news starts right now. >> for the first time in weeks, rain returns to the bay area

with an atmospheric river on the way. you can see it's a wet commute on the richmond-san rafael bridge right now. good afternoon, i'm kristen z. the much needed rain began falling this morning. let's get you forecast from meteorologist lisa argen. lisa. >> all right, kristen, we finally have see a return to the rainy pattern. and it's going to be with us not only for the weekend but into next week, where we see several days of compounding rain that could bring us some issues with the rivers and creeks and some localized flooding. first off, starting out with a pretty warm system, so we're going to see temperatures climb throughout the weekend and high snow levels before the colder part. the second part, or stronger atmospheric river moves in monday night into tuesday. right now, light to moderate rain here up through the delta. otherwise, we've had periods of light rain in the north bay. you can see inverness down along the peninsula and more shower activity from davenport to gilroy and san jose. picking up a little bit of rain. we've seen anywhere from about a third to 4/10 of an inch up in the north

bay. the east bay spent a couple of hundredths and you can see the wet roadways there. the golden gate bridge, 51 degrees, san francisco. it is 52, in hayward and half moon bay. and a look out towards sfo, where there's also some clouds and a lot of wind coming in through tomorrow. 49 in napa right now. and a final look outside there you see the gray skies. so the rest of today rain getting steadier for the evening commute. a level two on tap for your saturday. a stronger atmospheric river arrives. and then sunday into next week it's going to get much colder as we see lower snow levels and more rounds of rain. so winds right now up to about 15 miles an hour along the coast. upper elevations 3040 miles an hour. and as this low gets closer, we're going to see stronger winds, heavier rain. so 3:00 today, notice the evening commute is wet. we see a bit of a break into the later evening hours. so overnight some scattered showers. and then look what happens early into saturday saturday morning into the afternoon. we've got gusty

winds, heavy downpours a level two system. so good idea to stay inside. and then by late in the day this begins to lift to the north a bit. and that's going to be the trend again on sunday with scattered showers. so adding up the rainfall totals for the rest of the day today. on friday, you can see 2/10 to about a third of an inch for most of the bay. this is friday. then midday saturday, bringing in about three quarters of an inch of rain. you can see lesser amounts to the south. and that final push as we get into late saturday and sunday, bringing us over an inch in san francisco. inch and a half in the north bay. perhaps a half inch. mountain view. so this is just that weak atmospheric river. we've got a stronger one on the way. high snow levels right now with a winter weather advisory with 12 to 18in of snow above 7000ft. so this is for saturday, about a foot of snow, a little bit more than that, maybe two feet in some localized snow resorts. but look what happens

as we add this into the rest of the workweek. we're looking at a lot of snow. atmospheric river gets stronger into tomorrow, so keep that in mind. and maybe a rainy day. good day to stay inside. it is going to be a rainy day, but the plans perhaps, hopefully not sending you out on the roadways. and this is a trajectory for the next ten days. talking six inches in the north bay, over two inches in livermore and san jose. the accuweather seven day forecast. rainy and windy for tomorrow. a bit of a break on sunday with scattered showers. next round comes in late monday into tuesday. much colder. a brief break on wednesday. more rain on thursday and it looks like friday. we'll see a break. kristen. >> lisa, thank you so much. now to our other top story. federal investigators from the national transportation safety board just held an update on that deadly midair collision near dc. and here is what we've learned. the black box from the military blackhawk helicopter has been recovered in good condition, and agents are confident they'll be able to recover all the data.

they are still mapping out where debris landed in the potomac river, but they say large chunks should be easily recovered. and the reagan national air traffic controllers workers have been interviewed. abc news reporter christiane cordero has the other latest developments today. >> debris sticks out of the icy potomac river. several bodies and evidence are trapped below until recovery. crews work through the elements with heavy machinery to pull them out. divers returning to the wreckage in the water at first light this morning despite heavy rain. >> we're going to be careful. we're going to make sure we don't hurt anybody else. but the weather we've seen so far is whether we can work in. >> new images from video obtained by cnn show a close up view of the helicopter on the left and the jet with its bright lights on the right on a collision course and then the moment of impact. the helicopter pilot had already acknowledged air traffic control, that he saw the jet, but there are questions about which aircraft he was referencing. >> once you acknowledge or ask

for visual separation, then the controller kind of relaxes a little bit because he thinks, well, that aircraft sees the other one. >> and preliminary data shows the helicopter flying at 350ft instead of the required 200ft or lower. today, the faa announced it is now restricting the low altitude helicopter routes. for the time being. that route is specifically around the potomac river. the ntsb expects to release an initial report within 30 days, saying today it has not reached any conclusions. >> the only conclusion i know is that last night we met with several hundred family members who lost their their their loved ones in the potomac. we don't need that to happen anymore. >> the black boxes, the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder from the american airlines plane, now in the hands of the ntsb lab for evaluation. >> we're starting the process of not only opening those up, but to begin the extraction of the data. >> american airlines says it has retired flight number 5342, which is standard after tragedies like this. christiane

cordero abc news, reagan national airport. >> on our midday show today, abc seven news anchors gloria rodriguez and karina nova talked to east bay congressman mark desaulnier about aviation safety and what he's learned so far about the deadly midair collision. congressman. >> thank you so much for being here. you are on the transportation committee and aviation subcommittee. have you been briefed on this crash? >> yes, we have, but it's very early. remember, this is a methodical look at what happened. to find the causes, the root causes, and then figure out how we make sure it never happens again. so it is early. >> and, congressman, we know that you've been working to improve aviation safety since that near-miss incident at sfo in 2017. now you authored the safe landings act. how will you and the rest of congress respond to this tragedy? >> well, we already are

responding in the transportation infrastructure committee. we are a very good bipartisan working group, and we just reauthorized the faa, the federal aviation administration, that will oversee all of this with the ntsb, the national transportation safety board. this was done on a bipartisan level. so, chairman sam graves, i have great respect for republican from missouri, eric larson, the ranking democrat. we work together, and we will in this instance as well. on the safe landings act. i really believe i'm very proud of the work we did that with the pilots, with the industry safety advocates. if it had been in place, i think ten years ago, and i don't know, because we've got to find out what happened. but my suspicion is incidents like this would not have happened. so it's got to be implemented. it takes time. it's already saving lives, i believe. but in this case, we've got to wait until a national transportation safety board does what we're really proud of. the work they do is to investigate

and methodically and find out what happened. >> and speaking of investigating and finding out exactly what happened, president trump blamed diyers despite a lack of evidence as a possible reason for the crash. what do you have to say about that? >> in one word, madness. this is where focus comes in. important and listening to experts. common sense would tell you to listen to your doctor if you have cancer like i do, rather than blaming something just because it's an opinion. in this instance, i just found that outrageous and quite unhinged. to tell you the truth, out of respect for those people who died and their families who are suffering so much. why? why would you say something like that? those kids, man, those kids, the skaters, i i'm sorry. it's just completely unacceptable. why anyone would vote for somebody who would say things like that. to be perfectly honest, it's hard for me to comprehend. >> and, congressman, you said

you've been briefed on this incident. do you have any insight as to what could have caused this? i know it's still early. they're still investigating, but is there any information that you have been able to garner on this? >> you know, some of it is. >> some of it's just coming up. the new york times reported that the air traffic controller was working at two stations at the time, having been in these control towers multiple times. one was supposed they were supposed to be someone dealing with the military helicopters and the helicopters, period. and the other in the commercial airplanes of. i've taken that approach hundreds of times, so i'm very familiar with it. and the military traffic around there, i don't. my initial reaction to that is we'll find out, but that what i'm told is that's not unusual. the visual part about to the helicopter, do you see them come around behind them? clearly there was something there. he said, yes, i

got it. and then the crash happened. so we'll find out. but i don't want to get too far. i don't want to get ahead of the investigation at all. >> always appreciate congressman dyson's thoughtful comments. and as we learn more about the crash and the people involved, will post updates to our website, abc seven news.com and the abc seven bay area app. the white house confirms steep tariffs will begin tomorrow. the 25% tax on imports from canada and mexico could drive up the price of everything from gasoline to pickup trucks to guacamole. the tariffs could also invite retaliation. some officials in canada are already vowing to pull some american products off store shelves there. it's leading to instability on wall street, to say the least, with all three major indices taking a pretty big tumble today. the dow fell more than 300 points, the nasdaq dropped more than 50 points, and the s&p 500 lost 30

points. president trump has had his very meeting. very first meeting, that is, with santa clara chipmaker nvidia's ceo, jensen huang. the president described it as a good meeting without offering details. his administration may put further restrictions on nvidia selling its advanced computer chips to rival countries like china and russia. those chips power the ai industry. the biden administration had proposed banning the export of these chips to russia and china, but there were loopholes, and president trump could now expand the sales ban to 100 other countries. much more ahead on abc seven news at three. nasa says there is a chance the earth could be hit by an asteroid in 2032. so we'll talk to an astronomy professor about the likelihood a a team can help you plan for your dreams. so your dream car, and vacation home, may be closer than you think. ready to meet the dream team?

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thing we want to do is to pile on. but we should probably tell you that scientists are keeping a close eye on an asteroid that could hit the earth in seven years, 2032. is it time for bruce willis and team to embark on a dangerous mission to blow up the asteroid and save the earth, like in the 1998 movie armageddon? or should we just say meh? who cares? like the american public and leaders did in the 2021 leo dicaprio movie don't look up? joining us live now to talk about the 2024 year for as the asteroid is called astronomy professor of the fromm institute at the university of san francisco, andrew fraknoi. hey, andrew. >> hello. nice to be with you. >> i know, always nice to be with you. usually i get really excited, but today i'm also a little bit scared. but, andrew, how did astronomer make this

discovery? last month. and who found it? >> well, so this was discovered by a search for asteroids. the background, which you probably give your viewers is that when the solar system formed billions of years ago, janitorial services were not very good. nobody cleaned up when the planets formed. and there's a lot of debris left over flying around the solar system. the rocky pieces of debris are called asteroids, and some come near the earth. and as your graphic shows here very nicely, this is just a drawing. the chances of this asteroid hitting the earth are extremely small. it's about 1.2 1.3%, so one out of 100 chance of hitting. whoa whoa whoa. >> losing a. >> lot of sleep over. >> this, andrew. >> okay, i'm going to stop you right there, because is that really a small chance? because that's a much better chance than winning the lotto. like 1.2%. i

mean, that's that's that's kind of big. >> here's the important. >> here's the important part. the reason this got to your news desk is because it's over 1%. it's only the second time since we've had an asteroid watch that one of these asteroids had a greater than 1% chance. so we're going to monitor it. it was discovered by an automated process where we're looking for asteroids, and we only have 1 or 2 pictures of it. 1 or 2 places where we can see it. and so that's not enough to get an orbit. and so we won't know how its orbit will take it in 1932 until we've established that orbit. so we need a lot more information. it'll be visible to our telescopes until april, and then it'll get too far away for us to see it. so between now and april, we're going to try to get more views of it, establish that orbit, and then we may be able to tell you, don't even worry about the 1%. it's not going to

come anywhere near the earth in this particular. >> pass, but it's. >> because we know so little. >> right. >> we have to let people know that it's a very small possibility. >> okay. more information by april. and i heard more information when it gets closer to us again in 2028. right. so we got time. but let's just say if this were to make impact, let's say, you know, in five years, four years, three years, you come back and say, hey, guess what? the odds are now 20%. or maybe it's like 40%. what do we do? do we have the ability to deflect? i mean, we saw the movie don't look up. right. they could have blown it up, but they decided, nah, we'll mine it for minerals. you know, we can use them to build phones. but really, truthfully, do we have the ability to do do anything to change the trajectory if we had to? >> yes. >> so in fact, we've demonstrated in 2022 we sent a spacecraft called dart to an asteroid and moved its moon aside by a little bit, demonstrating that we do indeed

have that capability. this will be a relatively small asteroid. so we might be able to move it aside if we have enough warning. that's why we want to get information now. but it's certainly true that in the past we have had asteroids that hit the earth. there was 1 in 2013 that hit the earth above a russian city called chelyabinsk and exploded in the air. and it caused glass to shatter all over the town. so we have experience with some of these hitting the earth. they don't always do a devastation like a nuclear bomb depends on the size of it. and when we know more about the size, we'll be able to estimate how big a danger it is. so stay tuned. we need to learn. >> more, right? >> the size and also the exact composition of it. right. and i. >> guess it's rocky. >> so you don't want it landing on your house. that's that's not good for insurance rates. >> no. gosh. lord knows it's

already bad enough here. so, hey, look, two thirds of the earth is still water at this point, so, you know, it could also land somewhere where it just won't make as big of an impact. andrew. thank you. that was so reassuring. i will go back to not worrying, but let's check back in before april. okay. >> you bet. >> and there's plenty on earth to worry about. so look up into the heavens and enjoy the view. >> you

several years later, his widow's life was taken again when her second husband was also found murdered. so who is the hunter and who was the hunted? this morning, abc seven news anchor gloria rodriguez talked with abc's john quinones about tonight's episode of 2020 called run, run, run. >> so run, run run premieres tonight. what did you find most fascinating about this case? >> you know, we traveled to beautiful colorado, to the rocky mountains. it's a tale of love between alan and miriam helmick,

who met later in life after both of their spouses had passed away. they met on the dance floor. miriam was a was a dance instructor, and alan was wealthy but but lonely. a businessman in that grand junction, colorado area. before too long, they get married. he buys miriam her own dance studio, a sprawling horse ranch, and everything seems great, like a marriage made in heaven, right? but then one day, miriam comes home from shopping to discover that her husband has been shot dead on the kitchen floor. it looks like a break in a burglary. the kitchen is ransacked. miriam frantically calls 911, and that's when the investigation, full of twists and turns, begins. >> and i understand the title run, run, run actually refers to a note that was left. right? >> yeah. there's a there's more to this story, more mystery to it. because uh, after her husband had been shot dead,

miriam says she's out shopping all morning and comes home uh- to one night to find a greeting card under the mat near her front door, and someone has scribbled the words on these words on that card. it said alan was first your husband. alan was first. you are next. run, run, run. and of course, that raises a lot of eyebrows. >> and i know with these true crime stories, people always want to kind of figure out who did it. as we watch this story, do you think people will be kind of surprised about who may have done this, who may have committed this crime? >> absolutely, gloria, because part of the twists here is that someone had tried to kill alan a couple of months before he was shot and killed while he was sitting in his car in a parking lot. someone put a wick in his gas tank and tried to set it on

fire. actually, the car didn't explode. he survived. but that's when the authorities started wondering who would want alan helmick dead and why. in the end, his wife winds up in prison and you will hear my interview with her and she'll tell us her side of the story. >> actually, john, i was going to ask you about that because i understand you talked to her and this was the first time she spoke publicly about the case. what was that interview like for you? >> well, it was on the phone because we couldn't see her in person, but she wanted to tell her side of the story desperately. she tells me she had nothing to do with this, that she was railroaded, that she was not involved in her husband's murder. and i think in the end, the viewers will have to be the judge. >> wow. sounds fascinating. well, can't wait to see it. john, thank you so much for your time and so great talking to you. >> you can catch 2020 run, run run tonight right here on abc seven. it starts at nine. it

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to rebuild. the fire aid benefit concert was held in southern california last night. the event was a fully packed night of stars including legendary singer songwriter stevie nicks, and she gave a surprise shout out to some bay area firefighters. but as abc seven news reporter lena howland explains, there was one small thing she didn't get quite right. >> some of the music industry's biggest names united in los angeles thursday night, all to support communities impacted by the wildfires. >> and i was pretty sure as they whisked me away and evacuated me, my least favorite word. now

to another safe place that when i turned around and looked, my house would be up in flames. >> legendary stevie nicks opening up to the crowd about her home in pacific palisades, built out of wood in 1938. >> it would have set the rest of the whole street on both sides on fire. >> the historic fires destroyed or damaged more than 10,000 structures and burned over 14,000 acres, but her home was miraculously spared from the flames. >> the reason it got saved is because it was a team from santa rosa, the santa rosa firefighters that saved her, and they never gave up. i have to tell you, not just on my house, but on the whole side of the whole mountain canyon that was coming up towards us. >> nicks giving a special shout out to santa rosa firefighters, some sitting in on the crowd, a crew from santa rosa fire engine one was on a strike team sent to

the palisades. >> i'd like to dedicate this next song to all of those firefighters because until you really see it happen, you can't believe it. you just simply cannot believe the bravery of these men, captain dean especially. >> but here's the thing a spokesperson for the fire department says while they do have a captain dean, he wasn't on this fire. it was a different fire captain from their team. >> take my love. and i took it down. >> the benefit concert raised more than $60 million in ticket sales and sponsorships in santa rosa. lena howland, abc seven news. >> thanks for joining us. world news tonight with david muir starts right now. and i'll see you back stories. we have new images of the deadly midair colliet