with the raised stakes. >> reporter: well, $540 million, this morning, now it's $640 million. mega millions saw so much around the country of people rushing out to buy tickets that it bumped the payoff up $100 million. people here are doing their part as tickets are printed at a busying pace taking a chance that their ticket could be the one in 176 million. >> i'm picking lucky numbers. if i win, i want to take care of my family and i and everyone else in the community that needs it. >> take care of my family, the bills, do things that we could do before. >> reporter: you can buy the lottery tickets up until 10:45 tonight. that gives you another 5.5

hours, to get your shot at $640 million. good luck. reporting live in baltimore, brian kuebler, abc2 news. >> hopefully brian will share if he wins. we will cover the mania on 2020 tonight. it's called lotto frenzy b careful what you wish for. it's going to air here followed by abc2 news at 11:00. the latest on the death of 17-year-old trayvon martin. where there is less clarity about what happened. the shooter's brother has come forward defending his brother and easy is the actions were in self defense. police video row veal as unharmed zimmerman minutes after trayvon was killed. roosevelt leftwich joins us with the latest. >> reporter: george's brother broke silence about this for the first time about what he knows of the night trayvon martin was killed. >> he didn't pull out a gun and shoot him. george showed tremendous restrint. >> reporter: in an interview

with cnn robert says he bleachs the surveillance video obtained by abc news, shows his brother's signs of injury. her is george inside the police department less than 30 minutes after shooting martin. >> according to a police report, zimmerman said martin assaulted him, punching him and bashing his head on the concrete. he had blood on his head and nose and treated on the scene. >> this police video provides clues to his potential injuries. you can see an officer examining the back of his head. seconds later the video zooms in but his skull doesn't seem bloody. this is another angles shirt and jacket appear unstained and this shot no obvious sign of injury to his face. >> i can't tell anything from this video. >> reporter: robert says his brother has medical records but

his attorney can't say for certain. >> did mr. zimmerman seek medical attention? >> that evidence is going to come out when the case is litigated. >> litigated. roosevelt leftwich, abc2 news. officials at william penn high in new castle del aware granted a request by students who wanted to hold a silent demonstration in honor of trayvon martin. the superintendent would allow hoodies saying it was a teachable moment for students but students had to conduct themselves properly . the attorney for the soldier accused of killing 17 afghanistan civilians claims the government is hiding evidence. members of the defense team he says were told they couldn't talk to witnesss in the hospital and found out the witnesses had been released. brown says the u.s. government has not turned over files to lawyers defending staff

sergeant robert bails. maryland added 8000 jobs in february. the 6th month the state created jobs. the unemployment rate here is holding steady at 6.5% , the lowest level in three years. extensive report in to working conditions a at chinese tech manufacturer found excessive jove time, up paid waynes and salaries that don't cover basic living conditions. fox con is one of the most profitable companies making products for computers and electronics firms. apple is the biggest supplier. 60% of workers were not paid to meet basic living costs. irs could be losing billions of dollars because of stolen identities. a scam has people filing fake tax returns using social security numbers belonging to puerto rican citizens who don't pay federal income taxes. they are not on the irs's radar.

mitt romney picks up another key endorsement in the dnc rightful love song. i'm torey dun nan with a breakdown on the tuesday show down in wisconsin.

girl: i want to tell you about my friend. his name is ben. ben learned about a homeless boy who had an infected tooth, and the boy died. that made ben really sad. he wrote a law so every kid can see a dentist. we have special dental van that goes from school to school. he even helps make sure we learn how to brush our teeth. he's my friend, ben. i hope he's your friend, too. i'm ben cardin, and i approved this message.

chtion rescue of firefighters is caught on tape in dear born, michigan, crews were on the building when the roof began to collapse. one firefighter jumps to safety and the other two are pulled over the small wall you see there. the crews were on the roof trying to ventilate the building, no injuries were reported. the cause of the fire is still under investigation. we are going to stay in texas to san antonio w a motorcycle near miss you have to see to believe. watch the right sides of your

screen, a car starts to lose control and crosses two lanes of traffic and nearly hits a passing motorcycle. the biker keeps on going like nothing happened. i'm sure many times you've seen a drive and said what a dummy or worse. police in harris county texas pulled over a dummy and dummy's driver. this drive didn't have a second passenger that would let him in to the hov lane, he created one. a police officer wrote a ticket. a 10 year old sends a thank you note talking about a mop can i and bacon tuxedo to a meteorologist. what happened when the two finally met. peg sis is back. ready to party at the preakness infield. how he got fans ready for opening day.

a thank you note i could only treatment about getting sent from a student to a meteorologist and compliments he was as awesome as a monkey wearing a bacon tuxedo. the letter has gone viral since shared on a facebook page. now 10 year old and meteorologist have been reunited. it's beautiful. andrew has their story. >> reporter: it's been the thank you letter read around the world. powered by the mind of a 10 year old and meant for the meteorologist who visited his school.

never before had albert ramone received anything like it. never before had anyone. even pictures were included. i shared it on mispersonal facebook. within 24 hours it was on multiple web sites and on the front page of abc2news.com and we started getting phone calls from big shows. >> reporter: flint meyers harrison, a young self proclaimed ultra overlord and middle child had gone viral. >> did that surprise you? >> yes, a lot. >> a monkey in a bacon suit, where did that come from? >> how do you think of a monkey in a bacon suit. that is so awesome. how do you imagine that as something awesome. >> sometimes it takes a fourth grade tore point out the obvious. >> where did you get the ideas? read a lot, one. i play lots of video games. >> which paid off on thursday, when flint brought his mom to

reunite with his friend. they took pictures and tried out the weather wall. then on the midday news they finally caught up, discussing the reaction from flint's family and friends. well, a lot, most of them are happy for me. a couple of them are jealous of it. >> are they? >> some of them are better at hiding it than others too,. >> all from a note with a promise to a tv weatherman. a promise that led to a day that was pretty dang sweet. >> i would say it's pretty dang sweet. i don't thinkly ever hear

that compliment. we got the clouds holding still over baltimore right now. a few scattered showers out there. some clearing actually out in shan shenandoah valley. awful day to go out there sailing especially if you want to get sun out there whatsoever. you can see the clearing on the backside of that, but again, any clearing that we get will be short lived. temperatures, around 50 degrees, inner harbor. 48 annapolis. 52 washington. 50 frederick. holding steady with temperatures in the 50s. we will drop a little bit in to the 40s as we go throughout the evening hours and overnight the temperatures will come back up. again, those clouds holding still, rain to the south, slipping through earlier today. more rain to the west with two frontal systems we are watching. mostly the rain is now entering the southwest corner of virginia. we got the line of showers that

has now extended back all the way to missouri. that's the line that will affect the baltimore area as we go throughout the overnight hours. that line will get a little bit bigger and we will see rain move in here during the overnite hours in time for your monday morning. we have a warm front to the south. our temperatures going to drop in to the 40s before that. we will get the rise in temperatures during the overnight hours. that's going to increase the chances for showers. then the coal front there will swing through before day break. we will see a drop in temperatures after that. you can see warm temperatures down to the south. south of that warm front. cooler temperatures just north of the cold front. we will be in the warm sector for a few hours unfortunately. here is a look at the future trend. there is the clouds out there right now. here is a little bit of rain coming to us, just around midnight. it will scoot on out of here, we will hang onto the chances of rain for the overnight hours

in to tomorrow morning and holding onto the clouds until the evening hours tomorrow night and then we start to clear out and we start the drying out process as we head in to sunday. high pressure building in briefly and sunday night, piece of energy dropping by, we could see a shower here or there sunday night. everything clears out by monday morning. overnight 47. showers overnight. the temperature will gradually rise in to the 50s, we are topping out with 58 tomorrow. the clouds will be so thick through the day tomorrow. clouds decrease, though, as we head in to tomorrow night. high pressure builds in. that will actually create areas of patchy frost around, rural areas, 39 will be our overnight low tomorrow night and then, take a look at your seven-day forecast, not shabby, we have the rain chance for the weekend monday and tuesday, we clear out, tuesday chance of thunderstorms. we hit 70 wednesday, thursday and friday. cooler towards the end of next week. >> that's the pay off coming

back to 70 degrees. now moving on to our on going democracy 2012 coverage. the next battle frond state in the race for the republican nomination. the state will hold primary tuesday, the same day as maryland. torey joins us live from washington. what is the state of the race in wisconsin? >> reporter: well, it lacks like this is going to be one of the closer races, this is a merits poll out. mitt romney has a 7 point lead over rick santorum. it's a lead but not that big of an advantage. you have to remember, these candidates have four days left to campaign there. another thing to consider, is that mitt romney is also coming off of a big endorsement today. >> what we need is mitt romney to be the next president of the united states of america. >> reporter: wisconsin congressman paul ryan is the architect of the house budget plan that passed yesterday.

dnc had this campaign ad ready to roll. >> we've got coordination on our plans [music] >> reporter: so they had that ready to go. let go back to wisconsin, it's a key state. it's winner takes all. there are 42 del delegates up for grabs. it important for rick santorum to do well. >> the only candidate with a realistic chance of catching him is rick santorum. >> season tomorrow has been brushing off endorsements romney has been getting. he is going to convince voter there is is the viable path to the nomination. here is what he thinks will

happen if he takes the state. this race is long way from over. >> reporter: that's quite the opposite from what we have hear from members of the republican party, establishment starting to line up behind mitt romney and saying this thing is over. rick santorum doesn't see it the same way. >> maryland's primary is less than four days away. we invited candidates to from the u.s. senate and congress races to record a five minute segment introducing themselves and answering questions from the economy to gas prices. meet the candidates on our web page, head to abc2news.com, click on the political link under the news tab and click on the story titled candidates in

the maryland primaries. coming up on abc2 news at 6:00, appears to be a counter fitters ring striking harford county businesses. how they are using fake $100 bills to get real money in return. did you buy your first lottery ticket ever this week? why the higher the jackpot, the bigger the urge to play, even if the chances are as slim as any other drawing. those stories and more coming up at 6:00. a preview on world news at 6:30. [ male announcer ] scrubbologists have made a remarkable leap forward

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it was a mixed day on the stock market. the dow jones industrial average closed up over 66 points, the nasdaq was down a few points, sp500 was up over 5 points. today's numbers allowed the dow jones and the sp to finish with the biggest gains for the first three months of the year since 1998. 137th running of the preakness stakes is 7 weeks away. tim rutherford takes us to opening day at the track. >> reporter: he is back. >> i'm lord and protector of the peakness infield fest. >> reporter: he is book to usher in another preakness season and he has an

accomplice. in promoting keg sis, officials say they dealing with differing demographics. >> demographics sits in the building in the dining room or grand stand. that's not the demographic. keg sis was designed and built specifically for the 21-40 demographic. >> reporter: with events planned, plus headliners maroon 5, and additional money going to race purses this meet , the folks here are very optimistic. we put money back in to the purses and hopefully that will increase the quality and size of the field. we are expecting a better turnout than last year. sales are off the chart. >> reporter: tom skipped the lines for mega millions tickets. >> i like the odds here better than one in 176 million. >> reporter: there is always a tip to be found at the track.

>> huehoudini's bluff on the third race. >> reporter: the 137th running of the preakness stakes goes to post saturday, may 19th. the winner of the third race was in deed houdini's bluff. i hope tim bet on that one. we know the simple ways to live hemmiers exercise and a good diet. we have more simple ways to lead to better health which starts at on abc2 news at 6:00 right now. i'm brian kuebler, the rush on lottery tickets coming up next. if someone wants to pay for $3 worth of stuff with $100

bilks where some are finding phony money. you might work on your yard this weed. steps to improve your home's curb appeal. now, repeat after me. more than a half a billion dollars could be all mine for the price of a bag of chips. that's the dream of about everyone in the nation as everybody and their moe and cousin chuck, are buying up mega million lottery tickets at the slim shot of the mega millions. brian kuebler is just about to tell us how the pot has gone up more. i want a billion dollars. that's what i'm looking for. >> reporter: it's close to it. this morning, it was $540 million, which was a record. mega millions the sales have been brisk all day, late morning they raised it to $640 million. this makes it the highest jackpot ever, there is no shortage of people lining up for their chance to hit it. you've heard the