gets offloaded. so i think it really needs to be something they take care of and do so quickly. >> it reflects that metro is totally under funded and i think this is a good, unfortunate circumstance where it shows we need more money for metro. >> right now metro is preparing to have a news conference. our digital correspondent andrew stack is there with us. andrew, give us the sense of the scene. a lot of media there? >> reporter: well, basically, derrick, all of the media is here. we've been waiting for over a half an hour. initially we thought we would be hearing from one of the press officers here but it turns out that john cato himself is going to be coming down. he's the general manager. shortly we're expecting him to make a statement and among the questions that are being prepared, the main issue focusses on what you know and when did he know it because apparently there were some documents that were uncovered by the washington post that

indicate there were some trouble, sop of the technicians discovered trouble with the switches back on july 11th. cato made a statement on july 16th saying they hadn't run into any problems yet and they'd inspected all the switches. so it really depends on what he knew and when he knew it. >> very important questions. very much so, there andrew. and jim graham the chairman of the metro board will be there. hopefully we'll get a chance to talk to him as well. andrew stack will bring us the story as it unfolds. moving on to our other top stories. closed for service. nearly 20 virginia rest stops now shut down. plus, pushing pot. according to testimony, the woman on trial for killing her four daughters used to also pump them with marijuana. and trapped in china. 22 high school students are in lockdown over the h1n1. getting an update from 2

high school students from our area who are quarantined in china. maureen key is one of the handful with a confirmed case of h1n1 and she's in the hospital. >> they've been treated really well. they are receiving american foods, they have a tv. >> i said, oh, god, you know, i want to make sure they are health and welfare is taken care of. alan chung says he expects the group to be free to continue their tour in a few days and offers to extend their visit in china to make up for the last time. the parenting skills of a person accused of murdering her four daughters was the focus of testimony in her trial today. witnesses testified that banita jacks would let her three and 4-year-old girls smoke marijuana

and would withhold food as punishment. brittany, 16 years old, weighed 46 pounds at her autopsy, 5-year-old asia weighed 18 pounds when her body was found in the home on 6th street. the three youngest girls had marks on their necks consistent with the strangulation by ligature. a tell tale mark on the back of asia's head consistent with a violent below. isaac scott testified about the last time he saw the three youngest girls, april 30th of 2007. no sign of brittany. prosecutors believe she was killed around april 3 after her boyfriend came to visit who angered her mother. >> reporter: orange barrels and closed signs block rest stops. 18 rest stops were closed around the state today. it will save the state $9

million to help close a $2.6 billion shortfall. >> if they close the rest stops they might as well close the highways. >> closing the rest areas. i think the to be 100 officials of vdot and get them there. >> reporter: the candidates are vowing to reopen them when they're elected. business owners are hoping for a silver lining >> we welcome visitors. we do have areas for them to recharge and reenergize until the rest stops reopen. >> and moving on now to the virginia governor race. republican bob macdonald challenged his opponent deeds to attend debates. deeds has answered the call but the times and dates have not been released. mcdonald announced he has a

transportation plan if he's elected. calling for more tolls and he would boost the speed limit on some stretches of open road to 70 miles per hour. meantime maryland state government is 700 million bucks in the red and now the governor has outlined his plan to close some of that budget gap. o'malley says $75 million will come by way of extra medicaid money from the feds, cutbacks at the university of maryland will free up 18 million and the state will eliminate about 60 jobs. president obama says critics are working from a familiar washington script that we've seen many times before. favor politics over policy. his opponents favor insurance companies over consumers and are trying to slow health care changes in hoping that it fails. democrats are catching heat over this plan. here is some of the exchange from senator ben cardin's health

care forum last night in largo. >> are you going to tell me, an individual, protected by the constitution, by the 9th amendment and 10th amendment that i have to buy health care or else you're going to tine me $2500 -- fine me $2500 every year i don't do that? >> once again, hear the health care sales pitch tomorrow night 8 p.m. live right here on 9news now and we'll be streaming it live on wusa9.com. after that speech, accepted your critique to the mail bag, mail bag@wusa9.com. . forecast topper is here. not a bad evening. >> couple of showers and storms around but a little bit of a breeze and some clouds and some sun. not too bad. temperatures are reasonable. here is your forecast first. for tonight, stay partly to mostly cloudy skies. milled verging on muggy. couple of showers are possible. wews in mid-60s heurub

e h some big thunderstorms in the mountains today. a few left over in the moup tins south ofbeum crlandum - m-aintns south of cumberland. tiga shi time year. d f83owowntn, y 83 downtown,n idere, f831rickn 8 in leesburg, 84 in fredericksburg as you go down 95 south. we'll talk about summer lurking a little bit and take a peek at live doppler 9000 coming up. the washington office for one of the world's largest animal rights group says it may protest michael vick's return to the nfl. the commissioner said today he plans to rule on vick's return sometime in the very near future. bruce johnson reports on local reaction to vick's return to pro football. >> reporter: at the district main shelter for dogs and cats there's no shortage of michael vick opinions. should michael vick be allowed to play football again?

>> yes, i think so. own a dog, no. >> reporter: from the people who care for the animals to those adopting, his return to the nfl conjures up deep feelings about our pets and whether a 23-month sentence makes up for his dog fighting operation. >> i don't think so. >> reporter: at one point in time 11 of michael vick's dogs were brought here for recovery before they were moved on to a sanctuary. nfl train camps open next week but the commissioner would only say today that he will rule on vick's return sometime in the near future. washington officer peta, people for ethical treatment for animals, wants vick to undergo a psychiatric evaluation before he returns. >> anyone who serves their sentence deserves to walk out of jail but do not deserve to have their multimillion dollar

contract again. >> so can we expect peta to demonstration? >> it is a possibility. >> reporter: their tl could be a major role for michael vick in the battle against dog fighting and other forms of animal cruelty. >> we could use him as an ambassador for what not to do with dogs. >> reporter: prior to his suspension, conviction, and imprisonment, he underwent an empathy training program at peta headquarters. he agreed to record a tv spot denouncing dog fighting. . and as of now, no word on exactly when the commissioner will meet with vick. he would still have to find a team willing to sign him if he is reinstated. should michael vick be allowed to return to the nfl? let us know on line. talk back opinion pole at wusa9.com and of course if you want to right the mail bag we'd love to have it there as well,

mailbag@wusa9.com. they've approved a plan to build a minor league baseball stadium. that ballpark will seat 5500 people. developers hope to open the park within a couple of years. just ahead, we're going to show you how to save 30% on your utility bill, and it's -- all right we're going live to metro headquarters where they're holding a press conference. >> the washington post speculation that we have a widespread problem is that gross falsification, a misrepresentation of the facts. the fact is, this system is safe. since last month's accident, we've been running a computerized test twice a day to take a closer look at the system to ensure that it is safe. we now run the test after every

rush hour. we've been doing that test once a month prior to the accident. so basically, we went from 30 days one test every 30 days, to 14 times a week or 56 times a month. doing those tests, any little thing that we saw, any small deviation from any of the operations we followed up immediately. in some cases, all that we needed to do was make small adjustments; in other cases, we took the circuit down to take a deeper look to ensure again that the system is safe. in many of those cases and those inspections, the national transportation safety board was with us in the field to do the test to ensure, again, that the system is safe. i just got off of the phone with the chairman of the national transportation safety board, debbie hershman and i informed her of this press conference. she was taken aback and is as shocked as i was of the information that was reported in

the washington report. that is a disservice to this region and this community, putting unnecessary fear into the hearts of our customers at a time after a great tragedy. i would assure you and i would assure this public that at in time i thought this system was unsafe i would personally issue the order to shut it down. i would not wait for any orders from any other institution. so today, this was an example of someone taking information, not understanding the information, and misreporting it. so again, i just want to assure our customers, this region, the public across this region and across the country, that the metro system is safe. we're safe to operate. and the reports that you have are not true. >> all right. that was john cato the metro general manager. you saw him live denying the main ports of that washington post story which suggested that the circuits that do not allow one train to be anywhere near another train on the metro track

were failing on a regular basis. john cato says it's not so. that information has been misreported he says. if there were any indications that there were real problems he would be the first one to shut it down, he says. he says he will be backed up by the ntsb who says is also shocked about the misinformation in that washington post story. a lot more to tell you about this, a lot more to understand. we still have questions. we'll try to bring you the answers's we getle them. right now we go back to break and we'll be back in a few minutes.

. >> view that information of all the circuits ... >> we're going live right back to john cato outside metro head quart erts talking about reports that there may be some serious problems with the metro track circuits. >> everything in this system is safe, and that means we would go beyond the normal maintenance, and when you go beyond the

normal maintenance, people sometimes mistake that for a problem. and that information has been misused again to cause fear within this region. >> [ inaudible ]. >> because i will not take any chance whatsoever on the safety of our customs, if there is any small adjustment that needs to be made, my directions to our staff is to do whatever you have to do to absolutely, 100% assure me that that system is safe. and if they take out a unit, we're not going to take any chances that we might be wrong. we're going to take out that unit and we're going to take an action to do blocks to absolutely be sure that our system is safe. i'm not going to guess on this whatsoever. >> i'm not sure of the number of blocks we're running right now. i think our media relations staff that is an information. i'm not going to give you numbers offer the top of my head

and have you -- off the top of my head and have you report something that isn't true. [question being asked, unaudible]. >> we have not detected any issues that will cause the same type of event that occurred back on january 22nd. -- june 22nd. what we're doing is, again, we're going to make an error in the aspect of being safe. and the other issue here is, you have to understand, the national transportation safety board has been with us during this testing process. they would not allow the system to operate if they had any feelings that it was unsafe. so this is not just metro making this statement; this statement and the actions and the inspections occurred with staff from the national transportation safety board, and we have communicated to them everything that we've found and every step

that we're taking. [question being asked, inaudible]. . >> i am not using that terminology of dock stretches. >> do you know what the reference was? >> i would be commenting on something that's in the article that i cannot comment on because i'm not aware of that terminology. >> let me ask you this. take one section here. [audible]. ... know the location of all trains at all times, what is your response to that? >> my response is we have gone to the system and checking the circuits, we have found circuits that that in our judgement are not calibrated correctly and i'm not going to give you the technical terms because i'm not an engineer, and we either took those circuits out or made

adjustments to those circuits. again, we're testing our system much deeper than the system has ever been tested. we're going beyond the normal parameters of how this system is supposed to operate to absolutely be sure everything is working correctly. so any time we have anything that any person, any engineer, any technician thinks well this might not be quite right, we're going to work on t we're going to adjust it or we're going to change it. even though it's not reached the level anywhere not near the level, anywhere in the universe of the level of what occurred on june 22nd. >> at no time during the period have your patrollers lost track of where any train is >> i'm not aware of any time, no. i would have known if we would have lost track of trains. i mean, that is something i would know about, and that is something i would take an action on. if we cannot track our trains,

then we have a huge problem. if we cannot track our trains, then i would have shut the system down. . [question being asked, inaudible]. . >> no, we have not found that all the circuits need to be replaced. what we are in the process of doing -- let me explain where we're going with this. one is directed by the ntsb, we're working with firms to develop a computerized system that in realtime that would tell us if there's any problems with circuits anywhere in the system. that's what we're working on today. from a long-term future standpoint, we've been -- we have been in contact with systems in europe, because they have a more positive dupe dupecated system. as we go through and replace all the circuits and all of our circuit panels over the next ten

years, i want to make sure we have the most sophisticated, updated system that exists within the world. that's the second phase and that's a longer term phase. but right now we're developing working with a firm to develop the system, computerized system in realtime to check our circuits every moment that our system is operating. [question being asked, inaudible]. >> the way our system, our train operators are operating in manual mode. we still have something called automatic train protection that will not allow the trains to get within a certain distance of each other. they will issue slow speeds and control the speed of the train or shut the train down. we have had no situation since that accident where a train was -- couldn't -- was not under the control of the automatic train protection system.

. [question being asked, inaudible]. . >> my message is this system is safe. this system is safe. people take information from time to time and they look at the information as they have it and they're not engineers, they're not people who have worked in the field of public transportation or well operations and decide what the meaning of it is. we've been through this since the beginning. if you recall when this accident first occurred, there was a report or the question, what did the operator do? well, obviously the operator who struck the train did everything she was supposed to do. the question then became or the statement was made, there's brake problems, there's lack of maintenance on our system. that proved to be untrue. there were other types of speculations of what happened with this accident. and this is what happens when

you have such an unusual occurrence. when you have a situation that you know where it happened, you know what happened, but you can't get to the root cause at that location, because this is taking a period of time, people can speculate anything they want to, and they're taking information which explains one thing and applying it to something else. and that's, again, i'm here to tell the public it's not true and to assure the public that that is not the case. >> if i could just add, you know, i think -- i think what we need to do here is get to a preliminary assessment by the national transportation safety board as to the probable cause of this accident. what this underscores for me today is the fact that we need to move rapidly to that assessment. i have called upon board member hersman to do this. at a minimum she should be able

to say what the parameters are of the mystery they're dealing with. and that, as much as anything else, i think would assure the public concerning the safety of this system by dispelling these doubts and speculations and rumors which have become so prevalent. but i think that's all we have to say, isn't it? >> yes, it is. >> thank you all very much. . >> and you were watching live a press conference in metro headquarters that was john cato doing most of the talking. we heard from the chairman, the d.c. councilman at the end who basically said, look, this system is safe, we need to move quickly to get a resolution and that's all we have to say. we'll be back in just

. a quick summary of what we saw. it gain with washington post.com report suggesting that preliminary reports were that the track sensors that keep trains apart on metro's tracks were having serious problems that they'd been discovered. now they have found that we had john cato at a press conference just a few minutes ago basically saying that that washington post report was completely wrong. that it had misreported, perhaps misinterpreted the information it got from sources that were cited in that washington post report. cato went on to say if there were problems in the system he would have no hesitation to shutting the system down. he also noted that he'd been talking all the time with the

national transportation safety board and that they had known there was not a very serious problem and if there were a problem they would have recommended shutting the system down. now, at this point he says there is no situation where all of the trains were not under complete control. it was john cato the metro board director, metro general manager, being at his most reassuring after washington post report that we all thought was scary. that's our report for right nouf. i'll be right back here tonight with the details and answers to further questions at 11:00. hope you'll be here then. bye bye.

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