ferocious wildfires continue to rip across parts of la, leaving death and destruction in their paths. the fires have now burned a total of 30,000 acres this week, mostly by the palisades and eaton fires. that's larger than the city of san francisco, and nearly 200,000 people have fled their homes in search of safety. we've learned today at least 11 people have now died, although the exact death toll is not clear. we want to show you new video just shows the massive scale of the largest fires of one of the largest. the palisades fire stopping it has been difficult. after four days, containment only sits at 8% in that fire. more than 20,000 acres and 5000 structures have burned. to the east of there, the eaton fire, burning around pasadena and altadena, also shows little signs of slowing. cal fire says it has made some good progress today, but a lot more work is ahead. so far, this

fire is only 3% contained. over 13,000 acres there have burned. meanwhile, president biden is trying to ensure no expense is spared for los angeles. mr. biden has already committed to covering disaster response costs for these wildfires. today, governor newsom and l.a. mayor karen bass briefed the president and vice president harris. mr. biden pledged additional support from congress and said he hoped the city will be built back better than before. also today, governor newsom invited president elect donald trump to california to meet fire victims to see the damage from the ground. today is a critical day for fire crews to gain any kind of advantage, as winds are expected to pick back up later this weekend. joining us now live is nbc's gina kim, who is live in altadena, the scene of the eaton fire. and gina, this is one of the largest and most stubborn fires. what are you hearing from the front lines?

well, janelle, as you mentioned, we are getting a little bit of a respite today. after four days of fierce winds, we had relatively calm winds and more humidity today. but we are about to lose sunlight here any minute now. and i just wanted to show you a sliver of what this fire did at the eaton fire, which is the most destructive fire among those burning here in southern california. you can see the erratic nature of it. we have tons of debris. this church almost completely gone down the street from it. all those other homes and structures gone. but then look across the street. you have another church here that is completely intact. even the windows didn't get any damage. and then as you go to the right even more, you have half of a building standing and then the other half of the building not standing. so this just goes to show you what we're seeing. it's just a little slice of what the rest of altadena looks like

right now. as you go up and down these streets, one street, all the homes intact, another street, all the homes gone, homes there, the next one gone. so, you know, this is just the aggravating nature of this horrendous fire. we are now at 12,000 structures burned and counting. we are having a press conference here in about 30 minutes where unfortunately, we are expecting those numbers to go up. we do have 11 confirmed deaths, as you said, that just broke about an hour ago. we're not sure that we will get any more updates on those numbers, but as fire officials go from fire fighting to fire assessment and recovery, all of those numbers, unfortunately, are expected to go up. that's so unfortunate. okay, one more question before i let you go and head to that news conference. there have been reports of large amounts of looters in the altadena area. what are you hearing about that? yeah, and we've seen it in force. every occasionally we will see all of

these police and sheriff cars heading somewhere. and presumably it is because they have gotten reports of somebody being in an area that they're not supposed to. what i can tell you is just that here, alone in the eaton fire, you can't go anywhere without police being there and without police notifying, noticing where you are. and so i think residents can breathe a little bit of sigh of relief that the presence is here. the law enforcement is vigilant. and obviously you've heard the da here in la say that pretty much anyone caught doing that will absolutely be punished to the max. okay. gina kim live in altadena. i know some curfews are in place at this hour. coming this evening. thank you so much, gina. let's go to our meteorologist, rob mayeda now. rob, the red flag warning, i think is set to expire there soon, but it could be dicey again this weekend. yeah, the overall offshore wind pattern continues right now. a bit of a lull in the action you saw from gina kim's live shot there. not a lot of wind. and this is the

best news we've seen so far this week. those wind speeds have come down quite a bit, especially in the altadena area out to the east near sierra madre, and the most active parts of this fire, the last 24 hours. a lot more of it up in the mountains, a little less of it down towards the more densely populated areas around altadena and north pasadena. similar conditions actually out towards the palisades fire. wind speeds, which were about 40 to 60mph, generally below 20 to 30mph around the mountain areas. most of the activity with this palisades fire has been away from santa monica and brentwood. up in the mountains between topanga beach and woodland hills. this is an area, too that has benefited from less wind, but watch what happens moving forward into the weekend. wind speeds will start to pick up a bit saturday night, but there's a window here around the palisades fire and the eaton fire there. north of pasadena, where wind speeds in the mountains are likely to climb back into the 40 to 50 mile per hour range. so o high win watchs going up for the mountains there near los angeles. red flag warnings still ongoing around orange county to the mountains

east of san diego. and by the way, our own dry, gusty offshore winds will be picking up this weekend. we'll look at the timeline on our own wind advisory into saturday and sunday, coming up in a few minutes. thank you. rob. well, street vendors are using the power of social media to help those affected by these fires. hot dog vendors sayhey use tiktok to raise money to buy supplies and ask for donations, and they set up this resource center in the parking lot of the rose bowl, where evacuees could stop by and pick up supplies for free. one man who lost his home in altadena said that the community ran. donation drive has been a lifesaver. awful. lost the house. i lost my house. i'm just in shock still. yeah. diyou return home yesterday for the first time or did you hope to return home? i never left, i saw everything go down, i lost everything, burned down clothes, my e-bikes, my car, my truck. oh, that's so awful. so

far, organizers say the effort has received thousands of donations of food, water, clothing, diapers, pet food. they also have dozens of volunteers working around the clock to organize the items that have been dropped off. so what if it happened here? the devastating fires down south have many bay area residents thinking about their own evacuation plans in the event of a similar disaster. we've had them for years past. how will they get notified quickly to evacuate? nbc bay area's jodi hernandez has that part of the story from the oakland hills. most of the people who died in the oakland hills fire was a result of the traffic jams. elizabeth stage nearly lost her home in the oakland hills fire. she's been focused on improving evacuation routes in the east bay hills ever since. road structure isn't sufficient to carry everyone out quickly, stage has worked tirelessly to push for improvements. watching

the devastation in southern california this week has been even more of a wake up call. those of us who were here know it can happen here. more than half the people who live here now were not here then. the most important factor for residents to be aware of is to know how to get notifications on when to evacuate. michael hunt, with the oakland fire department, says the city has made a lot of changes since 1991. evacuation warnings and routes are now pushed out digitally through the county's ac alert system. when there's a fire, the system kicks in. we begin identifying areas that are likely going to need to incident commanders beginnt. identifying which neighborhoods and which blocks need to be notified, and then ac alerts go out identifying which zones should be should be evacuated. the city also now inspects more than 27,000 properties a year to ensure residents maintain a safe

clearance, and they use goat herds to clear 1300 acres of public land. newly passed measure m will soon give them funds to help expand roadside clearing and increase public education. if there is anything that we, you know, here in northern california, take from what's going down in la, it is to be prepared. oakland resident tiffany rose recently got an evacuation order through the a c alert system during the kelter fire. with so many recent scares, she's now more prepared than ever. we have the go bag, you know, have the plan, have the cash. you know, just to have all those things in place. stage says though the city has made progress, a lot more needs to be done to improve evacuation routes. she's reminding neighbors to do their part and practice your escape routes, and be ready to turn your car around so that it's facing the street. please leave when they issue the

warning. in oakland, jodi good reminders. thank you jodi. and we will, of course, continue our coverage of the fires throughout this newscast. coming up at 530, we're going to speak with a cal football player and his family after they lost their home in the eaton fire, how they are trying to look forward while also coming to grips with what has happened. we're going to move on to some other news now. for the first time in the history of our nation, a man who has lived in the white house has been sentenced as a convicted felon. president elect trump, who will again take the oath of office in just ten days from now, was sentenced after being found guilty on 34 counts in his hush money trial. nbc's jay gray has the latest from washington, dc. good morning. please be seated. history inside a manhattan courtroom donald trump appearing via video conference call, formally sentenced months after his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in an effort to hide an alleged affair and cover

up from voters. this court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of a judgment of conviction without encroaching upon the highest office in the land is an unconditional discharge. an unconditional discharge means no jail time, no fines, no substantive punishment. while confirming he's guilty and a convicted felon, the president elect, clearly frustrated, remaining defiant during the proceedings. it's been a political witch hunt. it was done to damage my reputation so that i would lose the election. and obviously that didn't work. the fact is that i'm totally innocent. i did nothing wrong. continuing to blast the process on social media, writing, there is no case. there was never a case, and this whole scam fully deserves to be dismissed. promising an appeal to what he labels a despicable charade and hoax. but any challenge won't be

complete. before the inauguration in just over a week, assuring mr. trump will be the first convicted felon to take the oath of office and serve as president. and immediately following the sentencing, the president elect reached out to supporters online and in an email asking for donations to continue to fight the case. jay gray, nbc news, washington. still ahead, the new jobs report is out. we have the latest numbers and what it means for our economy and more changes coming to meta with the company. why the company is getting rid of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. and it's looking like a windy start to the weekend. wind advisory going back into effect tonight. north bay, east bay hills and the santa cruz mountains. we'll take a closer look at this whenhe strongest winds arrive, and when rain retur tons

care, technology, even retail added jobs in the month of december. more jobs than experts expected. let's bring in our

business tech reporter scott budman, to talk about the job prospects and these numbers. it was a very good report, very strong report. it really was. janelle. the united states continuing to add jobs at a faster clip than expected last month, data released today showing u.s. payrolls grew by 250,000 jobs in december. that's about 100,000 more than analysts were forecasting. the jobless rate for the country also fell 4.1%, all solid numbers, but with a caveat, at least for tech. lots of job growth. but much of it is specifically ai related. and that's why job experts we spoke to say, if you're looking for your next tech job, make sure you're up on ai and machine learning skills. technological change is happening at an increasingly rapid pace. we're all going to have to keep learning new skills all the time. in short, i would advise focusing on building your digital skills and what we call your human skills, by which i

mean critical thinking, creativity, communication. okay, so strong job numbers, lots of hiring. it all seems great news exceeded expectations. and then i looked at wall street and numbers plummeted today. yeah. wall street wanted to see a slower economy, because that may have led the federal reserve to continue to cut interest rates. that's sort of a short term thing that a lot of investors and, let's be honest, bay area potential home buyers want to see lower interest rates often lead to lower mortgage rates. but the fact is the fed is less likely to cut when the economy is strong. overall, that's good news. but in the short term, yes. stocks dropped. okay. thank you scott. you bet. the supreme court appears likely to uphold a law to effectively ban tiktok in the u.s. the court heard oral arguments in the case today. the law in question requires china based tiktok owner bytedance to divest itself from the company if no sale takes place, the platform would go dark in the u.s. on january 19th. the

judge's justices did not appear convinced by tiktok's free speech arguments, but uncertainty remains over how the court will handle the case, especially with president elect trump taking office a day after this bipartisan law takes effect. a preliminary decision is expected in the coming days, and scott budman will rejoin us, and he will have more details on today's proceedings coming up in our 6:00 newscast. meanwhile, facebook's parent company meta announced it's ending a number of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. in a memo to employees, meta said it is ending internal programs enacted to increase the company's hiring of diverse candidates. it also announced its chief diversity officer will move into a new role. in its memo, meta said it continues to value diversity, and it still has a principle of serving everyone. our meteorologist, rob mayeda is here and the weekend is also here. what a nice week it's been. it's actually really

unseasonably warm lately. the highs should be in the 50s. we hit mid 60s again today. sunshine. one thing to watch though will be the wind. we've got wind advisories returning as we head into tonight into saturday morning north and east bay hills. gusty conditions setting the stage for some chilly nights and mornings ahead. a look at that coming up in the extended forecast, but for now, let's look outside. san jose. still in the 60s, we got hazy skies. not much wind in san jose. as you head over to dubli. 61 degrees. good visibility again. not much wind for the moment, but later tonight tri-valley will begin to see those offshore winds picking up. 57 degrees into san rafael and some low clouds at times. not in walnut creek where it's still 63 degrees. let's show you san francisco. as we see from the emeryville camera. we got low clouds there on approach for now. winds onshore, bringing in some of the low cloud cover across the bay. but the weekend begins. if that wind advisory, it's going to last all the way till about 10 a.m. on sunday morning. mostly a mountain and hilltop event where those gusts will be above 50mph. then, once

the winds back off, the air is going to be quite dry. also quite clear, setting the stage for those chilly nights ahead. so in terms of the wind advisory, it's the santa cruz mountains, diablo range, east bay hills, and to the interior hills and mountains of the north bay. and here's a look at the peak wind speeds, which will be increasing tonight into tomorrow morning. if you're in those hilltop communities, if you're out around, let's say, camino tassajara, danville area, the noise of the wind might wake you up tonight. peak wind speeds picking up for the first hf of saturday. and then the wind eeds do start to dial back as we head into your sunday forecast. but notice the wind direction here. it is gusty and offshore. w we're thankful we've had some pretty good rain totals so far this season, so that is kind of suppressed. the fire danger locally. wind speeds will start to come down and we'll lose that wind advisory as we head into sunday. saturday morning temperatures will be in the 40s and highs again for the afternoon. pretty good temperature recovery. san jose southward seeing highs in the mid 60s. about 5 to 7 degrees above average for this time of year. and 60s bayside around san

francisco and oakland. now we're going to move forward and show you where the low temperatures are headed. starting sunday, wind sheltered valleys could see upper 30s. and look what happens here monday and tuesday. based on this trend, i think frost advisories will be in the forecast as we head into that monday morning and tuesday morning forecast. clear skies, dry air, chilly conditions, and unfortunately, no rain in the extended forecast. this resilient ridge of high pressure not giving up any ground from the weekend and possibly into next weekend. as you see there, no storms really breaking through there. and unfortunately, what is normally one of the stormier times of the year without any fire danger around the state continues to be unusually dry and you're seeing it play out there through next week as well. so for our 7-day forecast, we talked about the wind advisory, which will end at 10 a.m. on sunday. besides the wind. pretty nice conditions though, 60s around san francisco and across the valleys, but chilly mornings ahead. we have not had those lows in the mid 30s for a while, so the mornings are going to be quite cold.

still no rain in that extended forecast as we head towards next weekend. okay, we'll enjoy this while it lasts. okay. thank you so much rob. coming up, not one but two big box stores set to close multiple locations in the bay area. the

down bay area stores and slashing jobs. kohl's plans to close five bay area locations and 27 nationwide, while macy's will shut stores in newark and corte madera. statewide, kohl's is chopping 929 jobs, including 60 jobs at its store in pleasanton. it is not

immediately clear how many additional jobs will be affected by kohl's upcoming closures in fremont, mountain view, napa and san rafael. macy's has yet to reveal any details about any job cuts. san francisco has reported its first human case of bird flu. public health officials say a child experienced fever and an eye infection, but did not need to go to the hospital. that child has since recovered. it is unclear how the child contracted the virus. the sample was sent to the cdc after a confirmed positive by the san francisco public health department's lab. the case marks the second human case in the bay area, and alameda county child tested positive for the virus back in november. health officials stress the risk of humans getting bird flu remains low, as there is no current evidence the virus can be transmitted between people. they also say try to avoid contact with birds. saturday night live ready to resume its historic 50th season. the big names that will be

hosting

(humming) behold! a glorious round table pepperoni pizz... huh? ah. huh. well, behold the pepperoni and grilled chken...? what the? (clears throat) behold, the pepperoni, grilled chicken and bacon pizza from round table! three magnificent toppings grilled chicken, pepperoni, and sizzling bacon. try it at round table pizza!

merlin! the show has tapped dave chappelle as host of its return

show on january 18th. glorilla, who received two grammy nominations this year, will be the musical guest. timothy shamier little will do double duty the following week as host and musical guest. he'll likely perform the songs of bob dylan, who he plays in the current film. a complete unknown. don't forget you can watch our newscast 24/7 on roku and other streaming platforms. raj mathai joins us now with what's coming up next at 530. janelle, here's what we're working on. is there any end in sight? we continue our coverage of the fires down in southern california. among the many fire victims is this young man, a cal football player? how he and his family are trying to figure out what's next. also here at home, san francisco names a new person to lead its fire department. we're going to hear from the man picked by the city's new mayor. and thieves try pulling off a smash and grab in oakland after driving a pickup into a convenience store. new details we're learning at this hour.

welcome back everyone. the news at 530 starts right now. thanks so much for joining us i'm janelle wang. and i'm raj mathai. not the news that we want to hear. this disaster continues to unfold. multiple wildfires continue to rage across southern california. more than 30,000 acres have been burned this week, most of that driven by the palisades and eaton fires. that's an area larger than the city of san francisco. nearly 200,000 people have left their homes. la officials also confirming at least 11 people have now died. that death toll, sadly, is expected to climb as firefighters continue to make progress. the eaton fire. this is near pasadena and altadena is the lowest containment right now at 3%. cal fire has made good progress, but admit a lot more work is ahead. the thousands of firefighters on the front lines will soon get more help. today, governor newsom confirmed mexico is sending som