of course, our scott mcgrew joins us here.wondering here, what does this mean for me? yeah, of course. i mean, we want to know what these decisions made in washington and elsewhere mean for, you know, our paychecks, how much money we have in the bank, what we can buy, that sort of thing. the simple answer, ginger, is less than you might think. i mean, we'll talk about credit cards and mortgage rates, although the fed doesn't set either one of those. but they're related. but more importantly, i'd really rather you pivot to a broader picture. the fed cuts rates when it thinks inflation is under control or close to under control. a little hotter than we would like in the last reading. butre a sign that some of the smartest economists in the world are happy with the economy. as far as the personal pocketbook goes, things do get easier on you. even though the fed again, does not set credit card rates or car loan rates. but by lowering interest rates, banks cut their expenses, whi theoretically they're going to pass on to you in the

our scott mcgrew breaks down what that means for your bottom line. also ensuring your holiday deliveries make it to the place they're supposed to go on time for christmas day. the key deadline you need to nice to meet ya. my name is david. i've been a pharmacist for 44 years and i'm from flowery branch, georgia. when i have customers come in i recommend prevagen. number one, because it's effective. does not require a prescription. and i've been taking it quite a while myself and i know it works. and i love it when the customers come back in and tell me, "david, that really works so good for me." makes my day. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. mont ierest rates are being cut again. the federal reserve just wrapping its policy meeting, announcing a rate cut down to zero or by, i should say, 0.25%. the fedlso indicated that it probably would only lower twice more in 2025. okay. so what does that mean for your family's budget? our scott mcgrew says every cut helps, but maybe not as much as you think. yeah, we can talk credit cards, m

on midnight saturday, scott mcgrew congress had a deal, but elon musk helped blow it out.. it was by any accounts, this deal was messy. it was lots of spending with more text than any member of congress could read through before leaving for the holidays. and speaker johnson had promised not to do that, not to give people a phone book sized bill at the lt minute. but yeah, musk, who first complained about the bill, then donald trump weighed in, telling lawmakers not to vote on it, telling them to go back and start over with a clean, continuing resolution that postpones any government shutdown by temporarily funding the government. so out went help for hurricane relief, out went help to farmers and a lot of other spending. elon musk had tweeted about the original bill. any member of the house or senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in two years. he then reposted a picture of himself with a sword, ready to chop the continuing resolution bill in half. media watchdog ron filipkowski noted the owner of a car company is controlling the house

our scott mcgrew the volvo holiday sales event.or wherever your little passengers want to go. i want a hot chocolate! yeah! i want to go sledding! mom, play your winter playlist! yeah, play it! turn this up! (♪♪) i love the holidays. the volvo xc60 and xc90. your first step to a safe and happy holiday season. sign & drive with zero down, zero due at signing, and zero first payment on select volvo suvs during the holiday safely sales event. ♪ honeybaked, how it glistens. ♪ ♪ mac and cheese, so delicious. ♪ ♪ sweet potato souffle. ♪ ♪ ham and turkey, hooray. ♪ ♪ feasting on some honeybaked all day. ♪ every bite is a celebration with the honey baked ham company. our exclusive mobile doppler radar. they're on top of san bruno mountain. getting a little bit of a break this morning after a wild start to our weekend, but we noticed some dense fog right there through the peninsula, also carrying it through parts of the north bay. and we're seeing some drizzle right there on our camera lens, and it is much colder up there. 39. 39 in walnut

scott mcgrew joining us now is scott. it's a bill stuffed full of ideas. stuffed full. absolutely. morning. theoretically, the bill to keep the government open could have been written on a cocktail napkin. you know, keep funding the government agencies where they're at and done. that the continuing resolution, more or less, that's been keeping washington running for quite some time now. but the bill that's being passed around the house right now, much bigger. not only did they add badly needed storm aid to the bill and relief for farmers to the bill, but dozens of other ideas and projects and spending. and it's got a lot of members of congress, particularly republicans, upset they're due to go home for the holidays and their speaker is handing them a phone book size continuing resolution they have to read through. and these are some of the very same lawmakers who say we should be spending less and now dealing with a cr that says we should spend more. sign it. spend more, or the government shuts down on saturday. that's the pickle that they are in. this morning, president elect dona

our scott mcgrew sits down with the man, promising to get them on live without a hitch or a glitch.y. thanks so much for joining us on this friday morning. i'm kris sanchez. i'm in for laura garcia and i'm marcus washington. first, we do have team coverage for you on that holiday rush. well, we're going to take you out to sfo in just a moment. that's where ginger conejero saab has been checking in with those bay area travelers this morning. but we want to start with meteorologist kari hall. and what should people be expecting as they hit the road? it's really a quiet day across the country. we only have one region. we're watching for the potential of some chain effect delays that we could see in parts of the upper midwest states. we are going to see the airport delays for now run on time. so that's some great news. on this friday morning. and across the west, we are seeing all of the flights on time for the major airports. here's a look out the window right now where we may see some fog causing some issues, some low clouds. and it's a cool morning as you're heading out in walnut cre

i'm scott mcgrew in for marcus washington, and i'm laura garcia. let's start out with a look at the forecast with forecaster cinthia pimentel tracking what we can expect. it's a cold one. yeah. we're putting the bur in the final day of december. all right. we start in napa where we are under a freeze warning this morning until about 10 a.m. we see those 30s continuing until then. it's not until we start to approach lunchtime that it gets just a little bit warmer in the 50s down here into fremont. some people maybe still have to head to work this mornining. the hear is on blast, but it is slightly warmer in those low 40s. it will be much faster to warm up down here in fremont and the south bay. and of course, we'll talk about the rest of the region and our new year's eve plans now. mike, a beautiful view of the lights in san francisco. dazzling. yeah, well, you're looking at these lights. i'm looking at these lights here. so we have our departments. let's take a look at the traffic right now. not much to speak of. much like yesterday. very light tra

i'm scott mcgrew, and we do begin with breaking news this midday. a two alarm fire guts, a restaurant in gilroy started just after 730 this morning at the los juniors mariscos on first street. now, gilroy fire says there was significant damage inside that restaurant, but fortunately, nobody hurt. gilroy police closed the roads at hanna street and first street. those are now back open. firefighters, though still investigating the cause. they do say it is suspicious because the back door was found open and the store was expected to be closed today. also breaking right now. san jose police announce an arrest after a man crashed into christmas at the park. that happened sunday evening. witnesses say police were attempting to make a traffic stop. the driver tried to get away, driving into the valet area of a hotel across from christmas in the park, then started driving the wrong way down market street. entering the holiday display crashing near the center. nobody was hurt, but again, that driver is now in custody. also, just into our newsroom, the vallej

i'm scott mcgrew, a u.s.court of appeals says a law that requires the chinese company bytedance to sell its tiktok social network or face a ban here in america, can go into effect early next year. bytedance is appealing that decision to the u.s. supreme court, and bytedance has been pretty clear it's not going to se. but if it did, to whom would it sell? frank mccourt says he would buy it. he calls it a people's bid. a consortium of investors, though he will be adding quite a bit of money to the bid himself. mccourt is good at owning stuff, including the french football team marseille, and for a while the los angeles dodgers and dodger stadium. frank, i'll get to the why in just a second, but let's start with the price. i mean, what is let's say you bought it. what is a fair price for tiktok? yeah, very, very hard to determine that without knowing what what bytedance is selling. and you know, we've circled about 20 billion thinks we think that's kind of order of magnitude. but of course this will depend on wh

well, a very good monday morning to you, i'm scott mcgrew.cus has the day off, and i'm laura garcia. we'll check that morning commute with mike in just a little bit. last monday of 2024, what are we in store for weather wise? you know, some people just don't know what day it is because of the holidays. that's true. mixing in together. but the thing is, we're all feeling the cold this morning. so let's go on and check on the current readings right now. 36 in santa rosa, that evaporation happening. so you might be seeing some patchy fogand yes, we're seeing it out towards the tri-valley right there as some people still have to head to work this morning. but we notice the numbers a bit warmer out there. 4447 in san bruno. i'm not looking at any visibility issues as you maybe take a flight out of sfo, but just continue to check on that. 47 in

and soon scott mcgrew will be under the care of donald trump. that's right. pete hegseth gets the job. hegseth, of course, accused of drunkenness and several instances of inappropriate sexual behavior. video here from earlier this morning of the fox news anchor meeting with texas senator john cornyn. earlier this week, hegseth met with iowa's joni ernst, who sounded like she was reluctant to give her approval, but has since indicated she will at least vote to move the nomination forward. notable because ernst is a former military officer who has been pushing the military to crack down on sexual misconduct. the confirmation process won't begin until trump is actually president, and the new senators are sworn in in january. the exception to that is california's adam schiff, who is now a u.s. senator for the first time. his case is complicated. he was elected as a new senator, then appointed to take office early by governor newsom to replace laphonza butler, who had been temporarily appointed to replace the late dianne feinstein. schiff will serve out butler's t

i'm scott mcgrew, and i'm ginger conejero saab. laura and marcus have the morning off. it is that week kicking off. really the holiday spirit. but we're going to get a we're going to get a look at the traffic. that holiday traffic has the spirit. but firste're going to take a look at that forecast with meteorologist kari hall. it's been so busy here in the weather department. i mean yeah, those storms over the weekend. and now we're tracking a new storm system arriving in the bay area, bringing more rain to the already saturated north bay. and we're seeing some pretty widespread rain here. and there are some pockets of some heavy rain that we're seeing just north of santa rosa, as well as parts of northern napa county. as we get a closer look, we can see the rain is coming down from bodega bay to santa rosa and extending over toward yountville and farther to the north, as well as down to petaluma and now approaching novato. this is a part of the next storm system that will be in and out of here quickly. that's the good thing, is that we're not expxpecting ts to have a m

the magic of christmas starring scott mcgrew all right, i'm tuning in. right.et my green sweater. okay. 618 for you right now, let's take a live look over at the oakland coliseum and happening today, alameda county supervisors are expected to pick up that debate on the looming sale of the property of the african american sports entertainment group. now, with the ownership group awaiting finalization of the deal, payments remain on hold for the city of oakland, and that's been a sticking point in oakland with the resolving of its own budget crunch. all sides remain confident about the deal eventually being finalized. striking san francisco hotel workers are trying to send a message to people invited to a large health care conference planned for next month. they're saying, don't bother coming. about 2500 workers at half a dozen hotels are involved in what is now a long and bitter stalemate over a new contract. and the next month, the jp morgan healthcare conference is scheduled to be held at the westin saint francis hotel. union leaders are now trying to advise p

as our scott mcgrew reports, when it comes to these big ticket events that millions of people will watchrickier. good morning. on christmas day, netflix will stream not just a football game, but football game with a big star at halftime. there are also games on nfl plus and paramount. streaming is fundamentally different than broadcast because with broadcast like you're watching now, it makes no difference if another person joins in to watch or a thousand people or a million people. it's all the same to tv stations. we just send out one signal. streaming is far different. it matters how many people watch, because the more that watch, the bigger the load on the servers. video from our peacock streaming service from our first try at a streaming a game last year, it went just fine. big christmas ahead. are all the computers ready? yes they are. well, you know, i tell you, it's the internet. that's the challenge. i think there's a lot of capacity that can be built on the back end of these systems that the peacock and now netflix use for their christmas games. but it's really the internet tha

and i'm scott mcgrew. we're in for laura and marcus this morning. we want to start with the rain moving in in the bay area overnight. look, live outside almost every part of the bay area from the north bay to the south bay was hit with rain. meteorologist kari hall is leading our coverage this morning, and it looks like it's kind of shifting off to the east a little bit. yeah, we are seeing the rain starting to move away from the bay area, giving us a break after some early morning widespread rain. it's becoming a lot more spotty now as we take a look at storm ranger. that's our mobile doppler radar. and it's mostly the east bay and parts of the south bay that we are seeing. still some steady rain coming down, but it's not everywhere. we are still seeing the lingering showers, and even if it's not actively raining, the roads are wet because we did see some heavy downpours earlier this morning from morgan hill to gilroy. still some wet weather coming in, but the system is pushing off towards the south and east. it still will leave us very unsettled t

new year's eve i'm scott mcgrew, filling in for marcus. and i'm laura garcia. welcome to this final day of the year. all right. it's a cold start to our morning as well. and i would imagine it's going to be cold through the day. yeah, it will be. it will be a gradual warm up, so might not be till mid morning where we start to feel that sunshine warmth. finally we are looking at some frost advisories in place, the freeze warnings and the purple up towards the north bay and some of the foothills down here in the south bay. notice though, that parts of san francisco and the immediate coastline aren't in this. it just takes a little bit longer to cool down those temperatures out by the water, as it does in our inland valleys. and that's where we look at the freezing numbers right now through parts of danville, approaching that right now in parts of san martin. 35 for you. 33 in boulder creek, the low 40s right there in the immediate bay. so not as cold as places up in the north bay. 34 in santa calistoga right now. but as we go on and talk about our new year's eve

our scott mcgrew is investigating whether the silicon valley streaming service is ready. he takes us behind the scenes. but first first responders in san francisco getting into the holiday spirit who came out on top when it comes to an annual cherry competition. ♪ you know i'm a dreamer ♪ ♪ but my heart's of gold ♪ ♪ just one more night ♪ ♪ and i'm coming off this long and winding road ♪ ♪ i'm on my way ♪ ♪ i'm on my way ♪ ♪ home sweet home ♪ there's no place like the road home. receive a $5,500 bonus on a new 2024 audi q5 plug-in hybrid during the season of audi sales event. our season is done. they do have christmas off this year, but the nfl is still happening. two christmas day games and they are making history airing them on netflix. so nfl christmas game day begins with a two hour pregame show at 8 a.m. this is before pittsburgh hosts kansas city. then baltimore will face off against houston in the second game. and then if you're like, okay, what do these legs heels and wait, that's beyonce. beyonce. beyonce could break the internet during the game because the 32 ti

and i'm scott mcgrew. we're in for laura and marcus this morning.t, of course, with the rain moving intohe bay area overnight. just take a live look outside this morning. almost every part of the bay area from the north to the south, getting hit with rain. meteorologist kari hall here with our coverage this morning. and lots of green on your radar. i was so distracted by all there. yeah, there is a lot of rain coming through. much needed at this point, especially for the south bay. and it was dry for so long. so here we go, back to the wet morning commute, and much of it has moved through parts of the north bay into the east bay, where it is now starting to taper off the south bay, still getting hit with some rain as we take a look at storm ranger. that's our mobile doppler radar. the red scan that you're seeing there parked on san bruno mountain. we are seeing it easing up for many of us and hitting us before a lot of people are getting up and out the door. so it's going to be a soggy and very slick drive to work this morning. still raining quite a

i'm scott mcgrew, and i'm ginger conejero saab. we're in for marcus and laura this morning, and we are covering the aftermath of this tornado and storm with kris sanchez and bob redell both this morning, and withore rain moving in, it's sure to be a very busy morning on those roads, which is why we should be checking with meteorologist kari hall first. what are we seeing? kari. yeah, we are seeing another wave of rain after that weekend storm that caused so much damage and also brought some heavy rain. now we're seeing another wave of heavy rain moving through the north bay, but we're not expecting it to have as much of an impact as we saw over the weekend. but it is coming on an already saturated ground, dumping some additional rainfal, and there are some pockets of heavy rain. so very quickly we're going to start to see that water ponding and puddling on the roadways and making for a very difficult commute this morning. and then we can see the heaviest rain is between santa rosa, rohnert park and petaluma, and then now approachin

nbc bay area scott mcgrew takes a deeper look at what it takes for streamers to hit pay dirt. ay, netflix will stream not just a football game, but football game with a big star at halftime. there are also games on nfl plus and paramount. streaming is fundamentallyifferent than broadcast because with broadcast like you're watching now, it makes no difference if another person joins in to watch or a thousand people or a million people. it's all the same to tv stations. we just send out one signal. streaming is far different. it matters how many people watch, because the more that watch, the bigger the load on the servers. video from our peacock streaming service from our first try at a streaming a game last year, it went just fine. big christmas ahead. are all the computers ready? yes they are. well, you know, i tell you, it's the internet. that's the challenge. i think there's a lot of capacity that can be built on the back end of these systems that the peacock and now netflix use for their christmas games. but it's really the internet that becomes the issue. you you actually s

and we're going to share with you a really enlightening conversation our scott mcgrew had with the ceo of a company that helps streaming services like peacock pull off massive live events like nfl games. it'll explain to you why. watching you and me right now, audrey, is nothing like watching mike tyson and logan paul in a boxing match for, well, for many reasons. but we're just talking about the technology. okay, okay. the technology. neither of us will be hitting each other right now. let's not. all right, garvin, thanks so much. we'll see you in a little bit. so to come. top trending stories voted by you on my instagram survey. also martin short, returning to snl tomorrow night with the host, has to say about the f look at those smiles. island life treating the spartans football team right. san jose state is taking on south florida christmas eve in the hawaii bowl. ahead of the game, teams posting clips to instagram. and from the looks of it, i mean, they are just having the best time. looks like they already won. all right, here it is. top trending story is voted by you on my insta

i'm ginger conejero saab, and i'm scott mcgrew. marcus and laura are off. we begin this midday with breaking new at least four people are dead following a mass school shooting in madison, wisconsin. just within the hour, we got the update from authorities on this investigation. it happened at the abdant life christian school this morning. seven other people were also injured. their conditions range from minor to life threaning. the shooter, also dead, believed to be a student from the school. investigators say they were training nearby. we train on this almost quarterly. the last time we trained on this as commanders was approximately two weeks ago. the protocols are simple stop the killing. stop the dying. find out who's doing this. the officers did that. the abundant life christian school is a private christian school which teaches students from k through 12. back now to our other top story. this midday, the stormy weather here at home once again taking a hold of the bay area. here's a live look at nbc bay area's storm ranger. you're looking at atop san b

scott mcgrew talked with bascom hill's ceo about the plans. mac harmon and i connect every december to talk about the business of christmas trees, whether it's the supply chain or inflation or in this case, tariffs. redwood city's balsam hill is one of the top manufacturers of artificial trees. if you see a tv show or a hallmark movie with a christmas tree, it's almost certainly a balsam hill. they're expensive, and they'd have to get more expensive if those tariffs threatened by the incoming trump administration go through. balsam hill did move some of its manufacturers from china to mexico after the trump white house renegotiated nafta back in 2018, but now expects that factory to will face tariffs on the campaign trail. mr. trump long claimed foreign countries pay american tariffs, but that's simply not true. here's a clip with my conversation with mac harmon. china is not paying that tariff. is that correct? that's correct. if there is a tariff, we get charged that tariff on the price we pay for the goods that come from, say, china. and so

our scott mcgrew joins us now with a look at the plan to bring more chargers to california, as the incentive to buy an ev could come to an end come next year. good morning. earlier this month, the california energy commission approved new money to build more charging stations for electric cars. that will be welcome news to ev drivers. the washington post calculates, back in 2016, there was one public charger for every seven electric cars. that number is now one charger for every 20 cars. today i spoke about the issue with southern california electric car maker steve fambro. steve, talk to me about chargers. i know you're working on a solar augmented car, but i have a ford mach-e. a lot of our viewers have tesla, so we're circling the same charger trying to get, you know, a charge, a public charge. there just simply aren't enough of these chargers. you know, it's a really good point. i actually my family, we have three electric vehicles and we only have two chargers. and so we're always playing musical charger at home to see you know who gets the charge first. but i think a lot of people that

scott mcgrew has our business headlines. well, good morning.the ininternet. them had said it would stop paying for your anesthesia if your surgery goes longer than expected. the new policy to take effect in three states, not here. that announcement, though, coming at the worst possible time. anthem blue cross said people misunderstood it, so they're not going to enforce that new policy. big numbers this morning from the jobs report, more than 227,000 jobs added to the american economy. that's enormous. bigger than expected unemployment rate at 4.2%. now, some of this could be a hiccup from last month's jobs report. the october report was depresssd two hurricanes and some really big strikes. so last month we kind of saw some garbage numbers. this report may be artificially inflated for the same reason, but you know, all in all, good news. elon musk was in washington along with vivek ramaswamy, talking about to lawmakers about how they're going to cut the federal budget. now, something to remember as we watch the tesla ceo exercise this new power

scott mcgrew joins us now. police say this was a targeted killing. yeah, that's exactly right.ebody walked up to him, shot brian thompson in broad daylight. police say it was indeed targeted, perhaps even a professional killing. video of the scene in midtown manhattan, just outside the hilton hotel. united health care is holding its annual investors conference in new york this week. here's a picture of the suspect. the masked suspect who got away on a bicycle. brian thompson, the ceo of united health care, was shot and killed in what appears at this early stage of our investigation to be a brazen, targeted attack. this does not appear to be a random act of violence. the victim was in new york city to speak at an investor conference. it appears the suspect was lying in wait for several minutes, and as the victim was walking to the conference hotel, the suspect approached from behind and fired several rounds, striking the victim at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf. brian thompson's company, united health care, released a statement where they expressed sa

scott mcgrew explains that fight and why, for now, musk will not get his money. that judge said no because she agreed with a group of tesla shareholders who were concerned that musk had railroaded the tesla board into giving him that $100 billion pay package. the concern is that the board is too loyal to musk instead of operating as an independent body. the way it's supposed to. musk argues he did the things required in the contract to get that kind of pay. he boosted tesla's stock enough to make all shareholders happy and profited in the process. some do criticize musk for making pie in the sky promises to boost and keep the stock high, but it does the job. as you pointed out, this is the second time this judge has said no after the first defeat in court. tesla went to the shareholders themselves for a vote and said, show the judge you want this. and the shareholders did. they voted to approve the pay package. tesla went back to the judge and said, see, everybody wants this. and the judge yesterday said, no. again, shares in intel didn't move as much as you migh

scott mcgrew says the future is very cloudy now for intel. good morning. pat gelsinger is out.yesterday. actually, he had led intel since 2021 and not. well, the company's stock is down around 60% since he took over. two intel executives will co ceo temporarily. now gelsinger was the third ceo in about ten years, in the second to resign in that time frame. in a written statement, gelsinger said it's been a challenging year for all of us as we have made tough but necessary decisions to position intel for the current market dynamics by which he seems to mean a lot of layoffs. on a happier note, it is cyber monday, a holiday created back when people didn't have access to the internet at home, so they'd come in on monday morning, spend the day shopping, and there are deals out there, notably with apple, the macbook pro, 14 inch down to 1600 from 1850. ale watches the entry level kind as cheap as $230. an apple tv box will cost you 80 bucks at costco. the new york times says their wirecutter section tracked thousands of prices over the past year, said it discovered just 1% of the pr

i'm scott mcgrew. there's been a lot of talk and worry in both movies and real life about how ai may someday hurt us someday in the future, but my first guest worries it's killing us now. just slowly. doctor joy bolognini, seen here giving a talk for tedx, has been called the conscience of the ai revolution by fortune magazine. inc. magazine says she's about as famous as you can be for academic work. doctor bolognini is part of mit's world famous media lab. she's advised the apec conference, including president biden on ai. she's a rhodes scholar and a fulbright fellow, and she's the author of a new book, unmasking ai my mission to protect what is human in a world of machinenes. good morning to you. i want to start joy with the mask. we saw a brief clip of it in your ted talk. it's on the cover of your book. what is the significance of the mask? yes. so the mask is really basically part of my story of how i even started questioning ai systems when i was a graduate student at mit media lab. i was so exc

scott mcgrew joins us now. the judge is in the federal trade commission. all argued a merger would raise america's grocery prices. right. although the companies themselves, the grocery chain, said merging would help them bring prices down and better compete. but it's not to be. albertsons this morning threw in the towel on the $25 billion merger. the two companies had offered to sell more than 500 stores in order to increase competition, but a judge said that was not enough. that was actually how albertsons was able to buy safeway. back in 2015. they sold about 150 stores to ensure there would be another competitor in certain cities. that your choice was not just an albertsons and a safeway, because those are the same thing. speaking of prices, you pay, we got the latest read on consumer price index this morning, showing prices up 2.7% year over year, an increase from past readings, and a sign that efforts to control inflation have hit a wall. the fed, which adjusts interest rates to try to control inflation, has an interest rate meeting next week. many pe

i'm scott mcgrew. as someone who covers technology for a living, i deal with the future pretty much every day. the next iphone developments in ai and what it means for jobs and education. green energy that may someday save the planet for our grandchildren. so i am constantly looking at new ideas, future ready, i would think. but i kind of suspect there will come a day when i am old enough that i will say, okay, that's enough, because that's what we dos humans. we reach some point in our old age and we quit learning things and adapting and adopting, and it it all seems too much and i don't want to do that, which is why i want to hear from frederick fert, who teaches people how to be future ready. his new book is what's next is now. frederick is the former chief innovation evangelist at google. frederick joins us from what appears to be his habitat on mars. frederick, is this your house? it is beautiful. yes. thanks for having me. it's a little geodesic dome in our forest in the santa cruz mountains, so

i'm scott mcgrew. two of my favorite new phrases in the news are first buddy, a nickname for elon musk. now that he's donald trump's closest adviser, and exodus, meaning the sudden abandonment of musk's social media platform x. those two are probably related. also related is the sudden rise in the popularity of blue sky. if you've been hearing something about blue sky lately but don't know what it is, it is a twitter clone gaining millions of users per week. tech analyst ed citron was on blue sky before it was cool. he's already made like 10,000 posts, and i asked ed to give us a primer on blue sky first. ed, i think people who are familiar with the old twitter will will say what they're seeing on the screen looks exactly like it. yes. and the app protocol, which blue sky is based on, is something related to jack dorsey. there was a lot of former twitter people there. and fundamentally, these people understand how a normal social network should work. so it very has the good vibes of 2013 through 2019.

it is 856 i'm scott mcgrew. e roof. now that classroom will be closed, but school is open as planned. pg&e crews are making good progress when it comes to restoring power. the utility now reporting about 3000 outages, down from 17,000 outages 24 hours ago. live. look at their map. you can see most of the outages are concentrated on the west side of the bay. no orange dots, really. so that suggests there are not large outages. a yellow dot indicates between 50 to 500 people impacted. our kris sanchez monitoring the cleanup. she'll have a live report coming up in our midday news. and of course, >>> this morning on the 3rd hour of "today," the drone

scott mcgrew. i know has been monitoring that of what you can expect when that happens, because we not only got these from shake alert, we got the national weather service. they sent that tsunami off to us. so these are these alerts that we've been monitoring about that we've been talking about to tell people to get prepared because when it happens you're going to get that alert. yeah, that's exactly right. good morning to you. and we all did all almost exactly at the same time. and one of the few times that i've carried a telephone into a tv studio and not turned it to do not disturb, although these sorts of alerts will overpower even that. and we're certainly getting a lot of calls from people around the bay area community asking for, you know, our advice. it's the first thing that they want to do. hopefully there will be more information as to precisely what you need to do. but as i can remember back to the fukushima disaster and when i was told to come into the newsroom very early in the mornin

i'm laura garcia, and i'm scott mcgrew. here's what's happening now. i'm bob redell.rashing while responding to a life threatening overdose at west oakland bart. this was saturday afternoon. we're going to show you some surveillance video, but a warning this could be disturbing. in this video, you can see the two bart police vehicles collide just outside west oakland's bart. then they hit a medical supply van. witnesses tell us that the police vehicles did have their lights on, and it does appear that they were speeding to this call of a person in distress. now to a live look at the san francisco skyline, the city getting ready to ring in the new year. the annual new year's eve fireworks display is set for wednesday night. the show will happen just south of the ferry building near pier 14, where mission street intersects the embarcadero. several streets will be closed to traffic along the embarcadero. those attending the show are urged to use public transportation. let's get a check of your new year's forecast. new year's eve eve today, last monday of the year, and we

i'm scott mcgrew, and i'm laura garcia. here's what's happening now.up was busy getting things ready for its annual fireworks display here in san francisco. you can watch the fireworks show off the embarcadero at one of the city's new yeaear's eve parties, or from the comfort of your own home. a toast to 2024, hosted by hoda kotb and jenna bush hager, will air tonight starting at 9 p.m. on nbc. transit agencies trying to help the celebrations stay safe with special offers to get you home. you can try out the new all electric caltrain for free starting at eight tonight through the end of the special night. late night service as last trains headed out of san francisco at 1 a.m, 130 and 2 a.m. meantime, three other agencies extending their service beyond that muni ac transit, vta offering free rides from 8 p.m. through 5 a.m. of the morning of the first. okay, getting your glittery outfits ready for this evening? maybe bring a coat at least tonight, right? oh yeah, we're keeping them all day long pretty much as we start this morning under a frost advisory

scott mcgrew is here right now. okay. so, scott, that claim took on a life of its own. oh, it really did. i mean, imagine a president or at the time, vice president of the united states, taking money from a foreign power. it became the center of many a republican led hearing. except, according to new court records, the main accuser, alexander smirnov, said he wasn't telling the truth. smirnov, who is in the center of that video from a preliminary hearing, pleaded guilty in federal court this week to creating a false federal record and obstructing justice. president elect donald trump walked back his promise to lower grocery prices in the first weeks of his presidency. during an appearance at the new york stock exchange on thursday, saying, quote, it's hard to bring things down very hard. trump was at the new york stock exchange to celebrate time magazine's pick of person of the year, and to ring the opening bell. vice president elect jd vance there on the left. cnbc's jim cramer was there. sounded very pleased to interview the president elect. thank you sir. we were tog

scott mcgrew here for us this morning. okay, so scott biden is worried that incoming president trump will hold up more aid. yeah. incoming president trump once got impeached for holding up aid to ukraine. t trump sayhe will bring peace to ukraine in the first 24 hours of his presidency. so an end to the war no later than 49 days from now. it's certainly on our calendar. meantime, the biden administration shipping $725 million worth of weapons, including anti-personnel mines, something the white house had been reluctant to send until now. now, a reminder when we use figures like 725 million, that's money spent here on u.s. weapons manufacturers, not money sent to ukraine. meantime, incoming president trump postining on social media there will be, quote, hell to pay his words if the hostages held in gaza by hamas are not returned to their homes by the time he becomes president. now, he didn't specifically mention hamas, but i think hamas got the picture. he went on to say those responsible will be hit harder than anybody's be

s scott mcgrew is here with us this morning. and, scott, we're not talking about just any scientist, nobel prize winning scientist. and more than 75 of them. good morning. all opposed to rfk jr running the department of health and human services. remember rfk was tried to link vaccines to autism. that was disproved years ago. he worries 5g cell signals can control the brain. in the letter to the senate encouraging senats to turn kennedy's name down, that was firstt obtained by the new york times, it's the first time a group of nobel laureates have gotten involved in such a direct way in these sorts of politics. donald trump nominating a whole group of controversial people to his cabinet and other positions. pete hegseth is hoping to be defense secretary. his own mother accused him of abusing women, later retracted. one of the key republican senators standing in his way. joni ernst, is now indicating she will at least listen to his testimony at a hearing. and that's a big step. meantime, in her home state of iowa, her own party is

scott mcgrew is here with us this morning. and, scott, i have ask you this.h foreign dignitaries already. they're already making some deals. making some deals. you have to be very careful. there's a fine line legally when doing this as america only has one president at a time, though current president biden getting some of the blame as well. one democratic leader calling him the lamest of lame ducks as donald trump appears on the world stage touring the newly renovated notre dame with french president macron and meeting with ukrainian president zelenskyy and speaking about the end of the war in syria. the wall street journal quoting a number of democrats this morning who are unhappy with biden's relatively quiet. president biden also spoke about the war in syria over the weekend, though a day after trump did. we will remain vigilant. make no mistake, some of the rebel groups that took down assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human rights abuses. we've taken note of statements by the leaders of these rebel groups in recent days, and they're sayin

president elect donald trump is comparing his legal problems to hunter biden's, and scott mcgrew is here for us right now. okay, so scott trump wants his felony convictions thrown out. yeah, these are the fraud cases that you're talking about. remember from when he was found guilty in new york city? trump says he was targeted not because he committed fraud, which he did. he says he was targeted for who he is. in that sense, his lawyers say he's like hunter biden. the younger biden and his father think he was targeted not for the crimes, but for who he is. evidence of that, the crimes. hunter biden was accused of or almost always settled, not taken to trial and almost never result in jail time except in this case, some on the right still want to force hunter biden to testify under oath before congress, despite the fact that he's been pardoned for all crimes by his father. they claim on social media that biden cannot plead the fifth, which is designed to protect you from incriminating yourself because he faces no punishment if he did. he's been pardoned now. eugene uva at stanford's hoover

our scott mcgrew reports it's attracted some unexpected students.s at san quentin who are learning to use that platform you're talking about. it's called formation to learn to how code. now, we've talked about coding at san quentin before. here's some video of the prisoners. the men in blue, they call themselves learning how to program tic tac toe, part of san quentin. surprisingly rich offerings of classes and other self-improvement, all coordinated through a program called the last mile. now, those engineers you're talking about discovered the last mile and offered their coding course to the men in blue. now keep in mind, when you're teaching someone at san quentin to how code, you're teaching someone who may have never seen a website before. here's foundation founder and ceo sophie nabati. i was visiting and seeing some of the student projects, and they were asking me, hey, like, does my shopping application look good? and i looked at the website and it just looked bizarre. you know? and the reason is because they never seen a shopping website be

scott mcgrew is here with us this morning about that.rats and republicans agree. the courts look backed up so the question is why veto? it's a very good question. the person nominating many of those judges would end up being donald trump. so that's why the white house is worried. white house says the timing of this bill is suspect. the senate passed this bill to authorize 66 more judges unanimously last summer, before anybody knew who the next president would be. they saw that as fair. but house republicans said on the bill until after it knew that trump had won. president biden spoke at the brookings institution yesterday listing off his economic accomplishments, including more jobs created than any president in history, plus faster economic growth than any other western country. post pandemic, biden spoke in a weak, raspy voice as he once again fights a cold and then surprised the audio operator with a sudden burst of emotion. put it this way if we're not leading the world, who does? not a joke. i'm not being wise guy. if we do not lea

scott mcgrew you were telling us just yesterday the deal was bloated with special interests and that. yeah, it really did. good morning. we were saying that a continuing resolution to keep the government open is as simple as a couple of words on a cocktail napkin, but instead, the deal they were dealing with, full of spending, good spending, perhaps hurricane relief help for farmers, but spending, it seemed to be the only deal that republican speaker of the house mike johnson could push through. he needs some democratic votes in most cases, because he can't depend on all republicans to vote yes. but elon musk started tweeting about this, and then trump reacted and told republicans to vote no on the deal. musk, any member of the house or senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in two years. he then reposted a picture of himself with a sword, ready to chop the continuing resolution bill in half. media watchdog ron filipkowski noted the owner of a car company is controlling the house of representatives from a social media app. then trump on social, hi

president biden is threatening to veto a bipartisan bill to hire more federal judges and scott mcgrewcked up. so why veto it? good question. good morning to you. the person nominating many of those judges would end up being donald trump. and that's the white house. objection. the white house says the timing of this bill is suspect. the senate passed this bill to authorize 66 more federal judges unanimously last summer, before anybody knew who the next president would be. that struck them as being fair. but the house republicans sat on the bill until it knew trump had won. president biden spoke at the brookings institution yesterday, listing off his economic accomplishments, including more jobs created than any president in history, plus faster economic growth than any western country post pandemic. biden spoke in a weak in raspy voice as he once again fights off a cold and then surprised the auto audio operator with a sudden burst of emotion. we're not leading the world. who does? not a joke. i'm not being a wise guy. if we do not lead the world. what nation leads the world? who pulls

scott mcgrew joins us with that, as the incentive to buy an ev could actually come to an end next yearia energy commission approved new money to build more charging stations for electric cars. that will be welcome news to ev drivers. the washington post calculates, back in 2016, there was one public charger for every seven electric cars. that number is now one charger for every 20 cars. today i spoke about the issue with southern california electric car maker steve fambro. steve talked to me about chargers. i know augmented car, but i have a ford mach-e. a lot of our viewers have tesla, so we're circling the same chart. try to get, you know, a charge, a public charge. there just simply aren't enough of these chargers. you know, it's a really good point. i actually my family, we have three electric vehicles and we only have two chargers. and so we're always playing musical charger at home to see you know who gets the charge first. but i think a lot of people that are that are homeowners and also ev owners have the privilege of charging at home. so we don't have to go to a charger. we do

scott mcgrew the most money spent by one donor in american history. yeah, and that was just the money spent by political action committees for trump that musk funded. you're not counting the money he contributed to down ballot efforts as well. according to the latest reports from the federal election committee. and that's something we got to remember as we watched the tesla ceo exercise. his power in washington. musk has told lawmakers he will fund primary fights to oust them if they don't go along with what trump and most likely by extension, what he wants to do. musk, joining vivek ramaswamy on the hill yesterday talking about their new department of government efficiency, or doge. it's not really a government department, at least not yet. musk says doge aims to cut $2 trillion out of the government's budget, but remember, $2 trillion is more than the government's entire discretionary spending. meaning he would have to cut into defense or other social security programs to get to that number. everything is up for consideration. say lawmakers. they li