , $400 million. it was before we bought this. ryan: you are hoping that look strikes twice. very good. thank you. . mega millionss is tonight. powerball, the draw is saturday night. we are in georgetown. ryan hughes, back to you in the studio. adrianna: coming up, it has happened again. dubai's tallest tower in flames. the details coming up. less, this woman means business. she is caught on camera robbing a store with a gun almost bigger than she is. and that is a whole lot of toilet paper. find out who is beyond this -- behind this messy prank. here is a check on traffic with eric smith. eric: it aft

hello, everyone. a tough ride on i-66. major crashes have cleared to the shoulder. this is a new one, found at the gallows overpass, right before the capital beltway. overturnedde, and vehicle, and possibly someone thrown out of a vehicle. this is going to be a mess into the beltway for both directions. we will look at is spend delays before the beltway, barely moving at this time. the westbound ride is also not pretty. this is westbound past vienna. this is a big mess heading to the crash scene, and heading out of town as well. bridge,at 395 over the delays are already heavy. heading into the

looking at the winter wilson bridge. pretty heavy. that is going to be heavy for through and local in traffic, as you head toward the virginia side of the bridge. finally, looking at 95 in virginia, looking southbound, a bit of volume for both directions. it is going to be a busy midday. that is all for the traffic center for n

inianna: breaking news rockville, where a car struck a pull, and there are wires down, as you can see in this video. sky track 7 is over the scene on falls road there in rockville. lanes are blocked, s

word yet on any injuries. now to some incredible video. one of the world's tallest towers is on fire. this is the torch tower in dubai, where a fire broke out just after midnight, engulfing part of the skyscraper and sending chunks of debris plummeting below. more than 40 floors of the 84-story building were burning on one side. the good news is the building was successfully evacuated and no one was hurt. now to some must-see video. watch how close an american airlines plane was to disaster, after the engine caught fire just before takeoff at chicago's o'hare international airport last october. the pilots had to take a split-second decision to abort takeoff, slowing down the aircraft after that engine failure. passengers were quickly evacuated, but 20 were hurt. firefighters were on scene and attacked the blaze within minutes, surrounding the

flames that were soaring off the wings. the cause of this is still under investigation. a sprint store in north carolina are still in shock after a woman walked inside, armed with an assault rifle. she casually walks into the store with a gun almost as big as she is. employees say the video does not show the moment she held that gun to the store clerk's head. no one was injured in the robbery, but the store manager says employees are too afraid to return to work. now to a stinky situation in tennessee. a toilet in southwest airlines' overflowed, clogged with paper towels, spilling toilet water on the floor and into bags. some were so bad passengers had to leave their backs behind. no bags were allowed to be on the plane until after they were sanitized. and check this out. usually, senior prank is toward the end of the year, but studen

by this on their first day. the whole school covered in toilet paper. it is a traditional prank in the atlanta area school. do not worry. the students were asked to clean up this mess by lunchtime. let me just say they put in their work. that is a block before the school, a block after the school. that is a lot of toilet paper wasted. it is a lot of toilet paper. doug: a lot of effort. adrianna: exactly. you put effort into this forecast. doug: it is looking pretty good. we still have some stuff going on in the area, as far as the possibility of showers and storms. they will crank up this afternoon, and especially this evening. we will get a nice weekend. let's take a look at some images, if we can. i will tell you, let's go back to the weather center. fullscreen -- give me a minute to get back to the weather center to handle a computer issue. this is our fifth straight

day of warm and humid air. is, is going to happen here we are going to see temperatures climb to about 90 degrees. as a result, we are going to see another possibility of pop-up flowers and thunderstorms during the afternoon hours. some could be heavy. tonight, better chances of thunderstorms as we advance a cold front for the washington area. that will be interesting to see. for the weekend, things are looking fine around the area. -- chances for thunderstorms the timing looks like around 4:00 this afternoon for an isolated storm. as we get toward 8:00 tonight, moderate chances. toward late night, that is going to get the higher chances. let's come back to the weather center for a while, and continue our story. sorry for the interruptions. temperatures right now in the low to mid 80's. they will continue their way up. we see the feels like temperatures rise correspondingly.

87 in luray. we will get some relief from pop-up thunderstorms this afternoon. better chances tonight as we go through the evening hours. this is because of an advancing cold front. that cold front will be the mechanism to bring in cooler and drier air for the weekend. afternoon, there may be a couple of pop-up showers through the afternoon. but most of the action to the west. as we get to the evening toward and after sunset, that is the best opportunity for some storms across the dmz. a few could linger tonight. morning, breezy and more pleasant weather conditions for just about anything you have planned through this upcoming weekend. looking at the forecast specifically for numbers, 91 is the one we picked. they will feel a few degrees warmer with thunderstorm chances. tonight, a second-round possible ahead of a cold front. skies will be partly

will drop to 68-72. southerly winds will eventually turn around, and if you can tell the wind direction outside your home, when it turns west-northwest, after that, we start to see some improvement in conditions, as far as heat and humidity. at the beaches and pools, very comfortable temperatures. if you are going to florida georgia line or any other outdoor activity

"20/20" isonight, digging into the controversial sentencing of a woman given 2.5 years in prison for sending text

urging him to take his own life. elizabeth vargas joins us with a preview of what we can expect tonight. this is such a bizarre case, and an even more bizarre sentencing. elizabeth: it is a tragic case, and it is precedent-setting as well. legal experts -- first amendment rights experts have been watching this. can you be responsible, with words you send a text message or online, with what someone does? this young woman has been found guilty of manslaughter for sending text messages that encouraged this young man to kill himself. tonight on "20/20," we will a out those messages. it was a two-year long relationship in which these two texted constantly. they lived a couple hours apart in massachusetts. initially, 490% of the text messages, she tried to convince him not to kill himself. it is just of the and she seems to

it, get back in the truck, and that leads to the young man's death. she has been sentenced to 15 months in prison, and remained out of jail before appealing the guilty verdict, which has upset the family. we are talking to everybody exclusively today in massachusetts. we will have it all for you tonight. adrianna: when this was unfolding before the trial, a lot of her friends, and the victim's family, said she did not seem to show remorse. are we going to hear remorse from her or anyone she knows tonight? elizabeth: listen, this kind of thing is tough. people show emotions in different ways, and she certainly seemed distraught in the courtroom when she was getting the sentence and heard the guilty verdict. tonight, we talked to the prosecution as well as the defense lawyers and the family roy, whoctim, conrad believe she is very responsible for their br

needs to be noted this young man tried to kill himself several times before. a lot of legal rights experts and first amendment rights experts were surprised by this verdict, because it sets an incredible precedent that you can be held responsible for somebody else killing himself right josh just by the words you send them. this is a huge legal precedent we all need to be paying a lot of attention to, given all of the social media. adrianna: thank you for your time. "20/

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adrianna: here is a reason to satisfy your sweet tooth. it is national chocolate chip cookie day. for those of you who don't know, the first chocolate chip cookie ruthaked in the 1930's by wakefield. she was baking cookies for her guests when she decided to alter the recipe, using small pieces of nestle chocolate bar. very interesting. that video looks good. now, i am hungry. doug: thank you, ruth. our weather today hot and humid. showers and thunderstorms possible this afternoon, coming likely tonight ahead of a cold front. we will drop into the 70's tomorrow. a few clouds, breezy, less humid. a quick peek shows once we get through the weekend, it looks like it is going to stay very pleasant. the low average temperatures all of next week. happy friday. see you monda

>> hey, everybody. it's whiz kids week. today, we're playing our game with some very bright kids who have spent their young lives working hard in school. and now, they're hoping all that hard work pays off literally, because they're here to play "who wants to be a millionaire." [cheers and applause] [dramatic music] ♪ hey, everybody. it's whiz kids week on "who wants to be a millionaire." [cheers and applause] today's whiz kid is so good at retaining information, by the time she was two years old, she could recognize tchaikovsky on the radio. from louisville, kentucky, please welcome 14-year-old alexandra polur gold. [cheers and applause] alexandra, nice to meet you. >> thank you, you too.