. thank you for joining us for the news at noon. jc hayward is off today. a massive earthquake off the coast of indonesia triggered a tsunami alert early this morning. residents have been given the all clear but they are still

scrambling to get to higher ground just in case. >> reporter: the powerful earthquake led to massive evacuations across southeast asia. civilians directed traffic as people headed for higher ground in banda aceh close to the epicenter. there was panic. women fainted and crowds gathered at mosques to pray. many feared the worst because a devastating quake in 2004 hit the same area and killed 230,000 people across the region. this man says he felt the ground shake for nearly six minutes. >> the office people were dining out. everybody was screaming that an earthquake was happening. >> reporter: warning alarms sounded across the indian ocean. in thailand schools interrupted classes. hospitals moved patients outside and tourist areas near the coast were immediately placed under a tsunami warning after a second 8.2 quake hit just hours after the first one.

>> aftershocks will go on for weeks or months, maybe as long as years. you wouldn't expect any more aftershocks this big. >> reporter: indonesia remains on high alert but the president says there are no reports of deaths or serious damage. cbs news. >> indonesia officials say the waves hitting the coast at this point are very small so far. the biggest wave only a few feet high. fray von martin's -- trayvon martin's parents will be in d.c. today continuing to bring national attention to their son's shooting death six weeks ago by a neighborhood watch captain george zimmerman. the national network will host a press conference this afternoon. >> i can assure you that in this investigation and in all cases, we will examine the facts and the law. if we find evidence of a potential federal criminal civil rights crime, we will

take appropriate action. >> meanwhile george zimmerman's attorneys have dropped out of the case because they haven't spoken to him or even received any e-mails from him since sunday. the special prosecutor handling the trayvon martin investigation could make an announcement in the case as early as today. if not, they say before the weekend. as randall pinkston reports, the man who says he killed martin in self-defense is now looking for a new way to defend himself. >> reporter: george zimmerman could soon find out if he will face charges for the killing of trayvon martin. special prosecutor angela corey says she will make annual announcement about the case before the end of the week. the neighborhood watch volunteer had stayed out of sight since the shooting but he recently called corey against the advice of his attorneys. >> as of now, we're withdrawing as counsel for mr. zimmerman. >> reporter: they say they can no longer represent zimmerman because he is not returning calls or e-mails. they say zimmerman is losing weight, suffering from high levels of stress, and making

decisions on his own. >> to handle it this way suggests that he may not be in control of what's going o. we're concerned for his emotional and physical safety. >> reporter: but zimmerman's friend disputes that. he says he spoke to the 28-year- old over on the -- over the phone on monday. >> he's not falling apart. he's not having a meltdown. i'm sure he's concerned. >> reporter: his former attorneys say he's no longer living in the state of florida. that has trayvon martin's family worried that no one knows exactly where zimmerman is. >> whether or not he's going to try to avoid facing the charges of killing their son. >> reporter: martin's parents are attending a conference in washington, d.c. they do not believe zimmerman's claim of self-defense and want him arrested. randall pinkston, cbs news, sanford, florida. >> zimmerman's former attorneys say they are willing to take up his case once again if he contacting them. this afternoon the district

emancipation day celebration begins with the tour of some national landmarks here in the nation's capital. it starts at 2:00 p.m. a the lincoln memorial. then off to the jefferson, fdr and martin luther king, jr. memorial. delegate eleanor holmes norton will be there along with mayor vincent greater and former maryland congressman connie ma ril low. it marks the 150th anniversary of slaves being freed in d.c. 9 news now has uncovered more memos that give the appearance of a ticket writing quota system in arlington county police officer's department. one required officers working the overtime shift to catch people speeding and write five tickets per hour. last month 9news uncovered an internal memo to appeared to detail a quota system for arrests, parking tickets and dui charges. chief douglas scott called the first memo a mistake he said he never saw the other memos but will make sure nothing representing a quota will go

out ever again. as we have learned through buddy check 9, the journey through breast cancer can have huge ups and downs. last week our own jc hayward announced she has breast cancer. here's a picture of her taken shortly after checking into the hospital this morning. later today she will undergo a lumpectomy to remove a cancerous tissue. she's decided to go with the less aggressive surgery after learning yesterday that a second nodule that was found in her breast is not cancerous. she'll be recovering for the next few days and her goal is to return to the anchor chair monday. you can learn more about the fight against breast cancer any time on our website wusa9.com. click on andrea roane's buddy check site under the features tab. if you'd like to send messages to jc and read her up updates along the -- her updates along the way, go to jchayward.com. armed bad guys in montgomery county consider this your warning. meet one of the police dogs on patrol and find out what makes these guys so special.

>> can mit mitt romney repair his image after a hard fought republican battle for the white house? i'm danielle nottingham. i'll have the story coming up.

welcome back with the news at noon. we continue with the republican race for president. mitt romney's path for the republican nomination is now wide open. he's campaigning in number today. but the g.o.p. front-runner knows he needs to revamp his image if he wants to

get elected. danielle nottingham reports from the white house. >> reporter: mitt romney hit the trail in the northeast with new energy. the race for the republican nomination is virtually over and the former governor has his sights set on the november showdown with president obama. >> this president did not cause the recession. he just made it worse and made it longer and it's harder for the recovery to occur. >> reporter: romney is trying to improve his image. a new national poll shows twice as many voters find president obama more friendly and likable than the g.o.p. front-runner. romney faced weeks of attacks from the man who was once his biggest republican rival rick santorum. >> we already have one president who doesn't tell the truth to the american people. we don't need another nominated by our party to do the same. >> reporter: when rick santorum suspended his campaign tuesday, he stopped short of endorsing romney, but in the past, he has said he will support whoever the republican party nominates

to challenge president obama. >> we are going to continue to go out there and fight to make sure that we defeat president barack obama. >> reporter: santorum called it quits two weeks ahead of the primary in his home state of pennsylvania. he had to cancel several events last week because his youngest daughter was in the hospital and he was slipping in the polls in his home state setting the stage for a potentially embarrassing defeat. danielle nottingham, cbs news, the white house. >> newt gingrich praised the campaign of rick santorum and the one he ran for the nomination but he says he, newt gingrich, is not dropping out. he promises to stay in the race all the way up to the g.o.p. convention in tampa which is in august. ron paul also says at this point he has no plans to leave the race either. the d.c. board of elections is now launching an investigation against activist james o'keefe. this comes after o'keefe released undercover videos showing a man claiming to be u.s. attorney general eric holder at a polling place.

he was obviously not holder but he was not asked to show any identification. the election board says any evidence of criminal activity from last week's primary will be referred to law enforcement. that actor did not vote in holder's name either. olga breese is coming up next in the forecast. >> the sun is trying its best but the clouds seem to be winning out. it's been breezy and cool. temperatures struggling to make it through the 50s. when will we see a little more rain in the forecast? yup, we're tracking slightly warmer temperatures into the weekend. i'll give you all that great news when 9news now continues. if you have copd like i do,

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i've been combing through the day's daily deals, e-mails and retailer websites to help you find deep discounts. here are some of my favorites. get breakfast on the cheap. pay $1, get $5 worth of food at moe's southwest grill. limit one voucher per table. gilt city washington is giving you crowned crow's new album -- counting crows' new album for just $4.99. baskin robins will donate to feed america for every ice

cappy blast sold and every new facebook like. and a mini is available for 99 cents every wednesday in april at all participating baskin robbins locations. if you have an our you've seen or a local merchant with a deal, i'd love to hear from ow facebook. i'm jessica doyle, 9news now. in other news, montgomery county police nabbed three suspects who allegedly stole a gun and then brought it to wheaton high school. they were able to do it with the help of one eager rookie. it has four legs and some fur. meet lila, one of two new weapons detection dogs patrolling montgomery county now. they're trained to track down weapons that are discarded by the bad guys and who are on the run from police. >> the signature odor that we train for is the post-blast event of a firearm being shot. every firearm has to be fired. it cannot leave the factory without at least one round going through it. >> the four pieces of the gun

lila found helped police bring a solid case against the three teenage students who had that gun. well, d.c.'s oldest and largest film festival film fest d.c. opens tomorrow right here in the district. there's a taste of the caribbean this year, a showcase of music films and a lot of laughs. the festival director is here now, tony. he's been doing it for 26 years. >> 26 years. >>it's still going. it's fantastic. >> it feels like yesterday. >> we were talking at the break and you said it's an international festival. where are people coming from around the world with entries? >> all over. we're showing films from italy, japan, france, argentina. you mentioned the caribbean area and on and on. russia. can i keep going. >> where can people go and see some of these efforts? you said there are several theaters in the d.c. area. >> we show pry pearl in -- primarily in the commercial theaters, the avalon uptown, e street thee doer downtown. -- theater downtown. >> are there any time limits to

films? some come be a documentary which can be three hours long. are there certain parameters? >> they're feature films. the vast majority about about 90 minutes long. we bring in the director when we can so there might be an opportunity at the end of the film to learn more about how the film was made. >> why did you start this 26 years ago? >> i love films, i love the arts, i love people. film is the communication medium of this century. i want to show people there are alternatives to hollywood films. there are great films made all over the world. if we didn't present them in washington, they wouldn't be seen. >> let's talk about the one we're seeing right now. >> this is rasta: a soul's journey. >> we're doing a special segment about films from the caribbean. this is bob marli's granddaughter. she is trying to find herself understanding the philosophy of rasta. it's a film of her traveling

around the world. >> let's check out a couple more. there's one called "girls in the band." what's that about? >> "girls in the band" is the history of women in american jazz. when the curtain is down and people play, you don't know who's behind the curtain. it's their struggle. a lot of these bands were very popular when jazz began to develop in this country. >> the last one, "five broken cameras." >> we do a social justice section. this is about a farmer in the occupied territory and his land is being encroached upon by the israeli government and soldiers. he's taking pictures. every once in a while they break his camera. it's happened five times. >> fantastic. thanks so much for joining us. he's the director of film fest d.c. here's the brochure. we can link his website to wusa9.com. check it out there as well. over to ole ga. she's got wet -- olga. she's got weather. we had a very warm day yesterday. we got the sunshine working early on yesterday so the high got up to 68.

average is 65. but today we're not going to come even close. we're returning about 10 degrees below normal. right now our day planner features a lot of cloud cover. we're going to keep it mostly cloudy headed toward the afternoon hours, but things will be fairly cool as we head into the late day. 5:00 temperature about 55 degrees with cloudy skies. we'll also see the opportunity for a little bit of late day clearing as we head in toward the afternoon and evening hours. in all it's going to be chilly. it's going to be breezy and that will be the case for the remainder of today. here's a better picture. 49 degrees at reagan national airport. we're looking at a very chilly night ahead for tonight. but in the meantime, you do need to make sure you have that jacket if you're out and b. the cloud cover came in fairly quickly. after the 8:00, 9:00 hour this morning, we started to bring in some more of that cloud cover and then the precipitation started to fall through the panhandle of maryland. a viewer called us from the blue ridge at the higher elevation and they had a snow shower briefly for just a few

moments. the sun is out there now as well as the clouds start to break bit by bit. the current temperatures are still sitting in the 40s. we will hover right around 50 degrees for the remainder of the afternoon, but we're not going to budge too much higher than 55. in fact, our dew points are very low. our winds fairly brisk out of the north at 16 miles per hour. we do have that fire danger in effect for today as well so be very cautious if you have anything outdoors. future cast is going to give us a bit of a break. but we're going to have moisture first. anywhere from 2:00 to 6:00 this evening. we have the opportunity for a spot shower to pop on through but it's going to be short lived, move on out quickly and then clearing skies overnight will allow these temperatures to fall again. we woke up to temperatures in the 30s and 40s. it's going to be similar today. upper 30s in and around the beltway for most. then as we go into your friday and saturday forecast, we bring back the sunshine. we're actually going to bring back a little bit of that warmth so today's highs a little on the cool side. only 53 degrees for luray.

we'll see about 54 for gaithersburg. 56 for manassas and it will be close to 55 degrees for reagan national today. cool night tonight. we're down into the 30s but the seven-day forecast is going to give us a little bit more of something to look forward to. first three days are cool. breezes out of the north and the northwest will keep us in the 60s. we'll get more sunshine by friday but look at our saturday, sunday and monday temperatures. we get into the 70s and even close to 80 degrees by sunday afternoon. stay with us. 9news now will be right back.

welcome back. time now for a little kitchen activity. michael costa from a beautiful greek restaurant in the penn quarter is here to talk good greek easter. i'm learning as we go. what's different about greek easter compared to western easter as you called it. >> they follow a different calendar. sometimes it happens on a different kay. typically is involves traditionally roasting whole lamb outside which is something we do monday through friday during the festival. >> they have a fantastic festival going on. we're already well into it. there is a menu that's included for a ten-course menu included for $999. >> it's a -- for $99. >> it's a good thing for two people to share. this is one of the vegetable

dishes we're doing during the festival. i think it's fun in the springtime to use white asparagus. >> you have to stir what? >> we start with a couple of pieces of roasted garlic. there's a little bit of mint and dill so we can match that up. we're going to add some strained greek style yogurt, the nice thick stuff. >> boy, that's really famous right now, greek style yogurt. >> a little bit of olive oil. >> imagine that, olive oil. >> we'll mix those together. >> we have a little less than two minutes. we'll continue to go through some of the ingredients. >> you can use a whisk for this or just use a spoon if you like. when everything has come together like that, we can add our white asparagus. this white asparagus i've peeled and blanched. use salty water because white asparagus is bitter and it

seasons and enhances it well. this is a fun vehicle because you can use whatever kind of vegetable you have in season. we've done versions in the fall with things like green apples. in the wintertime you can even use beats. so it's an open kind of thing. that's what you're going to end up with. then we use this as a component in a more complex dish at the restaurant so you can do it as simply or as complicated as you'd like. this is the complicated version here. >> we have about a minute. let's see how that looks plated. that usually goes with lamb itself? what are some of the best-- >> we serve this on its own. it would be fantastic with a piece of spit roasted lamb. we've got green asparagus puree on the bottom of the plate. i'm going to put some of the white asparagus on top. a couple of pieces of pistachios, a couple of pieces of asparagus we just simply blanched and shuck the same way we did the white asparagus. if you want to get fancy, you can even take a vegetable peeler, take some thin shavings of green asparagus, put them on

top if you want. you can find these greens. they're really pretty. >> we're about to wrap. if you'd like more information, go to wusa9.com for the agreeing festival. that's it for 9news now at noon. have a great day, everybody.