now that auto body shop was majestic auto repair. they are not authorized by the city to tow any vehicles after car accidents. federal authorities led the officers would respond to a car accident and convince car owners to be picked up and be repaired by majestic. majestic is not authorized by the city. officers were all told to show up at the police academy to have equipment inspection. when they arrived, the fbi was present. >> i personally took the badges from every officer arrested. >> reporter: now the authorities are going to be releasing more details in the weeks to come. meanwhile all -- 15 of the 17 officers who had been arrested are expected to have court hearings today. two of the officers were not arrested this morning. they were on a scheduled leave. police say they will be arrested very soon. all of the officers who had been arrested have been stripped of their badges. >> mayor blake just released a statement on the arrest. it says in part i expect all city employees to serve the public with the highest level of authority. violence escalates, hundreds are dead and heavy forces loyal to the gadahfi regime have moved into libya's largest city. the growing chaos in libya are forcing u.s. officials to take action. >> reporter: protesters chanted in the streets. a city of north eastern libya where demonstratorred claim to have gained control. it's a different story in the capital city. most residents are scared of coming out of their homes in fear of retribution from gadahfi. >> the violence is completely unacceptable. and the bloodshed must stop. >> reporter: in gadahfi's defiant address tuesday he pledged to stay, fight and even die as a martyr. the plant is to ferry americans to the near by island of multa. >> we urge americans to depart immediately. if they need help they should contact the embassy. >> reporter: with reports of as many of 1,000 people killed so far and predictions of more blood sheds, the concerns of libya are rising right along with the chaos. joel brown, wjz news. the united nations is considering new sanctions including a no fly over zone to prevent attacks on protesters. jailed for months, an orioles pitcher could be released in the custody of dominican republic this week as early as today. denise koch has the latest on the case of alfredo simon. >> reporter: simon has been in police custody since the shooting death of his cousin new year's eve. simon's attorney tells us that ballistics tests show that the bullet did not come from the gun simon released to police. >> denise, thank you. simon's agent says his client has been running and working out in jail but has not done any throwing. waiting for a verdict, it's not whether cleveland williams murdered his wife, it's whether he planned it. susan williams has more from circuit court. >> reporter: when cleveland williams decided to kill his wife. was it days in advance that he staked her out at the white house. or was it in the spur of the moment? it was a shocking scene outside of the district courthouse as a man sat atop a woman stabbing her repeatedly in the face and neck in november 2008. an officer tried to save veronica williams by shooting her husband two times with a taser. cleveland williams is now in trial in baltimore circuit court for her murder. but was the killing of his wife premeditated murder or voluntary manslaughter. if williams was a rage provoked by his wife, a reasonable rage, a lesser charge might arise. >> a murder sentence could mean a life sentence. inching closer, the gay marriage bill crossed another hurdle. after it gets out of the senate the bill must still be approved by the house of delegates. there's more melting going on outside. here's a live look outside of the wjz outback, and look at that there's a deer out there. very clear and sunny for this time of year. weather and traffic, bernadette woods has more on a warm up that could help with some of that melting. >> hello there, kai and everybody out there. isn't that cool. they do make me a little bit nervous when they come out and we're hanging outside. but right now a beautiful sight. there's nothing going on in our area. there's a lot of sunshine and that's continuing to melt all of this snow that's out there. the thing is though, tonight we're looking at temperatures right now, 46 in d.c. but tonight we're going down below freezing so anything that is not treated will refreeze once again tonight. however tomorrow things start to change. we have a new storm moving our way. we'll have that forecast coming up shortly, mary. we're going to check in on our roads right now with parker shane. parker. >> thanks very much mary, we do have early congestion on this rush hour on the interloop on the southwest side of the beltway. look for delays beginning approaching baltimore national pike over the liberty road. and winters lane we have an accident working right now. on the topside interloop is heavy on the way over. beyond the harrisburg expressway over to dalaney road. motorcycle involved, black rock at trenton. a couple of accidents in the city. and gwen oak avenue and anne arundel county two accidents in pasadena and turkey point and old turkey point. a couple of accidents on 87. we have an accident and northbound at route 100 we have an accident that's been out there for a long time. just a little bit of a delay there. as you approach benfield boulevard. out some live shots now. this is the beltway at york road. where you can see the interloop is heavy to your left. we also have some slowing. there's the 97 camera at route 100. if you suffered a personal injury, call the cokrin firm. thank you, parker. stern words for lyndsey lohan. the actress is back in courts after allegations she stole a necklace. >> reporter: lindsay lohan was back before a judge. >> if the case settles here, i don't want you under any apprehension, you will be going to jail, period. >> reporter: judge keith shorts set a hearing for march 10th. that's when the actress will have to decide whether she wants to take the plea deal or take her chances at trial. >> do you understand everything i've indicated? >> yes, sir. >> reporter: lohan has already pled not guilty from stealing the necklace from a jewelry store. the actress claims she borrowed it. the judge has the impression lo lohan was not going to take the plea deal. this is not the actress' first time in a court. last year she spent three months at the betty ford center and accused by a rehab worker there of misdemeanor battery. prosecutors have not decided whether to pursue charges in that case. >> i don't see lyndsey as a criminal. this is all a result of her addition. >> reporter: prosecutor dave lohan's attorney has surveillance footage. the actress has two weeks to decide what she's going to do. candyce gibson, wjz news. >> because of the amount of the necklace, lohan is facing grand larceny. and one of the youngest users of medical marijuana. how it helps him. and bernadette woods says it's going to warm up. ,,,,,,,, a 2-year-old beats brain cancer and his parents say they have medical marijuana to thank. cash is now in remission and his father says medical marijuana improved his appetite and helped him sleep while he coped with chemotherapy. children who are prescribed the drug do not smoke it but it eat in the form of cakes and muffins. the scariest diseases in the country. a new survey taking the pulse of america. the answer might surprise you. >> reporter: rachel altleta's mom has alzheimer's disease. >> i would not want him to go through it. >> reporter: the met life foundation reports one in three adults worry they will develop the debilitating hard disease. >> it strikes at the core of who we are. our individuality, and in that way it's a very fundamentally different disease than stroke or hard disease or even cancer. >> reporter: many of those surveyed worry that they will have to -- >> i get most concerns when people report memory loss occurring on a daily basis. >> reporter: rachel saw those signs before her mother's diagnosis. >> getting tested was the most important thing that we did. because not knowing what you have to deal with doesn't help you deal with it. >> reporter: rachel says figuring out your financing and long term care will give the whole family peace of mind. >> alzheimer's disease strikes one in 10 people under 65. and one in eight for those over 65. another rough day in wall street. the turmoil in the middle east continues to weigh heavily in investors minds. s & p off eight, nasdaq down 33. let's go to new york. >> oil prices continue to rise. some oil companies pulled their workers out. saudi arabia has promised to pump more oil. but that did little to ease wall street worries. more americans bought previously owned homes in january led by a rising number of foreclosures. the national association of realtors says home retails grew 7% last month. and all cash deals accounted for 32% of home sales. ford is recalling nearly 150,000f150 pickup truck, it's because the air bags could deploy without warning. ford says the recall covers pickup truck from the 2005 to 2006 model year. the average 401k rose last year. according to fidelity investments, at the ends of 2010, it was up more than 11% from a year ago. that's your money watch. for more business headlines simply go to cbsmoneywatch.com. and wegmans announces comes as energy prices impact the price of basic necessities at the grocery store. and coming up on wjz's eyewitness news at 4:00, very healthy. the benefit of adding blueberries to your diet. president lincoln traveling through baltimore. as the city gets ready to celebrate its anniversary. the sun is out but ,,,,,,,,, don't miss the cbs evening news with katie couric. katie is live in new york with what's going on. there's a lot in the world going on, katie. >> that's for sure, coming up we're going to be talking about libya where gadahfi is desperately clinging to power and is asking his supporters to attack protesters there. and the u.s. is starting to evacuate people to near by malta. and does a program that is supposed to keep guns from reaching mexican drug gangs actually doing the opposite? coming up tonight on the cbs evening news. >> make sure to watch the cbs evening news right after wjz news. it was a pretty day but a cold day today. >> it was definitely a chill in the air and a really cold start to the day. but the sun just made it feel so nice this afternoon. this is where we started out this morning. these are the official readings at vwi marshals 18 degrees. 11 in haguerstown. but a lot of baltimore county was in the 40s region. so we've got a light wind out there barely anything going on. wind wise at least we should say. but we do have a storm moving our way. it's out to the west of us. there's not much yet with the storm, that is really going to change because down to the south the southern part of the storm is going to move along the gulf coast and pick up a lot of moisture along the way and then it is going to move toward us. so the clouds come come in during the day tomorrow. and it'll continue right into the day on friday. because of the rain that's expected in addition to the snow mount, there's a front, this is thursday night into friday. there's a northern front going on. also a southern one that is scooting into place. both will direct our way so starting late tomorrow, rain out there. picking up tomorrow night into friday. there's a good chance we could get one to two inch of rain in the region. we are down in the rainfall bucket so this will be needed rain. it gets out of here friday night. but then another storm comes our way for the second part of the week end. out on the waters with us going on south winds tomorrow at 5:00 to 10 knots. they will start to pick up as that first front comes into play late tomorrow and that will continue on into the next day. tonight, we're going back below freezing, there will be refreezing going on and anything that is not treated tonight. tomorrow we get up to 80 degrees. this time the clouds come in. the next storm move ours way. the rain starts to break out. we'll have sunday coming up a little bit later here but yes we're really down on our rainfall amounts. >> this will help. >> this will help. don't miss tonight's wjz line up. tonight it's criminal minds suspect behavior at 10:00 followed by wjz news at 11:00. and a different look, why u.s. marshals release a new mug shot of the man accused in the shooting of congresswoman gabrielle giffords. and bodies both dead and alive are pulled from the rubble ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, it is 4:29, 45 degrees and mostly sunny. thank you for staying with wjz i'm denise koch. >> and i'm vic carter. here is what people are talking about. >> rescuers pull a survivor from a dark hole she had been trapped in for 45 hours. tuesday's earthquake in new zealand killed dozens. rescuers aren't giving up. office workers anne barkan banged in her desk in response. crews fought through crushed concrete and twisted metal to reach her. rescuers cheered as they pulled her out from the rubble. but crews are making some heart wrenching decisions. >> there's been frankly no sign of life in this building for the last eight hours or so. so we are concentrating where we know we can get maximum benefit. >> reporter: 10 japanese students are among the dead in this flattened building. >> i hope that my friend -- >> reporter: a surveillance video shows everything shaking violently. a canadian family was in this building during the earthquake. >> everything was shaking and we rushed out. >> reporter: crews are rushing in to provide medical help to survivors and to start repairing the damaged city. and the áet quake is one of that country's worse worse disasters ever. the victims of somali pirates are being honored. there is a chance the pirates will be brought to the u.s. to stand trial. corruption in the baltimore business baltimore police department. >> reporter: investigators say the owners of the majestic body shop paid police officers to arrange for their company to tow vehicles from accident scenes and make repairs. according to charging documents, the officers received $300 from every vehicle they steered to the body shop. >> wjz will have live complete coverage of this developing story coming up all new at 5:00 and 6:00 this evening. the face of an accused murderer. we are getting the first look of booking photos of the man charged with the arizona massacre. he is accused of shooting 19 people including congresswoman giffords. he is expected to face additional charges in the january attack. still no end insighted, the fierce budget battle that started in wisconsin is now spreading to other states. they are angry over a bill that would take away nearly all of their bargaining rights. democrats in the senate have provided a vote by fleeding to illinois. a new leader, former white house chief of staff rahm emanuel is thanking supporters to help him become chicago mayor. this morning he was out and about in the city shaking hands with citizens. he face as budget deficit of a half a billion dollars. bad news for president obama. his approval rating is dropping around the city. here in maryland 57% of the state's residents think the president is doing a good job. that's the third highest in the country. a harmful chemical tested in maryland. mary is following the news from the newsroom. >> reporter: 17 pounds of agent orange were released from 1974 to 1983. wjz first told you in a special investigation in november, the army is now trying to fight claims that the chemicals cause a cancer cluster among people who live near by. officials have not found higher rates of cancer near fort detrick than the rest of baltimore county. >> agent orange was used during vietnam. researchers are finding out that blueberries can bring down your blood pressure. >> reporter: this lab is where much of the work was done. freeze-dried blueberries mixed into a drink. >> we were looking at the antioxidant benefits. but we do not have enough studies to support these findings. >> reporter: so researchers set out to uncover more information using blueberries. they sought volunteers who are at risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease. twice a day the participants were asked to drink blueberries. >> the findings were significant, because there was quite a beneficial effect both on blood pressure measurements and lower blood pressure measurements. >> reporter: in just eight weeks, blood pressure dropped about eight points. rita fair was among those in the study. >> in terms of my energy, i was not as tired. blood pressure did come down some. i think that my cholesterol kind of went down some. >> reporter: researchers say although the findings were significant, the study was small. >> this is exciting, but it needs much more extensive work in order to prove it to define the extent of the effect we are seeing. >> i think blueberries do have distinct benefit that is need further investigation. >> reporter: you should be careful about drinking blueberry use from the store since it might contain a lot of sugar. local public schools have increased the number of breakfasts served over the last year. this comes after a study found that 2/3 of students come to school too hungry to learn. the skies are bright around maryland today. bob is here with the updated numbers in first warning weather. >> it startedded off very cold with clear skies and light winds. most places were in the teens, in fact, we had some reports of single digit numbers north of town. in fact, up in new york w. york pa they were down to five below zero. no precept around here. not a cloud in sight. but as we head west-southwest there's your next weather maker down to nashville. look at clouds increasing by tomorrow. probably around this time tomorrow afternoon. a little light rain. we could see solid rain tomorrow night. it'll be mild, vic. >> let's take a look at the forecast with parker shane. >> we do have some delays already, picking up a report of an accident. units on the way to look at that right now. on the southwest side beltway it's heavy from route 1 south western boulevard. your average speed as you can see is only 18 miles per hour there. on the topside beltway 24 miles per hour what we're looking at. but your interloop delay continues to heartford road. that entire route is going to take 25 minutes. we have some police activity blocking the thomas haden bridge. this is eastbound route 40. and if you want to get around this you're going to have to use 95 northbound which will take you across the bridge instead. also up in harbor county we have an accident on henderson road. we're getting rid of some of the earlier accidents. we follow that up with a new one york road and princeton. and anne arundel county an earlier accident at edwin- renner. 95 and 97 southbound, that earlier accident has been cleared. lets go out to a live shot now, you can see the interand outer loop slowing down for those heading through towsend. american limousines can cover all your transportation needs. visit them online. back to you. >> thank you, parker. you don't have to be a civil war buff to know that baltimore played a mayor role in the conflict. in the milestone celebration, major events are going on in charm city. >> reporter: the 150th anniversary of the civil war on this day in president lincoln traveled through here for his inauguration. >> this has been a very difficult decision to come through baltimore in this manner. it is not what i had planned. >> reporter: baltimore has big plans for the war's anniversary. april15th at fort mchenry. >> we'll have programming all day, but the highlight for saturday are the candlelight tours. >> it's really the start of baltimore selling itself as a historical destination. >> reporter: the pratt street riot led to the war's first casualties. >> it's the beginning of this unbelievable war that killed 600,000 young americans. it couldn't be more important or symbolic that it started here. >> reporter: sports legend museum formally camden station is having a demonstration. >> it's really going to be awesome. 150th anniversary of the war that defined america as we know it today. and for a look at all of the civil war commemoration activities in baltimore, log on to wjz.com. click on the seen on section on the left hand side of the home page. >> i've never met abraham lincoln. he looked pretty authentic. >> he looked very young too. it's a young lincoln i guess. >> he was young at one time. still ahead, ford truck recall. in consumer watch we'll tell you which models and why. move over energy drinks, relaxation drinks are here. find out if they work and what's in them. we're enjoying seasonal weather today, but are there more storms leading to maryland? bob has the update coming up in sports. -- coming up in weather. firefighters in michigan are trying to figure out what sparked an explosion in the middle of a quiet neighborhood. a large fire ball ripped the front of this house apart and sparked a large blaze. no word if whether anyone inside was injured. firefighters were able to quickly put out the flames, the investigation is ongoing. >> a police officer is gunned down, now the suspected shooter appeared inside a courtroom. wjz has the latest details from florida. adam may has the latest on the 16-year-old suspect. >> reporter: investigators say the teen shot a police officer who was investigating a suspected prowler on monday night. the officer was shot several times in the chest and died at the scene. the department launched a statewide man martin sheen says he is praying for his son charlie after the troubled actor checked back into rehab for treatment. >> addition is a form of cancer. you have to have the equal measure of concern and love and lift them up. so that's what we do for him. >> reporter: this is the first time sheen's family has spoken publicly since the the two and a half man star was hospitalized for stomach pain after a night of heavy partying. two and a half men is taking a hiatus until he finishes treatment. and at just two months old, the twin brother giraff's are looking for names. right now it's clear and sunny. 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[ male announcer ] small business owners, don't be invisible. call today and get a 6 month free trial of verizon websites powered by intuit, when you sign up for verizon's reliable high-speed internet & phone for business, just $84.99 a month with no term contract required. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities verizon. the hardest working network in business. at 800-974-6006 tty/v. after this weekend we have warmer air and rain on the way, rain saturday and sunday but not tonight. we're at 45 degrees but the dewpoints very low. the area is very dry. only 24%, the barometer 30-30. 49 down in ocean city, the local area temperatures and low to mid-40s most places. once again by the day temperatures much cooler in the bay. only 27, 38 degrees. away from the water that's when it warms up. the precept, 45, 18 this morning. we had reports of four, five, 6 degrees readings. in the city there's a lot of rainstorms around. 47-28, record 78 and five in 1963. no winds here at all. very light precept everywhere. not a major factor. out to the west, we have an area of low pressure coming down to the rockies. it's going to energize a little bit of rain. warmer air coming up from the gulf of mexico. it's going to really use up in the next 48 hours. we will get a warm flow out of the south-southeast. look for clouds tomorrow afternoon. a good chance, about 5:00 or 6:00 for showers. a continued chance of rain here on friday. easily an inch of rain. it's -- the system is going to go right across the region. south winds in the bay, temps about 48. clear, down to 25, that means coming up next on wjz eyewitness news at 5:00. how a federal investigation landed more than a dozen of the baltimore police department behind bars. wjz is live with complete coverage. growing unrest. americans are now hurrying out of libya, as the violence continues to escalate. but the u.s. is now considering putting an end to the turmoil. maryland senate is poised to pass same-sex marriage. but opponents are not going down without a fight. i'm mike mike mike hellgren. i'll tell you more about these in the report. >> eyewitness news at 5:00 starts now. cop corruption case. 17 baltimore police officers are arrested in a wide-ranging probe. >> tonight, the link to an auto repair shop. >> hi, everybody. i'm kai jackson. >> and i'm mary bubala. here's what people are talking about. >> those officers are involved in a scheme. wjz is live with complete information and coverage of this investigation. kelly mcpherson is at the auto shop. but we begin with derek valcourt and more on the alleged scheme. >> reporter: it apparently went on for more than two years. 17 baltimore city police officers, accused of taking kickbacks for illegally steering car accident victims to