. thank you for joining us for the news at noon. jc hayward has the day off. i'm mike hydeck. we begin with news on the metro. the red line was closed for part of the morning after a man was struck and killed by a teenage. investigators believe this unidentified man intentionally put himself in front of the train. once again, however, the white flint station on the red line is open now. french president nicholas sarkozy calls this a national

tragedy. a father and three children were gunned down. all schools and religious buildings in france are now being secured. >> reporter: grieving relatives aarrived at the ozar hatorah school as new spread of the shooting. all the children from this school are like my children, in woman said. police say a gunman on a motor bike opened fire just before classes started at the school in the southwest city of tolouse. a rabbi, his two young sons and another child were killed. the prosecutor says he shot at everybody who was near him. children and adults. the children were chased inside the school. investigators are looking into whether the attack is related to two others in the same area last week. in those shooting, the gunman killed three soldiers before escaping on a scooter. french president nicholas sarkozy rushed to the school.

he promised to find the killer. authorities are trying to determine if this latest shooting is a terrorist attack. so far the motive is unknown, but one of israel's top diplomats in france says it's clear the shooter singled out the jewish community. >> the jewish school was a target. this is something that cannot be understood. how can you aim at children from a close range and kill them, innocent civilians. >> reporter: french media reports the sol soldiers in last week's attacks were of arab desent. security is tighter at both jewish and muslim buildings around tolouse. begun manuel gallegus, cbs news. >> we checked at a couple of jewish day schools in our area and security appeared at those locations to be normal. the sergeant accused of killing 16 afghan villagers is meeting with his attorneys for the first time today. attorneys for staff sergeant robert bales expect to spend several days with him. sergeant bales is being held now in fort leavenworth,

kansas. his defense team says it's too early to determine what led to these shootings. bales' family says it is stunned by the acquisitions but add they are standing behind the man they know as a loving husband and father. when you think about government corruption, you might bring new jersey or chicago to mind, but virginia? there's a new report out that gives the commonwealth an f in its state integrity investigation. that's 47th out of 50 states. virginia received failing grades in categories like public access information, political financing, lobby disclosure, ethics enforcement, state budget process. maryland wasn't much better. it got a d minus, that's good for 40th place. no state got an a in the survey. as the battle for the republican presidential nomination moves to illinois tomorrow, rick santorum is vowing to stay in the race until the convention. he made that promise even though he acknowledged he won't likely earn enough delegates to win. randall pinkston has more.

>> reporter: mitt romney greeted voters in illinois explaining why he should win the state's g.o.p. primary. >> i'm going to get us the energy on the ground we need so we can keep the money that's being spent buying energy from other people, keep it here, put people to work with those dollars. >> reporter: romney rolls into the next contest with new momentum from his overwhelming victory in puerto rico over the weekend. >> 20 delegates, all the contents that were in that contest are ours so that's good news. >> reporter: he's holding on to more delegates than all his rivals combined. now romney's campaign is stepping up calls for other republican white house hopefuls to step aside but his chief challenger rick santorum vows he will fight to the end. >> the convention will nominate a conservative, not the establishment moderate candidate from massachusetts. >> reporter: santorum claims romney is outspending him 10-1 ahead of tomorrow's pry appear in illinois. >> it's mit rom my who is systematically has gone out there and run a negative

campaign, has had no positive vision for this country, and spends billionaire dollars to tear down every single opponent that's in his path. >> reporter: the battle for illinois has shaped up as a head-to-head fight between romney and santorum. ron paul and newt gingrich essentially left the state to the front runners to focus on contests down the road. randall spirchgston, cbs news, the -- pinkston, cbs news, the white house. congratulations are in order for maryland senator barbara mikulski. over the weekend she became the longest serving woman in the history of congress. between her time in the house and the senate, the 75-year-old democrat has served more than 35 years on the hill. the senate will be honoring her accomplishment coming up on wednesday. thanks to our warm temperatures, the cherry blossoms have already reached their peak and visitors and locals are scrambling to enjoy the sight before mother nature gets the best of the blossoms. delia goncalves stopped by the tidal basin earlier today. >> reporter: it doesn't get

prettier than this. >> it's unbelievable. every time it's even better. it gets more and more magnificent. i love it. >> reporter: pat from st. louis taking in the cherry blossoms in full bloom, a sure sign of spring in d.c. and the sights are picture perfect. whether the blossoms are the star of the show or a background, cherry blossoms are sure to please any photographer. >> i hold the camera and every year i come here for the cherry blossoms. but this year it's wonderful because the cherry blossoms come earlier. >> reporter: even locals who seen the cherry blossoms year after year say they never get old. >> never. i could see them every day. we've been coming for 17 years. that's how long we've lived here. they're wonderful. >> reporter: but mother nature couldn't rain on this parade. if expected showers come our way, they could wash the blossoms all away. >> we wait so long for the

cherry blossoms to come out and then to have them disappear quickly is really sad. >> reporter: at least you can say it was good while it lasted. at the tidal basin, delia goncalves, 9news now. we have some breaking news at noon from the sports world. it appears peyton manning, the former indianapolis colts quarterback has a new home. according to espn bearing any snags, the quarterback is now heading to the denver broncos. the mvp, if he signs with denver, the broncos will trade tim tebow. at this point once again espn is reporting peyton manning appears to be headed to the denver broncos. we will of course have much more coming up tonight at 5:00. our cameras just happened to be in the right place at the right time. where an elderly driver plowed into a day care center in northeast washington. the accident had it not happened at noon on a sunday, this building could have been

full of kids. it wasn't, however. witnesses say the man was trying to parallel parked when he apparently hit the gas by mistake. no one was injured in this. as if investors needed another reason to buy apple stock, the world's most valuable company gave them one more this morning. they announce add quarterly dividend of 2.65 a share. it's also starting a $10 billion share buyback program. apple has nearly $98 billion on hand sitting on the side lines for a while now. the dividend announcement was expected. shares are up just over 1.5% in trading so far today. we will soon know more about life during the great depression. the u.s. government is releasing the 1940 seen tuesday on-- census online for the first time. it will be available online april 2 after 72 years of privacy protection lapses. anyone can view them but you will not be able to search by

name. an estimated 21 million of the 131 million surveyed then in that census are still alive and living in the until. still ahead on the news at noon, a local hero who is helping women and children deal with domestic violence. montgomery police chief tom manger is live in our studios to talk about a wide variety of issues affecting the department and the county and you. we'll be right back.

montgomery county's police force could be getting some extra help in crime fighting soon if the county executive budget is approved. meanwhile also another major issue, questions are still being raised about a horrifying shooting death of a woman in kensington. with me now is police chief tom manger. thank you for joining us. let's start with kensington. we had interviewed officers, people on the scene. this young woman did everything she could do to try to pocket herself with her restraining order and she moved in with relatives. yet some people say the system failed her. is it time to change the system? >> i think it's time to look at what happened. this case was one of the worst of the worst cases. and i'm not sure if the system

set up to protect folks when you've got an individual who is just bounce and determined to continue the abuse -- i mean, we're looking at it step by step what the courts have done, the police have done. i think we can review this case to see if there is anything we could have done differently but i will tell you the different thing in this case is the individual we were dealing with. >> it was an ex-boxer. in case you're just joining us, we're talking about heather mcguire. her exhusband or estranged husband had restraining orders against him. he eventually pulled her into a car, killed her and left her body on connecticut and knowles. the restraining order was there. but you said the challenge was himself? >> i think he had no regard for the restraining orders. he had been stalking her. he had gone to -- tried to tack her down whenever she was and

had -- wherever she was and had a history of doing this. when you've got somebody who has no respect or fear of these type of restraining orders, that's a whole different individual in materials of trying to -- in terms of trying to prevent further abuse from happening. >> we heard some reports after computer glitch, the judge not having the backgrounds, the violent background of this gentleman, where do we stand with that? >> i don't know the answer to that. what we do know, when we immediately respond to this thing and this gilberti's name came up, everybody knew about him because he had had such a long history of criminal activity for years stretching back 20, 25 years in the rockville area. all the cops there knew him. so i'm not sure what the computer glitch was. certainly i think that needs to be looked at. but everybody else knew him, that's for sure. >> that's got to be frustrating for officers who worked the case and previous cases. >> absolutely. of course in that case the

biggest concern we had immediately was the protection of the children involved. there were a number of children that each one of them had and that they had together. the first thing we did was secured those kids and make sure they were safe. >> let's talk about more officers on the force. county executive ike leggett is hoping to put 33 total. and more will hit the beat on the streets if it's approved. what is the likelihood of it going through and what would you do with the officers if it were? >> i think we have a good chance of it going through. the only thing that could hurt it is if the annapolis makes the counties more responsible for the teachers' pension. that could throw a wrench into the whole plan. barring that, we -- i gave the county executive a three-year plan to add an additional 150 overs over the next three years. we are -- officers over the next three years. each one of our six districts will get additional patrol officers. we'll get additional detectives as well.

we saw caseloads rice last year so we needed -- rise last year so we'll need more detectives. we'll have them all over the county. we'll give the commanders the responsibility. it would have been very nice last year for the commander to be able to say i'm going to put this team of officers down on the district line to deal with the robberies. this is the flexibility and the resources that every commander is going to have in the future. >> thanks a lot for joining us. hopefully we can get those officers on the beat. >> thanks. at noon, the amazing work a local group is doing to help women and children survive domestic violence. >> plus, spring is just about here. howard? >> coming tonight at 1:14. it's warm already. look at the temperatures going to break at this final day of astronomical winter. 75 in reston. i'll have the springtime forecast coming up when 9news now returns.

you could say spring has sprung but you could have said that a month ago. >> it's been a very interesting winter. today is the end of it. 1:14, the vernal week knox. look at the day planner this afternoon. we've got readings that are going to go well up in the 70s. i would not be surprised if some bank and car thermometers get toward 80 this afternoon. reston already at 75. this is reagan national with the spotty thunderstorm here or there as we go through the

afternoon. temperatures will top out at reagan national maybe about 75. inland you get away from water, upper 70s will be a possibility. a spotty shower or storm. even at 9:00 we're still going to be in the mid-60s. if you have some evening plans outside, probably will be okay. just keep an eye to the sky. spring begins as we've been saying 1:14 tonight. it's going to be warm this week. we could be back toward 80 by thursday with lots of 70s. some late night, early morning fog. then the isolated afternoon thunderstorms today, tomorrow and again wednesday. a little break thursday and friday. could get unsettled by the weekend. had a cluster of showers and storms pass us to the west. falling apart and we're left with a decent amount of sunshine and high clouds out there and really nice noontime temperatures. a little bit cool on the bay. annapolis is 61. it's 64 down at the pax river naval air station. manassas is 73. some lower 60s from hagerstown and cumberland and culpeper and la plata at 70 degrees. as we look outside on our

michael and son weather camera, look at the skies over northwest d.c. this afternoon. a gorgeous 69 degrees with a dew point of 57. so, yeah, it's a little humid. feeling a lot more like late spring than early spring. that's been the case for several weeks now. the average high is 57. still winter, though. look at this. west of the continental divide, temperatures in the 20s and 30s with snow roaring in the mountains. however, we've got 60s and 70s up to the great lakes right now. incredible warmth. chicago has had five straight days of 80 degrees. when you look at the satellite and radar, can you follow the clouds? they're coming down the west coast, making the turn and go almost south to north straight up here in the plains. when you get that big upper level trough like that, that's good for snow in the mountains and severe weather in the plains. some of the mountain areas like in montana have blizzard warnings. they could have gusts to 60. then we're looking at potential severe thunderstorms in texas right now. they could even get tornadic thunderstorms across north texas, southeastern oklahoma

and a ridge generally covers much of the east with unseasonably warm readings. for us we're looking at the spotty showers and thunderstorms this afternoon. basically out to our west. some of them come south tonight. we may get a couple closer to the metro but i think west has a better chance than east. overnight some of that marine air tries to work its way back in so some of the late night, early morning fog. then tomorrow we'll pop a couple more showers or storms in the afternoon. this pattern is not going to change much. in fact the forecast next few days southeast winds 5 to 10. 75 today. 74 tomorrow after being in the 50s tonight. 50s again tomorrow night. mid-70s on wednesday. by thursday sunny and drier, near 80. friday upper 70s. increasing chances of showers over the weekend. that will cool us down by sunday in the mid-60s. but what a stretch of weather we are having. stick around. we've got more 9news now at noon coming up. oh, mike, sorry, over you to. >> that's okay. thanks, howard. you heard the hor givic stories in the news -- horrific

stories in the news about domestic violence cases that ended tragedy. today jc hayward visits bethany house, a place that offers help and hope. >> reporter: every day in the united states three women are killed by an intimate partner. every 12 days a child dies from a buice -- from abuse. >> i had stitchness my head, stitchness my eye. my fingers were broken. my ampgles had been -- ankles had been sprained. my ribs were broken. i was -- internally i had a lot of internal damage i didn't know about. >> we'll call her jane. after repeated beatings she came here, received support and started rebuilding her life. >> i felt safe. i realized that there are people out there that there was nothing wrong with me. and they actually understood

why i stayed. they helped me understand why i stayed. they helped me find all the services that i was going to need to get my life back. >> bethany house of northern virginia provides emergency shelter and support services to vehicle ims of dom most be -- victims of domestic violence. >> we very much want to work with our families to break the cycle of violence now. we don't want to encourage them to meet their goals so they can break that cycle now for themselves and their children. >> they are celebrating more than 30 years. they truly believe domestic violence is a crime and it has devastating effects on children. they believe that victims should be supportive and treated with compassion, courtesy, and respect. >> and do everything we can to let them know that they're amazing, beautiful, wonderful human beings. the abuse that happened was not their fault. it's not a normal, healthy situation. we don't want that for the families or their children. >> reporter: during the year, food, clothing and personal

care items are distributed. the program's vision is to heal, restore and empower families. i'm jc hayward, 9news now. >> the bethany house is in need of cleaning supplies. toilet paper, diapers, basic high jeans items. if you'd like more information how you can help, go to jc hayward.com. we'll be right back.

officially, she is the duchess of cambridge. but to millions of her fans, she's simply kate. kate middleton, the wife of prince william open add new building for children's hospice in england. then she made her first publish speefer as a royal -- speech as a royal. >> i'm really sorry that william can't be here today. he would love it here. >> the duchess later planted a commemorative tree at the facility. she is lovely. a quick reminder peyton manning, he is going to be a denver bronco and tim tebow

will get traded if peyton signs on the dotted line. weather wise we're good. >> gorgeous this afternoon. well in the 70s. a slight chance of a storm or shower the next couple of days. what a stretch of weather. this has been a really simple, easy winter. >> thanks for joining us at noon. he's howard. i'm mike. have a great day, everybody. anita and lesli back at 5:00.