Transcripts For WTTG 20110125 : vimarsana.com

point of contention between both democrats and republicans. earlier today we talked to virginia republican congressman rob whitman about the difference between what democrats will say are investment and what republicans are saying are spending. we ve had significant increases in spending over the last two years so just stopping the increase in spending is not enough. if you re talking about increasing spending in other areas, i want to know what that is for. i m very, very circumspect about saying we re going to increase spending while being serious about reducing the deficit and reducing the national debt. reporter: joining us now, maryland senator cardin. we always hear both sides talking about wanting to work together. this spending versus investment thing is going to be a point of discussion. can democrats or republicans come to an agreement about what is important and what needs to come out of this budget? i believe so. the american public wants solution that are not for democrats or republicans or independents but for all americans. and we ve got to grow our economy and create more jobs. that s our highest priority, so yes, i think we can come together and i think we need to come together. i expect the president to stress those points tonight. reporter: and people have been talking about the discussions over the debate and tone and manner in which both sides of capitol hill conduct themselves. after 9/11 and oklahoma city, we heard both parties say they want to work together and eventually time moved on in that manner of talking. and is this for real this time, members sitting together and will we see movement or cooperation from the lake duck session that just ended. and i think that s a good example. we did work together and allow the political system to work. we didn t compromise our principles and got things done because we listened to each other. but clearly we have to address issues. america needs to be competitive and maintain our edge on the international economy. so we need to get together. and that s what the american people want us to do and i think it will happen. reporter: and a lot of people say they are sitting with new members. who are you sitting with tonight? i m been asked by two colleagues to sit with them so i m sitting with roger wicker from mississippi and also roy blunt from missouri. so i m going to have a good time tonight listening to the president with my colleagues. reporter: thank you for your time tonight, sir. and moving forward tonight, we re expecting that the president will talk a little more about the themes he raised in that arizona memorial and talk to the country about why not only the debate is important but the result that will produce on how this economy moves forward in as the president said a increasingly global market. and daniel hernandez who worked in gabrielle giffords office who was there at the shooting and who else will be there tonight? reporter: this is a tradition for state of the union messages. ronald reagan was the first president to do that. he brought larry scut nick, the guy who jumped into the potomac after a crash, and the president looked into the gallery and said what he saw america was about. and ever since then every president has done the same. and tonight we ll not only see the family members of the victims of the arizona shooting, we ll also see members of the united states military and also some people in the job creation market too. the president really wants to get the message home to these corporations that he needs them to start hiring people to see the economy turn around. so that is a big part of the speech and we ll no doubt see people up in the gallery from the corporwoell. tom fitzgerald, thanks very much. you can watch the state of the union here on fox 5 or on myfoxdc.com. our live coverage starts at 9:00 tonight. new developments today at rahm emanual s quest to become the next mayor of chicago. the illinois supreme court has decided to take up a ruling to keep him off the ballot. craig wallace is live in chicago. so craig, explain the latest development for the e manual camp. reporter: it is on the ballot. the supreme court issued a stay blocking the ruling that kicked him off of the ballot, ordering the board of elections to stop printing the ballots. 300,000 had already been printed. they have reconfigured the pressing and they are printing them with his name on it. the supreme court said they will hear the case and did not give a time table for that. but it said it is not going to hear any additional argument or take any additional briefs, it will review what had been filed with the appellate court and make a decision based upon that. so right now rahm emanual is still a candidate for mayor but things could all change. the problem for both sides is right now the court is not in session. so the justices are at home or in their offices reading over these briefs. they ll have a phone conversation and have some kind of vote in the time frame ahead. again, we don t know when that will be. and then they ll issue a ruling as to whether rahm emanual will stay on the ballot. so things are still up in the air here for rahm emanual and the other candidates who are waiting to see whether he will be a competitor or not. craig, thanks for the update tonight from chicago. a winter storm is making it s way here right now. what can we expect tomorrow, gary? a little bit of everything is what we can expect. it will end as snow. so snow accumulation always so important. we ll have that coming up and plus the full forecast. stay with us as fox 5 news at 5:00 continues. we ll be right back.  it was seen as one of lincolns last official acts before assassinated. a pardon for a civil war union soldier. but now experts say the date on the pardon was changed. matt acland is following this story from the news room. reporter: we got to see the document in question today. it was a pardon for a soldier by the name the patrick murphy. he was sentenced to death for desserting his post. they believe the pardon was in 1864. they claim thomas lowry changed it with his own pen to a date of 1865 which made the document appear much more valuable. you have to take a step back and realize that abraham lincoln handled this document. reporter: look at the official pardon. that is lincoln s handwriting and his signature. but the date, the 5 at the end, archive investigators say it has been changed. this man is pardoned and hereby ordered to be discharged april 14th. reporter: when the document was rediscovered in 1998, it was a big deal. the reason why was the date. april 14th, 1865. if you recall, that was the date when president lincoln came here to ford theater and was assassinated by john wilkes booth. trevor plant called the date of the document into question. this pardon had such historical value, at time it s was displayed in the rotunda of the archives building. i started kind of using this document frequently on some of the v.i.p. tours that i would give and the more i used it, the date started to look hincky to me after a while. the ink on the side was darker. reporter: an investigation was launched just weeks ago. archives inspector sent a team to bid bridge to woodbridge, virginia to talk with lowry. he discussed to removing the 4, erasing it, and replacing it with a 5. reporter: he was left alone to look through old documents in the late 90s and federal officials say lowry admitted to sneaking in a special pen and changing recorded history. he damaged an important document and not only did he damage an important document and alter an important document, it has an effect on future researchers and their credibility. reporter: and the archives inspector general said thomas lowry admitted to changing the date and signed a document admitting to it all. but when i talked to lowry by phone today he said he did not change the document. he said he was bullied by investigators and signed a document because he was told it would all go away and would not be made public, shawn. wow, that s a big admission there. at this point, is lowry facing any charges? reporter: at this point it s tricky. basically time has run out for federal authorities to prosecute because he allegedly changed the date in 1998. the feds are calling this a crime but lowry won t face any punishment except being banned from the national archives. matt acland, thank you. caught on camera tonight i shouldn t say tonight. the moment a suicide bombers explosion ripped think a airport. it left dozens of people dead. keep it right here. fox 5 news at 5:00 is coming right back. russian prime minister putin said retribution is inevitable. and president medvedev said the airport security is in a state of anarchy. so far no one has claimed responsibility for the attack which appears to have been carried out by one man. right now the most likely suspects are insurgents behind several previous attacks in moscow, including a bombing at the same airport back in 2004. now coverage of tonight s state of the union address continues. the theme of the speech is winning the future. but will it be with a win with the president s party. tim kaine joins us now. governor, thank you for joining us. you bet. we know the president will focus on responsibility, education, infrastructure and being competitive in the global marketplace. from a democratic point of view, are those the key points he needs to hit on tonight? i think so, shawn. i do think that what the president will talk about is how he has taken an economy that was shrinking and losing jobs and thank goodness after two years of hard work the economy is growing and we re adding jobs. but now that the challenge is going from growth to accelerated growth and do do to do that, education, infrastructure and government reform, and these are the building blocks that will be appealing to voters. and will we see specifics. will the president lay out specifics tonight? i think you ll see him get into significant detail and specifics. both about some of the steps that have already been taken and how they fit into the picture but then also efforts that are underway going forward. so just as an example on the innovation and education area, the work that the president has been doing both on curriculum reform, very important and then of student loans done early in 2010. this is all about better educational attainment for the american population which helps us upscale the work force and become more competitive globally. and we understand one of the president s goals tonight is to win over republicans. we understand he ll talk about being more fiscally conservative. do you think in turn he might alienate some democrats? well, it s a delicate balance. an issue like the deficit, just to use that as an example or spending, you have a lot of different opinions. but i think that the path that the president wants to chart is a path that is really tune to what is right for the economy. and i think the message will be, look, we had to spend. everybody agreed to get the economy going again. and now we do have to deal with deficit and spending. it s important we don t do it in a slash and burn way that could stop the economy before it really takes off. so what you will see on the spending and deficit side is a set of strategies that are phased in in time so they don t interfere with the primary motive which is to accelerate the rate of economic growth. we ll be watching. before we let you go. i do have to ask for your political future. will you run for the senate? there is talk about you taking a high-ranking position in the administration? shawn, its president and i have talked about this and he has asked that i continue in my role as dnc chair and i m very, very excited to do so. i worked really hard in 2006 for jim webb to be elected to the senate. i have to reason to believe he s not going to run and i hope i m working just as hard for him in 2012 and that s my plan. thank you very much. you bet. thanks. and the president is pushing for more jobs and that s what google is offering. the internet search engine is hiring more than 6,000 people this year. it s the biggest expansion yet. they started out the year with more than 24,000 employees. well we have smart phones now and soon we ll have smart cars. using the same technology to keep us safe on the road. fox 5 s money reporter melanie alnwick hit the track today with ford engineers to look at the cars of the future. reporter: some automakers have the crash avoidance systems but ford is taking it one step further by allowing the cars on the road to talk to each other and when necessary to say get out of my way. two cars on a collision course. but what could have been a fatal crash is stopped in its tracks. this is the future of intelligent vehicle technology. we re very excited because it uses wi-fi and gps. reporter: ford has developed a fleet of vehicles equipped with a system that allows them to talk to each other. your car would send out a wireless message to all of the cars around it that said here is my position and my speed, here is my brake status. reporter: unlike today s radar-based direction, wi-fi gives 360-degree information. when one car gets too close to another, a warning goes off. the national highway transportation safety administration said vehicle to vehicle systems could help prevent more than 4 million crashes a year. ford technical experts and engineers showed us some moves. keep an eye on the vehicle ahead. we ll drive toward it. reporter: that s ford collision warning. and there is also do not pass. right now it s not safe because you would have a head- on collision. reporter: and it tells you if it is coming across another vehicle s path. ford is working to develop the system and make sure they all understand each other. industry and the federal government hope to bring this technology to the road in five years. well the department of transportation plans to hold driving clinics across the country to get customer feedback. the goal is to make the systems standard in all vehicles, not a premium add-on. melanie alnwick, thank you. no one could seem to figure this one out. a grand piano in the middle of the ocean right now. but this musical instruments isn t sinking. more on the mystery of how it got there when we come back. take a look at this police chase caught on camera in california. it started in pasadena last night when officers tried to pull a suspect over for a minor traffic violation. you saw the car there that got t boned as officered closed in. the car did not get far. a short time later we understand the suspect was arrested by police. no word yet on the other driver s condition. well here is a mystery. take a close look. this is a grand piano on the highest point of a sand bar in the middle of biscayne bay. no one knows how the more than 600-pound instrument got there or why. the piano will not be under water during high tide since the sand bar remains dry all day. as long as it s not a navigational hazard it will not be removed but the mystery is how did it get there? maybe someone shot a music ereand took it out and left it there because maybe it s not in working order any way. that was my thought on it. interesting. and if they hadn t filmed a music video then it might be a good place to film one. there you go. scenic surroundings. the next round of winter weather headed our way right now. so what can you expect as you head out tomorrow? gary is putting the finishing touches on the forecast for you. we ll have it next. selected as the best picture nominees for 2010 are black swan, the fighter, inception, the kids are all right, the king s speech, 127 hours, the social network, toy story 3, true grit, and winter s bone. it is hollywood s most prestigious award. this year s list of oscar nominees were announced this morning. and joining me with more on who made the cut and who was left out is kevin mccarthy, movie reviewer from 106.7 the fan. so kevin, hi, thanks for being with us. how are you doing today? i m doing great. let s talk about the nominees. were you surprised at all for best picture? i was surprised and here is the reason. before this saturday, the social network was the big stone cold lock for the best picture award because it took home the golden globe and the critics choice but this past saturday we had the producers guild of america where king s speech took home the best picture. in the past ten years five of the best picture awards have gone on to win best picture at the oscars which gives the king s speech a 50% lock at winning the award. so right now i think those are the two front-runners for the race. but i do want to mention, out of the ten, incision is the best movie of the year. and the biggest snub was christopher nolan not getting a best director nomination because that film will change the way we watch and make movies in years to come so i think that was a passive issue with the nominee this is year. let s talk about the leading men. the best actor nominees. who were those? we had a javier bard em for beautiful, jeff bridges for true grit playing john wayne. and jesse eisenberg for the social network. and colin firth and james franco. in this category, this is 100% stone cold lock of colin firth. this guy gave one of the greatest performances i ve seen by an actor. in this category, i think it would be interesting to see jeff bridges win another oscar even though he won last year but this is going to colin firth for the king s speech. if you haven t seen it, it has 12 oscar nominations to check it out. we ll hold you to that one too. and got to talk about the standout on the female side. best actress? my future wife is in this category, natalie portman. her fiance doesn t know it but i m going to mary her soon. she s nominated for black swan. and nicole kidman for rabbit hole. and also winter s bone. and finally michelle williams for blue valentine. her costar ryan goessling did not get nominated. this is another category with a stone cold lock in natalie portman. not only will she win the oscar but she ll get a wedding ring from me in a couple of months. maybe you can show up at the oscars and propose there? i could do that. the only problem is she s pregnant so i want to wait until after she s done with that and then i ll ask her. mild complication. i would stay away from that one. kevin mccarthy, we enjoy it. thank you. you can count on fox 5 for continuing coverage of the oscar buzz. for the full list head to myfoxdc.com. could you imagine that, a ring from kevin and an oscar on a same night. it would be quite a surprise. i m sure people back home would be like, what? i haven t seen any of the movies at all. i ve seen toy story 3 but that tells you where we are in our lives right now. i haven t even seen that. i think it s wild that there are ten movies nominated. i think last year was the first year they did that, i think. but it did seem like a lot. speaking of a lot. gary is here now. a little on the weather plate this evening. and we re going to try and figure out what we re going to do with the storm. and we have been saying for several days, just give us time on this. give us time and things will begin to come together and i think that s exactly finally what is happening out there. let me show you highs today. we ve been warm today. everything has been warming up. nice warm temperatures. 46 for reagan, dulles 45, bwi 45. and what we re looking for in the storm is where is the cold air? 40s now and 30s in the area. culpeper is still 50. fredericksberg is down to 45. and the arctic high that moved across and brought record low temperatures way below zero, yesterday temperatures in the single-digits, but look right now binghamton, new york is 28. new york city is 36. at 5:00 yesterday it was 15 degrees up there. cold air is gone. so we ll have a hard time getting cold air into the system for the most part tomorrow. we do think it starts off as a mixture and ends as snow. how much snow, well that s going to be the tricky part. a little bit of something trying to fall right now but that s very, very light. i think we re too dry for mosha most of the moisture is well to the south of us. severe thunderstorms moving through florida. there is a tornado watch up for most of the state. you can see the strong line coming through. there is a lot of moisture down here but look as this comes up through north carolina and into virginia, watch it weakening and dissipating and i think that s the trend through most of the evening. overnight tonight the rain will arrive. and it will be a mixture too. it will be a rain farther south and east you go. here in the metro i think we re talking about a mixture. and it will probably be a mixture on and off through most of the day tomorrow until it ends in snow. lows tonight right around freezing. i don t know really think it will be a problem tomorrow morning with the commute. i think it s too warm for that to be a problem. but still a messy mix falling from the sky most of the day. that includes a little bit of wet snow, some rain, possibly even sleet as well. it looks like the atmosphere tomorrow will have all kinds of different levels to it. but down here at the surface, we should remain mostly above freezing. 36 at noon. and then by 5:00 we begin to see a change over to some snow. and it will start accumulating from the west and northwest and then eventually across the metro area by tomorrow evening and tomorrow night. here is the set-up. future-cast, tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m., rain here for us. but you don t have to go too far before you get into the pink and orange which is the messy mix. and then into noon, mostly just rain for us. tomorrow at 5:00 we could have some thunderstorms beginning to fire up across the area. the thunderstorms moving back into the cold air up to the northwest. that will put down some fairly moderate to heavy snow. and then by about 8:00 or 9:00, we begin to see all of this shift across and then end as some snow late tomorrow night. but by thursday morning it s all out of here and dry and i think we ll have sunshine on sunday. so here is what we re thinking in terms of snow potential and where it will accumulate tomorrow. here in the city, before it s all said and done, 1-2 inches of wet snow. may not even be a problem on the pavement tomorrow afternoon. the farther north and west you go, frederick county, montgomery county, howard county, up to baltimore, 2-4 inches of snow. and then farther back to the north and west, 4-6 inches of snow. it is on the website so you can go and look at that at myfoxdc.com. and there is your five-day forecast. once we get through tomorrow, we stay in the 30s for a couple of days and then we warm back into the 40s for the weekend. this is a very tricky storm. it still has a lot of things that it could pull on us before it s all said and done but i think that s a very, very good forecast. if i don t say so myself. all right, gary. this is a challenging one. thanks, gary. let s check in with brian. she disappeared from dupont circle under mysterious circumstances. 12 years later a development in this woman s disappearance. the details only on fox 5. plus the economy is expected to be a major topic of discussion in the president s state of the union address. a preview of his plan to reduce spending and increase jobs. and a choice debate is about to heat up in the district. find out why a new congress could bring a controversial vouchers program back to life. see you at 6:00. the countdown to the superbowl is on in arlington, texas. workers getting the new cowboys stadium red for the big day. it opened in may 2009 and was designed with this superbowl in mind. more seating options are being added to each of the end zones to accommodate more than 90,000 fans. and you can watch the superbowl live right here on fox 5 on sunday february 6th. the green bay packers take on the pittsburgh steelers. oh, stop. at 6:30. go steelers. thanks for joining us tonight at 5:00. the news edge at 6:00 starts right now. a fox 5 exclusive. major developments in a cold case mystery that gripped the washington region