life earlier this month. attacked by a group of men on a dark and lonely street in waldorf in the middle of the night. >> i felt that my head was a punching bag then. >> john is telling us about the night he was nearly killed. beaten and robbed on this street in ryan woods, a town home community in waldorf around 2:40 in the morning sunday, august 5. while delivering newspapers for the washington post. >> it was like a football -- they grabbed me around the middle and forced me down and turned my head and smashed my face into the asphalt and started punching me in the back of the head. the side of the face. the back, the ribs. they started kicking me and stomping on me. >> the men attacked him three different times. >> i felt that my head was a punching bag then. i mean, i cannot tell you how many times it was like, bam, bam, bam, like just in the back of my head. several of them. >> after the final beating robbed of everything, including his wedding ring and stripped naked, the 63-year-old said he literally crawled to the end of the street where this sheriff substation just happens to be. >> i guess i was in so much pain, but was trying to stay alive. >> detectives arrested four of five suspects in the case. young men all from southern maryland, the fourth in custody just turned himself in today. >> we picked up one and confessed he was involved. got some names of the other ones and we were fortunate enough to pick one and officers came and took that knuckle head into custody, too. it turns out real well. >> one of the four named suspects, david jeer raird benson jerarod benson. all are locked up in the detention center. each charged with robbery and assault and held on $100,000 bond. as for mr. berling, he'll wonder if he'll ever be safe again. >> it robs you of your security, your sense of well being. you just don't know. somebody like me, i'll always be looking over my shoulder. >> john says he is nursing broken ribs, a broken nose, and is told he likely has detached retinas in both eyes. as for the fifth suspect in this case, charles county sheriff, rex coffee knows who he is and expect to have him in custody shortly. >> bob tonight. a developing story out of howard county, 21 coal cars jumped the tracks nearly 48 hours ago. investigators are trying to figure out why. as part of the community mourns the loss of two teenage friends killed in that derailment. will has the latest. >> reporter: flowers is growing feet from where crews are working around the clock to remove cars, coal, and the mangled track. meanwhile, investigators are trying to pinpoint a cause. here's a look at flowers left behind in memory of the friends. it is a community grieving over the loss over two of their own. rose mayr and elizabeth nass. police say they were sitting on the edge of this rail bridge that. bridge. tweets showed some of their final moments. you can see their feet dangling from the bridge. the tweet read, lev taiting. a lot of people talk about how common it is to walk along these tracks. >> it is interesting to me in a way, i grew up in this area and as a teenager, we used to spend a lot of time climbing around the rails and everything. it hits home that much more. it could have been any one of my friends. >> the ntsb says the train's emergency brakes deployed when an airline disconnected, but they don't know if that happened before or after the derailment. a fun funeral arrangement is set for friday. rose mayr will be remembered saturday at bethany united methodist church in ellicott city. the investigation could take months to complete. a water rescue in ann anne arundel county. two boateds collided in the river. the crash happened just before 7:00, not sure what caused the accident, all of the poem involved have noncritical injuries, including state delegate, don dwire, who owns one of the boats. he's recovering tonight. fema lending a hand in parts of virginia recovering from the storm that hit the area in late june. fema dispatched teams to help with cleanup efforts and expenses related to the storm. 60 counties and independent cities. it will probably be months before local governments receive that cash. and another storm we're watching now. the weather center has issued a release within the last few minutes at 11:00. with a pass that could include florida and the republican national convention. fox 5 is in the weather center with the latest. >> that's right. that track did just come out from the national hurricane center and this is about 290 miles east, southeast of san juan. so puerto rico may be getting tropical storm conditions as well. let's go straight to the track. so you can see what those changes are. not much change in the intensity. the hurricane hunters think that wind might even be generous. but it is in the process of restructuring. there's no eye wall or anything like that. let me show you this path. it does take tropical storm over hispianola. those are islands and that would do a lot to keep it from getting too terribly strong. you can see saturday evening around 8:00, it is still a tropical storm. we think it will briefly become a hurricane in 36 hours, but traveling across mountainous islands will disrupt that circulation quite a bit. here's something they will be happy to see down there in tampa. notice that the track there on monday at 8:00 has a little bit further out to the west. only a little bit, though, as a category one hurricane with winds of 80 miles per hour. they would be on the strong side of a category one hurricane in tampa. but they may find that something of a relief. of course, those spaghetti model tracks got updated a few minutes ago. you can see a lot of them, good consensus. it looks like there's going to be a drenching tropical storm and also you can see many of those models do have it impacting the peninsula of florida. that would begin late sunday and continue on into monday and part of tuesday, brian. more on that forecast in just a few minutes. >> too soon to tell right now if isaac will hit tampa, but they aren't taking any chances. 70,000 delegates, journalists, protesters, expected to come to tampa. the city's florida's emergency management director say they are preparing for the worst case scenario if need be. >> we have to make sure the safety of those visitors to tampa is upmost in their preparation as they consider how to go forward with that event should the storm go toward the tampa bay area. >> last time a tropical storm hit the tampa bay area, which was a few months ago, thousands of homes and businesses lost power, streets and bridges were closed. the worst drought in decades continuing to ravage pardon meres around the country. >> brian, western ranchers are selling off their cattle now, hoping to survive this drought. and adding insult to injury, hay and corn prices are skyrocketing and hitting not only farmers, but consumers, too. some analysts predict we could see the price inflated by 10 to 15 percent this fall. police south of richmond trying to crack down on the illegal drug trade. the state's national guard donated the vehicles. the humane society wants to know who thought it was a good idea to attach a turtle to a large bouquet of helium balloons and send it flying. two ocean side california residents found the turtles stuck in a free and still attached to the balloon. the turtle wasn't hurt, but it caught the culprit could face animal abuse charges. >> d. c. taxi cabs getting a makeover. and how much it's going to cost you. and nike rolls out its most expensive sneaker ever. why the company says it's worth it coming up. this is fox 5 news edge at 11:00. [ obama a ] i'm barack obama and i approve this message. [ male announcer ] you work hard. stretch every penny. but chances are you pay a higher tax rate than him... mitt romney made twenty million dollars in two thousand ten but paid only fourteen percent in taxes... probably less than you now he has a plan that would give millionaires another tax break... and raises taxes on middle class families by up to two thousand dollars a year. mitt romney's middle class tax increase. he pays less. you pay more. after years of complaints from d.c. writers, d.c. taxi cabs are getting gps maps and debit, credit card machines installed. this is one of the first steps as the city tries to overhaul the service here. but not everybody is happy. fox 5 has the story. >> mayor gray jumped into the back of a cab to show off the new smart meters. they'll take credit and debit cards and each has a flat screen video monitor with gps technology. now a passenger can see exactly where they are, where they're going. >> it is our intent to have all of the cabs equipped over the next 90 plus days. >> because of the limited number of installation locations, it could be until november before you see all 6,000 cabs with the new smart meters. >> this is a good thing for the city. it will create jobs and make more revenue than what they are doing now. >> what many don't agree, and worry some drivers will give up their taxes all together because the new system tracks too much. >> the real thing about this, it would be ineffectively taxing. it will control when we can work, how we can work. >> what about the color everyone has been talking about. soon, all cabs will look the same, but it is still a mystery what color will be chosen. the mayor says that will be soon. >> we'll have demonstrations on that in the not too distant future. >> matt acklin, fox 5 news. >> passengers to pay for the improvements comes in the form of a 50-cent surcharge. >> a warning for dads who have kids later in life and a new pair of shy's that may bust your budget. laura evans back with your top five fox five. >> nike is rolling out its most expensive sneaker ever. take a look at the lebron xnike plus. they aren't giving them away. $315 for these. they have an electronic sensor to tell you how high you can jump. t mobile launching a new unlimited data plan. $70 to $90 a month. the company is hoping to lure in customers as other phone carriers eliminate their data plans. surgery appears to be much more efficient than standard care in the prevention of diabetes in obese people, when compared to typical care, it may reduce the incidents by 78%. number two tonight, new research shows older fathers are more likely to have children with autism than younger fathers. the study found the father's age played a bigger role than the mother's age in the passing of hereditary mutation. and number one, u.s. health officials say this is one of the worst outbreaks the country has seen. more than 1100 cases have been reported so far this year. that's three times the usual number at this time of year. experts believe the mild winter, early spring, and hot summer have fostered breeding of mosquitoes. and that is tonight's fox 5, top 5. brian. >> these daily showers certainly aren't helping that situation. >> i wish they would do something about the minispiders over my house. little cobwebs hanging over r all over the place. we'll have dry weather. it will be a number of the mosquitoes and lift everybody's spirits. we have not had widespread rain. but what we have had, maybe just enough to bring some areas of fog a bit later tonight and certainly we know that those downpours have kind of impacted the same places for the last three nights and brought heavy rain. watch for fog, if your commute starts early tomorrow morning or very late tonight. sental radar not finding anything as we scan across the region. we certainly did have that activity earlier. a lot focused on into the district. we had heavier downpours and they fell apart, so not everybody did see them, but those of you who did won't forget that you had them. we are down looking across florida. we know everybody is talking about florida because of what tropical storm isaac may bring and the gop convention will get going on monday. we had a lot of rain across the peninsula and big storms, but the big concern, thought we would get in tighter to show you that it's really about tampa bay and that's why there's some concern as it comes up the post and west of tampa. is there going be a lot of water? so that's one of the biggest concerns and we are fortunate that perhaps this hurricane, if it does form into a hurricane, won't be a category 3 or 4, which would also be damaging winds. water is going to be a concern and will continue to watch our tropical storm isaac over the next few days. 86 degrees was our temperature today. warmer in the next few days. nothing out of control. we see some heat in the middle part of the country. these are the high temperatures today. 94 for st. louis. 93 for wichita. a little bit of that breaks off and gets us into the upper 80s, but probably mid to upper 80s. a nice day. temperatures probably 73 degrees, gaithersburg 63. winchester, very comfortable overnight. and by the way, tomorrow looks pretty good as well and the humidity will be fairly low. now there's enough moisture around tonight that we may see fog forming. our temperature 66 degrees. tomorrow, nice day. maybe 86, 87 degrees. not too humid and not much in the way of thunderstorm activity. we check out the future cast and as we run this through the prime time tomorrow, we aren't seeing much popping up. might be something isolated, perhaps on friday and then again into saturday. we've had a lot of moisture lurking here off the coast of the carolinas and our future cast is trying to suggest that as that spins closer and maybe a little lift from the mountains producing isolated storms on saturday. it could happen. we'll keep an eye on that and let you know if they put that in, in a big way. again, last look at our tropical storm isaac, about 270 miles east, southeast of san juan. still with winds of 45 miles an hour. it hasn't strengthened a lot. here's our five-day forecast. maybe some isolated storms friday and saturday. for the most part, this is a good looking five-day forecast. as we gradually warm up with just a little. on to big news, it was the third game, was it a sweep? we'll find out from here. here's your sports report. >> this is the verison sports desk with lindsey murphy. >> it was a sweep, just like you predicted. it gets no bigger than tonight. i'm talking about implications. the sweep will sit them comfortably in the lead by eight games. it would also take the wind out of the braves. they had to battle rain. during the pregame ceremonies, the nats paying tribute to chipper jones, appearing in the regular season game in d.c. two on for the braves, no score. and answers with a shot into right center. it is over bryce harper's head and that is going to clear the bases. a two-run double and i can tell you harper wishes he could have that play back. it was 2-0 atlanta. the nats won't go down without a fight. harper on third and mike morris rips a bis hit into the corner. he cruises in to make it a 2-1 game and that's his hit. two batters later, ian who has been so reliable chucks one to short. a 6-4-3 double play. he comes up limping, but he was okay. the nats cannot pull this one off. they fall 5-1 and are six games up in the division. here is bryce on the one that got away. >> hit it hard and had to bust my butt. just because he's off a certain foot, he's excellent. it's a good hit. >> tonight, the orioles down in texas against the rangers. bottom of the 4th, the rangers put nine runs on the board. mitch with the biggest blow. a grand-slam homer, off of tommy hunter who surrendered. the rangers were leading 8-1. adrian beltre who homered earlier. he takes kevin gregg, that was his third home run of the game. he added five rbi's. the orioles fall to the rangers 12-3. not a good night in local baseball. stay right here, chris cooley says give me the rock. his eagerness to impress for redskins park. i'm barack obama and i approve this message now mitt romney's attacking the president on medicare? the nonpartisan a-a-r-p says obamacare "cracks down on medicare fraud, waste, and abuse and strengthens guaranteed benefits." and the ryan plan? a-a-r-p says it would undermine medicare and could lead to higher costs for seniors... and experts say ryan's voucher plan could raise future retirees costs more than six thousand dollars. get the facts. chris cooley is one of four players competing for the tight end position. niles paul are the other two bottling it out. cooley has the most to prove since he suffered through injuries the last couple of seasons. but cooley is working hard to regain his form. the eight-year -- the last two games, the 30-year-old played fullback for fullback derel young. he hopes that changes in saturday's third preseason game against the colts. >> i would like to have a couple catches. i would like to catch it. yeah, get tackled. run with the ball a little bit. it's a different feel from practice. we don't hit, so getting the couple opportunities to turn it up would be nice. if not, it's not a huge deal. >> at the end of the interview, he said yup, i'd like a 50-yard touchdown. kickoff times for the final preseason game on wednesday, august 29. has been moved up from 7:30 to 7:00 p.m. to the other football tonight, d.c. united hosting the no score, somehow finds his way to dwayne. he nets his 99th career, mls goal. it's 1-0 united. first half, andy with a spectacular effort, then the cross to the far post, headed in by leonard. united extinguishes the fire. sits in fifth place in the eastern conference. one point behind chicago. and that is all the time we have for tonight, but the news edge will be right back. this is the plan for back to school. introducing share everything, only from verizon. a shareable pool of data to power up to 10 different devices. add multiple smartphones to your plan, so everyone in your family can enjoy unlimited talk and text. the first plan of its kind. share everything. get your student a samsung galaxy nexus for $99.99. this bipartisan reform successfully reduced welfare rolls. on july 12th president obama quietly ended the work requirement... gutting welfare reform. one of the most respected newspapers in america called it, "nuts!" saying, "if you want to get more people to work, "you don't loosen the requirements -- you tighten them." mitt romney's plan for a stronger middle class will put work back iwelfare. [ romney ] i'm mitt romney and i approve this message. apparently the first dog, bo, has been eating too much people food. president obama told a group of children that bo is on a diet. this is video of bo in his summer days. the kids were attending a luncheon. the president joked they shouldn't drop scraps on the floor because bo is on a diet. now you have the news edge. thanks for staying up late with us. fox 5 news isn't over. go to myfoxdc.com for news, weather, and entertainment updates. fox 5 flews is washington's best news, on air and online at myfoxdc.com. brought to you by verison.