francisco building inspection department says the city is focused on outreach. >> we want to make sure public safety is number one. once they cannot solve that issue regarding fire safety, then we come in. >> reporter: at the meeting, the city officials did seem open to working with the artists, but they did not say that any of those investigations or inspections would be delayed. reporting live in san francisco, i'm michelle roberts, nbc bay area news. >> we continue online. you can take a look inside the ghost ship warehouse before the fire. it's the most watched slide show on our website at nbc bay area tom. now to developing news overseas. the international manhunt, the deadly attack in germany monday. authorities are searching for this man who turns 24 tomorrow. they believe he carjacked a semi truck and plowed into a crowd of people at berlin's popular

christmas market. he was on germany's watch list and actually detained over the summer. but there was not enough evidence to hold him. the tension created by the berlin attack has made its way into many major cities, including right here in san francisco. the police department acknowledged today it is beefing up patrols around popular destinations like union square. nbc bay area's robert handa is live in san francisco with more on the increased police presence there. robert. >> reporter: well, the increased police presence does seem to be helping. we heard that from a lot of people here at the embacadero, as well as union square, including some visitors from germany, who saw the initial reaction from the berlin attack, up close. the family from frankfurt, germany, is in the bay area to visit a relative and joined thousands to union square. before leaving home, the family saw how police were reacting to the berlin attack. >> we had police running around, standing there with machine

guns, which is unusual. that hasn't been the case before in germany. >> reporter: what's your reaction to the san francisco police increase in security because of the berlin incident? >> it feels comforting. it's good. >> there are more officers than normal, more of a presence, as well. >> reporter: police say the intent is to increase presence, not fear. but call these situations unpredictable. >> sometimes terrorism is a random act. sometimes it's, you know, not a group planning it or individual planning it by themselves. so you might not know when it's going to strike. >> reporter: these workers from cafe pacific airway appreciate the presence and police discretion. >> definitely something that needs to be done for the safety of everybody. >> reporter: kind of sad it has to be done, huh? >> yes, very sad. but it is what it is. we're in a different world nowadays. >> it really has an effect for everybody, because anybody could be in that situation. and that's something scary. >> reporter: now i talked with quite a few police officers tonight, and they say that they are determined not to disrupt

the holiday spirit but also say they hope that visitors will come up to police and tell them if they see something that doesn't seem quite right. live in san francisco, robert handa, nbc bay area news. >> robert, thank you. santa claus might get wet. a storm is headed our way. the rains should arrive as early as tomorrow. today we're seeing some big waves along the coast. this is the scene in pacifica. 10 to 15-foot waves prompted the maverick surf competition to stand by. however, the big waves not big enough to start that event. chief meteorologist jeff ranieri is with us. and jeff, kids out of school, adults off work. what's our forecast? >> i really think the worst travel is going to happen within the next 72 hours. storm system is offshore right now. and what we're going to see happen is what has happened with the past several storms. we get the cold front moving down from the north, but it's this sub tropical moisture moving in from the south that's going to help to boost our rainfall totals. we're pinpointing that rainfall, beginning to be widespread in the north bay by 7:00 a.m. on

friday. but overall, the worst time line for any travel will be from 10:00 a.m. through 8:00 p.m. on friday's forecast. i-5, wet and windy. interstate 80, highway 50, heavy snow at times. and highway 101, be down to los angeles will be raining. we'll talk more about the trend on christmas coming up in less than 15 minutes. >> okay, jeff, thank you. a nice christmas present for skiers and snowboarders. take a look. fresh powder on the way. this is our lake tahoe cam from weather underground. looks beautiful at heavenly valley. tahoe resorts expecting several inches. the road conditions now. if you're headed up to the sierra. this is interstate 80 at castle peak. clear for now. be prepared. plenty of snow on friday into saturday. and you can track the holiday storm more accurately than your iphone. download our free nbc bay area app. access our live doppler radar. this just in. a major ruling in the case of a

peninsula mobile home park. just a couple of hours ago, a judge said hundreds of people who live in the buena vista mobile home park will be allowed to stay. the case was brought to court after people said the money offered to them for relocation assistance was not enough to find comparable housing. they also argued that factors like schools and safety were not considered. the palo alto city attorney said the city tried to provide as much relocation assistance as possible and it based its decision on appraisal and peer review process. a mixup in their pension. hundreds of former police officers and firefighters were overpaid. now they're being asked to pay it back. nbc bay area's marianne favro is in san jose to explain the problem and the fix. >> reporter: some retirees have been told they have been overpaid by as much as $30,000. those impacted are retired san jose firefighters and police officers. many who work protecting the city more than 20 years. now during the holidays, some

300 retirees have received letters, letting them know the city overpaid them. by nearly $1 million. >> our goal as a city is to make sure our retirees get the pensions they earned, no more, no less. it has to be accurate, has to be fair. we had a series of mistakes that went back nearly 20 years. it has taken a long time to get the corrections. >> reporter: seven years, to be exact. a city audit in 2009 first discovered the error, a mistake that went back all the way to 1998. 300 retirees were overpaid anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $30,000. >> we don't want to have folks that, you know, laid it on the line for the residents of san jose to be put in hardship due to something they had absolutely nothing to do with. >> reporter: the city says it's obligated to collect the money. irs guidelines require retirement trust funds to collect money paid in error. the retirees haven't been given

a deadline to pay back the money. the police and fire retirement board will meet in early january to figure out how to collect the overpayment. because of the mistakes, some employees were actually underpaid. so they may be getting money back from the city. in san jose, marianne favro, nbc bay area news. new details tonight in a hit and run investigation on the peninsula. police say the man hit in a crosswalk has died. it happened last night on el camino real. the man was in the crosswalk when a car described by witnesses as an suv rav4 slammed into him. the man died today in the hospital. his identity is not being released. the driver has not been caught. a controversial story took another dramatic turn today. san francisco public defender unveiled this new body cam video of an arrest that many people say went too far. this involves b.a.r.t. police. let's show you more. on the left is the cell phone

video showing b.a.r.t. police officers detaining michael smith at the embacadero station in san francisco in july. on the right, is the newly released video from one of the b.a.r.t. officers' body cameras. officers say they responded forcefully because they were told he had a gun. critics have called this excessive force. public defenders also revealed that michael smith's girlfriend had told officers she was pregnant when she was taken to the ground and handcuffed. >> until my boyfriend said that i was pregnant, he still had his knee in my back. and so i was just hurtful -- hurt about my pregnancy and stuff like that. because i lost my baby. >> reporter: a jury acquitted smith on battery charges and deadlocked on three other misdemeanor charges. the public defender is now asking for all charges to be dropped. b.a.r.t. officials announced today that the agency wants to complete an internal

investigation within six months. two contra costa firefighters are facing new charges tonight. the incident happened outside the walnut creek marriott. when police arrived to check out a complaint, they say the firefighter, now identified as andrew did he sayman and johnson were belligerent and drunk. and when they refused to leave, a fight broke out with the police officers. today the district attorney's office announced the two firefighters are now facing battery and assault charges. a thief in a department store for hours. police even show up. i'm elyce kirchner live in concord tonight. ahead, how the criminal was able to walk out with more than $200,000 worth of jewelry from this store. and i'm scott budman in san francisco where uber is still sparring with the dmv. just ahead, the latest in the

driverless car wars. i'm meteorologist jeff ranieri. a spare the air alert continues into thursday's forecast. but we're tracking the storm system that will wash the air quality away and we'll tell you who could see over 1 inch of rain. that's in about eight minutes. the death toll from that massive

explosion at a fireworks marketsi the death toll from that massive explosion at a fireworks market outside mexico city yesterday is now at 32 and authorities expect that number to climb. they're searching for more than 30 people who are lost in the debris. more than 70 people were also hurt. authorities are still trying to determine what caused this deadly blast. a very patient thief managed to walk away with more than $200,000 worth of jewelry. this happened in the east bay. investigators are now reaching out for help to find this man. he's accused of robbing the sears store at the sun valley mall in concord last friday. tonight we're learning more about how he got away with it. nbc bay area's elyce kirchner in concord. >> reporter: detectives believe this suspect just simply got very lucky. he was able to hide and wait for more than five hours inside this sears here behind me, and he waited until the store closed. and walked out with more than

100 rings. but surveillance video caught him in the act and detectives say it's just a matter of time before he is caught. casually walking through sears, at first glance with his face clearly visible. he looks like a holiday shopper. >> criminals are not very bright. >> reporter: but authorities say the man seen in these surveillance photos is holding a back filled with 127 stolen rings. valued at $218,000. >> that is pretty bad. that means that security is not doing well. >> reporter: the suspects hid inside the mall until it closed for the night. >> wow, amazing. >> reporter: around 230 in the morning, he started looking around. his movements even set off the alarm. >> at the time that the officers went and checked, they discovered no bodies. and no evidence of a crime. >> reporter: so police left. with the suspect still inside. >> he might have been in a storage locker or storage room in the back of sears. >> that's when police believe he started collecting rings.

>> right out of "home alone 2". i feel like i've seen that before, but only in the movies. >> reporter: when employees arrived to open the door saturday morning, police say they discovered the missing jewelry. but the suspect was long gone. >> i guess things are tough for everybody, but got to make good choices. >> reporter: authorities say because the suspect did not hide his identity, they are hopeful someone will recognize him and also believe he lives in a nearby east bay city. reporting live in concord tonight, i'm elyce kirchner, nbc bay area news. a good samaritan being praised after rescuing a man that killed two people. it happened after midnight on peabody road. officers say they crashed head-on. and the collision was so powerful both cars immediately burst into flames. the driver and passenger in the sedan died. the man rescued from the suv suffered burns and smoke inhalation. police believe alcohol might have been a factor in the crash.

the search is on for a hit and run driver in the south bay. a 3-year-old boy was hit. this happened late last night on hampton avenue in vancouver court a couple blocks away from story road in east san jose. a man and his young grandson were walking when someone in the silver car drove by and struck the boy. that boy suffered several cuts to his face and head, but was conscious. there is no update on the boy's condition. in other news, we'll go to san francisco, where the battle over driverless cars, uber, battling the dmv and the city, it calls home over its autonomous cars. a business and tech reporter, scott budman, was at a closed-door meeting or tried to find out more about a meeting and joins us live from san francisco with more. scott. >> reporter: well, we are

waiting, janelle, to hear comment about this meeting. the dmv confirming that it did invite uber to the table to hash out their disagreements. here's what is at issue right now. a $150 permit that would allow uber to legally pick people up in a driverless car. uber has been testing these cars around the city for a while, and wants to be able to use them in its ridesharing fleet. when the city and the dmv told the company it had to first get a permit, the company released a statement, saying it did not think driverless permit rules applied to them, partly because they're in always an uber employee in the car, just in case. now checking my e-mail, i see the e-mail coming across from the department of motor vehicles, saying for now, and i quote, the dmv has taken action to revoke the registration of 16 of those vehicles owned by uber, because it does not have a proper permit. we will have more on this

developing story again, dmv taking action to revoke the registration of those 16 driverless vehicles owned by uber, because of a lack of proper permits. reporting live in san francisco, scott budman, nbc bay area news. >> the story still developing at this hour. okay. let's get a check of our forecast. today the first official day of winter. >> he why, it is. >> happy winter. >> thank you. and, you know, the weather, it is going to feel like winter the next several days as we still have that rainfall on track to move into the bay area. and more temperatures near the freezing mark ahead. now, let's get a look. this viewer photo sent to us this morning from san mateo and maria mcgrath on twitter. do i smell rain? yes, that storm system is just offshore. we had some of the stratocumulus clouds moving in. really a beautiful sight. for tomorrow's forecast, no rainfall just yet. temperatures will be cool to start but not expecting anything

near the freezing mark again for tomorrow. 45 in the south bay. 47 in the peninsula and 40 for the tri valley. we'll also stay away from 32 degrees in the north bay. with 40. 48 in san francisco, and 46 expected in the east bay. microclimate forecast says we head throughout thursday, continues to stay dry. mostly sunny sky. light wind, 63 in morgan hill, and 64 in east san jose. so a few degrees cooler than what we experienced today. throughout contra costa, alameda counties, 64 in hayward. we'll find more 50s here, at least up towards daly city, but in down towards palo alto, still hang on to 63 as we head throughout tomorrow's forecast. in san francisco, 57 along the embacadero and 61 in the north bay. 62 in santa rosa, and 61 expected in napa. rainfall is still on track. we have started to see the

timing speed up a little bit. so i want to take you to the futurecast next. and you'll see friday, 1:00 a.m., storm system off to the north. we do expect it to now start to bring some impacts by 7:00 a.m. on friday. that's the biggest change. again, moving the time line earlier out. so heavier rain likely at 7:00 a.m. in the north bay. then we start to see the push down widespread rain by 11:00 a.m., the way things look now. we'll hang on to some of the rainfall, at least more consistently through about 3:00 p.m. towards san jose. we still may have some lingering scattered rain until about 6:00 p.m. on friday. really, anyone traveling in the morning or early afternoon in our airports will have to watch out for these delays. rainfall totals, still looks best here for the higher amounts in the north bay. you've got some red and orange colors on the accumulation map. that equates with 1 to possibly 1.5 inches. three quarters of an inch to over an inch for the east bay and peninsula. and a little bit of green towards san jose. that's quarter to a half inch,

typical rain shadow likely in effect. for the sierra, at least 1 foot of snow for the highest elevations near tahoe and mt. shasta. winds 30 to 60 miles per hour. and at snow levels, could go as low as 2500 feet. please watch out if you're headed up to the sierra as we head throughout friday night and into saturday. we dry out on saturday's forecast. and a few spotty showers by christmas night. and maybe a lingering shower into monday morning. really, the big deal is on friday. i would move my travel up maybe to thursday if you're doing any kind of road trip. >> good advice. thanks, jeff. next, a man accused of using a crafty disguise to pull off a burglary. we'll show it to you. and a live look at san francisco. some of the most expensive zip codes are right here in the bay area. we'll tell you which cities made this year's list. (my hero zero by lemonheads)

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happening now on twitter, a new study says female doctors are outperforming their male counterparts. researchers say patient treated by female doctors are less likely to head back to the doctor's office for more treatment. and talk about a winter wonderland. check out a drone video of a light house completely frozen over on our facebook page. more news in a couple minutes. hope to see you soon. just in to our newsroom: police

need help getti just into our news room. police need help getting more information about a taxi driver accused of sexual assault. julio sanchez was arrested last week. on the right, a look at the taxi he drives. investigators say a woman told them she got into the taxi outside of a bar and later woke up at his home where he was sexually assaulting her. they have also identified another victim. he is known to frequent downtown areas throughout the south bay while working as a taxi driver. if you recognize the car in the picture, you can just see the door there, or if you have any information about this case, you're urged to contact campbell police. you are looking at a man who san francisco police say impersonated a pest control worker. it happened over a week ago on franklin street. police say the man showed this

ortho card to get inside, and when he tried to take laptops, security officers chased the man out of the building. and we are getting our first look at the man police think opened fire at a san mateo bowling alley last friday night. police say a shooter fired into the crowded parking lot and hit a man. he's recovering from those gunshot wounds. now, take a look at the sketch of the man police are looking for. they describe him as 5'6", average build hispanic man. he could be driving a four-door green mercedes. anyone with informing should call san mateo police. a lot of packages to be delivered. amazon might have a problem. pilots for amazon's prime air service say there may be not enough pilots to deliver all those holiday packages in time for christmas. they also say they're overworked and in need of a more competitive contract. amazon says there won't be any disruptions to delivery. 94027.

it will cost you of the 100 priciest zip codes in the united states, 38 here in the bay area. take a look. the most expensive zip code in the bay area, 94027, right in atherton. the median home price, 5.4 million bucks. here's a list of the bay area zip codes that made the top ten. number eight is palo alto. number nine, los altos. and this comes from the real estate researchers called property shark. >> expensive to live here. but many rewards. sneaker lovers, there is a new place for you in the east bay. we'll show it to you when we come back.

get ready sneaker fans -- there's an exhibit at the oakland museum of california that might knock your socks off... get ready, sneaker fans. there is an exhibit at the oakland museum of california that might knock your socks off. and your collectible kicks, too. the exhibit is called out of the box. the rise of sneaker culture. it traces how sneakers went from functional athletic wear and sell for thousands of dollars. this exhibit opens tomorrow and runs through april 2. >> oh, man!

>> vans. >> pump up the air. >> those are really cool. see you back here at 6:00. thanks for joining us. >> bye. tonight, new terror suspect -- the target of a europe-wide manhunt is identified on the loose and considered armed and dangerous. what authorities knew about him before the deadly attack on christmas shoppers. fireworks disaster -- the death toll rises in a massive explosion. tonight the devastation inside the blast zone. and enormousas explosion destroys a restaurant and firefighters must scramble to shut off the leak fueling the flames. what sparked it? kids and antibiotics, new answers for parents worried about doctors overprescribing drugs to their children for a common illness. and precious gift, the next chapter for a boy who made medical history, inspiring so many of