look at the massive billion dollar project happening in the south bay. why it's critical to protecting the anderson dam against earthquakes. good

afternoon. i'm audrey asistio welcome to nbc bay area news at 4:30. our ian cull was there for that behind the scenes tour. he's going to be joining us with an update on that project in just a few minutes. we're also tracking other stories on this friday. so normally students can't wait for school to get out, right? but teachers, students and families at one east bay school are not so excited about a sudden summer vacation. our damian trujillo will be joining us with why it is a bittersweet day. also, another gorgeous day across the bay area today, and this warm weather is sticking around for this mother's day weekend. very important weekend. just how hot is it going to get? meteorologist vianey arana will join us with everything you need to know before you make your plans. but first, president biden has wrapped up his whirlwind trip to the bay area and take a look. you can see air force one lifting off just over an hour ago. the president is now heading to seattle. while the first lady is heading to phoenix, arizona. for more

fundraisers. president biden started his trip yesterday after landing at moffett field and just before noon today, biden landed in menlo park on the landing zone near the slack national accelerator laboratory. stanford university operates that lab. president's motorcade took a quick drive through campus before heading to portola valley. he then attended the first fundraiser of the day at the home venture capitalist of vinod khosla, where video of his motorcade driving through that area and onto the private property. president is focused on speaking with potential donors and gathering funds, while mr. biden is focused on funds. so did the protesters. they lined the entrance. you see right here to the home where the president visited the leaders of an organization called bay resistance said that the plan was to get the message to donors. the message stop the funding of israel. a robert handa spoke with those protesters today. we will have the full story for you in our 5:00 newscast. a balanced budget

with no new taxes behind me, a live look at the state capitol today where governor gavin newsom has revealed his new spending plan. our values continue to, to allow us to thrive. and those values, i believe, are foundationally intact. and despite some tough choices that we are making and proposing to make in this budget . all right. so the governor's budget proposal closes both this year's remaining $27 billion budget shortfall, as well as next year's projected $28 billion deficit. governor says he's doing it by getting state spending under control while preserving key safety net programs, including education, housing, health care and food assistance. the budget does call for a pause on an expansion of subsidized child care, and would eliminate 10,000 unfilled state positions. the plan would also reduce the state's prison population by almost 5000 inmates. we do have a follow up

now to an exclusive story we first told you about last night. teachers, students and parents at a private school in the east bay feel shocked and disappointed. today wasn't just the last day of school before summer. it was the last day of school period. after the school abruptly announced it was closing for good amid financial problems that sent parents and staff scrambling to move up a promotion ceremony initially scheduled for the end of the month, and left teachers wondering what exactly is next. so nbc bay area's damian trujillo is joining us now from the school in newark. damian you were there for the promotion ceremony for those eighth graders today. i would imagine this was a bittersweet day for them. and that's the word. audrey. bittersweet because there were a lot of smiles. you know, you're getting promoted, you're going on to high school, and so there's a lot to celebrate. but at the same time, you know, in the back of your mind that the school that you attended for so many years is closing for good because of those financial difficulties.

and then you look at the teachers that you think of what's going to happen to them next. and so a lot for these students to digest. and what happened today, the way i put it earlier is that they're getting a crash course today in economics and in humanity, humanity, because these teachers have not gotten paid since february, and they still come to work every day, they were hoping to finish out the year until the 28th of may. but as you mentioned, they got an email on wednesday night saying the school will close for good today. and so the party is still wrapping up here. they had a party after the promotion ceremonies here, just everybody saying goodbye, celebrating what they had. and that they will no longer have because the school is closing. sure, it is a crash course. no one expected damian, for sure. i know you mentioned the school dealing with financial problems. the teachers, they haven't been getting paid since february. so? so what do we know about the teachers moving forward? what's next for them? well, i did get a phone call back from the principal of the school, victor dawson. he is also the majority

owner of the school. he tells me that he feels very bad about what's happening, and he'll do right by these teachers. he says that he's asking for 90 days to give them back, pay, because they have worked for free since february, so he's asking for those 90 days. the teachers are pessimistic. they're not sure if they're going to see their money, but they wanted to see the year through and so they stuck with these kids up until the very last day. tough situation for everyone involved, for sure. damian. definitely bittersweet. i'm looking forward to your full story coming up tonight at 6:00. we'll see you then. bart trains are back on track after an equipment problem caused headaches for commuters this morning. the disruption started after 5:00 in the morning between bart's richmond station and oakland's macarthur station. this is video from the ashby bart station in berkeley. riders showed up this morning to close gates. no way of getting on board. it impacted the red and orange service line, caused some major delays. service did

get back up and running around six hours later at around 11 a.m. well, we were given a very up close look today at something most people in the bay area will rely on, but will never get a chance to see. we're talking about a new tunnel inside the anderson dam in morgan hill. in fact, today was actually the only the one and only time media will be allowed in before the tunnel is finished as part of a multibillion dollar retrofit project, nbc bay area's ian cull joins us now after touring that tunnel. ian. yeah pretty cool. pretty cool project today. so. so what's the latest on the project progress there? yeah. it's nice. i traded my boots and put the suit back on for you here. thank you very much. yeah. so as for progress though, with this valley water says that they're about 80% done with digging this tunnel. we were invited in to see it before the next phase begins. and when it's complete, a large steel pipe will go inside the 20 foot wide tunnel. so why are they doing this in the first place? well,

the new tunnel will allow valley water to better control the amount of water being released from its largest reservoir. experts say it likely would have helped prevent the flooding we saw back in 2017. back then, they couldn't release the water fast enough during a storm, which led to a spillover and devastating flooding in san jose. the new valve will be able to release 15 times more than the current one. when storms stack up successively. when we can't empty the reservoir back down to allow space for the next storm, that's when we run into issues. so this will give us the ability to lower after a storm. prior to an additional storm. okay, so they're 80% done with digging that tunnel. ian, what's the next step? when and when will the final project be finished? yeah. so beginning in the summer, they'll start boring. that final 350ft into the reservoir. they're switching out equipment to be able to do that. the valve will also keep the water level low throughout the rest of the dam's retrofit. and while the entire retrofit is

not set to finish until 2032, they're nearing the end of this significant phase. this project is valley water's top priority. once completed, it would help ensure public safety, protect our regional water supply, and provide environmental benefits for future generations. as the dam retrofit was mandated by the federal government after studies found the dam could fail in a major earthquake. you'll see more of our trip inside the tunnel coming up tonight at six. looking forward to it. ian, thank you for that preview. let's go out and take a live look outside from our network of traffic cameras. it's looking beautiful out there. another hot day across the bay area and things are going to be staying warm for mother's day weekend. for all of the moms out there, i know a lot of plans are going to be taking place. i'm here now with meteorologist vianey arana with what we can expect for the weekend. audrey, thank goodness for our microcline because if you're looking to get away from the heat, at least you have an option. you want to head here

right near the water. those are probably some of the coolest spots. but you said it. the warmth is here and it's going to remain through the weekend. so let's get to planning. and of course i want to show you your current temperatures, because temperature wise, we are still in the upper 80s for a lot of the interior areas, including the south bay through the tri valley, some parts of the east bay. look at san jose right now, 86 degrees, 90 degrees right now in concord, vacaville also 90 degrees. fremont's about 86. but if you notice, even in san mateo, we're talking upper 70s in through the city. we also saw some 70s on the map. so certainly a warm day. what can we expect in the upcoming, you know, saturday, sunday forecast? well, good news on the warmth front but also clear skies. look at this. this is a satellite radar. we've got clear conditions over northern california. we can expect to continue to see that high pressure dominating our forecast. so for your saturday expect to see once again those 80s and 90s on the map. if you're going to be out and about in the city, probably one of our cooler spots will more likely be half moon bay. we're talking upper 60s, so talk about

beautiful beach weather. finally right? not only that, but we're going to see great clearing in through parts of martinez and napa. we've got those upper 80s and 90s and mother's day. look at this. we're going to be warm. but you have an option. so ask mom where she wants to go because we've got 60s around the coast in the peninsula. but if you want a little bit more warmth, you could, you know, go anywhere between the 70s and 80s down to the south bay, into the interior, and then, of course, a lot warmer into parts of the tri valley. so mother's day will be absolutely stunning. and we are expected to continue to see that. so things to keep in mind if you're going to be out and about this weekend enjoying all of this sunshine. stay hydrated. you know, take some frequent breaks, find some nice shade. never forget the sunscreen, rain or shine. and then dress cool and take care of your pets. of course, keep in mind their paws can significantly burn if the pavement is too hot. all right, audrey, i'll send it back to you. all right. thank you. fire force evacuations at a senior apartment complex in san francisco today. it started just after noon at the jones senior home on fillmore street. firefighters say more than 100 people had to be evacuated.

paramedics rushed two people to the hospital. they are expected to be okay. the cause of that fire is still under investigation. it's going to take a live look at san francisco on this friday afternoon. just beautiful. one of the city's newest and largest proposed developments got a step closer to becoming a reality this week. the project aims to redevelop acres of parking lots around stonestown mall, and last night it got a unanimous approval from the city's planning commission. the project includes 3500 new homes to be built over several years. it would include low income and senior housing, along with townhouses, mid-rise buildings and a 19 story apartment tower. while many other malls in san francisco have struggled, stonestown has not, and supporters say the hope is to add to that continued success. we're planning for the next 1520 years into our future to make this like a town center, you know, with housing, with shops,

with services. at the start of this proposal, some residents also expressed hope for the now abandoned united artists twin theater could somehow be preserved, but that will actually be knocked down in favor of more housing. and at yesterday's planning commission meeting, some residents did voice concerns. that's about the height of the proposed tower and the increase in traffic that a dense development would attract. it is one of the greatest challenges facing everyday americans. rental prices across the country continue to climb, and according to zillow, the national average price for a one bedroom rental is now close to $2,000 a month. that's nationwide. that means renters need to make $80,000 a year to just keep up on rent. and of course, you know, here in the san francisco bay area, that number is even higher. the average bay area renter now needs a yearly salary of $121,000 to pay for a one bedroom apartment. still ahead,

nasa is helping shape future scientists. we're going to introduce you to some east bay students who got to go on a field trip to a place most of us will never go, and catching up with an olympian. with the paris olympics just 77 days away, michael phelps talks about the excitement of the global event. his one on one conversation with nbc's kristen welker. but before we head to break, we want to know what trending story would you like to see later on in this newscast on this friday? pull up right now on my instagram. you still have a little bit more time to vote for one of these stories you see right here. target limits pride collection, outrage over imposter pandas or solar storm expected to supercharge northern lights

some of the brightest young minds for its 2024 artemis app development challenge. middle

and high school students from across the country were invited to participate, and an east bay team made it to the top five. impressive meteorologist vianey arana is back with us. so vanna, tell us more about the students involved in this and what sort of apps did they create? you know, these were my favorite things to highlight. audrey. they invited students from all over, but they only selected seven teams for this coding challenge. and the seven teams that were invited, their goal was to create an app that would visualize the moon's south pole region. now, basically what nasa did is they gave the students data to help the teams build those apps, and they did this at their schools inside their classrooms. then from that point, out of the seven teams, the top five teams who were selected got to take an exciting field trip. they were invited to the johnson space center in houston to present those apps to not only astronauts, but really the entire nasa workforce. now, this was a tough challenge with nothing but deadlines and so much more. and each of these teams was guided by an amazing

teacher who helped bring it all together. sounds like a really fun experience. i know you got a chance to speak with that team from san ramon. what did they say to you? it must be so cool for them. it is. and i did get a chance to meet it. they're from dougherty valley high school in san ramon, and they're called the dv explorers, and hence the name in the high school. right now, what they told me was this took them about ten weeks. so it was a lengthy process. but a lot of these students are already involved in other teams. so we're talking extracurricular activities, not only that, but they also were preparing for ap exams. so they're busy students, right? they said the efforts to meet, they said they ended up collaborating. oftentimes they had to meet, you know, via zoom and with their teachers within the classrooms. but it you know, i'm very grateful that they took time to chat with us. and i asked them about the main challenges that they faced, you know, what their biggest takeaway was. and then, of course, their teacher involved, teacher appreciation week. and their teacher told me what it was like working with her students. check it out. so the

biggest challenge that we faced was deciding which game development platform we would use, the most popular, game development platform is called unity. and this uses c sharp, but i think we chose your sheena. despite that, it was more limited. it had. we had a lot more experience experience coding in python. and that was something we were more comfortable in. now that we've been named a top team and we're top five, we planned to host a challenger school next year again, and hopes to hope that some new students can participate in the challenge and compete and get maybe get the same place that we were at again. also our teacher is a computer science teacher at our school, so having her here with us helped us a lot with just, sort of like figuring out how to do a cs challenge. it's been my pleasure to be able to work with, like this group of students. like talking about hard work and dedication. this is the group. and that was miss lieu. they're currently in 11th grade. and of course, their focus heading into senior year

is college applications. but they're also gearing up for their next challenge already. and it's a robot programing challenge now. they wanted me to talk about their website. if you want to know more about his explanation with the coding and everything, i'll make sure to link their website where you can find out everything that they researched. i have to check that out and try to understand. it's a lot. they're really impressive vna thank you. the olympic flame is making its way to paris right now, but it's still in the french riviera, which is about 600 miles from paris. see, a lot of spectators lining the streets to cheer on the torch bearers. the torch relay ends in 77 days. that is when the olympic games begin. and the most decorated olympian of all time is also getting ready for paris not as an athlete, but as a fan. again michael phelps officially called it quits. you'll remember after the 2016 olympics in rio, where he came out of retirement to add six more medals, five of them gold. he sat down with nbc's kristen welker to talk about how the olympics bring people

together. there's so much pain right now all over the world. do you see the olympics as a moment that can help bring people together, you know, that was something that as a competitor, i always saw, right? like every four years we have the presidential race, right. like, and it's always kind of a crazy time, but, you know, i always think that no matter what's going on, whether it's in the us or all over the globe, the olympics is something that brings everybody together, you know, the spirit of the olympic games is so magical. and it's they covered a lot in that conversation. phelps also talked candidly about his mental health journey and struggle with depression. you could watch the full interview sunday at 8 a.m. right here on nbc bay area, with our janelle wang now working on the 5:00 news. you've been busy. yes, a busy day. audrey a devastating blow for a much

loved chef in the east bay. his restaurant was hit not once but twice in one night. it comes as he celebrates his restaurant's 10th anniversary this week. the community rallying behind him and coming out to show their support. raging waters san jose is making a splash again. the city announced the water park's new name today after getting a new operator. and just in time for all this hot weather, we're getting a better timeline of when that water park will reopen. those stories and more coming up in just a few minutes at 5:00. really looking forward to that. janelle. thank you. we'll see you in a little bit. still to come, top trending stories as voted by you on my instagram poll. also, the city said hide your boat, take a look at what this california homeowner did. can you spot homeowner did. can you spot what's real and what's notwhy? ( ♪♪ )

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losing seven of their last ten

games. the reds are in town for game one of a three game series, and you can watch it right here on nbc. bay area tonight at 7:00. okay, here it is. top trending story as voted by you on my instagram poll. and this is pretty cool. you may get the chance to watch a spectacular light show from your backyard tonight. we're talking about the northern lights. meteorologists say there's a chance you could actually see them. here's why. a solar storm is set to hit earth as soon as 8 p.m. that will illuminate the aurora, which could make it visible here in california. the light can best be seen from places that are very dark and far from city lights. as always, i will be posting links to the other stories you voted for on my instagram. a central coast man fighting back in a pretty unique way after he was told to hide his boat. that's his. that's on his own property. but about a year ago he got a letter from the city of seaside city, told him he had to build a six foot

fence in front of his boat. at that time, he decided not to fight back. he did build that fence. and then he had his neighbor, who is also an artist, paint a realistic mural of the boat on it. so there you have it. what do you think? can you tell what's real, what's not? these images, by the way, are now going viral. i'm not a rule breaker, but. but i am like to make a political statement as necessary. and as well as a humorous statement and a creative statement. so i'm, you know, all in favor of generating discussion and making people smile. and the reaction is extremely more than we ever expected. and we're both just tickled about it. so he says he considers it a first amendment right of expression and would be surprised if the city tells him to take the mural down. thank you so much for joining us at 430. jess and janelle are working on the 5:00 newscast next, and we ar

what he told crowds at two campaign events, and how protesters try to get his attention in between spots. also, a beloved chef in oakland sees his restaurant get burglarized twice in one night. how the community is rallying behind him and why this has him reconsidering his future in oakland. and just how hot will it get this weekend, especially on sunday, mother's day? chief meteorologist jeff ranieri has your updated forecast in just minutes. good friday everyone. the news at five starts right now. thanks so much for joining us. i'm janelle wang and i'm jessica aguirre. president biden on his way to seattle right now after a whirlwind trip to the bay area. he left just about an hour ago. air force one lifted off from moffett field just before 330 this afternoon. president biden heading north first lady jill biden was also in the bay area briefly at a different campaign event last night. she's making fundraising stops in la and phoenix today.

it was a profitable trip in the bay area for the president, as he spent the afternoon with donors and traveled through a few pockets of unhappy protesters. as nbc bay area's robert honda joins us from moffett field in mountain view, where the president boarded air force one and is now headed out. robert well, that's right. you know, joe biden is the president. so obviously every trip is a presidential trip. but this was about joe biden, the candidate with no public events and two lucrative fundraisers. president biden arrived in the bay area last night and hit the campaign fundraising trail, running today. in fact, all the video provided by the traveling press corps basically showed the presidential motorcade on the move first to portola valley for a high dollar fundraiser at the home of tech billionaire vinod khosla. tickets for that event ranged from 6600 to $100,000, and we're told about 80 people in attendance for the president's 16 minute stump speech. pool reports show