. hello and thank you for joining us. i'm jc hayward. this morning d.c. mayor vincent gray addressed the latest campaign staffer to plead guilty in his 2010 run for mayor. yesterday eugena harris pleaded

guilty to helping run what prosecutors call a shadow campaign. she admitted that she arranged to have contributors to the gray campaign illegally reimbursed by a d.c. businessman. well, today the mayor says that the investigation he called for is ongoing and voters should not confuse what happened with his campaign with how he runs his administration. >> this is not the campaign that we intended to run, tom. i have said to many, many people that i got into this for the right reasons. that's why i wanted to make the distinction between the campaign which we know there are issues with and governing. >> two other staffers from mayor gray's campaign have also pleaded guilty to felonies about how they got money for gray's campaign. returning our attention now to the 2012 campaign, presidential candidates usually talk at rallies about supporters and trying to get

more supporters but that was not the case for republican mitt romney today. he will be speaking at the annual naacp convention. most members of the civil rights group are supporting president obama. danielle nottingham shows us why the likely republican nominee is making his case for why they should reconsider. >> reporter: mitt romney took the stage at the naacp's annual meeting in houston, texas with a message for black voters. >> if you want a president who will make things better in the african-american community, you are looking at him. >> reporter: about 90% of black voters are expected to support president obama in november, but romney says that support has not led to results. he points out while the u.s. unemployment rate is just over 8%, among blacks it's much higher, 14.4%. >> unemployment rate, the duration of unemployment,

average income, median family wealth are all worse in the black community. >> reporter: romney believes staying focused on the economy can help him win in november and polls show the race is tightening. a new survey of voters nationwide shows romney just three points behind 46-43 -- 46% to 43%. president obama has been working to lock in his support in the battleground states. >> the stakes in this election could not be bigger. >> reporter: he traveled to iowa on tuesday trying to reignite the enthusiasm that led him to victory four years ago. >> i'm betting that you are going to be as fired up as you were in 2008 because you understand the stakes. >> reporter: the president is trying to convince voters he is the candidate who can turn the economy around and defend the middle class. danielle nottingham, cbs news, washington. >> the president is meeting

with democratic leaders today at the white house. democrats say that they plan to introduce legislation that will help the economy. a settlement could be in the works to end the bitter dispute that's taking place in woodbridge, virginia. under the possible settlement, some families would be allowed to return to their homes in the holly acres mobile home park. prince william county officials said the park was ininhabittable last fall after floods from tropical storm lee. since then the county and the owner of holly acres have been fighting over the owner's efforts to rebuild. torrential rains flooded roadways throughout the district overnight. this was the scene on rhode island avenue northwest. motorists were struggling just to get around. some were concerned that d.c.'s drainage system could not handle the downpour. while d.c.'s d.o.t. director explained exactly what happened.

>> when you have a downpour like we had last night, when you get that much water at that quick of a time, the system is not going to be able to handle it. that's what you were saying, the system was not able to handle it. >> he adds that d.c. is working to improve its drainage system and flooding like what happened on rhode island avenue last night whether become less frequent. arlington county police have several leads in their search for the driver who struck and killed a pedestrian. we brought this story to you yesterday morning. 62-year-old robert help shrd was -- shepherd was hit while in the middle of route 110 at the pentagon. he's from lawrence, massachusetts. his girlfriend reported he had been missing for about two weeks. today the head of fairfax county's board of supervisors will ask for a formal investigation into the 911 outage following last month's storm. many blame verizon since the

company operates the 911 network in the region. fairfax county board of supervisors chairwoman sharon belliva will ask the washington council of governments to oversee the investigation. she wants to make sure an outage like this does not happen again. investigators are awaiting autopsy results to confirm how a reporter from the winchester star newspaper died. the fauquier county sheriff's deputy says the death of sarah greenhalgh is being treated as a homicide. her body was found monday inside her burning home in upperville, virginia. she moved into the home about a year ago. a massachusetts man linked to a terror plot here in the washington area plans to plead guilty next week. according to court documents rezwan ferdaus has agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors. they say ferdaus plotted to fly

remote controlled model planes packed with explosives into the pentagon and the capitol. agents arrested him last september. investigators say that the public was never in danger. he is expected to receive a 17- year sentence. well, if you were watching our live coverage of d.c. mayor gray's news conference at 10:30 this morning, you noticed that we were off the air for a while. well, we want to let you know that a piece of equipment failed, that it has since been repaired and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. still to come when 9news now continues, find out how you could get stuck paying for the extra help needed for power companies to restore all their electricity that was out nearly two weeks ago.

one maryland community is turning off two of its red light cameras. officials say that the cameras are making intersections more dangerous. police in westminster will deactivate two of the town's three red light cameras. they were causing too many rear end crashes. people slammed on their brakes to avoid getting a ticket. police already turned off two other cameras back in 2010. only one will remain and that's on southbound route 97 at nursery road. the d.c. city council is

considering two proposals aimed at moving utility lines underground. council member mary cheh introduce add plan to designate under-- introduced a plan to designate underground districts in the facility. another proposal is to require pepco to come up with a feasibility plan on funding and implementing the project. the council says buried power lines will protect utility lines from future storms. pepco says burying lines would cost about $5 billion. this may be a perfect definition of adding insult to injury. if you live in maryland, you will get charged extra to offset the losses that your power company suffered during the storm. the utility does not charge for the electricity itself. it charges a fee for delivering that power. and the companies are allowed in maryland to recoup the money that they lost in the first 24 hours of the power outages.

>> i wasn't aware of that. i think that's pretty unfair. >> not good. not good at all. that's not a good thing. i must call pepco and ask them about that. >> the charge will probably be less than $1 per person and the added money will most likely be rolled into the delivery fee without a line item explaining it. >> well, today a special storm debris pickup is going to start in montgomery county. county residents can leave tree limbs along any of the 217 snowplow routes. but you must make sure that the limbs and branches do not block sidewalks, driveways or roads. you can also continue putting debris in trash cans or you can drop it off at the shady grove processing facility and transfer station in durwood,

maryland. coming up next, howard has the forecast. >> temperatures are rising now into the mid-80s in some locations. we take a break with a look at some of those temperatures. as warm as 86 in columbia and rockville. still 83 in reston and 81 in springfield. we'll talk about how warm we're going to get this afternoon. storm chances for the rest of the weekend. there's even more heat that will return. we'll have that seven-day forecast when we return. [ dog growls, barks ]

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and retailer websites to find you some deep discounts. here are some of my favorites on this wednesday. you're going to find this fun one on google offers. discount tickets to the first annual d.c. funky fresh foodie fest. it's august 25 at the d.c. fairgrounds. it's the big open bar area at nationals park. you'll pay $42, get all you can eat and drink from the food trucks. that's 44% off and there will also be bands and karoke take day. hanes.com running what it's calling its biggest sale ever. it's selling t-shirts for $4.99 down from $10.50. you'll find big discounts on a white variety of items. and best "best" buy -- and bestbuy.com has a deal on a laptop. this is a toshiba satellite laptop with free shipping for $269.99. this is an online only deal.

if you're a local merchant with a deal for our viewers, i'd love to hear from you on facebook. i'm jessica doyle, 9news now. today i'm one on one with a camera expert jeremy. he's the owner of a a website. he'll tell us what we need to know. this camera is intimidating to me because it's big. >> believe it or not both of these cameras have program modes that will allow you to just take very -- simply take very good pictures. program modes are things like sports or kids and pets, landscape. so one of the easiest ways to start taking better pictures is to learn your camera. spend 15 minutes, learn about the modes and you'll take better pictures for life. >> what should we not do? most people -- i have a camera like this, a panasonic and you say a lot of people take the pictures like n. i do like this

because i can't see. is that right or wrong? >> i always tell folks -- you see this a lot. what happens is when you hold it out, you're not very steady. i tell folks to pull the elbows in and hold it like that. you want to half pull the shutter. that's going to focus. >> halfway down. >> that's correct. >> then all the way down? >> that's correct. often you'll hear a beep and that's when you can squeeze the shutter. you don't want to pull it or that will actually cause a blur. >> that's the problem a lot of people have, they take blurry pictures. how do i make my pictures more interesting? >> that's a very easy one. one of the first things i learned in my very first photography class was don't have every picture taken from the same angle. try getting up on a chair or step ladder or when you're photographing children, sit down, kneel down, or lay on the ground. shoot them straight up and it's an interesting way to see children because they're short so we're always photographing

on them down. >> rusnoykpoteau.com for more -- rusnockphoto.com for more information. now we go to howard. a mix of clouds and sun. south and east of town the clouds have been a little thicker. we'll make a run to the 90- degree mark. winchedzs will go east, even southeast at 5, 10 miles an hour. so not too much of a breeze this afternoon. 85 by 7:00. and 82 at 9:00. by tomorrow morning, we'll fall into the low 70s in town. even some 60s once again north and west. you can see all the high clouds that continue to stream over us. they've thinned out enough right now that we've got a good deal of sunshine. to the south and southeast especially, those clouds have been thicker. temperatures this morning started in the low 70s in town. 74 on the bay. look at the 60s off to the

west. many areas in the mid and upper 60s for lows. right now we're in the low to mid-80s across the region. although cumberland holding on to 79. luray is up to 8 a degrees. also -- 85 degrees. also 85 in cambridge. 82 in gaithersburg. and 86 at the patuxent river naval air station. taking you to northwest d.c. this is friendship heights n. is bethesda in the distance. we have the fair weather clouds right now. so a accident amount of sunshine and -- so a decent amount of sunshine and a sticky day. 84 degrees with the humidity at 58%. feels like it's more in the mid- to upper 80s with the heat index. i think the heat index will make it into the mid-90s this afternoon, certainly something uncomfortable but not anything we can't deal with. we don't have any advisories or warnings. we have a lot of heat out west. then here from texas all the way up through our neck of the woods, especially southern virginia, north carolina, there's a lot of tropical

downpours that have been occurring. the showers and storms is bringing much needed rain but also keeping a lid on temperatures in the southeast. you see the heavy rains from eastern ten ten. another batch -- tennessee. another batch here in the carolinas which diminished but new storms are firing along just north of i-40. most of that will stay south of us. i don't think we have much in the way of rain concerns for the afternoon unless you're going up to pennsylvania, western maryland, west virginia. we may see a few showers and storms pop there but futurecast not showing anything popping by us. overnight tonight into tomorrow morning, some clouds are going to stream across the region. thicker southeast. maybe more breaks north and west. so we'll be cooler northwest. that's where you'll find your 60s. tomorrow here we go toward 5:00 in the afternoon and once again mix of clouds and sunshine. looks like rain chances stay up generally in pennsylvania. tomorrow night clouds passing through the region toward friday morning. we're going to have a tough time it looks like developing any showers here for the next few days but as we get into the

weekend, temperatures are going to be going up and i think our rain chances increase a little bit as well. those afternoon thunderstorms. so today around 90. stray shower or storm, mainly in the mountains. tonight low 70s with some 60s in the suburbs so not a bad night at all. a little bit on the muggy side. tomorrow 89, mix of sun and clouds. 88 friday. a few more clouds. slight chance of a storm although i think a better chance as we head into saturday and sunday. but look at those temperatures. low 90s saturday. low to mid-90s sunday. then we're back in the mid-90s to start next week. still a chance of storms on monday. we are going to the kitchen when 9news now at noon returns.

i'm one on one with one of my favorite all time chefs and that would be chef jacques barringer. we're drinking champagne. >> we're celebrating my last day of radiation for breast cancer. >> and july 4th, too. >> and july 4th. and we're celebrating howard's birthday. >> remember the 200-year love aware if france and the u.s. with an occasional spat. >> what are we fixing? >> we're going to make an herb

mayonnaise and then mix that with jumbo crab. dried mustard, herbs from the garden. we have parsley, all of these were picked this morning from our garden. >> that's beautiful. >> chives. >> that's what i like about it. everything is so fresh and so good. >> we're trying a little celery and onions. and then we have our herb mayonnaise, a little salt and pepper. >> what is that you serve with the bread? it's the first course. >> it's cottage cheese and sour cream. so we're going to take this now, mix it and mix it into the maryland jumbo lump crab meat. >> look at that crab meat. >> and this is a dish in the south of france especially on baste tell -- bastille day,

they don't work anymore in france. they just go to the beach. they have a tendency to be at the beach and do a seafood buffet. what i've done is taken a spoon and loosened or you can take a melon baller and loosen the flesh like this. taking no more chances. i'm cut off. we're going to take our crab meat and put it in there. this is a delicious dish, easy to make. >> are you going to have that this weekend? >> we're going to have it this weekend. we'll put a few cal mattie olives around it as a garnish. and if you want a little pip men toe on top -- pip men toe on top and fresh herbs. >> doesn't that look beautiful? >> great falls, it's just a fabulous restaurant. it's like a little french chateaux. >> are we going to do this again? >> we're going to do this again. >> happy birthday, howard.

coming back and visit us at 5:00. >> thank you. >> how old are you, howard? >> old enough, jc. >> can we see your i.d., please. take care. thank you, chef.