Fighting to be the next president of the United States. News4 midday starts right now. It doesnt matter if you go with your significant other, your family from out of town or all by yourself. We all love the Cherry Blossoms and now we know the best time to get to the title basin this year. Were live at the museum where they just made the announcement. Megan . Reporter well, barbara, everybody wants to know, when will the Cherry Blossoms hit their peak . Thats the big question year after year, and we now have the answer just a little while ago. Just minutes ago, the experts announced what they believe will be the peak period, and those days are march 31st through april 2nd. That falls well within the Cherry Blossom festival, so thats always good news here. I got to tell you, having been down to the title basin this morning, im pretty surprised by the dates. Take a look at this video we shot here just aew there is not much progress down there, not at this point. And its pretty cold. It was very blustery this morning. All were seeing on the branches are very small buds very tightly closed. But obviously the experts believe its going to warm up enough to get things going, and that were going to start to see the peak bloom on march 31st. The festival begins on march 20th and runs through april 17th. There are all kinds of wonderful events. The parade, fireworks, you name it, all kinds of cultural exchanges and performances. Just a ton of things to do with your family. Lots of people expected from out of town, about 1. 5 Million People expected to come here to the washington region. Of course, thats good for the local economy. Over 120 million expected to be brought into the region during the festival. And folks are very hopeful that were going to have good weather and that people are going to get down here and take advantage of t im going to have more on that coming up in the next half hour about some of the events. And the other thing to keep in mind here, that this is nature were talking about here. While we have an estimate for the peak bloom, things can change. If the weather gets warm, it could speed things up. If the weather gets cold, it could slow things down. Theyll kind of tweak this forecast as we get closer. Ten days out, thats when they get a real good idea of when the actual peak will be, and ill have more on that next hour. Back to you. Those blossoms wouldnt dare come out today. Winter has returned. We were in the mid60s yesterday afternoon. Temperatures have plummeted. Thats a live view from storm team 4 National Harbor camera. Just a few clouds are racing through right now. The temperatures will be holding steady. Just around 40 withhe gusting to 40 miles an hour this afternoon. Turning colder tonight. Your weather headlines, does still look like some snow moving in late thursday night perhaps into friday morning. What to wear today . You have to haul out your warm coat, warm hat. You need your gloves, you need your sunglasses. You wont need the umbrella. Winter is back for a few days, but there is warming coming. Well look at that in a few minutes. Decision 2016 where candidates are back on the trail today after huge wins for donald trump and Hillary Clinton. Heres a look at who won what starting with donald trump. Donald trump won three states. Ted cruz took texas. Marco rubio only took of minnesota. Sanders won four of the five states he targeted. Clinton won seven states, including virginia. She now has about 1,000 delegates, nearly half of what she needs to qualify for the democratic nomination. And there is a gop debate set for tomorrow night. The next big primary day is saturday, march 15. People in florida, illinois, missouri, North Carolina and ohio will vote. But before that, there are contests this weekend in kansas, kentucky, louisiana, maine and nebraska. And a reminder to open up our nbc washington app to see how each virginia county voted. You can use our compare candidates tool to see where each of the candidates stand on the issues. Just search compare candidates. Today the maryland man charged with killing his twoyearold daughter will be in court. He is charged with killing lashont twoyearold daughter chloe last month. He was upset because he owed over 200,000 in Child Support payments. A plea deal is expected in the matthew case. There were two people murdered five years apart. Matthew is charged in both cases. Once a deal is announced, we will send an alert to your phone using the washington nbc app. Mayor Muriel Bowser has pulled her support for the nearly 7 billion deal. Last friday the d. C. Public Service Commission rejected the deal but laid out certain conditions for the pepco and epsilon to meet for approval. One was limiting the threeyear rate freeze for customers. A rate payer says she will represents one of nine groups that must give their approval for the deal to go through. Pepco and epsilon have nine days to solve any differences. Plus a developing story right now out of western new york. A state of emergency after a train derailment. The dangerous material the train here are some of the stories lighting up social media this morning. People want Chris Christie out. They say he has no standing in the state following his endorsement of donald trump for the nomination. He is being asked to step down. He spent 264 days out of supported trump after he quit his own president ial bid last month. Facebook live videos will now appear higher in your news feed. We do that here as well. Facebook live is a relatively new feature, but it seems people are just loving it. The social media giant is altering its algorithm to make sure the videos appear higher in the stream. According to facebook, people spend three times longer watching videos. High School Musical iv officially happening. Disney channel says theyre returning to east high for new establishment of the big hit. Well get to know the east high rivals, the west high knights. No word on when that newc movi right now people are cleaning up whats left of their homes. A tornado swept through central alabama. Take a look at the damage. Windows blown out, trees uprooted and houses torn apart. One house was totally destroyed. Four people were hurt but they will all be okay. Tom . Pretty strong storm system thats been whipping us with wind. Live view there at Union Station. The flag flapping, winds gusting as 30, 35 miles an hour. Look at our wind chill. This is more like midwinter, not the second day of march. Our wind chills in the 20s around the region because of strong winds and air temperatures that are hovering around 40. Still gusty winds at 2 00. It might make it briefly into the low 40s and back down near 40 with a sunny sky by 5 00 p. M. Then the winds will by 10 00, getting cold into the mid30s by late tonight. Developing a big hazmat cleanup is forcing people out of their homes, and theyre wondering when they can go back. This all happened after a train derailed last night. Take a look at the scene here. Its not clear why it went off the track. This is in upstate new york. You ca see the snow falling there and emergency creuzot scene. At least two cars were leaking ethanol. A third car was carrying some kind of Hazardous Material as well. In the last hour, the u. S. Supreme court heard an important case on abortion rights. Outside the court, demonstrators on both sides of the debate. After the break, the restrictions this case could put on for a cup of coffee just because youre a woman. So why does congress think its ok that women get paid 20 less than a man for doing the same job . Ill fight for pay equity, to protect planned parenthood, choice for women, and expand paid and family leave. Now some politicians will belittle this as a womens agenda. More proof that we just need more women in congress. Im Kathleen Mathews and i approve this message. From the live desk, arguments before the Supreme Court just wrapping up whats being called the biggest Abortion Case in decades. The justice heard debate over a rolling back of a texas law that allows doctors who perform abortions to have limited service in hospitals and to make them meet certain standards. Groups on both sides of the issue here have been gathered on the sidewalks now for hours today. Speakers have been making a case for protecting access to abortion services. Dozens of antiabortion pro woman. Hundreds of abortion rights advocates shouted back abortion is a human right. The court can handle this in several ways, especially since there is an uneven amount of justices right now. A decision is expected in june. A house subcommittee is holding a hearing to answer questions people might have about the zika virus. The biggest concern of lawmakers, pregnant women and their unborn babies. The link between mosquitos and birth defects is even surprising among doctors. What is really surprising is a link to microcephaly causing other birth defects was identified that would do so on such a broad level. As far as we know, never before has there been a mosquitoborne cause of a severe pregnant women avoid traveling to zikaaffected regions this spring and that includes south america, central america, the caribbean, Pacific Islands and u. S. Territories. Tom, what about these cold temperatures . Yeah, and the winds gusting to about 40 miles an hour. A few branches have come down. Weve had a scattering of a few Power Outages from a few tree limbs that have come down. Well stay blustery with our winds with gusts to 35 or 40. Then theyll diminish overnight. Temperatures will struggle to make it back to loet the low 40 then mid40s in the afternoon. Looking at snow developing late thursday night and probably ending during the morning commute on friday. Could be two inches or so, mainly slushy snow on grassy areas. Then over the weekend, looking nice. Warm temperatures move in sunday, and by next tuesday it will be back into the 60s. Thank you. Now to a terrible story that is adding more pain to a family in our area who is already coping with loss. Virginia gray died last month after falling unconscious in her d. C. Home. Her family tells us they made all the funeral arrangements. But when they arrived for the viewing last weekend, someone else was in their grandmothers casket. Lun acy is what it is. Its unspeakable. We just want to have a proper funeral and burial if its not too late. The family doesnt know what happened to their grandmothers body. We checked with the hospital where gray died, and they tell us they are looking into the problem. Right now the Consumer ProductSafety Commission is demonstrating new blinds that are safer for children. Some are cordless, others have a hidden cord. The commission is showcasing the childsafe blinds at an International Safety summit being held here in d. C. Efforts are under way to get nt to prevent future strangulations. A legal battle over the purple line may stop the project from going ahead. A federal lawsuit has now been filed by friends of the capital crescent trail. The light rail system will link prince georges counties. They believe the line and the trail can peacefully co exist. A Shopping Center will be torn down to make way for the new Development Near the purple line. After the break, the impact of tv and how it could help fight discrimination. And dont forget, you can catch news4 midday from anywhere. All you need is your smartphone or tablet. Open the nbc washingt since the attacks in paris and san bernardino, the country has seen an increase in antimuslim sentiment. Special on muslims could decrease the resentment among the group . This is something on the minds of a lot of us, because apparently it really has gotten bad since those attacks. According to a gallop poll from a few years ago, 50 of u. S. Muslims reported feeling discrimination. Lets talk about that, and what do you think about using television and sitcoms to treat that problem . Well, so they have used multiple measures in the past to try to figure out how to reduce prejudice in various groups. So what theyve tried are things like diversity training, education, Public Service announcements. And really what they found is those things arent very effective. Entertainment education, on the other hand, has been shown to be somewhat effective, and one case in point of this is the show will grace. That was a landmark show for gay people, right . It really helped introduce gay people to a lot of people who may not have known any gay person or didnt think they knew any gay person, and helped decrease prejudice in that community. So entertainment education is basically using an entertaining format to introduce people to some other group and helping them, hopefully, decrease their prejudice towards that group. Would that show have to elevate the person who is suffering the prejudice . They cant be a comic figure, can they . They can just be a normal figure. So i think a lot of people, if you look at tv now, right . With muslims theyre often being portrayed as terrorists or black people are being portrayed as criminals. When you just show them being regular people, that has a powerful impact on the viewer. Were going to talk some more about reducing prejudice through television when we come back in just a moment. Back to you. Take a look at the relief on this mans face as he collects his grandchild. You can see the situation turned out okay, but this baby fell out of the back of this van. You see it right there. Take a look at this frightening video. The toddler justl van while it was moving in the middle of the road. The child gets up and starts chasing the van, walking toward the van. This happened in china. The toddler is okay, thank goodness. Thats because when the child tried to run after the van, the driver recording the video pulled over and picked him up. This is so scary. Apparently the boy crawled out of the seat into the back, and the grandfather who was driving didnt even realize this was happening. Apparently the lift gate malfunctioned it didnt get closed down completely. How did that happen, do you know . Incredible that the child was able to get up. We were stunned. A troubled cruise ship is back in port. What the cruise line is saying. Plus, the its about taking a stand. For too long, wall street banks had their way. They crashed our economy. But democrat Donna Edwards wont take their money because she stands up for us. As a single mom, she knows the challenges our families face. Shell be our voice. Tightening regulations on the big banks and fighting to keep dark money out of politics. Democrat Donna Edwards, marylands next senator. The cursed cruise ship, anthem of the seas, is back in the new jersey port this this is the second time in less than a month the ships trip was cut short. In this case it was because of a norovirus outbreak and possibly bad weather ahead. In february the ship had to end its voyage early as it sailed into a storm. It brought 30foot waves and people were sick from it. That ship just has lots of problems, tom. Here well have the return of weather. After yesterday we were lulled into a false sense of early spring, in the 50s. We dont have any snow in the region. We are getting some snow showers at lake erie. Just a few clouds coming through, but overall a great day to get out and get a run in. You may sort of be dodging some tree limbs that may have come down on some of the running paths, but welling hovering near 40 degrees for the next hour or so, but then it may briefly touch the low 40s for a couple hours. These winds will still be gusting around 35, 40 miles an hour. By 6 00 p. M. Winter is back. Its going to be with us here for a couple more days. Tom, thank you. A private contractor d. C. Hired to plow during the blizzard of 2015 is still waiting to get paid. D. C. Says the backlog amounts to as much as 35 million in unpaid invoices. Muriel bowser didnt say why it was taking so long to pay, but it shouldnt take much longer. Any invoices we have are being processed in the normal course. Were about 30 days today, so i dont anticipate any holdups. The district, like many jurisdictions, relies heavily on private snow flosnowplows to cl roads when it snows. Reading is so important, and thats why today is a great day. A Movement Across the country to celebrate dr. Seusss birthday. I had the Georgetown University hospital yesterday. I had the chance to read to some beautiful kids. Horton hears a who, one of my favorites. Dont forget, share your pictures with us of your favorite dr. Seuss book and let us know why its your favorite. You can tweet the book to nbc washington with the hash tag readacrossamerica. Do you have a Favorite Book . I have a few. And i cant give them away even though my children arent little anymore. I still keep the books and go through them time and again. Some i remember from my childhood. We told you when the Cherry Blossoms would bloom. After the break, more on this years cherry new at midday, the date you can circle on your calendar in pink. The national Cherry Blossom festival starts this month, and we just found out the times to go. News4 Megan Mcgrath is there. She just heard them give the dates. Tell us what they are, and good morning. Reporter well, barbara, the date to circle would be march 31st. Thats the start of the peak bloom period. And if Mother Nature cooperates, that peak period should last so you can imagine its going to be very crowded down there on the title basin during that period. Thats good news. This all falls within the Cherry Blossom festival which gets under way march 20th until april 17th. We were down at the tidal basin this morning. Take a look at the video. Were not seeing a lot of movement in terms of the trees and what theyre doing. There are just very small buds at the end of the branches. Theyre v