thank you for joining us. i'm james tully. hillsborough county deputy hurt after his patrol car was rammed. fired at the suspects who ran off, at a busy intersection at woodrow wilson street in plant city. let's go to rodney dunigan, he's on the scene, has been there for quite some time. any word on the suspects? >> reporter: not at this point. investigators have been here throughout the morning trying to g as they can. you mentioned that deputy was hurt, thankfully is recovering this morning, expected to be ok. this is a very active scene this morning. i'm going to let you see where investigators have set those evidence markers, at the exact spot where all of this happened. again this information we're getting in slowly this morning but what i can tell you is all of this sparked around 11:00 last night. apparently this deputy who was involved got a call about a aggravated battery call in this area and spotted a vehicle that that case. the deputy pulled that car over and investigators say as the deputy got out of that car that is when the driver of that car put it in reverse and rammed into the front of that deputy and the suspect then fled off. that deputy was able to get off at least one shot. at this point it's not clear if anyone inside of that vehicle was hurt or not. let's toss to it video from earlier. investigators even bringing in a helicopter this morning to get a view from up above at exactly what at. again at this point it's unclear if the driver of the vehicle or anyone else inside may have possibly been hurt. that vehicle was discovered a short distance from this location. back out here live i want you to look at this, investigators have been out here for about two, three hours just gathering as much evidence as they can, this happening 11:00 last night. it was pretty dark and they had to wait for daylight this morning to get this evidence out here. again we're told this could the next 30 minutes to hour. if you could see in the distance that traffic, that is thonotosassa road. one lane of thonotosassa heading to plant city has been shut down as investigators have been checking this all out. again at this point investigators haven't released any suspect information but we are expecting to get more information on that today. as for that deputy, again he's expected to be ok. reporting live in plant city, rodney dunigan, abc action news. turning to deputies -- brandon, deputies are investigating a suspicious death, in camellia home just after midnight. one person is dead. they are trying to get back to investigate. we'll bring you updates as soon as they come in. here's an update -- remember bart zombie cat? we found out he's getting adopted. after his owner buried what he thought was a dead cat that had been hit by a car. five days later bart clawed out of the grave and returned home. nickname "zombie" cat. bart's owner was fighting to regain custody but we learned a new family will be adopting him later today. right now we turn to a crime alert in pinellas county. two teens under arrest following a number of car break- ins. deputies warning people this morning this is a growing crime trend. in the most recent case a 14- year-old a arrested in connection with the break-in in the seminole neighborhood. pinellas county reports that 90% of all car break-ins are people leaving their cars unlocked. so make sure that you lock your doors and of course don't leave valuables in your car. there's a rough wake-up call for a tampa mother, a suv crashed into her apartment this morning. the impact resulted in a hole to the side of the building. the driver left a fake number with the woman who lives there he's charged with leaving the scene of an accident. >> it's weird that we had a murder in this neighborhood. you always hear about it in other neighborhoods but not in your own. so it is kind of disturbing. >> apologies, incorrect sound bite. in one was hurt. passenger in the suv was arrested for possession of marijuana. new video just in -- dozens of uber drivers and supporters hit downtown tampa in an effort to keep the ridesharing company operating in hillsborough county hillsborough county public transportation commission was supposed to vote on new regulations today that would include controversial rules such as $7 minimumfares and 6-minute wait times. let's go to meteorologist ivan cabrera with florida's most accurate 7-day forecast. tropical storm, julia. we had colin, hermine with big impacts but this one will have the least affects. tropical moisture but that is about it. the center is over southeast georgia now. 45 miles per hour winds. and the issue will be the slow movement. a lot of rain for the north but for us, showers and storms, in fact a couple of clusters that have been moving in. we were talking about this earlier where we had our southern counties impacted but you see more showers and storms heading up towards citrus county. and heading into pasco county, hernando county as well. that will be the case throughout the day today. on and off showers and nothing steady or torrential for any extended amount of time. so a kind of a typical afternoon with just a little more to work with as far as the moisture. on and off storms, then we get lower rain chances. we'll talk about that as we head into the upcoming weekend, and 7-day forecast coming up in a few minutes. hope we're wrapping up the wednesday morning commute here. be going to work now and not earlier you have a smooth ride. the interstates really cleared out. here's a live look at i-75 just south of fowler, you have a smooth ride in both directions. those cars there heading towards i-4. check out the sunshine skyway, lanes wide open across the big bridge. 9 minutes from toll booth to toll booth. your drive across the bay, across the other three bridges looking good. testimony resumes today for a man accused of trying to kill an armored truck driver in altamonte springs. burt mcgee, prosecutors say shot marcos rivera outside of a crowded publix and snatched the bag he was carrying stuffed with $5,000. the court victim didn't watch surveillance video of the robbery, instead stared down his accused attacker and later described how he was ambushed grab his gun. >> lawyers showed records from mcgee's cell phone where he searched local news sites for stories about the robbery and they say he visited one news story area 12 times. worshippers returning to a fort pierce mosque for the first time since a fire $10,000's ward for information leading to the one who set the fire. the fire was on one of the most meaningful days in islam. there have been tips but none led to a possible suspect. a first look at plans for a new memorial honoring the victims of the pulse nightclub shooting. around the nightclub now. on friday workers will start to gather the rest of the more than 3,500 tributes people put there the last several months. they took everything to the city's history center. they will start installing the new fence monday featuring work from orlando area artists. new video, investigators looking for the person that used a drivethrough window to rob a mcdonald's. happened in a location in fort detectives say just as the clerk was closing the window the robber held him at gunpoint demanding all the money in the register before taking off. the suspect is described as hispanic, 5 '9", if you know anything about the incident you're urged to call crime stoppers. tonight kanye west brings his st. pablo tour to amalie arena. take a listen. ? they going to kill me? n? it makes you stronger? winning singer has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. he has twice been named "time" magazine's 100 most influential people in the world list. tonight's show starts at 8:00. coming up -- requesting a presidential pardon. nsa whistleblower edward snowden asking a huge favor from president obama on his way out of office. the argument he's making to return to the united states. plus, by any means nece had to do to get to church on james tully in for dan shaffer and deiah riley. nsa whistleblower edward snowden asking president obama to pardon him before he leaves office. snowden charged with leading he bled classified information. saying the leaks were moral and ethical. >> reporter: president obama doesn't seem to be softening his stance on snowden. asked if there's a chance he would pardon the nsa whistleblower the white house press secretary responded like this. >> the fact is the manner in which mr. snowden chose to disclose this information damaged the united states, harmdz our national security and greater risk. >> reporter: snowden argues his leaks were a public service, in a video interview he says without the revelation "we would be worse off." the former contractor fled the country three years ago, he's being charged with espionage but not everyone agrees what snowden did was wrong. oliver stone who directed a new film about the whistleblower praised snowden's actions in an interview with cnn. >> the united states government developed and deployed a system without democratic consent. and it was one person who revealed that, that was mr. snowden. he did so with conviction and love of country. >> reporter: joseph gordon 11it stars in thehe film that releas in theaters this weekend. andrew spencer reporting. civil rights groups like amnesty international and aclu are launching a campaign asked obama to pardon snowden. they plan to hold a news new information about chelsea manning. her lawyer says the former soldier ended her prison hunger strike after learning she will receive gender transition surgery. manning told her lawyers she's expected to meet with doctors in the next week or two. formerly known as bradley manning she's serving a 35-year sentence for giving classified documents to wikileaks. she began the hunger strike to recommendations for gender transformation. a number of american war planes including b-52s hit a chemical weapons manufacturing facility in iraq. that also served as a headquarters for the terror organization. as of now the pentagon doesn't know for sure what chemicals are being developed at the facility. one bride in new hampshire will always remember the trip to the altar because she had to hitchhike to get she was only five minutes from home when the limo carrying her and her bridesmaids pulled over. the driver said the car had a flat tire. the bride determined to make it to her wedding so she stuck out her thumb and got picked up. a man with a car full of kids pulled over and said he would give her a lift as soon as he dropped off the kids. 30 minutes later she was ready to say i do but not before giving her groom quite the minute, i'm not getting stood up, am i? >> there was for a brief second, yeah. >> she was laughing all night bit. >> the happy couple says it's a story they will remember forever. have you ever ridden the megabus? millions of americans do it. and have over the past decade for fares that are cheaper than driving or flying. consumer reporter john matarese looks into the growing number of complaints about the service so you don't >> reporter: despite complaints, delays, high profile accidents and pulling out of some major markets the mega bus remains immensely popular for its super low bus fares. one woman wonders if the service is going down hill after spending an entire weekend trying to get a ride. megaspas hauled millions of dollars from new england to florida to california. over the past decade with fares as low as $1. -- >> we were getting a e-mail that said windstar would pick us up, not megabus. >> reporter: after two hours waiting -- >> that didn't app wealled windstar and ey knew nothing about a megabus pickup. they told him that someone from a travels bus they bought a new ticket for saturday. >> different megabus, different day, different pickup. >> reporter: again the lunchtime bus a no show. >> at almost 3:00 we decided to leave. >> megabus fans say despite the complaints you just can't top it for those low fares. >> the price you can't beat. and convenience. >> reporter: we contacted megabus where its parent company coach usa said the weekend buses finally did complaints on-line and several high profile accidents and bus fires in recent years megabus says most days the burses do run on time with fares still as low as $1. for young people and those with tight budgets it's worth it. in the end denise ended up flying her son his new job for $400. but it is hard to resist the lure of the megabus and low fares. as always, don't waste your money. abc action news. we're looking at what is the strongest storm of the year across the entire planet no matter what tropical basin you're in. that is taiwan getting battered, up to 48-foot waves. can you imagine that? it grazed them, bad enough, across the southern tip of taiwan, it's thankfully now weakening and heading to mainland china. i want to show you what is a spectacular view. this is an island about 3,000 people live there, across the northern part of the philippines. can you imagine that? the entire eye wall and eye itself went over the island. hope the folks are ok but i tell you what, it's a ferocious storm. you see the eye now contracting, it's gone and weakening. as it heads over to the north and west. we rarely see a strong storm that strong across anywhere in the world. for us, thankfully, julia not that point here a rain event. not so much wind. still some gusty winds but nothing that would be incrediblably damaging i don't think. and for us, indirect impacts on the back side of julia, we have a plume of moisture coming from the gulf. a tropical air mass. if you have not been outside you step outside and it feels humid. so our temperatures in the 80s, well into the 90s with the heat index here. also of course with the tropical air mass we'll be able to make a lot of thunderstorms. hernando county, pasco counties but more where that came from. as we continue to heat the atmosphere here, we'll be looking at more storms developing as we head through the midday and early into the afternoon. and they will march with this flow from southwest to northeast and end up across our interior counties as we head into the evening. we're going to repeat tomorrow. the air mass is not going to change much. we'll have another round of pretty good showers and storms developing through the pretty much where they should be for this time of year and, well some of the areas here, we will have pockets of heavier rain. as i mentioned earlier just something like we would see on any given day. though closer more to august than getting into mid- september. rain chances still holding at 50% tomorrow. like today. on friday we'll begin to transition. not that it will be completely sunny and dry through the weekend but a lot more toll ranl. 40% rain chances. sunshine. then the scattered afternoon storms. that continues by the way into early next week. coming up -- a puppy now on the mend after being burned. the connection between his welcome back. a puppy recovering in marion county after being hurt while hermine. veterinarians believe a mother dog was trying to protect the puppy by pulling him under a car but the hot tail paper gave him third degree burns covering 20% of his body. the 5 week old recovering in ocala facing two months of treatment. despite his injury vets say he has a fiery spirit. the vets must be good with the puns. the newest member of the davie police department could help traumatized kids to tell police what happened to them. rocky, a therapy dog for special victims unit. studies show youth victims are more likely to talk when there's a therapy dog present. the 2 1/2-year-old chocolate lab already visit assisting with investigations. take a look at this -- a bed built for 10. a new york couple had a special bed made large enough for them to both sleep in and have their eight rescue dogs also sleep there. the couple says the dogs love cuddling with them so they every dog to do so at the same time. now a vacuum clean they're can really handle dog hair, right? epcot food and wine fest is back. still ahead, the new slights to at 9:00 -- dozens of dead birds winding up along pinellas beaches and protesters say sewage in the bay is to blame. the other two things experts say may be causing this. >> i felt scared. i felt concern. >> then george zimmerman back in court, again. the confrontation he's describing and the reason lawyers say it was his fault. good morning, thank you for joining us on abc action news riley and dan shaffer. all the day's headlines in a moment but first, he's ivan cabrera and he has a look at weather as you usually do at this time. this is the time we do it. look at that nice shot there -- 82 -- 891 thehigh school show you the heat index in a moment. feels-like temperature already in the 90s. a lot of moisture to work with, not go several thousand feet up and it's still quite sultry. that means we'll be able to crank out showers and storms easily as we continue to heat up the day. showers and storms, these are more paralleling the coast and taking time to get towards citrus and hernando, pasco counties. eventually they will. we don't have to wait for this plume of moisture, we're going to make our own thunderstorms later on today. we have plenty of -- all the ingredients in fact for that to happen. by 2:00, 3:00 already raining and there will be pockets mass of very heavy showers coming down pretty quick. they will be moving so we're not going to be talking about this lasting for any -- for any long time here. i think we'll be pretty good by the time we get to 5:00, 7:00. we'll do it again tomorrow and then drier times ahead. we'll talk about that in the extended forecast coming up. hillary clinton returns to the campaign trail tomorrow but quite a lot has happened since she was home recovering pneumonia. president obama campaigned for clinton while donald trump outlined child care plans in a rally in pennsylvania last night. there could be new troubles in the air for his campaign. >> reporter: president obama in his first solo appearance on the campaign trail took umbrage with the idea that donald trump would be better for working class americans. >> really? this is the guy you want? people? this guy who spent 70 years on this earth showing no concern for working people. he won't let you on his golf course. >> reporter: the president making the case for hillary clinton while flower deliveries pour into her chappaqua, new york home. as she recovers from pneumonia her campaign says she'll be back on the trail tomorrow and donald trump will sit down with dr. from last week. >> i don't want to ask questions he doesn't want to answer. >> reporter: a report indicts donald trump's financial ties and conflicts with national security. at the same time the new york attorney general is opening an inquiry into the trump foundation and allegations that the nonprofit misappropriated some funds. the trump campaign fired back that the new york attorney general is "a partisan hack who has endorsed hillary clinton for president." meanwhile trump on the trail clinton's health instead unveiling his child care plan. >> we can provide six weeks of paid maternity leave to any mother with a newborn child whose employer doesn't provide the benefit. >> reporter: trump says he intends to pay for his program by cracking down on unemployment insurance fraud. abc news, washington. a big day ahead in our nation's capital as we face a serious threat in the bay area. in a matter of hours from now governor rick scott will meet with one leaders over the fight against zika. governor scott in dc in an effort to get more federal funding to fight the mosquito- borne virus. there are more than 700 cases of zika in florida. 70 are people who were infected by mosquitos in our state. today the governor will meet with senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. we have a reporter in washington, dc so make sure to download our abc action news mobile app for the latest updates on this meeting. george zimmerman is back in moments he says a driver threatened him with a gun. >> he rolled the driver's site down and the silver barrel of a gun. i didn't see -- i heard him. >> what which direction was the barrel pointed? >> directly at my face. >> police say math these epperson fired -- matthew epperson fired county. matthew's lawyer says zimmerman was the first to pull the gun. he gained national notoriety for shooting and killing trayvon martin several years ago. the case of a former middle school teacher accused of lewd and lascivious conduct. police say michael geist gave a students. and his private account talked about porn and encouraging a girl to "twerk" in class and more. turns out administrators warned him about inappropriate behavior almost as soon as he started to work in the school in february. a pinellas county mom plans to fight a decision not to charge a man for shooting her son. lisa green says her son was two blocks from her home sunday night when it happened. watching her grandson at time. according to police her son joined other teens and kids volunteering to play a game. mom is upset and wants something done because she says her son was shot at seven different times. >> an 8-year-old cannot give verbal consent or written consent and if that bb would have hit him in the eye or any place else it could have killed my son. >> police say while the man used poor judgment when firing plastic pellets from an airsoft intent. they contacted the state's attorney's office too and were told the crime had not been committed. deputies say a drug trafficker is off the streets in hernando county. detectives arrested eric green yesterday at a home in spring hill after a long undercover investigation. they say they found cocaine in the house and two guns, at least one was stolen. they also arrested three other people in the home for having drugs. deputies say neighbors thanked them afterwards saying they were concerned about activity at that house. wildlife officials are testing several dead sea birds after dozens end up dead along the beaches in the last week. officials say 45 black skimmers had been found dead in just the last six days. scientists suspect the deaths could be connected to the more than 70 million gallons of sewage the city touched into the tampa bay. after hurricane hermine. so far one skimmer already tested positive for salmonella. the scientists say it could be related to the sewage. tide. the issue was brought up by protesters at an open house about st. pete's pier project last night. another meeting is tonight at 6:00 at the jw kate recreation center and it's uncareer if the protesters will be back. unclear. next time you head to honeymoon island you may be surprised, the sand is not where it used to be. because of hurricane hermine. we looked at the damage caused by the storm. hermine washed away about 4.5 million-dollars worth of sand that was brought in for renourishment project. no word on whether the county is considering another project. today's the first day of epcot's two month long international food and wine festival. will have 30 kiosks with authentic cuisine from countries all over the world. there will be new booths including one based on the islands of the caribbean. guests can also attend the eat to the beat concert series, a nightly live music performance. attend the festival. a woman knew something wasn't right when she heard terrifying screams from her neighbor's home. what did police find inside? a woman opens her purse and new development in texas. in a school shooting investigation. police say a freshman that shot and wounded a fellow student before killing herself initially testimonybrother. the woman bought the -- stepbrother. the woman brought the gun to the school last week. a 17-year-old junior last week. the victim's injuries are not life threatening. investigators say they talked to almost all of the nearly 300 students at the high school. they say bullying was not a factor in the shooting. right now a manhunt underway for a teen suspected of attacking his two siblings 18-year-old andress garcia is on the run after stabbing his 10-year-old sister to death and seriously injured his 13-year- old brother monday night. neighbors say they haunted by the screams they heard coming from inside the house where the crime happened. they add at first it sounded like a regular sibling fight. then got much worse. >> then she was screaming, behind the door and then -- it just stopped. >> it's sad. she was a 10 years old and she's dead now. >> police are asking for the community's help to find the suspect. cautioning that the teen is considered dangerous. new details -- no details on a motive or about the children's' parents have been released. disturbing video shows a driver intentionally attacking police officers with a car at a phoenix gas station. one of the officers goes flying in the air, another falls to avoid getting hit. the car crashed into the gas station. officials say the driver deliberately targeted the officers. >> this is a violent, cowardly act on our police officers and it's simply unacceptable. our phoenix police officers were targeted. we have all heard about officers being targeted and ambushed and communities across this nation -- in communities across this nation but this happened here. >> that driver mark laquan payne will likely face two counts charges. they believe he was impaired at the time of the attack. police say one officer broke a leg, the other suffered a head injury. another scary scene caught on camera. this one in new jersey. smoke suddenly pouring out of a woman's purse. a woman says the spare battery for her vape cigarette device caught fire. the video shows the woman at a store counter and all of a sudden that plume of smoke rising from the bag, followed by flames. according to the vape store if something that connects its positive and negative sides it can overheat. it's not clear how that happened in the purse though. luckily nobody was hurt. princeton holds the top spot as the best university in the country. this is the sixth year in a row that princeton has been ranked number one. "u.s. news & world report" released its annual best colleges rankings yesterday. number two, harvard university. following princeton and harvard was university o and then columbia. for the 14th consecutive year williams college in williamstown, massachusetts was named the best national liberal arts college. look at this car, taking a dip in the pool in the fort myers area. the senior driver accidentally landed in the backyard pool. luckily the two pem in the car got out safely, with minor injuries. firefighters able to respond to i'm assuming your college was listed on that? >> must have been, of course. florida state. >> there you go. >> i think autonomous break is going to help with a lot of issues -- the brake pedal and gas pedal confused too often. you will need the umbrella. tropical day, low 80s, already feels like 90s. when you have that kind of air mass, you heating, doesn't take much to get the showers and storms popping. so we'll continue to watch that. nice shot from the mainsail beach inn. 81 tampa, clearwater. 80 st. pete. as i mentioned with the dew points well into the 70s it feels hotter. 96 in plant city. 90s widespread as far as the feels-like temperature as we enter this afternoon. already as you saw beginning there. tropical storm julia weakening a bit. 40 mile-per-hour winds, never its winds. it's always been a rainmaker and continues to be because the movement now north at 7 but will actually slow down a bit so there's no comb, no track to show you, it's basically going to hang out, georgia and carolinas the next few days. they are going to deal with heavy rains. we are not, as far as anything widespread, like we had with hermine or colin, no. it's well to the north but see this plume of moisture? continuing to crank out showers and storms. you can see on radar h t approach the coast but, right out ahead of that you can see showers popping. that will be the trend throughout today. so we're not going to have to wait for the showers that are off-shore. they are going to continue to kind of develop along 75 and then everything pushes to the north and east. they want to go where julia is with the big flow from the south and west. that of course will favor the 95 corridor ending up with the storms though by the time we by 11:00 i think we'll be in pretty good shape with partly cloudy skies, temperatures this afternoon, again, these will be the temperatures as far as the thermometer. for you and me feeling hotter than mid to upper 80s. southerly winds for boaters at 10:00. just showers and storms to contented with. that is enough. and there's sunrise and sunset for the next 24 hours. i think we're back into it tomorrow. similar forecast to today. still a lot of tropical air to contented with, that will yield rain chances 50%, then back to 40% friday, heading into the weekend a lot of sun early and then afternoon storms with the highs around 90. still ahead -- reunited and it feels so good. how two inseparable toddlers in a chinese orphanage happened to two orphans in china always count the on each other but the best friends were separated when one was adopted by a new american family. fast forward a few weeks they were brought together again on the other side of the world. cnn reports on the touch re union video that has gone viral. >> reporter: this is what sheer joy looks like when you are 3 and 4. >> hugging and getting so giddy they fell over. >> reporter: after 11 months, two best friends together again. reunited halfway across the world. >> they call each other brother and sister. >> reporter: you see, before they were a part of their north texas family hannah and dawson were each other's worlds, inseparable at the chinese orphanage where they lived. >> they have so little connection and consistency and first formative years. >> reporter: as they went through the process of adopting hannah, dawson was always next to her, in every photo update sharing birthday cake and holding hands. >> i couldn't stop thinking of him. >> reporter: bringing hannah home to north texas meant leaving dawson behind. sharon was determined to find him a loving home so she shared his story on facebook. >> right when we posted they were reading on facebook -- >> they already had had a full house, three kids at home but had an open heart. >> i say for 45 seco it was two minutes, then came back and said we're adopting this little boy. >> reporter: the process was more complicated than the initial decision. but they fell the call to help. nearly a year later dawson and hannah picked up where they left off. this time they are neighbors living five minutes from each other. that is true friendship. and through their children, through adoption two families -- >> hi. it's what they are doing for looking at titan doppler radar. cluster of thunderstorms off- shore but they will continue to develop further east the next several hours. a busy day as about 50%. temperatures this afternoon climbing back in the mid and upper 80s. high around 88 at the airport. and of course we'll continue to bring you updates on tropical storm julia, likely to be downgraded to a depression in the next several hours heading up to georgia though they will continue to see heavy rain there. let's wrap up this -- a 9- year-old rugby player making quite an impression on social media this morning. his name is tao and he proved bigger, stronger and faster than everyone else, not hesitating to stiff arm and dodge the other kids that tried to take him out. his team took home a trophy for the win. the australian tournament. large thanks to him. the father says that off the field his son is actually a pretty mild-mannered kid. this is what i did as a kid. >> with no equipment? >> no equipment. taking them out. >> good >> i'm james tully, that's it for us. continuing coverage on captions by: caption colorado, llc (800) 775-7838 e- mail: [email protected] good wednesday morning. i'm carlie boyette. >> i'm natalie taylor. thank you so much for joining us on this very special edition of that is because we have a very special guest to kick off the show. we are happy to welcome our guest cote host if you -- co- host if you will. i inside edition's "--" inside edition's "deborah norville. >> it had nothing to do with the ryan lochte thing. we had nothing to do with that