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tv   9 News Now at Noon  CBS  August 22, 2012 12:00pm-12:30pm EDT

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thank you for joining us i'm jc hayward. they're now focusing on the
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train's braking system. kristin fisher has been following that story since it happened. she join us now live from the scene with more information. >> reporter: we just got an update from ntsb investigators. they say progress here has been slow, but productive. they have removed 18 of the 21 rail cars that derailed when this train jumped the tracks around midnight yesterday. but main street here is still closed, and it will likely stay that way for the next two days while the investigation continues. we still aren't any closer to learning why this derailment happened. all they will say is a ruptured line triggered an automatic break. but why did that happen? and did the presence of the two teenage girls have anything to do with it? they plan to formally interview the three man crew that was
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onboard this train. they're also asking the public and the press to be patient. they're saying especially this one will take time. calling the last 24 hours, a well orchestrated, but very dangerous industrial ballet. he says this train derailed in one of the most challenging locations possible. >> it's very narrow up there, we're dealing with a bridge, there's curvature, a parking lot. the historic building itself. many times in a derailment scene, you'll have field, or a parking lot larger than this or rural roads where you're laying your rail out. >> reporter: as the cleanup continues, i think it's safe to say that the hearts and prayers of everyone here in ellicott city are with the families of the two teenage girls that were
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killed. they were sitting on the bridge a few feet from the tracks. they even posted photos on twitter just minutes before they were killed. investigators say they weren't killed by the train itself. they were actually killed by the coal that spilled out of it. police say their bodies were found still sitting on the bridge. that is the bridge just behind me. you can see it's right in the center of ellicott city. this bridge very popular among teenagers and tourists. it's very easy to get onto this. i think probably the thing most people want to know more than anything is, was this derailment caused by some sort of mechical engineering failure in the train itself? or did the presence of those two teenage girls on the tracks somehow contribute to this train derailing? either way, it's just an awful, awful tragedy here that's going to take several days for this investigation to wrap up and
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give us all time to figure out what happened. >> verizon says that the train derailment causes telecommunication problems. they were not able to get information on government computers, and that forced a pretrial delay for five men charged in the september 11 terrorist attacks. land lines was also disrupted for thousands of customers, but that service was restored last night. our coverage of the story continues on our website, wusa9.com. you can see chilling tweets that were sent out by the two victims just before they died. we also have a photo gallery of scenes from the derailment, and all of this information is on the front page of our website,
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wusa9.com. later today, prince georges county police will announce a warrant for the second suspect involved in a crash that killed an officer. 24-year-old kenneth mitchell was arrested yesterday. he is suspected of starting the high speed pursuit, which ended in the death of officer adrian morris. his car crashed on i-95 in beltsville on monday. the second suspect involved is still at large. >> there is clearly an extensive search underway to find that second occupant. >> flags across maryland will remain at half staff until officer adrian morris's funeral. police confirm that morris was not wearing a seat belt when his patrol car crashed. his partner wawearing a belt, and that partner suffered only minor injuries. d.c. police are investigating a fatal stabbing at a home on 13th street
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southeast near alabama avenue. police were called to the scene just after 4:00 this morning. medics rushed a 29-year-old female victim with critical stab wounds to a nearby hospital. she died a short time later. police are looking for a suspect, andal, a motive in this case. as former penn state coach jerry sandusky awaits sentencing on child sex abuse charges, the university's former president is fighting allegations that he covered up sandusky's crimes. in an investigation led by former fbi director louis freeh, it is alleged that spanier, and late coach joe paterno worked to cover up sandusky's crimes in order to avoid bad publicity. today in philadelphia, spanier's attorneys publicly refuted the findings in a report. >> i knew the difference
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between a balanced, fair, and judicious assessment of evidence on one hand, and a flat out distortion of facts so infused with bias, and innuendo that it is quite simply, unworthy of the confidence that has been placed in it. >> graham spanier is not facing criminal charges. however, sandusky could spend the rest of his life in prison when he is sentenced later this year. lawyers for george hugely are going to court today. asking for a new trial. he will be sentenced next week in the murder of his former girlfriend, yardly love. hugely was convicted of killing love in february. he is facing up to 26 years in prison when he is sentenced. a washington state man is due in court later today.
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31-year-old anton calorey is accused of emailing threats to president obama. federal authorities say he was armed with a otgun when he answered his door yesterday. he claimed that he had explosives, and agents searched his home, but did not find anything. a new poll is showing that the presidential race right now is very close. neck and neck. the candidates are focused on those fall battle ground states. president obama is starting his day in nevada. paul ryan kicked off the day for the republicans in virginia. danielle nottingham has details. >> in the battle ground state of virginia, republican vice presidential candidate paul ryan said the president's reforms will devastate medicare. >> do you think just dropping medicare patients to pay for
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obamacare is an achievement? neither do we. they said that the private sector is doing just fine. we need more government. this is president obama's imaginary recovery. >> reporter: a new poll from the associated press shows the race for the white house is tight as it's ever been. both candidates are in a statistical dead heat. >> your education is the single most important investment you can make in your future. >> reporter: the president is trying to use education to draw a clear contrast with the republican ticket. he's talking about making and keeping college affordable, with teachers and students in nevada. young voters helped to win the white house four years ago. >> when all of you walk into that voting booth in november, you're going to have a choice. and part of it is the choice of how we treat education in this country. >> reporter: the president says the romney/ryan budget would
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cut money from many programs, including loans to college students. danielle nottingham, cbs news washington. the annual list of the richest lawmakers in congress, topping the list is republican michael mccall from texas. a distant second, john kerry of massachusetts. virginia secretary mark warner came in fifth. three democrats made the top five, but overall, there are only 19 democrats on the list of top 50. we have bad news for federal workers because president obama is extending a two year pay freeze for federal employees until at least next spring. the freeze will stay in effect until the spending plan is passed. but the presidential campaign makes it unlikely that will happen before the start of fiscal 2013 on october 1. under
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a law that was passed in 2010, salaries were frozen for 2011, and 2012. but employees still have been able to get raises with promotions as a performance reward, or by climbing the pay scale. but we have some good news for you, nearly one year after our big earthquake, the washington monument is not sinking. a government report says the quake did not cause any change in the base for the depth of the monument. experts from the national geodentic surgery says it weighs about 90,000 tons, and sits on a base made mostly of clay, sand, and gravel. surveyors say they're surprised that that quake didn't force a shift in the base. still to come, when 9 news now continues, a dinosaur tracker makes a huge discovery
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at a government facility. and it's right here in our area. we'll have details.
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well today, the mars rover curiosity will take its first test drive. it will be the first venture out from its landing spot, and it's only scheduled to go 10 feet. eventually mars hopes to have it scale a 3-mile high rock in
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the center of the martian crater. a recent discovery has scientists looking at earth. walking through the discovery he made at goddard space center. >> reporter: what i found is the back print of a large dinosaur sawed a notisaur. this is really quite a rare find. notisaur tracks aren't often found. there are some west, and in british columbia up in canada. but we don't have a whole lot of them in the u.s. this is one of the few of them i found in maryland in the eastern united states. according to other people doing track work, maryland's tracks
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are the most beautiful dinosaur tracks color wise that have ever been found in the world. i found other notisaur tracks, but what really thrilled me about this one is because i found it at goddard's pace. space scientists may walk along here, and walking exactly where this heavy, armored dinosaur walked maybe 110, 112 years ago. all of us need to be aware of preserving this wonderful past of this blue planet of ours. if we don't preserve it, they could be torn up by machines and things. >> by the way, this isn't the only big find in maryland, because a 41-acre plot just
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south of laurel is actually recognized as a dinosaur park. fossils discovered there are more than 60 million years old. howard is up next with the forecast.
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howard's in with the forecast. >> thank you very much. down in atlanta over the weekend. a neat country to drive across. >> i came from atlanta. >> some people do the flight, i
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like the drive. i like to see the countryside and take different routes. today, we're dealing with the allergins once again. that hasn't changed in the last couple of days. not so kind. grass, pollen, and weeds are moderate. mold spores are high. some of the showers have been prompting the moisture around. and mold loves moisture. might get 87, 88 in a couple of spots. i'm going 86 in washington. wind at about 5 miles per hour. one thing we're not seeing is the thunderstorms. there are going to be isolated wins. the nationals going tore the sweep r.-- for the sweep of the braves. we're just starting to see a couple of specks of green, hitting the hillsides to our south and west.
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i think later this afternoon, we'll be dealing with those isolated storms. temps in the low 80s around here. out to the west, still mid- to upper 70s. we had mid-up up to -- mid- to upper 50s this morning. easton currently at 79. a pretty nice lunch hour. we've got the mix of clouds and sunshine now. some high clouds, some lower clouds starting to pop here a little bit. 81degrees. officially mostly cloudy at reagan national with a light east-northeast wind of 3 miles an hour. our humidity comfortable at 56%. the middle of the country looks good. we're getting showers and storms in some areas that the monsoon has switched here. you see the moisture coming onshore from the pacific, into arizona, into nevada. vegas might only be 89 today for august. that's cool. storms up in montana. the gulf coast, florida, the
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southeast coast, lots of moisture here. an old frontal boundary still around, and giving us that threat. so the isolated thousander and storm in the -- shower and storm in the afternoon. you see the specks of green dancing across the landscape. tomorrow, again we'll pop up the showers and the storms. i want to take you to the tropics. we've got isaac, approaching the leeward islands, but also tropical storm tim. isaac looking a little more organized. a few more storms wrapping around the center here. going to go west through the islands, passing south of puerto rico. hispaniola may get hit with a hurricane. this could be approaching south florida as a hurricane. we'll be watching it. 86 today. code green days. 87 tomorrow. 88 friday. as we go through the weekend,
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nighttime lows rising from the 60s to the low 70s. pretty nice, but we warm up to the 90-degree mark. we'll be back with more 9 news at noon, in just a moment. e d poenal hmf gms
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today on one-on-one with randy schools, he is the president and the ceo from the nia recreation and welfare foundation. one of the areas most popular outdoor film festivals is coming back to bethesda this weekend, thursday, friday, and
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saturday. it's the comcast outdoor festival. randy can tell us all about it. where is it being held? >> it's being held at the mid- pike plaza. which has a new name, pike and rose, which is at the intersection of georgetown and rockville pike. it's just a wonderful opportunity for people in the community to come out and have free entertainment. our screen is the largest one on the east coast. it's five stories tall, so people get to see movies, and we mix it up with some classics, all the president's men. >> what are we going to see this weekend? >> it's all the president's men. and then midnight in paris. and we bought the zoo on saturday evening. which is a great family movie. the whole reason is to raise funds for three charities. we have friends of the clinical center, which helps families with emergency needs. the children's end, which is a 55 room facility for children
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with illness, and special love fantastic with the medical staff from nci and children with cancer. the whole purpose, it's free, there's going to be great food trucks. there's going to be entertainment starting every evening around 5:30. and free is the key word. at the same time, you can help by making purchases for the food. and we try to get families together. family reunions, birthdays, it's just a fun way for college students to get together with their buddies before they go back to their perspective schools. >> it's wonderful the comcast outdoor festival. so you can arrive at 5:30. >> you can purchase your food. the movies start right about dusk. about 8:30. enjoy the evening. this year, we have some beer and wine, if individuals would like to have some, and it's just a good time to relax, and enjoy your family. >> and really help some wonderful wonderful programs that you mentioned, those
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programs are absolutely fabulous. that's this weekend, the comcast outdoor festival in bethesda. come out, see a great movie, and help some wonderful programs. thank you randy for being here. >> thank you for being with you at channel 9. >> come back and visit us at 5:00. and go to jchayward.com. have a good day. ♪ [ music ]
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