>> reporter: new this morning san francisco sheriff ross mirkarimi heads to court on domestic violence charges. coming up hear what role a videotape might play in the case. >> the world's biggest search engine gets served with a search warrant. what arizona detectives hope to find at google. >> and the captain of the sinking cruise ship in italy says he never meant to abandon his ship. why he says he ended up in a life boat by accident. >> and here's a live look at a dark san francisco on this thursday, january 19th, this is "today in the bay."

>> good thursday morning. the time is 4:30. i'm jon kelley. >> i'm marla tellez in for laura garcia-cannon. a lot to get to but first let's check that forecast. christina loren is in our brand new weather center. >> wow. >> nice. >> yeah. it is nice, isn't it. good thing, too. we have it just in time for the big storm, the first of three that will bring heavy rain at times to the bay area. on your radar.t we are now about three hours away from steady rain moving into the north bay, then that front will slide to the south. we'll tell you when the rain arrives. how much we're expecting. first, we want to talk to mike inouye. some debris out there. >> i do. i'm worried about the rain but right now the debris is a concern for westbound 580 as you

come past north flynn road. sounds like something, we don't know what, is in the second lane. we'll have some traffic break if chp is able to clear it. if there is anything significant i'll let you know. >> okay, mike. >> it's 4:32 now. san francisco sheriff ross mirkarimi set to make his court appearance today. >> the newly elected sheriff is facing several misdemeanors including battery. christie smith is live in san francisco now with the story that seems to get more and more dramatic each day. christie, good morning. >> reporter: good morning. more and more confusing. ross mirkarimi has denied the allegations all along and said he will fight it. he is going to be in court today, facing charges of domestic violence and battery and dissuading a witness. all of this tied to new year's eve incident where he and his wife were going out to eat.

there is a growing chorus of those saying to take a leave until the investigation is over into whether or not he abused his wife. according to an arrest warrant cited, a key piece of received a videotape of his wife taped by a neighbor where she apparently says her husband man handled her and says that this happened once before. there is also a child endangerment issue because the couple's young son was apparently present during this alleged incident. since then, though, his wife has said she has no complaints against her husband saying this is my husband, my family, my son is unbelievable and it's wrong, he's expected in court here at 2:30 this afternoon. reporting live in san francisco, i'm christie smith. >> in the meantime, mirkarimi's wife is defending him saying he's the victim of, quote, dirty

politics. she spoke to a radio station in her home country of venezuela. we translated a portion of that. >> this is a case of political persecution. there's people with a lot of money behind this political fight. the richest people in california are behind all this. they can't stand that a progressive with very little money won the campaign for sheriff. >> mirkarimi has insisted he will stay in office while he fights the charges. >> 4:34. fire tears through a home in the south bay. it broke out just before 2:00 this morning on donohue drive in san jose. firefighters say the home is vacant. the fire apparently started on the second floor and then burned through the roof as you can see here. crews were able to knock out the flames in about 30 minutes. so far no word on a cause. >> the 14-year-old oakland boy accused of sexually assaulting two women twice his age is set

to make his first court appearance. police say the teen turned himself in on monday. he is charged with robbery, sexual assault and kidnapping for sexual assault. for those attacks earlier this month. right now he is charged as a juvenile but the alameda county district attorney's office asks to plan to charge him as an adult once a study is complete. >> in san jose, the woman accused of killing her partner's mother with a sha shemachete is expected to enter her plea today. prosecutors say she attacked the woman with a machete type weapon, then told police a man attacked both of them. she lived with yvonne kirk's daughter. >> the world's largest search engine is now being searched itself. detectives from phoenix, arizona plan to serve search warrants at google's mountain view

headquarters in attempt to find the person behind a blog sight targeting cops. that's a website that glorifies killing police officers. maricopa county sheriff joe arbiois upset because it praises the murder of one of its deputies killed last week. one expert says it's not clear if insite is a threat or is protected by free speech rights. >> courts struggle with drawing that line between first amendment values and protecting against violence. so, this is a close call. this is a situation where i could see bright minds disagreeing whether the website constitute as threat. >> we reached out to the website's author who we found south an activist from portland, oregon. he has not responded. google says it does not respond to specific cases. >> an east san jose softball league is fighting copper

thefts. thieves stole wire at ocala middle school that theft softball league with no place or practice to play. the scheduled evening practices start in about two weeks. now the team is rushing to raise thousands of dollars to replace the lights so. far no arrests in the case. >> the embattled captain of the capsized cruise ship in italy now says he slipped and then fell into a life boat. the captain is now under house arrest accused of abandoning his ship. he now claims he was trying to help others into the life boats and when the ship began tipping he fell into one of the boats. there are new satellite images of the ship as concern grows that the hull could slip into deeper water. italian authorities say 26 people still are missing. the official death toll remains at 11. >> turning to decision 2012,

republican presidential candidates meet once again tonight in south carolina for a final debate before saturday's primary. the candidates are addressing one of the most trofl issues -- abortion. it's a key topic in the conservative south. >> i will not sign any appropriatiation bill that has funding for planned parenthood. >> i want to protect the rights of the states to make these definitions. >> you're going to be pro life, you got to be pro life. you can't be partly pro life. >> mitt romney has been criticized for switching positions on the issue of abortion. but the latest nbc poll shows him leading with 34% of the vote in south carolina. but newt gingrich is gaining on him. he has 24% of that vote. >> 4:38. milder start to the day as far as temperatures are concerned. but christina loren says rain is on the way and she's now tracking it in the new weather

center. >> you can smell it out there although it has not yet arrived in the south bay along the peninsula, we're starting to get light scattered showers, up in the north bay, but you can see the bulk of the moisture sits to our north. that's going to slide to the south throughout day. let's get to it. see right now we have a little spotty activity, pretty good looking batch of rain developed offshore near santa rosa. get ready for rain there in the next 10 to 15 minutes. we're going to wait until 8:00 a.m. before the significant showers. we have three storm systems to get through. one today, another stronger one tomorrow, and then sunday, yeah, during that big championship game, we're talking about heavy periods of rain at times. so we're going to talk about that. right now this is how it works out. today a.m. shower, periods of rain the rain intensifying as we head through this evening. by tomorrow, mostly cloudy start, dry through the first part of friday. then the rain comes back with a vengeance. we expect an additional one inch

of rain in the south bay from the second storm. then the third one arrives as we head through sunday morning into monday. this is the most potent of the three. snow levels 3500 feet. we'll time that out, show your seven-day. now that it's going to start raining everyone wants to know when will it stop. let's talk to mike about the drive. >> can't win but you are accurate so at least you give them the answer. we're looking out here for 580. in the westbound direction t debris i reported earlier chp arrived, they were not able to find it but with the two cars that hit something in the road. not each other so. there is the no flashing lights as you pass by north flynn road no. slowing in the commute direction. 14 minutes out of the altamont pass to the dublin interchange. from there northbound 680, both directions between al costa and sake more valley road your overnight construction. very cold but they got to get work done. 680 will have a lane or two

blocked. a live look at the bay bridge at the toll plaza. an easy drive off the east shore freeway. 18 minutes from the carquinez bridge to this spot where you don't savg much time. back to you. >> thank you. the time is 4:41. i think it's safe to say vice president joe biden in a little hot water in san francisco after another verbal faux pas. mr. biden was in the city for a fundraising event. during a speech he was trying to show support for the hometown team, talk about football, when he said, quote, the giants are on their way to the super bowl. well, the crowd of course not too happy to hear that. actually started booing him. mr. biden soon went into damage control as politicians like to do telling the crowd, what he meant to say the 49ers are going all the way. biden said he kind of got confused with all of that san francisco stuff, thinking about the san francisco baseball giants and slipped out with

something that didn't work. >> nysf. interchangeable. >> know your audience, my man. 4:41, a change in the weather may help some people breathe easier. why doctors say they have seen a spike in asthma-related emergencies. >> facebook wants you to share bhor your friends. the new app that can share anything from where you shop to what you had for dinner. >> and rents, they are rising. a new report that shows how quickly rent has climbed. we'll have that coming up.

>> welcome back everybody. yes, it's good to be number one, maybe not in this kaxts bay area city led the nation in rising rent prices according to a new report. the survey by real facts found average rental prices in san francisco increased by more than 10% last year. san jose higher at over 12%. real estate experts say demand is driving the price up. tech companies bringing in more jobs and those people are willing to pay the higher prices. >> apple all street make a big announcement, one that could impact your child's classroom. the tech giant expected to announce partnerships with educators and publishers to bring digital text books to students. this is a page out of apple's

past. in the 80s the company got huge tax breaks to bring computer into classrooms. in addition to locking in contracts with schools, this will get kids very familiar with apple products at a young age. >> about 4:46. tech companies will be the stocks to watch as several heavy hitters report earnings. for more on that let's turn to brian live at cnbc world headquarters. good morning. >> good morning. another note on apple, general electric is going to start testing macs as opposed to dell or hp so they could make inroads there as well. so things are looking pretty good. stock futures pretty good. we were lower, we turned positive after decent gains on wednesday fueled by goldman sachs which reported better than expected earnings, and positive on the housing market from the biggest home builders. asia was higher, europe has turned positive as well.

we get data on unemployment. housing starts, building permits. google, microsoft, ibm all report earnings later this afternoon. the dow up 96 yesterday to 12,578, the nasdaq up 41 to 2769. facebook unveiling more than 60 new apps to help you share more information. the apps let you share details on what you cooked for dinner, facebook calls it frictionless sharing. you sign up for the app, it shares your info. frixtionless info. i had greek yogurt. i have to trim a few lbs. one other note, president obama speaking of warm weather he is in disney world to promote

tourism, expected to announce steps to make it easier for foreigners to visit the u.s. foreign tourist rates have been flat since the 9/11 attacks and business groups say if the you can get back to pre-9/11 levels that would be 1.3 million jobs over the next decade. facebook, you guys in that new profile mode? >> no. actually, i'm a little behind. i'm in the old school thing, too. i haven't switched to the time line version. >> i am eating greek yogurt. >> i am too. you're in good company here. thank you so much. >> have a great day. >> time to say good morning again to christina loren and that rain that's coming. >> it is coming. we had beach weather over the past month, two months. we had really nice weather. everything comes to a screeching halt today. we've got a lot of rain on the way. in fact, i think we're going to

be out of the deficit that we were running in terms of our average rainfall totals as of this monday. we've got three storms to get through. two of which are extremely potent. the first one, the more mild of the three, is coming in as we speak. 38 degrees in concord, 42 in san mateo, at 44 in santa rosa. it's mild out there this morning. we had low 20s earlier this week so you'll notice the difference. the reason for the warm-up is the additional cloud cover. trapping 18 little bit of the warmth. 53 degrees in redwood city. 54 in los gatos. so temperatures are going to be about as warm as yesterday because we're starting out so mild. they will climb into the 50s. we are picking up a little bit of rainfall on our radar. you can see santa rosa about five minutes out from your first rain. the steady rain arrives as we head later into the morning. the bulk of the moisture to the north of you kye yaxt it works like this. stop the clock at 4:00. you can see moderate rain starting to push down to the

south of the golden gate bridge. this slowed down a little bit so that means san jose we're probably not going to get our rain until later on this evening. by 8:00 a.m. friday we get a little bit after dry break that will last through the mid morning, then the rain comes back, take a look at what we're expecting. by 8:00 p.m. tomorrow if you are trying to make the plans to get outdoors tomorrow night hit the town, you want to make sure you've got your heavy rain coat ready. you see all of that red. that is heavy rain and it will continue to slide to the south even impacting the south bay as we head through friday morning. then we get a break all the way through 3:00 p.m. saturday. so if you are trying to get out, you have anything to take care of saturday is your day to do so before the next most potent storm arrives just in time for the nfc championship. it will be a sloppy football game. that's what i'm forecasting now. candlestick park. going to be pretty muddy. 52 degrees as we head through sunday, and then monday, tuesday, wednesday we keep the showers in the mix. we're going to get a few breaks of sunshine, not the heavy rain but still a lot of rain on the

way, guys. it's going to continue all the way through the midsection of next week. back to you. >> okay. thanks. 4:50. the change in weather is welcome news for asthma patients. 10-year-old juan here, he visits the pediatric asthma clinic at san francisco general every two weeks. his mother says the symptoms have been more intense during our recent dry weather. the clinic director of the clinic says flu season hasn't even peeked and she's seen twice as many asthma emergencies. >> whether it's the particulate matter in the air or the dry air, there is more dust with the dry air. something seems to be triggering the asthma this year more than other years. >> a likely trigger is increased pollution. there were 10 fair the air alerts in december and five in january. so far rain is expected to clean the air this weekend as christina said. which should allow patients to breathe a little easier. >> 4:51 now. a group of san francisco's best known residents celebrate their

anniversary today. how pier 39 is toasting those iconic sea lions. >> the toast of the town well at least through the town. 880 northbound just fine through oakland. southbound has construction with no slowing.

>> welcome back. 4:54. san jose mayor chuck reed will

give an update on his sj 2020 plan to improve student initiative in schools. the goal is have all proficient in reading and math by 2020 the mayor will give an update and present awards to schools that have done the most to close the achievement gap. >> let's say they are the bay area's treasures. that's right. san francisco celebrating the anniversary of sea lions at pier 39. starting today the pier offering visitors a free sea lion encounter tour. get ready to enjoy the aroma. the tour will be led by experts and will teach everything you wanted to know about those lovely sea lions. they began showing up at the pier in january of 1990, and if you have been, it's a fixture down there. it starts at the top of the hour from 11:00 to 4:00 p.m.

>> you ain't kidding it's like this. >> get a nose plug. >> i don't know about that. let's check the roads. >> beats doing this. >> that explains a lot. looking at the roadways, they are doing road work for 101 at the embarcadero on and off ramps from the southbound side that will cause improvements. right now it has a closure. oregon expressway is your alternate. eastbound 84 t dumbarton bridge, maintenance. we see slowing showing up on the sensors. likely because that equipment is starting to move slowly across the bridge getting ready to clear over the next hour we should see things move more smoothly. if the you are driving across you won't have problems. that's registering from our sensors. fair oaks and matilda, clear and

there is the south bay commute, no problems for the delays. no delays for those sensors. back to you. >> mike, thanks. 4:56. more than bragging rights on the line for this weekend's nfc championship game. >> mayor ed lee and new york city mayor michael bloomberg made a gentleman's wager. if the 49ers win bloomberg will rename 49th street in to 49ers street for a day. if the giants win the game, mayor lee will outfit a cable car in blue and red with new york flags for the day. get ready for 49ers street in new york. >> go niners. yo

>> reporter: new this morning san francisco sheriff ross mirkarimi heads to court on domestic violence charges. his alleged victim is