Marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples at 8 00 a. M. Tomorrow morning. We could even see some actual wedding ceremonies taking place in the plaza beside the court house. All is quiet at the Arlington County courthouse today, but tomorrow we think were going to have a big crowd tomorrow. Weve had a number of people call and email and express interest as being one of the first to get a marriage license. Reporter Paul Ferguson is the clerk of the circuit court, and his staff is gearing up to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples beginning at 8 00 a. M. Thursday. The new marriage license form was emailed to the Clerks Office by the state late yesterday. Unlike the old application, which said name of bride and groom the new form just says spouse 1 and spouse 2. Reporter the Supreme Court could still weigh in issuing an emergency stay that would put everything on hold. But if they dont intervene, samesex couples can get a license and get married on the very same day. Carla ward is a civil celebrant. She will be outside the arlington courthouse first thing in the morning ready to perform marriage i think that what well do is just wait and see what happens. Ill be happy to perform a marriage for anybody who comes by and i think it will be very nice. Well just be out here in the plaza. I expect that there might be one or two religious celebrants that show up too. Reporter an expectation of a big crowd. Theyre going to use a jurors room inside the court house as an overflow room to accommodate couples filling out the application. Reporting live in arlington, megan mcgrath, news4. Barbara, back to you. Thank you, megan. Now to the weather and the chance of rain today, tomorrow and into the weekend too. Storm team 4 meteorologist chuck bell joins us with his first midday forecast. Good morning. Good morning, barbara. And a good wednesday morning, everybody. A bit of sunshine coming through here in northwest washington right now. I think clouds will start to fill back into our skies a little later on today, but for now its really not a bad morning outside. A little sunshine has allowed for quite the warmup already. 77 in winchester, 75 martinsburg, 75 gaithersburg, 77 in washington, 76 in fredericksburg. As far as storm team 4 radar is concerned, not a whole lot of rain out there just yet. A couple of showers are indeed to be found across parts of the area, mainly to our north and west. Heaviest rain still far westernmost maryland. Nothing west of the blue Ridge Mountains and most of that rain is lifting into pennsylvania. A little daytime heating and well cook up at least a couple of showers and thundershowers around here. High temperature around here 87. Rain mostlily between 4 00 and 7 00. More details coming up. All right. New developments out of missouri overnight. Hands up. Dont shoot. Hands up. Dont shoot. Another night of protests in ferguson, but for the first time in more than a week, the protests were peaceful for the most part. Police say they still made 47 arrests, mainly of people who divide orders to disperse. In the meantime the st. Louis grand jury could hear evidence in the Michael Brown case today. The grand jury there will determine whether the Police Officer that killed brown will face criminal charges. Its possible officer Darren Wilson will be invited to testify about the shooting. Investigators have already interviewed him. Governor jay nixon says he wont take any action to remove the prosecutor on the investigation into browns death. His connections to police have been cited by some black leaders who question his ability to be impartial. These critical investments represent attorney general eric holder is promising a thorough investigation into the Michael Brown case. Holder left for ferguson about two hours ago. Hes meeting with fbi and other officials doing an independent federal investigation today. In an oped piece in the st. Louis dispatch holder says, quote, we hope that the independence and thoroughness of our investigation will bring some measure of calm to the tensions in ferguson. Were waiting to see if former governor Bob Mcdonnell will take the stand today in his federal corruption trial. A financial expert for the defense is expected to finish his testimony this morning. The former Virginia Governor entered court a day after getting some helpful testimony from his sister, maureen. She testified that the relationship between her brother and the first lady was strained. Bob mcdonnells sister says she had plenty of money to bail out the small Real Estate Company that she shared with her brother. Today before court mcdonnell said hes glad his side of the story is coming to court. Its always better to be on offense than defense. Any thoughts about your family going on the stand. Ive been blessed to have a very, very close family. Its one of the great things god has blessed us with is great brothers and sisters, great kids. Im looking forward to the rest of the case. As has been the case for the whole trial, his wife, maureen mcdonnell, entered court separately. Bob mcdonnell is expected to testify himself sometime this week. Youll see more school buses on the roads this afternoon. Two more School Systems in maryland are back in class. St. Marys county Public Schools have a new leader. Jane smith will serve as interim superintendent when the present one steps down next month. He accepted a job in west virginia. Michael eagan is the new principal at the forest career and technology center. Students in Washington County are also in class. A reminder, maryland requires new vaccinations for students in kindergarten and seventh grade. We have more information on nbcwashington. Com. And were following a developing story. The beheading of american journalist james foley and the threat of another execution from militants from the islamic straight extremely group. The message foleys mother is sending to that group. Montgomery county students head back to class next week. Well sit down with the superintendent in Montgomery County to talk about some of the challenges facing that school system. Stay with us. Were continuing to monitor a developing story this morning. Were expecting to hear from president obama sometime today after the beheading of an american journalist. Islamic ste militants released a video showing that execution yesterday. U. S. Officials say they do believe the man in the video is journalist james foley. Foley had been kidnapped while reporting in syria two years ago. Neighbors in his hometown were devastated when they got the news. It is horrible. Its uncalled for. You know, its something that he is just an innocent person here. And it just makes you wonder what this world is really, really like. Isis says the execution was in retaliation from the recent u. S. Air strikes in iraq. They are threatening to kill another reporter if the air strikes continue. And foleys mother released a statement late last night. She says, quote, we have never been prouder of our son, jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the syrian people. We implore the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages. Were following a developing story in chicago right now as well where a hostage situation just ended. Police say the two men who were holding two children and two adults hostage released them about 30 minutes ago. The hostage situation began when the two men broke into another home yesterday afternoon, got into a shootout with police, then ran into this home. Two Police Officers were hurt in that shootout. The two suspects are now in custody. The results are in, those two Dan Sullivans we talked about yesterday brooth on the primary in alaska. Find out if the results were the same for both candidates. And we have a partly sunny sky with temperatures near 80 degrees already. It promises to be warm and humid at the very least and rain chances are on the up and up for this afternoon and the coming days. More on all that with your sevenday forecast coming up. New today, the d. C. Police union endorsed independent candidate david catana in the race for mayor. Carol schwartz says shes disappointed in the unions decision to endorse katana. The election will be tuesday, november 4th. And new today, the nra is taking aim at new yorks mayor, michael bloomberg. The former mayor, that is. The Gun Rights Group will begin running a new ad across the country. It paints bloomberg as an out of touch elitist. Bloomberg is a gun control advocates. The nra says it will not sit back and let bloomberg use his money to impose his, quote, antifreedom agenda. Well, the state of alaska could have two Dan Sullivans in elected office next year. Overnight voters chose two men, both named dan sullivan, in their states primary. One is vying to take the senate of senator mark begich and the other hopes to become the next lieutenant governor. Voters say the campaign was confusing. Signs and ads did get confusing with two men with the same name running for office. With more students going back to school next week, that means you will spend more time on the road with the added traffic. A study about the Transportation Planning board found your average commute time will go up by 26 . Its about 25 minutes in the region. Students in d. C. , montgomery and prince georges counties all start school next week. Aaa reminds you to check the sidewalks for children crossing the streets out there. Well, just a few days of summer left for students in Montgomery County. They have a couple of days left. Teachers are back in the classroom preparing for the upcoming year. Montgomery county superintendent joshua starr joins us with the changes parents and students should expect as schools open on monday. Monday. Are you ready . Always, we are ready to go. Its an exciting time, isnt it . It is exciting. Butterflies in the stomach but everybody is excited t. O. The kids back. I understand youre expecting to have nearly 3,000 new students. Whats the population . Were up to about 154,000. We are expecting that 2800 more students this year than last year. And where are they coming from . Theyre coming from all over. Certainly an immigrant population in Montgomery County. We have new developments there. Its not just one place. Now, some people are asking could some of these new students be these unaccompanied children, children who cross the border without parents . Weve seen a little less than 50 thus far this year. That number might grow as the year goes on. Last year we had about 107 coming in but we have a really thorough intake process. We do everything we can to make sure theyre well taken care of. We work with county agencies to make sure their needs are met and were prepared to deal with whatever comes our way. Now, youre going to be using a lot of portable classrooms, not because of those particular students but with all the students that are flooding the classrooms these days. How long will that have to you know, its going to continue until the state comes forward and recognizes that we are the fastestgrowing district in the state and that even while the county executive and the county Council Support our infrastructure needs, we need more from the state. They have to recognize it and were going to continue to have portables. Even though we opened new schools, portables are a way of life in Montgomery County. We understand youre probably going to have a lot more students who will need the free lunch program. Absolutely. Are you ready for that . Always. Weve seen an increase in that over the years. Were up to about 52,000 kids. About a third of our kids are eligible for free and reduced price meals. You know, we do everything we can to make sure our kids are supported and were ready for anything. We have just reported just in the last week that you have announced a new code of conduct. Tell us a little bit about that. So safety continues to be our number one priority, but we also know that kids need to be in school to learn. I was just in some training with some teachers this morning at Elementary Schools and one of the things were talking about is social and emotional development. When kids have bad behavior, its a teachable moment. The new code of conduct allows for some discretion amongst administrators when it comes to suspensions but weve already seen some great decreases in our discretionary suspensions because we want kids in school, we want them to learn from their behaviors and we will continue to make sure our schools are safe and secure environments for adults and kids. A lot of people think suspension is a little tough for first and second graders. It can be ridiculous at that age. Sometimes you do have to suspend kids, but we have to be thoughtful and most importantly we have to help teach our kids new ways of dealing with conflict and resolving a difficult situation. Talk to us about common core and the new standardized testing that youre using. So its here. This is the first year of p. A. R. K. , which is the common core test. ve gn getting ready for five years in Montgomery County. Were excited about it. Were seeing our kids engage in deeper learning. Go to our website and see some of the sample items and you see the kinds of things that our kids are being asked to do. Really going to prepare them for the 21st century. But it is a big shift. Our teachers are working hard, our administrators are working hard. Its a huge shift. I encourage people to learn about it and see how were asking our kids to be much more deeply engaged in thinking than they were before. We were just talking about how exciting this time is. Do you get butterflies on the fit day of school . I do, i do. Sending my own kids off to school and seeing the other kids come in, but its a great time and everybody is excited about it. Summer ends for your School Students all over Montgomery County on monday. Have a good year. Thanks so much. Always good to see you. A surprising number of people skipping vacation time. Plus car recalls in the news. Coming up, a new tool to help you figure out if the car youre driving or want to buy is safe. First, heres a look at whats hot on nbcwashington. Com. Im melissa at the live desk. If you drive through virginia, you might want to listen up. Were just learning that by next year, 19 lanes on the dulles toll road will go from exact toll lanes to ez pass only. The westbound lanes at the exit for Fairfax County parkway, 90 of toll drivers pay by ez pass already. Only one lane will be converted at a time, taking two to four weeks each. The project starts september 2nd. That is the day after labor day and what some call terrible traffic tuesday. At the live desk, now back to you. Thanks, melissa. New this morning, finding out if your car is on a recall list can be a difficult process until now. Right now you can go online and use the free search tool to find out. All you need to do is enter your vehicle Identification Number and the site will show you whether your car is directly impacted by a recall. This is made possible by the department of transportation. You can find the link to the website on nbcwashington. Com. Apparently almost half of us arent taking all of our paid vacation time. A new survey says that 40 of American Workers wont use all of their unpaid vacation days. Here are some of the reasons why were leaving paid time on the table. You dread returning to a massive backlog after vacation. You believe no one will step up and do your job while youre gone. You cant afford to take a trip or youre afraid of being replaced while youre gone. Well, we know who won the social media showdown between the National Zoos giant panda cub and the starspangled banner. Bow bow won the contest. The smithsonian asked people to tweet their favorite thing at any exhibit. Bow bow received more than 13,000 votes. This saturday she will celebrate her very first birthday. Caught on camera, a highway scene that looked like a movie stunt. Well show you what happened immediately after this motorcycle slammed into a car. Plus were starting to see a little sunshine in spots out there, but rain could return again this afternoon. Meteorologist chuck bell is coming back with why we should get used to the rain for the next few days. And from airports to bus stops, world famous art is popping up everywhere you look. Well find out where you can see it in your neighborhood. Stay with us, well be right back. We want to show you some amazing video. Take a look at this. This is happening in russia. A motorcycle crashes into the back of the car. The biker flips over and lands on top of that car on his two feet. He manages to keep his balance while the car is going 60 miles an hour down the highway. This is not a stunt. The whole thing was captured on the cars dash cam. I bet you could do that, couldnt you . No. I wonder if he was a should notman. I think hes just incredibly lucky and incredibly stupid for driving that fast on the road on a motorcycle. I wonder if he got a ticket for that. Maybe a job offer so tell me, we really are looking for rain for the next few days and into the weekend . Rain chance. Its not going to rain every minute of every day between for you and the weekend but as each day goes by, your rain chances are Getting Better today into tomorrow, especially friday and friday night. It looks like that may be the rainiest stretch that were up against, but no washouts. No 100 chances for rain just yet but were in the solid 40 to 50 range for both thursday and friday. Outside on a wednesday almost lunchtime now, skies are indeed partly to mostly cloudy. Weve seen breaks of sunshine from time to time and that has allowed for quite the warmup. We started losing our Computer Data as well. Temperatures around the area may or may not plot for us, well see. Weather impact on your tuesday today, it will be a relatively low impact. Our rain