Elementary school in his backpack. He was facing charges of brandishing a weapon. Boys mother tells news4s Northern Virginia bury chief julie kerry, shes still angry with how the boy was treated. Shell continue to push the School System to reconsider policies for cases like this. The boy has since transferred to another school. Today president obama will issue another warning about what sequestration cuts will do to our economy. Hes traming to a shipyard in virginia to lay out the impact the looming cuts will have on the Defense Industry. Heres a live look at joint base andrews, where the president will be arriving any minute. From there hell hit newport news and speak at newport news shipbuildi shipbuilding. Its virginias largest industry employer. The Hampton Roads region depends heavily on military and defense spending. Meanwhile, virginias governor says the president would be better off staying in washington. He says the president needs to stop campaigning and start working for a solution. News4s Megan Mcgrath has more on that. Reporter Virginia Governor bob mcdonald making the rounds of Media Outlets this morning, urging lawmakers to reach a budget deal and spare the old dominion the pain of sequester cuts. 25,000 defense contractors. Its just really bad for virginia. But its bad for the United States of america. Every three to six months we have a crisis that brings us to the edge of financial collapse and mutual finger pointing and we cant get anywhere. Reporter virginia would be particularly hard hit by acrosstheboard cuts. Heavy on Defense Industry jobs, the white house says some 90,000 industry workers are now facing possible furloughs. Governor mcdonald says it just doesnt make sense for defense to take such a large hit, especially now. In a time of war to tap 50 of the cuts beyond defense is just is just bad policy. Secretary panetta said wed be devastated. Virginia estimates are 200,000 lost jobs over the next ten years. And so while theyve got to cut, dont do it in such a random, haphazard way. Reporter later today, president barack obama will use a Newport News Shipbuilding yard to highlight the impact of the sequester on defense. Governor mcdonald says the president would get more done if he had stayed in washington. The president s failed. Hes running around doing press kmpbs. He ought to be talking to Congressional Republicans and democrats and leading and getting it done. Reporter while opposed to acrosstheboard cuts, governor mcdonald agrees with his republican colleagues that federal spending needs to be reined in. He seeds there needs to be a more systemic approach, one that begins with a hard look at entitlements. On capitol hill, Megan Mcgrath, news4. As we speak, Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano is giving her state of Homeland Security address. Well have much more on what shes saying late they are hour. Napolitano warned yesterday the sequestration cuts will undermine her departments ability to protect the country. She says dhs will have to furlough thousands of border agents. She also claims it could take four hours or longer to clear customs at some airports. The federal government is already releasing several detained immigrants to save money. A spokesman for immigration and Customs Enforcement says the agencys field offices are reviewing the number of immigrants they have in custody to make sure they stay within their budgets. She says the agency will still pursue cases against these immigrants and will deport people when necessary. So, news4 is tracking every negotiation, every twist and turn of this sequestration showdown. Well keep you up to speed as fridays deadline approaches. Our web team is also working very hard to make sure you can find everything you need to know on nbcwashington. Com. New today, crews rescued a horse stuck in a barn in calvert county. Chopper 4 flew over the scene this morning. Apparently the horse fell into a hole in a barn on Aberdeen Drive in dunkirk. Rescuers took more than an hour to pull that horse out. Turning to the weather, the rain we hear will be moving into parts of our area, tom kierein joins us with our first forecast for midday today. Good morning. Good morning, barbara. The yes, the rain is just about to cross the Potomac River out of virginia and head into the district within the hour. Theres the wide view of storm team 4 radar. The area in pink, thats where theyre getting sleet and icing, freezing rain mainly at the Higher Elevations, elevations above generally 1,000 feet. Right now the leading edge of that rain, you can see those areas in the green not coming into Fairfax County. A little light range in prince william, stafford, charles, into st. Marys, southern cal vert and farther west of there a little bit of rain in faulkier county, just now coming into southern loudoun county. A little light rain farther south, too, rappahannock county, culpepper and madison and green. In the blue ridge, the Higher Elevations, that little area of pink, thats where theyre getting that light freezing rain, initially a light glaze may be forming on untreated surfaces there. As we get into the afternoon, there could be a little more. And down in the valley, though, its above freezing but up on those ridges where its below freezing still. But closer to washington, in the upper 30s to near 40 degrees, upper 30s in montgomery, fair x fairfax, arlington, Prince Georges County near 40 in washington, and warming into the mid40s this afternoon. How much rain will we get and when does it end . That coming up along with the sevenday outlook. Well see now yao in a few minutes. For many across this area this morning it was a tough commute. Metro riders had a serious test of patience in virginia over what some people called dangerous overcrowding on the orange line. Now rider, they want to know why. News4s tony toll is live at the station. Does it look any better as we speak . Reporter krooet keith, crews are working on it as we speak. Take a look. You can see crew members down along the track, westphals church metro station, welding in some connectors. More specifically, let me show you exactly what were talking about here. If you take a look down at the track here, youll see that these seed bond connectors right here so you can see what tony was saying as we lost his report on how workers at the westphals church station are trying to repair the tracks as we speak. It looks like theyre trying to make the repairs. Tony, if we have you back, you can resume. Reporter yeah, keith. As i was showing you, take a look. These are the bonds they are trying to fix right now. I want to show you a little bit of video of how they do it. It only takes about five or ten minutes. They connect the new c bonds onto the track, stick a powder in there, then weld them. Its done in about five minutes. As you can imagine, all these c bonds along the track from westphals church to East Falls Church are broken so theyre repairing them all. We did see a lot of delays. A lot of people took to twitter this morning, very unhappy, but they should say this should be fixed by about noon today so the rush hour tonight will not see well, glad we got tonys report back on track and we hope the same remains there. The frustrations extended this morning to the roadways. A the bread truck you see lost control of on the outbound suit land parkway this morning and hate tree. The driver was take on the hospital and is expected to be okay, but the crash caused lanes to be shut down on the parkway until about 7 30 this morning. Police are still investigating. And in maryland, police are trying to figure out why a tractortrailer overturned on the inner loop overnight. The truck flipped near the exit of route 450. It knocked down a sound barrier wall and actually landed in someones backyard on the other side. The people who live there tell one of our photographers they thought it was an earthquake. The driver did suffer lifethreatening injuries. We are working to learn his current condition. New today, Prince Georges County schools go on lockdown. Fortunately, its just a drill. About an hour ago, every Public School in the county shut its doors not allowing anyone or anything in or out of any Public School for about an hour. Its part of a plan to practice safety in the wake of those deadly sandy hook shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in newtown, connecticut. Meantime, growing enrollment has Montgomery County schools asking for more money. The school board has asked the county council to approve a 2. 23 billion budget for 2014, a 2. 5 increase over this years budget. Joshua starr says most of that money allows them to serve about 2,300 more students expected to move into the county. It will also Fund Investments in math instruction and more middle school staff. We have a reporter at the Supreme Court right now, the nations highest Court Hearing arguments in a case to determine if and when police can take dna samples from a suspect. This stems from a case in maryland. Prosecutors used dna to convict a man of rape. The States High Court overturned that conviction, saying police didnt have the authority to take a sample after he was arrested. The Supreme Court will likely rule in this case later this year. And right now, the army private accused of sending a mountain of classified documents to website wikileaks is back in court. Fourday hearing is expected to focus on two issues. First, Bradley Mannings request for all charges to be dismissed. His Attorney Says manning has not received a speedy trial. Prosecutors say the complexity of the case has led to the delays. And second, the court could consider mannings offer to plead guilty to 10 of the 22 counts against him. You can weigh in today on whether those signs along the roadways in Fairfax County should become history. The county is holding a public hearing on a proposal to remove signs from median strips and intersecs. Its illegal to put signs along many portions of roads owned by vdot. The agency, though, does not have the manpower to remove the signs itself. Todays hearing begins at 4 00 this afternoon in the auditorium at the county government center. Our time 11 11. Coming up, new information released today on what life will be like for Pope Benedict once he steps down on thursday. Plus, during john kerrys first overseas trip as secretary of state, why he says americans have the right to be stupid. Stay with us. New this morning, 19 people died in a hot air balloon crash in egypt. Thats the word from egyptian leaders. The death toll has fluctuated, though, all morning. Egyptian investigators say the balloon caught fire in the final stages of landing and crashed. The victims were from hong kong, japan, britain, france, and belgium. Month americans were hurt. Egyptian leaders grounded all hot air balloon operations. Pope benedict xvi is making some final decisions before stepping down this week. He desided an internal report about leaked papal documents will remain secret. Hell also be known as emeritus pope and will continue to wear white. Tomorrow he holds his final general audience in st. Peters squa square. Thursday morning he meets with all the cardinals and then takes a helicopter to the papal residence south of rome. He will greet the faithful from the balcony. It will be his final public act as pope. He will step down at 8 00 that night. The college of cardinals can begin their conclave to select the next pope as early as monday. Right now john kerry is wrapping up his visit to germany. Americas top diplomat met with german leaders earlier today including chancellor Angela Merkel and the foreign minister. He also spoke to a group of german students and raised some eye blows with his comments about tolerance and freedom of religion in america. In america, you have a right to be stupid if you want to be. And you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be. And we tolerate it. We somehow make it through that. Now, i think thats a virtue. I think thats something worth fighting for. After germany, kerry will head to france as part of his tour through europe and the middle east. Its his first overseas trip as secretary of state. Hell visit Nine Countries in the next week and a half. In just about an hour, the bitter battle to confirm chuck hagel as defense secretary could come to an end. For the first time in history the senate filibustered his nomination, holding up his conversation for more than a week. But some of his most vocal opponents now say they will support the former republican senator. Lawmakers will vote at noon. If they end the filibuster, a final vote to confirm hagel could immediately follow. Mr. Chairman, final tally is 19 ayes including proxies, and 5 nays. Ayes have it. The nomination is recorded. And just like that, the Senate FinanceCommittee Gave the thumbs up for treasury secretary nominee jack lew. The panel voted overwhelmingly to approve the nomination, sending the vote now no the senate floor. Most recently, lew was president obamas chief of staff and would succeed Timothy Geithner if approved. Baeren bernanke is in the middle of testifying to the Senate Banking committee. The Federal Reserve chairman talked about how the economy is slowly but surely improving. He also discussed the impending sequestration and said he feels the 85 billion in cults is too drastic of a move with the economy still so fragile. Replacing the sharp frontloaded spending cuts required by the sequestration with polities that reduce the federal deficit more gradually in the near term but more substantially in the longer run. Such an approach could lessen the nearterm fiscal headwinds facing the recovery while more effectively addressing the longerterm imbalances in the federal budget. Bernanke added that the Federal Reserve is working with the various intelligence agencies to help prevent future cyberattacks from hackers on banking websites. The nbas most infamous bad boy is working on his International Diplomacy career right now. Dennis rodman is spending some time in north korea. Youre looking at his arrival earlier today. Hes traveling with three members of the Harlem GlobetrottersBasketball Team and an hbo film crew. He thai eel be putting on a basketball Training Camp for children this week. Its all part of a new hbo series that will air in april. And we have a pair of globetrotters in our studio today. They will show off a few tricks later in our newscast. Meanwhile, we also have you to show off a few tricks from all of your with your weather clicker. Tell us what wont be a slam dunk, i can tell you that. Bad weather heading our way. We do. We do. I wish we had Meadowlark Lemon here now. Starring off this morning, we are getting those areas of rain just about to move right into washington. And last week i did talk about rain and snow and tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. At this school in Silver Spring in Montgomery County, the strathmore elementary school, talked to the fourthgraders there. And just to their left the fifthgraders filling that gym. I talked to almost 300 students there at the strathmore elementary school. Media specialist debra koresh invited me to talk to the students at the strathmore elementary school. Theyre off bellfry road in Silver Spring. As we take a look at the wonderful poster for me, too, that happened to be the day of my 30th anniversary, made me a cool custom poster. I want to thank them for that. It was a lot of fun visiting there. Theres the gray sky over washington now, 41 at reagan national, an east wind thats continuing to bring in the chilly weather, but its all above freezing. Precipitation getting closer to washington in the form of little bit of freezing rain here where you see the areas in pink right along the blue ridge, freezing rain. Generally its above about 1,000 to 1,500 feet. Elsewhere, lower elevations in rain now, the Shenandoah Valley. East of there just some light rain across Northern Virginia. It is just about to move into washington. And then late they are afternoon in into tonight, generally about an inch of rain. These areas in the green. We might have some flooding. There might be a few isolated spots up to 2 inches, but mostly around an inch of rain which may cause some flooding of some creeks and streams. Farther west these areas in the other colors, thats where there could be icing. Again, generally above 1,000 feet. Freezing rain may cause maybe a tenth of an inch of ice to a quarter inch of ice on tree limbs and power lines and that unfortunately may cause some power outages. Heres the timing. Rain picking up in intensity by late afternoon. These areas in yellow. Thats where there could be heavier rain coming in just to t