investigation into california's new 911 system. the latest pressure on a state agency after we exposed safety concerns. also with dangerous winds whipping through southern california. a new fire, sparks already scorching thousands of acres, the latest on the fight to contain it, and the closure of i-5. and how much money do you need to make to be able to pay for rent in the bay area? the new numbers that show a bit of good news. the news at 530 starts right now. thanks for joining us. i'm audrey asistio and i'm raj mathai. a republican state senator is demanding answers about california's new 911 system. the half billion dollar project is called nextgen 911. it's been delayed, and now deployment is on hold. after investigative reporter candice nguyen uncovered major safety concerns. candice is here with an update. raj, audrey. questions are mounting for the

state office of emergency services. questions from us, then police chiefs and sheriffs across california. and now a state lawmaker. so my call for action through the letter is really to let the office of emergency services know that we are watching. in her letter to california officef emergency services director nancy ward, state senator marie alvarado-gil recognized the wildfires burning in los angeles, saying it'ss in this vein that she's writing about a closely related issue. the state's next generation 911 system that's currently on hold. what happened with this rollout is we had dropped calls. we had calls coming in from out of the area, from new york and san francisco, and numerous 911 outages reported by some of the first dispatch centers on the new system and another 911 center just a couple months ago. these are problems the senator and other state leaders learned about for the first time through the investigative unit's reporting. i thank you for being

tenacious around this story and continuing to dig deeper. nextgen 911 is cal oes state of the art project that aims to bring the state's antiquated landline 911 network into the internet age. cal oes has worked on it for seven years, missing numerous deadlines. contracts with vendors expired last august, with only about 5% of california's 430,911 centers. using some form of the new system, the agency said. so far, the project has cost nearly a half billion dollars and the price tag is growing. my goal is to one earn back that trust by holding our agencies accountable. in her letter to director ward, senator alvarado-gil requested answers to these questions as soon as possible, ranging from what are the problems that led to the rollout being placed on hold to? what's the project timeline now? have you gotten a response from cal oes director? no, i have not received a response yet and i am

disappointed. but i do understand. i understand that we have some priorities right now in california with the southern california fires. we also reached out to director ward multiple times. neither she nor anyone else at cal oes respononded. the agency has said it will answer similar questions posed by state. 911 board members, who consist of police chiefs, sheriffs and 911 leaders at a future meeting. just like the senator, several of them learned about some of these issues for the first time through our reporting. if this board was misled in any way, whether by intentionally, by negligence, by poor communication, or any combination thereof, that needs to come to light. so i call on my colleagues in the supermajority as well as my colleagues in the republican caucus, to ensure that the office of emergency services hears loud and clear that we are watching and we are asking for accountability. cal oes was supposed to answer the state 911 advisory board's questions at a public meeting last thursday.

the agency postponed that meeting, citing the l.a. fires. a future date hasn't been set yet. candice nguyen, nbc bay area. we investigate. candice. thank you. we'll be waiting for their response anxiously. our other top story tonight, the breaking news down in southern california. another fast moving wildfire. this is called the hughes fire. take a look. it sparked around 10:30 a.m. just north of la and santa clarita. it has grown to more than 9000 acres right now. zero containment. 31,000 people have been evacuated. however, we should know the flames right now are not threatening any structures. so that's the good news. let's take a live look now from one of our nbc choppers down in the fire zone. look at that. this is so eerily similar to what we saw the last week and the week before in palisades and near pasadena. more than 4000 firefighters are down below on the fire lines. again, this is near castaic, north of la, near the grapevine. and this is

crippling the interstate commute. i-5 is shut down in both directions at the grapevine. however, it is expected to reopen soon. now, the red flag warning means firefighters are preparing for anything. it's a newer incident and it's evolving. it's going to change. we're ready for just about anything, which, by the way, includes being prepared for any other incident that would break, god forbid, anywhere in the county of los angeles. yes, sadly, we've gone through this. teams are still working to fully extinguish those devastating palisades and eaton fires. all while the county is working to remove the hazardous materials in the burn zone. there's another fire crews in san diego. much smaller here in san diego county, containing this small brush fire in rancho bernardo. it sparked around 9 a.m. the burn is only four acres. we don't know what started this fire. terrifying moments at a tennessee high school today after a teen opened fire, killing one student and then

himself. police say it started just after 11:00 this morning at antioch high school in nashville. a 17 year old student armed with a pistol walked into the cafeteria, confronted a 16 year old girl. he then fired multiple rounds, killing her and wounding another student. police say he then turned the gun on himself. they say a motive remains unclear and the school will be closed for the rest of the week. well, as you know, drones are becoming more popular, especially for first responders. santa rosa is considering a new proposal to send drones to emergency scenes before the crews arrive. tonight, the police department is hosting a public meeting. the drones would fly straight from the police station to an emergency. live streaming all the information, all the data. they would be there minutes before the crews arrive and give critical details, whether it be for structure fires, whether it be for missing persons, whether it be for wildfires in our community doing damage assessments, perhaps after

earthquake or other natural disasters. so it really is more multi-purpose than just crime. certainly, though, i believe it's going to have an impact on reducing crime. the chief goes on to say this program won't be cheap and santa rosa is already dealing with a budget deficit. now, the meeting tonight is at the utilities field operations building on stony point road. all right. in tonight's making it in the bay, report a closer look at the gap between what we make and what we pay for rent. the good news? it is dropping. the bad news? that drop is painfully slow. so let's bring in our business. and tech reporter scott budman. always a little more expensive in the bay area. scott. you're right. audrey. a lot of this comes down to how many rental units are being built. the more you build, the lower rents go. but here in the bay area, prices have stayed high. first, the good news across the country, the amount of money you need to make to afford to rent an apartment is down to about $63,000 on

average. but and you knew this was coming in silicon valley, that number is doubled. according to housing tracker redfin, you need 127,000 in salary to afford a typical one bedroom place. a tough pill to swallow for anyone trying to make it in the bay. especially hard for younger people. it doesn't seem easy, for sure. i don't think that a lot of my friends and i can afford even like thinking of owning a home right now. it's the bay area's relatively high salaries and low housing inventory, keeping rents persistently higher than most of the country. that big gap exists because the bay area hasn't done a great job of building housing for the middle earner. they have tended to focus more on those higher earners. in fact, partially because of those high salaries, the national low income housing coalition now classifies low income here as

$146,000 a year or less for a family of four, an intimidating number if you're thinking of buying a home. it seems like it's hard to get like a foot in for like owning a place, especially if you didn't already, like, own a house years and years and years ago. even if our incomes are rising faster than rents, it's still quite expensive to rent in the bay area. but incomes have been improving at a faster clip than rents have been climbing, and we have seen more apartments built here in the bay area over the last few years, which also helps. but to really see the rent drop, like what they're seeing in places like austin, texas, salt lake city or denver, we needd to build even more. audrey. all right, scott, thank you. samsung has launched its new galaxy smartphone companies showed off its new series of phones today during an event in san jose. the series is called s25 comes in three versions, which are all equipped with improved ai features. samsung says the goal is to make the

phone more like a digital personal assistant. the cost of the phones range from nearly 800 to $1200. samsung is taking preorders now, and the devices will officially go on sale february 7th. to rebuild or bail? that is the big question facing many l.a. fire victims. and in it, there's a lesson for the rest of us. i'm consumer investigator chris chmura, nbc bay area responds next. i'm chief meteorologist jeff ranieri. i'll show you the latest on our rain and snowpack seasons and how we're doing, plus updated chances of rain this weeke. we'llnd

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realistically it's going to take for you to rebuild your home and get back on your feet. typically a number of months or a couple of years to go through the process of securing permits and identifying a contractor. yes, karen did just say a couple years. that's going to be too long for some families. you might just want to sell your lot and move, rebuild a house, or buy a house someplace else. so what does that mean for your insurance payout? there are laws to protect you in california. one of them is that the insurance carrier has to give you the same settlement. if a you rebuild your home where it is, b, you rebuild your home somewhere else, or three if you purchase another home. now, if you were lucky enough to have another house or you're just going to go move in with someone else, sussman says, that might complicate your insurance payout, because, again, insurance policies are designed to put you back where you were, which is in a house not with cash in the bank. so you might be penalized if you do not

rebuild, replace or repurchase. sussman says talk with your insurance company about your options. if you ever find yourself in the shoes of the la fire victims, sussman says, there's no reason to rush. you really do want to take a little bit of time to decide, because this is a huge decision. we have an open invitation for you to share your insurance concerns. snap the qr code on screen right now to fill out our consumer complaint form online. kris. thank you. we want to get back to our breaking news as we bring in jeff ranieri. now we're taking a live look from one of our nbc choppers down in southern california. this is near the grapevine. so north of la. this is the hughes fire. we just mentioned this to you sparked this morning north of la and north of santa clarita. about 9000 acres with no containment right now. i understand this is very close to magic mountain here, and this fire is growing in size fairly quickly. just a couple hours ago, we were about at 5000 acres. and as raj mentioned, now over 9000 acres with no

containment. we do know 31,000 people have been evacuated. the good news is that no structures are being threatened at this point. but we do know that the grapevine, which is i-5 is shut down in both directions. that is the freeway that a lot of people take heading towards southern california. whenever we look at these fires, jeff, we're always thinking about the weather, the humidity, the santa ana winds out there. what are firefighters dealing with right now? well, you know, unfortunately they're going to be into some gusty winds here through friday's forecast. wind gusts of 40 to 70. the way the winds are blowing, this could actually cross interstate five. and then you're talking about a tremendous amount of fuel that is left to burn all the way till you get to the ocean. so we got a couple more days of this. we do. there is the chance of some rain this weekend in southern california. so that is going to help the fire danger. but this fire again, just growing so, so fast as we move into our microclimate forecast, we'll bring it back here locally. and we are starting it off with, you

know, how things are shaping up for us. and we have this area of high pressure. this is still keeping the storm track to the north. so we're looking at some very calm weather for usnd also some cold mornings to start. so as we bring it down here into tomorrow morning's forecast, we are going to see more of those 30s and 40s return. so keep that heaviest jacket out you've had the past couple of days because you're going to need it again. 41 here in the peninsula, south bay at 40. and we're also dipping it down to those 30s through the east bay, san francisco, 45, in the north bay at 37. as we move through tomorrow's forecast, we will see an incredible jump in the temperatures by the afternoon. i mean, this is feeling more like early spring across the bay area then winter right now 71 here in morgan hill, 67 in concord, 69 in napa and mid 60s san francisco to half moon bay. we're on a steady trend like this through friday's forecast. then by the time we get to this weekend, we are going to see a pretty big drop in temperatures. we may only stay in the 50s across the

inland valleys once we head into saturday and sunday from this system dropping down from the north. so even though we have a system here, it's not really tapping into a strong amount of pacific moisture. if this system here was developing in the pacific, we would certainly be into much higher totals, but it's just moving over the land. so it's just really hard for this to produce heavy, heavy rainfall. nonetheless, we'll see the chance here as we head into saturday's forecast, but it's only minimal right now. the forecast models are kind of back and forth on this a little bit, but just looks like trace amounts here for most of california on saturday. so again, only a spotty chance for us on saturday's forecast as we head into sunday. better bet would be central and southern california, where we could see a 10th to about a quarter inch. so sunday that is certainly going to help out firefighters. we get any kind of rain on this from a system, and that is exactly what we need now as we move it back into our rain season. here. it's a split picture. the north bay

right now is a surplus of 9.41in. that's from that strong atmospheric river in november. that was record setting, but it just didn't hit the rest of the bay area as hard. so oakland, san francisco, livermore and san jose now running a deficit. and if we don't start to get into some rainfall, ateast some stronger storms in the next 3 to 4 weeks, it's going to be hard to make this up. the way things are moving at this point. sierra snow. we'll see a little bit of winter conditions this weekend here saturday and sunday. just a little dusting here. one to about three inches. and those numbers also beginning to slip because of the lack of storms right now. central sierra that includes tahoe to 67% of normal and southern sierra 51. so on thatat 7-day forecast, i know is we're starting to feel a little guilty here about all this sunshine, but that's what we're serving up here. the next seven days. we got a mix of sun and clouds, temperatures in the 50s this weekend in san francisco, and also those chilly 50s for saturday and sunday across the inland valleys. so a little bit of something here on saturday.

anything is better than nothing in california this weekend, that's for sure. my car showed 72 degrees today. yeah, it was hot toasty for january. thanks, jeff. yeah. up next a hall of famer on the field and in the community. how vallejo cc sabathia has made a lasting pact onim (vo) with fargo, your virtual assistant from wells fargo, you can pick up the tab, even when you forget your wallet. (kaz) i got this. (ben) fargo, send kaz $145 dollars with zelle. (kaz) smooth. (vo) learn more at wellsfargo.com/getfargo.

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yesterday, sabathia was elected into baseball's hall of fame. today, nbc's anthony flores spoke with one of his former coaches and teammates, and we were reminded about cc and his dedication to the game and the vallejo community. he stood out because of his size, and not only he could throw the ball, but he would hit it over that roof over there. mike wilson senior was a teacher and the head varsity football coach when cc sabathia was attending vallejo high school. wilson says sabathia was a star athlete in football, basketball and baseball. he still remembers when he saw a young cc pitch for the first time in little league. you see this six foot kid on the mound throwing fire and you're like, okay, we got to check this kid's age. just like in little league. sabathia dominated in high school on the field that now bears his name. as a senior, he went six zero with 82 strikeouts in 45 plus innings and was the number one high

school prospect in northern california in 1998. mcclatchy high school. remember that one? david bernstein grew up playing ball with sabathia. he was the catcher on their high school team. he says he knew early on that cc was special. he couldn't be more proud of his friend to be selected to the national baseball hall of fame on the first ballot. it's huge. i got chills, i'm so proud of him. the city is proud of him. everybody is proud of him. sabathia had a 19 year big league career with cleveland, milwaukee and the new york yankees. he was a six time all star with 251 victories and more than 3000 career strikeouts. his hall of fame nod will shine a spotlight on his home town. wilson hopes it will also motivate other kids to work hard and chase their dreams. hopefully those kids will see and other kids that are not playing will see what a vallejo kid can actually do. sabathia is an inspiration to many in vallejo for his hall of fame career on the diamond, but also for the work he does to give

back to his community. a'ja wilson is a team member on cc sabathia's pitch in foundation. she says he donates to students and teachers with scholarships, school supplies, playgrounds, whatever he can do to help kids in his community excel in academics. this definitely increases the desire to learn. the dream of going further. there's no glass ceiling, wilson says, by giving back to his community. sabathia's legacy has endured long after his playing days. in vallejo. anthony flores nbc bay area. vallejo is very proud. all right. up next, president trump is sending a strong message to vladimir putin and russia. the not so subtle way he's calling for dave's been very excited about saving big with the comcast business 5-year price lock guarantee.

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today, aid is pouring into the region. so far, 2400 trucks carrying supplies have entered the gaza strip. under the deal, israeli officials must allow 600 truckloads of supplies, including gas, to enter gaza daily for the first six weeks. the united nations says 90% of gaza's population, which is almost 1.9 million people, has been displaced from their homes. president trump is threatening to sanction russia if it doesn't come to a deal to end its war against ukraine. mr. trump's

warning, coming from a social media post calling out russian president vladimir putin by name. he says if a deal isn't made, he has no choice but to put, quote, high levels of taxes, tariffs and sanctions on anything being sold by russia to the united states. president trump has repeatedly said he could end the war in ukraine in one day if he was elected to a second nonconsecutive term. the war began in february 2022 with an invasion by russia. a bay area baseball legend is on the move. oakland native dave stewart is heading to sacramento with the a's, the team announced. stu will join the a's front office a as a special assistant to player development. the former pitcher is a world series mvp with the athletics. he's among the first players inducted to the team's hall of fame back in 2018, and his number 34 is retired. all right. jessica aguirre joins us now with what's coming up next right now at six. new details in the

investigation of a crash involving a tesla and a waymo taxi. one of the drivers involved says his brakes went out. how that new claim is stalling action from da. brooke jenkins. also, local governments sending the message they will protect undocumented immigrants from president trump's new policies. but the feds are vowing to crack down on anyone who gets in the way of the enforcement and the family of a woman killed after being pushed in the path of a bart train is suing the agency. why? they say bart could have prevented their loved ones death. the news at six starts right now. good evening and thanks for being with us on this wednesday. i'm raj mathai. and i'm jessica aguirre. we begin with the tesla and the taxi tonight. the san francisco da is holding off on charges related to a deadly crash that involved a waymo taxi and a tesla car. that decision, based in part on the statement made by a driver involved. he's telling police that the brakes on his tesla just went out. nbc

bay area's sergio quintana has new details on that investigation. a devastating scene sunday night after a multi-car crash at harrison and sixth street in san francisco's south of market district. police say it started when a black tesla suv careened into a line of cars waiting at a traffic light. according to the office of the chief medical examiner, 27 year old mikhail romanenko and his dog were killed when that tesla suv crashed into his car. a passenger in his car was also sent to the hospital. today we're learning more about the man killed. he worked at venture capital firm kleiner perkins, where today a colleague tells us they called him misha and shared this statement. misha was a valued team member for his talent, dedication and collaborative spirit. he was not only a talented engineer, but also a wonderful person who will be greatly missed. police did arrest the driver of that tesla suv, 66 year old jia lin zheng, but for now, the district attorney says they're holding off on charg