back to you. >> megan mcgrath live for us. megan, thank you. >> and aaron, you just happened to be home when this fire broke out. you saw it develop and stopped and went over thereo help with the coverage. >> yeah, i live about five blocks away from there and was headed home. you see a little smoke coming in from the highway. suddenly, the black cloud got bigger. you saw more fire engines cominn it was really shocking to see this happen. then to be there reporting and to watch tgrt fire , the flames jumping from one roof to the other,lehe smoke that f the navy yard neighborhood. i talked to one woman who was working on the navy yard property who said she smelled the smoke and thought her building was on fire four, fivey blocks a lot of people were shocked. it was right around rush hour, people were leaving work. but the highlight here, the good part is to know nobody w seriously hurt as a result. >> a great effort to get everyone accounted for. much mor t coverage ofs fire ahead on news 4 today. we'll see more remarkable utotag

back to you. >> megan mcgrath, thank you. d aaron, you were down in that area covering the story forin u he evening. how did you first spot what was going on? >> so i live over there. i've lived over there most of the eighyears i've beenere in d.c. just going home yesterday afternoon at 3:30, you could see the smoke coming from that building. then sudnly thisuge fire department presence. i parked my car and jumped out and ran the few blocks to meet a arriving ar who was the same time. i've driven by this building a hundred times livinre over t to see it go up in smoke the way it did and to see these flames -literally, you think about this building, it's sort of four buildings aoncted. there's a courtyard in the middle, as i've been told. you watched that fire jump from one part of the building to the other until it got to that last sction we saw crumbling. just an awfne to watch. so grateful for the firefighterr who there, both from d.c., from the naval district, prince then those young marines who -- one marine told me they

back to you. >> megan mcgrath. thank you. >>> one after another, the list of deniers is growing,prs ident trump tries to figure out which senior administration official penned thacathing "new york times" op-ed against him this week. >> at last night's rally in lentana, he demanded that "the new york times" e the name. >> the latest act of resistance is the op-ed published in the failing "new york times" by an anonymous, gutless coward. he was -- nobody knows who the s hell hr she. he put he, maybe thas a little disguise, probably a she. but for th security, "the new york times" should publish his name. >> news 4's tracie potts is live on capitol hill this morning tracie, who has come forward so far to deny that he or she penned this op-ed?eo >>e who want with the president, quite publicly, coming up to the president saying, it's not me. i didn't write it. i'm not behind it. many of them are cabinet e mbers. the vesident, the secretary of state a a number of other ones say, i can't write that. there can be any numbe

news 4's megan mcgrath is live at that building on 5th street lesoutheast. peut there yesterday told me they didn't hear the fire alarm, didn't see the sprinkler system go off. what did we hear from fire officials about thatissue? >> reporter: well, they've heard those reports too. we can tell you that. that certainly is going to be a big part of this investigation. did the alarms work? did the smoke detectors go off? d the sprinklers work? we don't have a definitive answer at this point. certainly a bstion lingering out there. as you look at the scene live, you can see we have another shift of emergency vehicles that have come i they've set up those tower hoses there. they're not actually spraying water at this point, but they're standing by just in case there is any kind of a flare-up this morning. this was just a massive fire. many residents telling news 4, as you just mentioned, they didn't hear the alarms, that it was people who went through the building banging on the doors. that's how they were alerted. the flames spreading very quickly along the roof

back to you. >> all right, megan mcgrath. megan, thank you. icide attempts are rampant in jails and prisons. a news4 i-team investigation shows more than 400 attempts in local jails in the past three years alow. >> scott mcfarlane continues our coverage with how a major facility like the one in montgomery county htr been ng to reduce the risk of these things happening. scott. >> good morning, aaron. in july the director of the montgomery county department of corrections told the if an inmate is intent on harming himself or her self, it akes just a brief moment or second to doit. using public records requests, they have responded to 100 suicide attempts in the larger jail and the smaller detention center they have. two of those attempts resulted in thees deaths of inmone earlier this summer and of course this morning. in july the county granted rare aco the clarksburg jail to the i-team and correctional officers there say they have made several recent rescues, including one in which an officer stepped beneath caught a man who attempted to leap

>> megan mcgrath with the details that parents will want to know. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, guys. this is a one-year pilot program designed to oimprove safet the elementary school level. retired, arm police officers will serve as community safety offirs in elementary schools across prince william county. formal approval was given for ase pilot program night. the program calls for a total of five csos, the communitysa daty officers. they will wear uniforms and they will look different. the community safety officers are going to rotate t through elementary schools. >> you have about 60 elementary schools. they are more or less rotating through the different schools. ght now what they're doing is going to the schools and introducing themselves and building the relationships with our younger students. >> and i the progralready under way. two community safety officers have already beend, ti as well as a supervisor three more hires. and that will be happening in the coming weeks. >> thank you. >>> work to pick a jury for the high-profile d.

news 4's megan mcgrath is liveor thisng. >> plus, on the run. we're following the search for a man who killed a local jogger this week in d.c.'s logan we've learned more about wendy martinez and the events that led up to her death. we will have full reports on both of those stoes throughout e morning. >> first, though, we want to check on your commute with melissa and of course this beautiful forecast with meteorologist chuck bell. very nice, chuck. >> i hope you're enjoying it, because we have earned it ando t is going another nice day to be outside. still early morning darkness. n i not up until just before 7:00 this morning. once the sun is up, it will start to burn away the fog, which is rather thick across parts of central virginia and the shenandoah vley. no fog issues here in and around the city this mning. temperatures, a nice big range. upper 50s in western maryland. some upper 50s in theh shenand valley. most of the western suburbs are in the 60s this morning. eastern suburbs, prince george's county to the bay, mostly in the upper 60s

news 4's megan mcgraths at headquarters with more. >> reporter: good morning,uys. metro's board pleased with general manager's performance. he's set to extend his contract for at least sever more years d increasing his pay by more than 9%. the contract runs through november of 2021. the base salary is $435,000, but there's a 5% to 10% pay increase, an option for that sed upon performance. this is their fst pay raise since he took the job in 2015. now, he took over at general manager when there were major concerns about safety. he actually shut down the entire metro system for emergency repairs, something that had never been done before. he started the safe track pair and maintenance program, reliability is up, and breakdowns are down during his tenure. however, the decision to extend the contract is not popular with union leaders. they've been calling for his firing for quite some time. members actually authorized a strike last summer, although workers have not actually walked off the job. a lot of tension there between the general manager and the union with this o

megan mcgrath isive with the latest.eporter: ll, cardinal donald wuerl has faced increasing criticism that he didn do enough to protect children from predator priests back when he was a bishop of pittsburgh, and now comes world that cardinal wuerl will be going to rome to ask pope francis to accept his resignation. it's standard procedure for b h bishops to offer resignation when they turn 75. wuerl did that neay three years ago, but the pope did not act on that resignation letter. now cardinal wuerl wilflbe ng to the vatican today to personally ask the pope to allow down. step however, it remains to be seen what pope francis will do. >> the holy father, the pope, is not required to accept it. he'll accep it at the point in which he's ready and willing to replace him with his successor. >> reporte now, a recent pennsylvania grand jury report found that some 300 priests sexually abused more than a thousand children since the 1940s. cardinal wuerl was bishop of pittsburgh for part o that time, and he has been criticized fo

megan mcgrath in norwest for us, thank you. >>> it's 6:35. now to our other top stories. recent high school graduate was shot dead on his way home from the store. tapian ney was killed sunday afternoon in stanton road in southeast d.c. his mother tellss news 4 he just getting a soda from the corner store. he was part of th nonprofit horton's kids that provides tutoring for kids in the community. he was also set to begin classes at udc soon. >>> nowo the trial of the man charged in the d.c.ansion murders. yesterday, talk about an emotional day in court. amy's father took the stand. he says he learned about the fire in his daughter's house from a reporter. he eventually learned his daughter, son-in-law, and 10-year-old grandson all died in at fire. their housekeeper was also killed. >>> the director of heather's kids day care is accused of assaulting a child in herhe car. her whitfield is charged with assault and battery. police say she told the little boy's family that an accident led to injuries to his lip and ar last month. family services launched an investigation, and

megan mcgrath has been talking to folks at dca. what are you seeing and hearing? >> well, we are seeing the travel impact already. more than 1,000 h flightsave been cancelled for today and tomorrow. when you look at the board here atio reagan nl airport, we're starting to see cancellations here as well. as hurricane florence barrels toward the canelinas, air are beginning to pull planes and cancel flights. charleston and raliegh already d ground yaman williams s wasposed to fly to ft. lauderdale at 8:00 p.m. tonight. he switched to a 10:00 a.m. flight. >> we called jet blue to see if they could change it, and the changed it for free for us. >> airlines are waiving change fees in the areas impacted by florence. passengers should check f ght schedules before going to the airport. rail service has also been impacted. amtrak began cancelling trains on southern routes yesterday. a number ofce cations will continue to grow today through sunday. >> how long will we see the travel impact? that really depends upon what hurricane florence delivers. we're going to have to wa

. >> megan mcgrath is live at a nlood donation center northwest d.c. where people are already lining up, we understand. >> reporter: yeah, we are here at the donation center on e street northwest and you can see already we have people giving donations. they donated blood. other people have donated plate let's. some of the people are going to need medical attention, and there are a lot of people at home wondering what they can do to help, and giving blood would be an excellent way. many blood drives previouslyhe led had to be rescheduled, so there's an urgent need for blood. the people you see here are stepping forward to do their part. >> new bern there, it's certainly a dire situation. if you are interested in giving blood, it takes about h anr to give blood, longer, of course, to give platelets, and they are lookg for all the volunteers they can get. you can come to this location or the red cross has locations all across the region. if you don't want to wait in line or anything like that, you can go online and make an apartment so you can comeight in

. >>> the oth story is southeast washington where a child was hot >> megan mcgrath is at the police stationh more on what we know at this point. ine, for the family of this young girl. she was not the intended target, it was a situation o wrong place, wrong time. look at the video here. it was w last nightn shots rang out on langston place and heast washington a stray bullet hit a little girl in the area. she is going to be okay. she was apparently shot in the ankles. she was taken to he hospital and recovering from those injuries. a very close call. not aor lot of ition has been released by police at this point. this happened about 9:45 las night, in the 2700 block of langston place. police looking for witnesses and tips. at this point, they have not made any larrests. stilking for the person who is responsible. back to you. >> megan, thank >>you. back to the breaking news out of baltimore. chris lawrence is at the live desk wh more. chris, this is a massive fire. >> boy, oh, boy. we are watching it grow and grow. look at this. chopper over that fire now. you can see the glow from the inte

in yeah, chopper 4 is kaptur tkapturing -- capturing the scene and megan mcgrath is live on the ground wit details. >> reporter: well, you can see the entrance to the path here on banister circle. if we pan down, you cangh see where the path curves where the trees are, that is where investigators hav been here taking a look around the area. that is where the discovery was made. by, it was actually made students using this path to walk by a nearby middle school they found the body of what appears to be an adult male lying on that path. the kids continued to the school and reported what they found. this was about 7:30 this mornsg. the trailsed by a lot of people in the area, so they don't think that this person had been there long. >> the bike path is used by a lot of people, it feeds into different neighborhoods and also leads to the back of the school so it is used quite often. >> so you don't think the body was there long? >> we don't think the body has been there that long. all right and so investigators still trying toigure out exactly what happened here. the body we're told had sig

. >> megan mcgrath, thank you. >> aaron, on your way home you saw this as well. tell me about what that was like. >> i live five blocks or so away from the senior living facility here. to drive up, to see the smoke there, you think, oh, something's on fire. as i got closer, you see more smoke, you see the hugeire response. and shocking on that level. but obviously for us it was, jump right into action, as a reporter, you go to the scene and try to figure out what you can. 's nice to hear from megan there's an effort to organize a collection money from people. 15 years heago, wasn't as much development in this area, it was a few apartments and warehouses and that's it. i think you'll see people their best to help out for the folks who lived in that building. >> amazing that everybody got out. >> fire department did great job, marines from the nearby barracks ran to the scene and literally threw people over their shoulders. >>> time to get o a checkthe forecast, storm team 4's amelia draper. >> good morng, guys. some good news in the weather department. after plent

megan l mcgrath ise outside met h metrdquarters with more. >> reporter: good morning, guys. metro's boa wants to make sure the general manager doesn't go anywhere, that he stays at the helm here in washington. o later today, the board is expected to approve an extension of his contract. take a look here. that extension would run through november of 2021 z. the base pay, nearly halll a n dollars with performance-based races. now, he took over as general manager when there were major ns about safety. in fact, he shut down the entire syst for emergency repairs. that was something that hadn never beeone before. he also started the safe track program, whi accelerated repairs and improvements. it caused some delays, some service disruptionsti and s closures, but metro said it allowed three years of work to be done in ia little over a year. however, metro's union not exactly happy about ners that s going to be an extension of his contract. in fact, union leaders have been asking for wiedefeld's firing for quite some time. the yucunion over the summer approved a strike vote, althoug