lyanne melendez, "abc 7 news." >> up next, another bay area medical breakthrough. >> the toxin and it works for them. >> coming up what may free kidney patients from dialysis. kidney patients from dialysis. some of the tinie patientss were prese i want you to >> i have fallen in love with making bird houses. caw caw! [ director ]what is that? that's aorrible crow. here are some things that i'll makas little portals. honestly, i'd love to do this r the rest of my life so i've got to take care of my heart. for me, cheerios is a good place start. [ male annncer ] got something you'll love to keep ing? take care of your heart. you can art with cheerios. thnatural whole grain oats can help lower cholestol. brrrbb... makes you feel ageless. [ male announcer ] it's time. love your heart you can do what you love. cheerios. [ bob ] squak. you'veot everything you thought would make you happy. a promising career, plenty of friend..and a growing family. but lifeeems empty. something's missing. only go can bring real meaning to life. true happiness com from knowing him. discover how god can change

lyanne melendez told us how. >> star wars, the force unleashed is among the popular video games sold to teens and young adults. this swoy who put the voices and sounds together to create a dramatic blend. leslie anne jones, she makes sure to highlight her middle name. >> i think the only way i could really point out that i was a woman when i was on credit is by using my middle name. >> today she is highly respected by her peers as the director of scoring for sky walker sound. she was on the music team for other video games, god of war iii and uncharted ii. today she encourages young women to enter zbleeltd the ability to nurture the self-expression in young girls will go a long way to seeing more women in technical roles. >> that is what women's audio mission is doing, promoting women and girls like the group in the recording arts and music production. this was the only women's group attending the recent audio engineering society convention at moscone center. 18,000 professionals from all over the world attended. terry winston founded the san francisco based organization in 2003. >>

in the newsroom, lyanne melendez "abc 7 news." >>> my friend lisa argen is here.e is my friend because her accu-weather forecast is nice. >> of course. i'll take it when i can get it. we are looking at dense fog outs there. maybe people not liking it into the south bay. pretty foggy there and also we're looking at dense fog, visibility less than a quarter mile from the airport to the north bay. i'll detail that for you next. >>> also ahead the devastation from flooding in australia is becoming more apparent now now that >>> welcome back. time right now is 9:42. this is looking east from vollmer peak cam showing you a thick layer of fog and clouds. lisa says it's going to dissipate as the day goes on and very nice weather for the next several days. >> death, instruction and debris are what survivors are left with after flooding in north eastern australia. cleanup continues in the third largest city where 30,000 homes and businesses have been flooded. picking up the pieces could take months. rebuilding could take years. emergency centers have been set up to offer fo

lyanne melendez, "abc 7 news." >> books are cool.ther is cool, too. >> yes, it's been freezing or near that and tonight with the clear sky we're going to see some freezing temperatures. how about one degree at truckee, but as it looks pretty good there. sunny skies. back home we're looking at the fog beginning to break up. this is a view from tam. still looking at clouds around napa and santa rosa where the temperature calls for 33 degrees. 36 in antioch. sunny by the delta. we're looking at sunshine. 40-minute delays at the airport. peninsula beginning to see sunshine around palo alto. still cloudy, san jose. so the widespread low clouds and fog giving way to partly cloudy skies. with that clearing we'll see temperatures drop tonight into the 20s. so you have to watch out for some of that black ice develop. more sunshine on monday. next chance of showers comes our way on tuesday. here we are, over 19 inches of rain. 138% of normal, santa rosa. 93% of normal in san jose and 12 inches of rain here downtown puts at about 139% of normal

lyanne melendez on a bay area effort to help coffee farmers. >> reporter: in the late 1700s, haiti supplied half of the world's coffee. today farmers there would like to find their way back into the market. >> people in haiti started telling me we have lots of coffee. we don't know how to sell it to the united states. >> miriam kaplan of marin county knows haiti well. she works with the partners of the americas farmer to farmer program. with the help of the owner of mow jay's cafe in san rafael she is trying to build the market here in the u.s. eve is also involved. he owns haiti coffee company in santa rosa. >> coffee is their number one crops so they like to sell the coffee. they like to be able to sell the coffee and then with the coffee they can raise their kids. a good price for the coffee. >> reporter: in the past six month they have worked with farmers in the north of the country. >> some areas didn't know how to process it to the quality that we expect here in the united states so we have been educating them to improve quality. >> reporter: now, they import small amounts of green un

as lyanne melendez explains, the added cost of teaching them could bankruptcy some school districts. >> nobody really saw it coming. the number of kids like travis with autism. this is home video of travis in 1992 when he was one. jane is his mom. >> we noticed by the time he was a year old, a little over a year old he was>> a study >> a study found that before 1990, nine in 10,000 kids were diagnosed with autism by age six ten years later, it jumped to 44. today, one in 110 have an autism spectrum disorder. >> it was something you had to explain to people all the time. now, he has autism thing. it seems like everybody knows now. >> i'm going to tell you, this is a "d" word. >> whatever the cause, they must be guaranteed by law a free and appropriate education for their kids, congress declared so in 1975, which brings us to the costs of educating all special ed students, because the need of additional services, the federal government is supposed to contribute 46% of those costs but any district will tell you they are luckily to get the 10-15%. take gilroy unified school district. >>

in san pablo, lyanne melendez, abc 7 news. >>> all right. on to the weather forecast. the sun continues to sunshine. meteorologist sandhya patel is here. golcold one. >> cold enough conditions that icy conditions. >> black ice potential. >> black ice. it will slow down the commute. keep in mind there will be patchy dense freezing fog in those locations. get you outside and show you what it looks like right now, when you have clear nights and good radiational cooling taking place temperatures just start to fall. this picture showing us a little bit of a breeze at the higher elevations but that is not impacting the lower elevation temperatures. take a look right now. it is cold in fairfield. 36 degrees right now. 38 in livermore. santa rosa. 39 in los los gatoa. patchy dense freezing fog and a dry pattern right through monday before some small changes may come tuesday and into wednesday. this afternoon the fog just filled the central valley and that fog and that colder air associated with it did spill into some of our east bay and north bay locations. it was a chilly day

lyanne melendez spoke with him in a satellite interview provided by the white house. >> david silverthe principal of think college now in oakland. last may he made recommendations before congress on how the obama administration should revise the no child left behind law. last night, he liked hearing president obama say his plan will have more flexibility. he says that flexibility needs to start at the local level. >> they need to decide who are the teachers, who are the principals, who are the staff there. >>> under president bush the no child left behind law gave them the power to set standards. it relies heavily on test scores to evaluate schools. both democrats and republicans agree it is flawed. education secretary told "abc 7 news" change is coming. >> i'm much more interested in growth and gain. how much they are improving each year. how many students are going on to college. >> last night these continued his push for more charter schools, merit pay and holding teachers accountable. bruce fuller is an educator at u.c. berkeley. he says those things republicans like. >> she movi

lyanne melendez follows up. >> reporter: had high school has a modern health care for its students, mental is also offered. >> that they care for you and always there for you. >> jennifer is the director. she says if students are healthy physically and mentally it will reflect in their school work. >> we knew that if we could create a set of services and connect those services with young people that we would support them to do well in school. >> they are here. they are our shoulder to cry on when we don't have anybody to talk to in our homes. >> there is 176 health centers in california. there should have been more by now. four years ago, then governor swarzenegger promised to add 500 of them in elementary schools. >> war is when the state was trying to pass health health reform educational. >> but the california legislature never passed health care reform. according to california watch, as a result to date, not a single center has opened. tom is the new state superintendent of schools. >> we are in a fiscal emergency. the state budget is in crisis. the economy is still in crisis. >> schoo

here is lyanne melendez. >> students at school celebrated their many accomplishments parents and teachersshared in the success of their school. there are 6,000 title one schools in california. the vast majority of the students here come from low income families. just six years ago manzanita was the lowest performing schools in oakland. because it was failing, the district allowed the staff to deviate from the traditional curriculum and follow its own. >> it becomes exciting and fun and you build a curiosity. so really giving the kids an opportunity to love to learn. >> today they are reading and math scores are well above the state's average. their academic performance is close to 850 out of a possible 1,000. state's goal is for all schools to reach 800. the parents, many of them, english learners have been a huge factor in the school's success. >> parents like this are encouraged to spend time in the classroom. >> yeah, i'm a believer the more attention parents pay the better the kids respond. >> another way parents get involved through the family literacy project, english classes are of