warnings being issued, for everybody along the 95 corridor, excessive heat warning into tomorrow. 78 degrees downtown, 75 east and already feeling like 81 in baltimore, 86 in dc, take a look at your forecast today, 100 degrees, very hot and humid, tonight around 75. how about tomorrow, how about 102 with the real feel nearing 115. we'll show you that weekend 7- day forecast coming up in just a little bit. time saver traffic, it's 895 northbound here at 695 on the north side of the city, we mentioned somebody dropped a ladder that's the problem on 695 right now. so be aware of that. right around 95 there are delays because of that and hoping somebody goes and picks it up. 895 a o don street, showing you nice sailing, take a look at drive times and if you're hitting the commute, 95 to 83,

11 minute ride, 795 to 95 also an 11 minute ride and smooth sailing into the fort mchenry tunnel. well, today marks day 7 since storms ripped through maryland leaving almost half a million people in the dark and more importantly without that much needed air-conditioning, recovery has been slow and this morning abc 2 news charley crowson is live at bge's central location where they're fielding your calls. >> they're taken more than a million phone calls at the call center but they began expanding how they take your requests and complaints they do the e-mail way but this is a new way. you guys have gone the social media route, and how has this worked this time. >> customers can go to facebook and report their outages, they can also go to twitter, they can also e-mail us at my home

rep @ bge.com and they'll get back to us with that information. >> how much quickly are you able to do it with facebook and twitter, as opposed to phone calls and e-mails. >> we have representatives that are continuously monitoring that, it's quicker when the call volumes are backed up to the internet and report it, you can use your smart phone, everybody has that now. >> reporter: how much easier is this for you in terms o. reporting of outages, maybe generating that information and maybe give them the answer they need. >> it's pretty quick. as soon as they send us the e- mails or go on the facebook and message us, we go right on the system and report it for them and give them the updated information. >> reporter: thank you so much for that time, twitter, facebook e-mail and traditional phone calls, all of this at bge.com and links at abc2news.com, they're having

shifting coming son off at the call center. we're going to stay here for a little bit longer, until then let's go back to you in the studio. a 12-year-old boy from prince george's county is being charged with second-degree murder, accused of beating to death a 2-year-old foster child living with the family. this happened in fort washington, an autopsy showed that the girl who died had blunt force injuries, the boy is staying at a youth facility at this time. there is no plans to charge him as an adult. a missouri woman's facebook postis sparking controversy, she's accused of posting a video that appears to show her instigating a fistfight between two young kids. >> you all better bring up those fists. >> the video is hard to watch and hard to hear, the mother basically egging on her little girl not even out of diapers into a fistfight, an acquaintance saw the video and anonymously contacted social

services they are investigating it right now. what's going on here, caught on camera, naked man struggled with portland police officers, we'll tell you what led up to this. the man had been release first- degree a local hospital and left with -- released from a local hospital and left with a gone on, he went to a local business, when he was ordered to leave, he to be off his cloths and stripped down. he went on a rampage, fought with the officers and had to be taken to the hospital. a crash caught on tape to show you this morning, take a look on the right side of the screen, a dallas area rapid transit van slamming into a line of cars on an exit ramp, two people had to go to the hospital. transit officials say that driver is on paid administrative leave while that crash is under investigation. they say they're trying to drum up business, others call

it discrimination, the discount that one restaurant is offering that's left some groups, one eightiest group saying they have stop this. we have details straight ahead. the code red runs through sunday as the african-american festival kicks off this weekend, more on what you can expect at the festival coming up. and we're looking at the abc 2 news weather app, and nothing going on in the interactive radar, big storms we're going to talk about in main weather, that's coming up next on good morning maryland. [ male announcer ] this is sheldon, whose long dy setting up the news

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. hundreds of thousands of people are expecting to attend the african-american festival in downtown baltimore, and plenty to see and do at this festival, sherrie johnson is live with more on the

festivities. >> reporter: we're at mnt bank stadium with the african- american festival kicks off tomorrow, runs through this weekend and let me tell you we are looking here at b and c here and it's going to be very hot this weekend, we're talking about a hundred degree weather so you want to make sure you have your bottled water, make sure you bring a hat and make sure that you are ready because this heat can be dangerous but let me tell you i have nika watt kins, this is a huge physical one of the largest on the east -- festival, one of the largest on the east coast, this is the 35th year for this festival, changed names, 46 years for this festival. this is a long standing tradition, so tell me as people make their way out this weekend, what can they expect

to find. >> great entertainment, we talked about salt and peppa, san jay moore and then we have other things like the good vendors, the food, this year we're going to have an authors tent, we have jaymy foster brown from sister sister, as well as music has a book, they're going to be in the authors tent signing autographs with their book, and we're honoring antonio vargas this year known as hugy bear,. >> reporter: let's talk a little bit about this heat. we're talking about over a hundred on saturday, so what's going ton to try to keep people safe. >> we have hydration stations as well as a misting tent and mta has the cooling buses that are coming out. >> thank you so much. once again if you are heading out this weekend, you want to definitely wear a hat, have your bottled water handy just to try to be safe and this all kicks off tomorrow saturday

from noon to 10:00 p.m. on saturday and noon to 9:00 p.m. on sunday. reporting live at mnt bank stadium, sherrie johnson abc 2 news. one city is so strapped for cash right now that they may not be able to pay their employees, how scranton city officials are handling the lack of money. >> code red alert, what does that mean. how high those temperatures will go coming up on good morning maryland. >> here's a live shot 695 at liberty road, so far so good, and we'll take a look at the time saver traffic, that is coming up. every type of stain is different

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3q6? good friday morning, thanks for joining us, i'm megan pringle it's time for your abc 2 news to go. let's start with meteorologist mike masco and a check on the weather because it's going to be a scorcher. >> not only today but tomorrow unfortunately. here's a live shouted, it's a beautiful shot -- shot. it's a beautiful shot looking toward the bridge but it's

deceiving. excessive heat warnings over the eastern short. it's 78 in town, we're on our way for one hundred degrees along the 4:00 hour. there could be storms in the mix for saturday and sunday. here's a check on your abc 2 news time saver traffic, remember how we were talking about that ladder earlier, it's been cleared but some delays still exist, 95 northbound near 695 on the north side of the city, again, maybe a little slow going because of that earlier debris in the roadways, outside we go, 695: no congestion just yet but things could change and we'll let you know if it does change. we'll have another traffic and weather update. 6:45 and new this morning, a shootout between an armed system and police near the university of maryland and college park left the suspect shot and a police cruiser stolen. officers were investigating reports of an armed man near a

liquor store, and after he shot the suspect managed to steal a police cruiser and crashed it at mcdonald's and we're going to get anup date on this shooting at a press conference that's happening at 11:30 this morning, a code red heat alert has been extended for another day. and the number of heat related deaths has climbed to eight. four more people were confirmed dead as a result of the extreme heat. cooling centers will remain open as long as this heat alert is in effect, so if you need to know where any of those centers are, head to abc2news.com far list of locations, more than a million calls have come through bge in the past week and hundreds of thousands of people in the dark. we have beennd we have been working -- we have been working around the clark, so we want to check in with charley crowson

with an update on the progress. >> this is what they've been dealing with for almost a week. >> i definitely understand the small ends and i can only emphasize with you. we appreciate your patience. >> all of the call specialists here at bge have been working the phones since saturday. since then we were supposed to talk to her a moment ago but she's busy now. 698,000 customers have had their power restored, still some 27 in the dark as we start day 7 after those storms, we have 65, 70 specialists in here. they're working in 12 to 14 hour shifts this morning and have been doing this overnight. real quickly, rachel is with us one more time. you guys 698,000 restored, a lot learned from irene a year ago. >> we always have lessons learned after every storm and conduct a storm drill where we

make sure we're training all of our employees on updated, that we've learned from, so we're learning how to or continually improving out of we're communicating with and working through power efficiently. we'll do the same thing for this storm as well. >> there are ways beyond telephone, e-mail, social immediate y how can they contact you by e-mail. >> myhomerepatbge.com. and lets them know about outages to bge specialists. we want to remind you the hours of baltimore pools are being extended today and tomorrow because of the code red heat alert, the catch is you're only allowed to swim a couple of hours at a time, that way everyone can have a chance to take a dip in the pool and gives lifeguard a break. we have traffic that could have delays along york road because that water main busted yesterday. it was fixed one lane between

warren and shawon roads as crews work to repair that area. today john leopold is expected to sign a bill that will require defibrillators for all public pools and semipublic pools. it's named for a five-year-old boy coniine fried who died back in 2006 at a county club pool. the law will take effect and it will affect 275 pools. maryland transportation police will conduct a sobriety check point tonight at the francis scott key toll plaza. they will be given information about driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, motorists caught driving while compared will be arrest and had prosecuted. back in 2011, the mdta police issued more than 2600dui

citations citations. phoenix mother accused of putting beer in a sippy cup. witnesses say they saw the whole thing happen. the mother poured beer into her son's sippy cup ask that toddler was -- and that toddler was taken to hospital and later released to his father. a new pleasure to keep airports more secure for travelers and has some travelers angry. passengers in colorado say they've been asked to hand over their drinks at a terminal for additional testing. they say they test drinking at flight gates is an overkill. >> i'm always glad that my safety is a priority. i think testing drinks after they've already been bought might be a little extreme. >> the tsa says that employees have many layers of security throughout airports and passengers can be randomly selected for additional

screening at any time. ten minutes away from 7, a discount of a different kind sparking controversy in pennsylvania, it involves a restaurant giving customers a few bucks off their bill if they go to church. if you bring your bulletin, you can get 10% for a discount. that's not going over well with atheists who say this is discrimination. >> it rubbed me the wrong way because the implication is they reward church goers and i'm not one, and i'm not as good at the church gorier. >> it was just an innocent little marketing deal for sundays, that's all it is, and all it will ever be. >> the restaurant owner says she will advertise as she sees fit and she she says she has no plans of getting rid of that pro motion anytime soon. we're following breaking news out of london where british police say 7 people

have been arrested on suspicion of terrorist offenses three of those are brothers and one an expolice officer and comes before the olympics and according to the bbc this is an operation that has been going on since late last month. investigators found weapons in the car and led to other suspects. we'll keep you posted. the labor department will release their june unemployment figures today, payroll provider avp are protects that businesses added 176,000 jobs last month, that will be enough to lower the unemployment rate. president obama will sign a bill today that allocates more than one hundred billion dollars for transportation workers and college students, the student loan portion of the bill prevented federal student loan rate ifs doubling, governor o'malley is expected to attend that bill signing, officials in pennsylvania say they are unable to pay employees more than minimum wage despite judges orders that they fulfill contract

obligations, checks were supposed to be cut on thursday and given out today but they don't have enough money. governor o'malley will be in annapolis to kick off the walking tour. it takes you to ten stops to have historical significance to the war and the city and the naval academy and plans to open an exhibit in april of next year. nine homes are being unvailed today in areas hit hard by tornadoes, five in joplin missouri and four in tuscaloosa, and habit for humanity and major league baseball teamed up to build those homes. public enemy number one the sunshine is out. it's 78 in town, humidity up at 71%, good visibility, keflet advisory for your afternoon, active heat watch for tomorrow afternoon. we'll be watching heat indices

rise frog 100 to 115. not only are we dealing with the heat, but take a look at these states, 22 states under a heat alert or advisory. eastern shore numbers feeling like it's between 79 and 80 degrees. we had some clouds this morning. that's passing off towards the south and east of us. look over the northern planes a cluster of showers and thunderstorms, eventually that moves into our vicinity on saturday and sunday, and we could be dodging gusty thunderstorms in that area. louisville is going to be 102. look at the temperatures going into tomorrow afternoon. 108 in louisville and that heat is pressing on towards the east. we will see our daylights and highs on saturday near 101. very hot, humid, with those numbers between 105 to 110. tonight going down to 75. steam i didn't care for tomorrow, -- steamy, we may

break the heat by sunday and could be at aquas of a -- at a cost of a gusty thunderstorm. it looks like we will drop the 90s next week. take a look at your abc 2 news time saver traffic, still quiet, we're talking about just again good looking roadways, if you're traveling 95 south of the city, no problems to report. that's good news, at 695, and hartford road looking good. an out fit meant for 18- year-old baby girls is turning head ins memphis. it gives the impression that the child is wearing a bikini, right on the bag it says something unexpected, so what do parents think. >> i feel it's inappropriate for an 18-month-old. >> i think it's not appropriate because it gives young people the wrong idea too quickly. >> i think people overreact

about stupid stuff. i just don't take offense to that at all. >> you guys are blowing up our facebook page about this. we asked you if you would let your baby girl wear a bikini onesie. >> laura says i've seen moms with kids naked on the beach, at least this will cover them up. join in on the conversation, abc 2 news, abc2news.com/facebook, let us know what you think. >> it's just a shirt. >> it's a onesie, court of like the tex see doe t-shirt. >> i think a little more of an overreaction. >> parents can make their own decisions about what they want to do. >> and we have over a hundred comments on our facebook,. >> yeah, people are commenting, so let us know what you think. >> code red is going to go through the weekend, be aware, dangerous heat noon through 3:00, avoid that prolonged

exposure to the sun, cooling centers can be found on abc2news.com and wear sunscreen, have a great friday and we'll check in with you in just a bit. >> have a great weekend. [ radio ] it's a scorcher out there...stay refreshed! [ female announcer ] new lipton tea & honey. sweetened with honey, made from real tea leaves and real fruit flavors. ♪ it's never felt so real ♪ no, it's never felt so right ♪ [ female announcer ] only 5 calories. new lipton tea & honey.

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