tonight. karen toles broke her silence when she met with reporters this afternoon. but as scott broom tells us, her remarks were brief and she refused to answer any questions. >> council member toles still is not answering questions, she just read from a written statement. she admitted to guilt and she was sorry. >> i now respectfully ask in the interest of all concerned that you reserve judgment and allow the legal process to run its course. >> give her her right to due process. >> and there she went again this afternoon surrounded by an entourage and refusing to answer followup questions. >> she's not taking any space. >> she's a public official. >> it's been a familiar strategy for tolls who dodged our cameras for going on a week now over this incident. question one, does tolls think that she got special treatment from police because of her position? she is still not answered. toles was stopped february 22 and charged with an unsafe lane change after police spotted her

on the beltway allegedly driving aggressively. the officer clocked 105 miles per hour in the chase to catch her. but toles only got a warning for the speeding. this week, police revised the charge to reckless driving. after a police executive review of the matter. >> in previous written statements, toles has said that she'll voluntarily stop driving her county issued car until she has completed a safety course. in largo, scott broom, 9news now. >> police say they have a montgomery county man behind bars tonight for plotting to kill his wife and her boyfriend. the accused is daniel mendoza. the payoff, $200. the hitman, however, turned out to be an undercover police officer. matt jablow has our report. >> i'm matt jablow in rockville where a montgomery county man was charged to trying to hire a hitman to kill his wife. prosecutors say rockville resident was in the process of being deported for living in the united states illegally.

>> the police executed a flawless investigation. >> but now, he could spend the rest of his life in the u.s. behind bars. >> mr. mendoza had been actively seeking someone to kill his wife. >> according to prosecutor, the 48-year-old offered a hit man $200, plus the title to his car to kill mendoza's estranged wife and her boyfriend. >> correct. >> prosecutors say he went as far as going to the twin brook metro station in rockville and as his wife was getting on a train, pointed her out to the hitman and showed him the exact route his wife walked on the way home. >> he said i want her dead. >> turns out that the hitman was an undercover officer with the montgomery county police department. and mendoza was arrested yesterday. mat jablow, 9news now. >> mendoza is being held without bond. he is scheduled in court april 6. >> police now looking for clues to a murder this afternoon in montgomery county.

an unidentified man was found shot inside a home in the 13,200 block of superior street. police believe there's some kind of connection between the victim and suspect. the suspect was last seen fleeing on foot. in fairfax county police are looking for two men who burst into the home of some george mason university students and stole thousands of dollars in electronic equipment. police say the suspects were armed when they made their way into the townhouse. >> . >> patted evans, anthony, and three other sophomores were just sitting around studying for midterms when two masked men barged in with guns drawn. >> i'm going to kill you, stuff like that. stuff nobody wants to hear. ski masks, face paint, you know, the whole deal. >> at first, they thought it was a joke. >> what is this? i'm in college.

is that real? in the long run, when the gun is pointed at your face, you go, oh, we're in business. >> the two men did mean business. they took $3,000 worth of laptops and cell phones, but pat and anthony say the men were also ill prepared. >> that was a goofy thing. they didn't bring a bag or anything? he was carrying a laptop down the street. >> turned away from the group, people were not separated properly and gave the chance to shut the door. >> fairfax county police were on the scene less than five minutes later. they brought in a canine unit and a helicopter. but the suspects still got away. now police are trying to determine if they had been here before. they are both of college age, around 20, and police had already been called here back in november after a fight broke out on this front porch. >> you have to kick some people out sometimes and when someone is leaving your house and cursing, as the cops are on their way, we don't figure

something like this is a retaliation, but it is an extreme measure. >> that was kristin fisher reporting. you have heard a lot about underage drinking in maryland. nine wants you to know, virginia is stepping up its efforts to curb the dangerous problem there. peggy fox is our reporter. >> this is a picture of my son taken a few days before his death in 1997. he was in college. >> john was a student at rad ford, this is the car he was riding in when it crashed, killing him, the driver, and the driver of the other car. >> i spoke to him saying he would never get into a car with a drunk driver, but that's when he was sober. >> he has been working to stop underage drinking. he is helping the united prevention coalition with its new campaign to increase awareness. >> parents do not take under age drinking to be as serious as it is. parents take drugs to be terribly serious, but fact of the matter is that under age drinking causes more deaths,

more injuries than all drugs combined. >> captain bruce ferguson says a state grant of $200,000 will help police crack down on people who sell alcohol to minors. >> if they do a shoulder tap operation, where they touch someone on the shoulder and say hey, will you buy alcohol for me? and the more people that get charged that do that, the more we raised awareness. >> i have had good nights where i got four stores in one night. >> tyler is a 19-year-old cadet. he conducted a number of alcohol stings as an underage buyer. the cadets were usually unsuccessful. so who sold them the alcohol the most? your neighborhood grocery stores. tyler says he bought alcohol at three fairfax county giant stores. peggy fox, 9news now. >> tonight, d.c. mayor vince gray is responding to an exclusive report you saw right here earlier this week. we reported the gray's campaign

staff hid contributions by buying large numbers and forging the names on those money orders to make them look like separate legal donations. sources say prosecutors have identified 200 to 300 money orders, all bought with illegal cash payments to the gray campaign. >> didn't know anything about it. >> i did not. >> when you hear about it, what does that say about what was going on? >> i think it goes back to the question about whether rules were broken or not. of course, i would never condone anybody breaking rules. >> we want to emphasize today once again, mayor gray did deny any knowledge of the wrong doing. he says he is cooperating with the federal investigation. mitt romney's super tuesday showing perhaps not quite so super. the former massachusetts governor did win six of the states up for grabs. even though he was outspent by romney, santorum captured three states and came very close in

the critical battleground of ohio. gingrich was back on the campaign trail today after winning his only home state of georgia super tuesday and ron paul says he's not ready to call it quits yet, even though he has not captured a single state during the primary season. topper shutt is here with our first look at the weather. not bad today at all, my friend. >> no, 67 in the bank. we'll start with winds. it is windy to breezy out here. they will be with us for a while, but they are from the south. that's a warmer wind. 18-mile per hour wind gusts in manassas. 20 in leesburg and 22 in frederick. downtown, we've had winds over 30 miles per hour this evening. temperatures still 60 downtown. 61 in gaithersburg. 67 in manassas and put this into perspective. average high is 53. so, for tonight, partly cloudy, breezy and milder. one blanket night barely. lows 45 to 50. winds continue southwest at 10 to 20 and gusty. we'll come back and talk about

stronger winds tomorrow. also talk about milder air tomorrow and then return a little temperature correction. we'll tell you how drastic it will be over the weekend. coming up, heart disease and basketball. we'll hear from a washington wizards who is reaching out. plus, peyton manning cut loose today by the colts. we'll hear from the four-time nfl mvp when we come back.

fire up redskin one. dan schneider just maybe

thinking about flying out to grab peyton manning, following his release today by the indianapolis colts. it was an emotional good-bye for the four-time mvp. manning was joined by the man who had to let him go. >> it was a difficult day here of sheer pain between peyton, myself, the fans, everyone. >> it has been an honor to play in indianapolis. i do love it here. i love the fans. and i will always enjoy having to play for such a great team. >> tough day for peyton. the colts cut manning because they wanted to avoid paying him a $28 million signing bonus. several teams are said to be interested in manning's qb services, including the washington redskins. we tend to think of proathletes of being indestructible, but for one, a problem that was small in size nearly ended his

career. dave owens introduces us to wizards center, ronnie. >> it's not game day, but ronnie is in deep preparation mode. no hoops here, just attended school kids and he's about to give them a serious dose of his reality. >> my dream was shattered. >> his dream was to play hoops. but shortly after being drafted, doctors discovered a heart defect. a large aortic route. stop playing or have surgery. >> it's pretty simple. >> surgery. he says it all happened so fast he didn't have time to be scared. the procedure went well. the rehab another story. >> is beyond what anybody can think of. grab a cup of water. >> safe to say, some teens may have given up on him. they took a chance.

>> in a sense -- >> a sporting life that encompassed seven seasons and four different nba teams. now, his impact here at the verison center with the wizards has been limited because of a broken hand. his impact in the community has been large. like this recent trip to perry street prepcharter school, where through his foundation, he donated defibulators. >> just hang in there. just keep on pushing. >> sage advice from a man who knows a lot about never giving up. dave owens, 9sports now. >> and coming up, topper has a forecast that just keeps on getting better.

breaking news right now from montgomery county. a suspect in aspen hill now in custody. that suspect is being questioned right now at police headquarters. a spokesman says people involved here are young adult male that are not drug related and not gang related. again in an aspen hill murder, police have a suspect in custody. so, we did not have to fight a lot of snow, but experts say all this mild winter could bring something unwelcome. more insects. we sent anny hong out whether they are in for a buggy spring. >> that the huge increase in

pest activity is making our business very good right now. >> the creepy, crawly critters are coming if they are not already here. pest control experts warn get ready for what could be a pest filled spring and summer. >> soil still new and warm and everything emerges from the soil. >> paul with home paramount pest control says ants are showing up earlier than usual, along with cockroaches and mosquitoes, may not be far behind. in fact, in his 16 years, he says this past winter was his busiest ever. but not all of this bug news is bad news. that's because nature likes to balance itself out. the idea is if there are more bugs, there should be more predators eating them. antnologists say don't try killing all the bugs, some are good for your flowers and plants. >> for example, my mother's

peony's. i caught her outside spraying them. well, it's the ants that make them so beautiful. >> experts add homeowners should focus on prevention, like hiring a pest control company to conduct quarterly treatments. >> prevention is the key because you are going to have a pest problem. it's either now or later. >> prevention can save you a lot of money. this house, for example, costs about a few hundred dollars a year versus thousands of dollars in damages if there were a bug problem. in falls church, virginia, anny hong, 9news now. >> you know, so far, i'm willing to say i would trade the cold weather for the bugs, but we haven't seen the bugs yet, so i don't know. ask me in june. >> i was so bored last night. i did all the seasonal snowfalls for 125 years. >> you really didn't have much to do. >> i added them all up and it was 21.5 inches. >> per year? >> yeah, per year. for some reason, the weather

service likes to do 30 year chunks. >> so 21 inches compared to what we have now? >> we had 2. talk about a storm of a different sort. this thing dwarfs what happened in january and brought the northern lights further south and could interrupt communications between satellites and gps devices as early as tomorrow. this occurred tomorrow and the waves from this thing move at a billion miles per hour. it's incredible. i want to thank folks in nasa for sending this off to us. okay, right now temperatures are still very mild. this is our live weather cam brought to you by michael and son. still 60 downtown. winds are out of the south at 10 and pressure is rising at 30.39 inches of mercury. temperatures essentially upper 50s, low 60s. pretty nice for this time of night. 59 in reston. 55 in manassas, but 61 still in bethesda. 62 in rockville. 64 in college park and we're

looking at 59 in reston. now winds are still gusting 15 to 20 miles per hour, but warm wind that will continue tonight and tomorrow. actually do us some favors. warmer and cooler. breezy and milder tonight. windy and warmer on thursday. you will need your umbrella on thursday night and breezy and cooler on friday. we can handle it because we may be 70 tomorrow. all right, our future cast. tomorrow morning 9:00, 10:00, just some clouds. showers out in the mountains and by 3:00, 4:00, just some clouds and showers north of town. tomorrow night is when the activity rolls through and generally light. this time tomorrow night around 9:00, mostly showers out in the west, but they roll through during the evening hours and generally light to occasionally moderate showers. good news is, they roll out of here by early on friday morning. a dry evening commute tomorrow night and for most of us, a dry morning commute on friday. for tonight, partly cloudy, breezy, and milder.

low temperatures 45 to 50. winds southwest at 10 to 20 and rather gusty. next seven days. there are your showers thursday night. cooler on friday. and then kind of bright, but brisk on saturday. good news, no wind. bad news, chilly. highs around 50 and bounce up to 60 on sunday and showers and thunderstorms on monday and tuesday. we're in the 60s and of course move clocks ahead one hour. >> we're enjoying the march weather. we'll be back in a minute. we want to hear what you think. send your e-mails to mcginty's mail bag. the address, mailbag@wusa9.com. people! look at you!

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in the mail bag tonight, a great number of you had a lot to say about a proposal in howard county to allow county golf courses to start selling booze at 6:30 in the morning. that's five hours earlier than what's allowed right now. topper had a good laugh about it yesterday and so did david in maryland. this is just a silly idea. no one needs to have a drink that early in the morning, especially if they are about to play golf. putting after a few drinks is okay, but not driving. okay, we get it. putting, driving, that's clever. and lawmakers aught to have

more serious issues to consider. with the sad state of affairs, that should be the last thing our legislators should be bringing up. secondly, my personal feeling is, anyone wanting a drink at 6:30 in the morning is an alcoholic or on the verge of becoming one. maybe, but then there was this prospective from several viewers, including sharon in frederick, maryland. remember, not everyone has a 9- 5 job and those that work the midnight shift get off between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m., their happy hour might be between 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. were you one of the passer's by when my husband was standing by a bar? just asking. you know what, sharon, i was not. and as someone who spent a couple hours working the overnight, i can voyage that some indeed like to partake of the early happy hour. i was too sleepy. but that was just me. i feel your husband's pain. perhaps the idea is not so silly as topper and i had first

thought. whatever your thoughts, there's room for them. the address is mailbag@wusa9.com. don't forget your name and where you're writing us from. that is our report. i'll be back at 11:00 along with anita brickman. don't forget, sign on any time to wusa9.com for the latest. we'll see you later. bye bye.

now, "entertainment tonight," the most watched entertainment newsmagazine in the world. christie brinkley's new war with her ex. why peter cook is on the attack. >> am i the villain that you're going to publicly castrate? >> inside the new court battle over the kids and christie's claims of bullying and harassment. then, celebrity chef paula deen speaks out about being named in a sexual harassment lawsuit. and new fireworks in the desperate housewives trial today. jessica simpson, naked and pregnant. her fiance kissing her baby bump. exclusive photos as we reveal if it's a boy or a girl. and how much weight has she gained? >> i had cheesecake for breakfast this morning. >> lunch? >> i had fried chicken. and jennifer love hewitt in bed stripping down for a men's magazine.