almost $823,000 in bills. the arlington conference allegedly cost taxpayers a quarter million dollars for that one day. here's a breakdown on some of the alleged costs, $41,734.90 in travel, just over $34,000 for the venue, $28,364 for time and temperature picture frames, $20,578 for 4,000 drumsticks to be used for a drum band exercise and $7,697 on a commissioner's reception which included a violinist and guitarist. is many. >> it's still a plate ant abuse of taxpayer dollars and it's going to stop. >> he and congressman john mica released details of the conference today. they'll hold a hearing in two weeks about this latest spending. in a statement the gsa's new

acting administrator said under the new leadership this event and type of spending is not tolerated. as of april 15th this year all spending for events including training, conferences, leadership events, team building exercise, award ceremonies were suspended. also suspended, you'll remember just yesterday tangherlini announced they're cutting a half my ondollar bonus program to senior officials -- million dollar bonus program to senior officials after a 9 wants to know investigation found open records with $60,000 of bonuses including bonuses to thing oners of that las vegas conference -- organizers of that las vegas conference. >> the details of that waste are incredible, russ. thank you. mayor gray speaking out after news of that poll that says a majority of d.c. residents wishes he would get out of the job. don't forget, three d.c. council members have called for mayor gray to resign in the wake of the corruption vote scandal. kristin fisher caught up with

the mayor today. i can't imagine he's a happy catcher. >> no. clearly doesn't like the numb -- happy camper. >> no. clearly doesn't like the numbers, but he understands them. he's urging his constituents to not rush to judgment, but what this poll shows is that it may be too late. >> i just ask people to allow this investigation to run its course, to complete the work that's being done and then all the facts will be on the table. >> reporter: mayor play pleads patience just because three of his campaign associates have pleaded guilty to felonies, the mayor says it doesn't mean he's guilty. >> i haven't been charged or convicted of anything. >> reporter: but 54% of d.c. residents now say the mayor should step down even if he didn't know president shadow campaign that helped get him elected. you're not buying that? >> no, i'm not. >> reporter: why not? >> he's in charge. >> if you are blind to who works for you, if you can't hire people with ethical

standards that you can trust, then there's a fundamental problem with you as an administrator. >> reporter: even his political base is turning on hip. according to the washington post -- him. according to the washington post poll, 48% of african american voters say it's time for mayor gray to step down, but he still has some support. >> i hope he don't resign, no, because he's doing a wonderful job, the school programs, all the programs he's created. >> reporter: but it's his campaign that created this scandal, something far too familiar to d.c. voters. >> i know to say that he took money or whatever for campaigns and stuff like that, but who doesn't? you know it's d.c. >> she's laughing, but the sad truth is most people now associate d.c. government with corruption and scandal. the poll shows just that, 74% of the people polled say that they think this scandal is not

an isolated incident, that it's indicative of a bigger problem within the d.c. government, 74%. >> the numbers are almost as sad as the scandal. thanks, appreciate it. in just the last hour bruce johnson talked with a panel of guests and they discussed mayor gray's political situation. >> his legal situation is preventing him from resolving his political situation. to resolve the political situation he has to say what he knew and when. the only possible answers are either he knew it or he didn't and those are both bad answers politically. >> i think when you're under a gun like this and the fact is it may lead to some kind of charges, you're going to be guarded because you're going to be under legal advice and if you don't follow legal advice, you're a fool. >> as for who might replace gray should he step down, the group could not agree on any one possible candidate. for a second straight day a congressman is doing away with money from businessmen who allegedly financed the shadow

campaign. this time governor martin o'malley. his spokesperson says the governor donated $35,000 that money went into a fund that helped veterans. montgomery county got its turn to grill pepco on those long power outages following last month's derecho. the utility tried to apologize and explain why it deserves a rate hike, but that did not go so well. scott broom is in rockville to explain. >> reporter: pepco and state regulators were called on the carpet today by montgomery county's county council. >> we have an antiquated utility system that does not come close. >> reporter: pepco executives endured a now familiar day of blistering criticism. state senator brian frost, for instance, calling on state regulators to deny a 4% rate hike request due for a decision tomorrow. >> you want to communicate

effectively with pepco, don't give them a rate increase. we're not getting the service that we deserve. >> reporter: pepco executives called the surprise so-called derecho storm of june 29th that blacked out more than a half my oncustomers, some as long as six days, a hurricane without warning. >> derecho was unpredicted. it left more damage than hurricanes isabel or irani and left customers without power in -- or irene and left customers without power in 10 states. >> reporter: rate payers were unimpressed and pepco was further embarrassed today when regional administrator thomas graham flubbed twice. >> it's not reasonable for a person to be upset at all when they are without power for a week. >> what? >> reporter: graham who clearly misspoke ended up asking county council members for a mulligan, the golf term for a do-over. he was granted one, but that's

about the only slack that pepco got cut today. scott broom, 9 news now. >> now you're about to see a confrontation caught on tape as 9 want to know and tries to get some answers. here's investigative reporter russ ptacek with the maryland official who okayed that order allowing pepco and bge to bill you even while your power is out the first day. >> reporter: are you going to change this? >> we will be glad to look at it. >> reporter: what are you going to do? >> we'll be glad to look at it. >> reporter: but you won't commit? >> i can't possibly commit during the course of an interview. >> reporter: but do you understand people are getting upset? >> eye am not going to say any -- i am not going to say any more than i've already said. >> tonight there is a move to get the commissioner fired, but he told russ as for the billing, he has no regrets. the fcc is looking at another problem stemming from the derecho, the 911 outage

leaving more than 1 million people without a way to call through to emergency services. now commissioners hoped to find the cause and some up with ways to make sure it doesn't come up again. verizon has said the outage was caused by the loss of power and two backup generators. a 9 news now update, the humane society of the united states is offering a $2,500 reward to help find a person who attacked a horse. the animal was wounded by someone using a knife during the weekend of july 7th and 8th. the horse information a paddock next to frying pan park in herndon. this horse was one of three horses stabbed back in april. earlier in our broadcast we played a portion of george zimmerman's first tv interview. what sort of impact could that have on his upcoming trial? a local defense attorney weighs in tonight at 7:00.

still to come, we finally find out why this woman tried to cross the tracks at metro center and it is probably not what you expect. >> it looks like temperatures are about 10 degrees cooler, but there are some storms in the west that are kind of troubling. we'll show you radar. most of the storms are still well west of i-81 approaching cumberland headed toward garrett county. we'll come back and let you know if those will get in here before midnight and a look at the weekend forecast as well. >> but first this photo from a burger king goes viral on the web and now the workers behind it are facing the music. we'll tell you more next.

we are back with a heads up about a big recall issued today by honda. the company is recalling 172,000 suvs and cars because the doors may not close completely. this affects the 2012 honda crv

crossover suvs and 2013 acura ilx sedan. owners should take their cars to honda dealers for inspections and free repairs. so far the problem has not caused any crashes or injuries. ford is telling some owners of its 2013 escape to stop driving their cars. that's because some of the suvs have a defect in the fuel line that could cause a fire. ford has issued a recall for the problem. it only affects the escape with four cylinder engines built between april and july of this year and that is about 11,500 cars. a burger king restaurant has fired a few bad apples for a stunt involving some lettuce. take a look. file this one under lettuce entertain you. i didn't write it. this photo was posted on the internet. it went viral. it was traced back to a burger king near cleveland. the franchise owner took a look at it, fired three employees.

the original says none of that lettuce made it onto anyone's burgers. let's hope not. up next we learned new details of supershuttle's safety rating a day after the company has another van in a crash, more after the break. [ male announcer ] where did all the obama stimulus money go? friends, donors, campaign supporters, special interest groups where did the obama stimulus money go? solyndra: 500 million taxpayer dollars. bankrupt. so where did the obama stimulus money go? windmills from china. electric cars from finland 79% of the 2.1 billion in stimulus grants awarded through it went to overseas companies.

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caught on tape, she said she was confused and let's just say that's an understatement. a french woman is okay tonight after trying to cross the metro tracks. it happen last night on the red line. the woman was on the wrong side of the platform and decided to take the dangerous short-cut across. passengers tried to help, but there was nothing they could do. metro shut down the power and stopped the train until help could arrive. after last night's crash involving a supershuttle van 9news has learned the company received an unsatisfactory safety rating four months ago. that rating came after another

supershuttle driver caused a fatal accident that killed a passenger last summer. the company made enough changes to receive a conditional safety rating, but as peggy fox reports, this latest crash may cause the company some more problems. >> reporter: the six passengers in this supershuttle van never made it to dulles airport. the driver hit a barrier, then crashed into an audi. five people were injured including one woman who had to be medevaced to a nova fairfax hospital. the wreck is reminiscent of a supershuttle crash last august that killed human rights activist suvash darnell. the driver was charged with reckless driving and a 9 news now investigation revealed in the previous months supershuttle had apparently recorded him speeding 66 times. several drivers also told us fatigue is a constant problem because they often work 16 to 24 hours straight. >> safety. >> reporter: the washington

metropolitan transit commission regulates those supershuttle vans. that crash last year and our investigation prompted the commission to conduct its own review and just last march it gave supershuttle an unsatisfactory safety rating. if the company didn't fix its problems, the commission was prepared to shut it down. bill morrow, the executive director of the transit commission, says supershuttle has corrected many of its problems. >> we're concerned here that the carrier is keeping track of the hours and supershuttle seems to be doing that at this time. >> reporter: but this supershuttle franchisee says this are still problems. >> this is working the same hours that they used to work before. >> reporter: and how many is that? >> 12 to 14 hours a day. >> reporter: federal law does allow the drivers to be on duty for 15 hours a take and permits them to drive -- day and incorporates -- permits them

to drive 10 hours a day. >> the airport authority police is visiting and they have not released any names or filed any charges against the driver at this point -- investigating and they have not released any names or filed any charges against the driver at this point. >> a hot sticky day. >> it's on not 95 today. >> only 95. >> temps go down tomorrow and go down again saturday with. that will come the continued chance of showers and thunderstorms. let's start with live doppler 9000. there is some thunderstorms now popping up to the west of us. we have been watching this all afternoon, primarily west of i- 81. the real line of storms is now just entering western maryland around garrett county, oakland back down into tucker county, west virginia. some of these will be heavy and a few of them could be severe. the closest one to us, one is just west of winchester. got an e-mail from somebody in harrisonburg. she said get ready for a 30 minute big storm. it's past their area now.

satellite and radar combined, we'll zoom into the frontal boundary which is just to our north now. this is going to be the focus of some shower and storms tonight and tomorrow and saturday to some extent. this is a pretty good line of showers and storms pushing through west virginia headed into the panhandle of maryland and west virginia. we're in pretty good shape around the immediate metro area. if you get home about 7:00, you'll have dry roads. after that off to the west you'll have some showers. lightning has diminished a bit. s there not a watch out which tell -- there's not a wasp out which tells me the line -- watch out which tells me the line is weakening a bit. all right. live look outside, our live weather cam brought to you by michael and son, 94 right now, hasn't cooled off much. the high of 95, dew point dropped a bit to the mid-60s,

winds calm, pressure steady. 94 college park and in laurel and 97 down to the south in oldtown. now let's talk about what's going to happen. temps will be on the decline, heavy storms possible by midnight, more clouds friday, just warm, though. storms are more numerous friday and cooler and unsettled on saturday. so for tonight partly cloudy, muggy. showers and storms, some heavy, low temps in the 70s, winds light. next three days, storms as we get into saturday, 82, maybe an isolated storm on 88. we'll keep sunday code green for now. next seven days. it will heat up to the mid-90s, isolated storms possible monday and tuesday and right now wednesday and thursday look fantastic, partly cloudy both days, upper 80s wednesday, around 90 thursday. that would be a pretty good summer day actually. >> yeah. listen, we've got some exciting news to tell people about. sunday morning programming on wusa9 this fall, we've got an

exciting new launch, a talk show, the bloomberg government with chief washington correspondent peter cook as host. it will air on sunday mornings as part of our power block. now we're going to get to some power sports. tiger is looking pretty good today. >> he looked good. your boy phil did not look good. tiger got off to a good start in england, but he's got some stiff competition at the top of the leaderboard. we'll show you that from today plus an exciting couple of days. theft nationals couldn't pull off the sweep. find out what happened coming up next. ♪

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now 9 sports with kristen berset, the best sport in town. >> what a way to end an exciting rivalry series. two of the league's best pitchers, two all-stars today, the surprising r.a. dickey pitched a jewel early on this afternoon, but the nationals' gio gonzalez wasn't nearly as successful. mets up 2-1 in the 2nd. ike davis, he 0 another. gio -- he adds another. gio got rocked today. craig salmon not much better in relief. david wright send a three-run shot over the center field wall. it's now 9-1 mets in the 4th. drew storen finally getting some action today after a long stint on the dl.

pitched the 9th inning keeping the mets from tacking on any more runs. the nats tried to rally, but the deficit was just too big to overcome. the mets win this one 9-5. >> a lot of good things happened in that ballgame. when you're nine runs down, you come back and a couple times, of -- every time running on deck it's not just a complete bad day. there were a lot of good things there. team usa facing great britain in london today, darren williams starting in place of chris paul responded well with 19 points. williams 5-6 from downtown helping the u.s. pull away from britain, 118-78 the final. the team will face argentina this sunday in spain. it was a great day for tiger woods and a really rough day for phil mickelson literally. lefty could not stay out of the rough today getting on his hand and knees at one point just to

try and find his ball. tiger is right there in the hunt looking for his fourth win in 2012 and his first major in four years, getting off to a good start, four birdies on the front 9. he shot a 3 hounder 67. that puts him three shots -- 3- under 67. that puts him three shots off the lead. adam scott ties the course record. phil mickelson, on the 15th hitting in the rough away from the green, goes back in the rough. he double bogeyed this fall, finishes at plus 3. we heard from tiger earlier. here's the leader adam scott. >> very pleasing to go out and play some solid golf. that's what i haven't done in the 1st round of the majors this year and that was my goal here real estate starting the week was to play today like it was sunday and there was no tomorrow. >> 9:43 tiger tees off. >> that's it for us. have a great night.

[ male announcer ] where did all the obama stimulus money go? friends, donors, campaign supporters, special interest groups where did the obama stimulus money go? solyndra: 500 million taxpayer dollars. bankrupt. so where did the obama stimulus money go? windmills from china. electric cars from finland 79% of the 2.1 billion in stimulus grants awarded through it went to overseas companies. [ romney ] i'm mitt romney