washington dc cnn news correspondant will thomas won first place in the national competition for the william randolph heart journalism award. -- take will story-- kate: nbc bay area news anchor and update news alumni janelle wang reflects on what she gained during her stay at sjsu. ---sot janelle wang--- ingrid: in the 2000's update news followed the campus furloughs and budget cuts that brought backlash to a failing system. ---budget cuts, pentagon shooting--- ingrid vo: san jose was put under the spot light when an sjsu student was charged for the crimes of the pentagon shooting in 2010. ingrid: journalism and mass communication department head bob rucker tells us where the future of update news is going.b bob rucker, director of journalism and mass communicationsi i can tell you for sure update news has not been cancelled. has not been eliminated it is not going anywhere. san jose state will continue to have its commitment to update news but we are going to evolve and start using the new technologies, we are going to put update news on a variety of platforms. so you will see it ag

dc(Ñqgñ/twg >>> it's about half past the hour now. i am randi kaye coming to you from boston. let's check in with my colleague, victor blackwell, at cnndquarters in atlanta. what are you watching this morning? >> a couple big stories. we are starting on the west coast, northwest of los angeles, a raging wildfire there. it's nearly tripled in size and threatening thousands of homes in the ventura area. the spring fire is what it's called, and it's has destroyed 30 homes. and here is good news. firefighters could get a break tomorrow because rain is in the forecast. >>> u.s. federal officials believe israel carried out an air strike in syria. two u.s. officials tell cnn that the strike probably happened thursday or friday. washington does not think israeli warplanes entered syrian airspace buttish has long promised to strike at any target it suspects being used to transport weapons to hezbollah or other terrorists groups. >>> an american journalist missing in syria for almost six months now may be in the hands of the syrian government. that's according to the man's brother and the global post news outl outlet. the global post says it's