>> the news at 6:00 starts right now. good evening, and thanks for being with us, i'm raj mathai. >>. >> i'm jessica aguirre. how did it start and where did it start? that's what investigators are trying to answer after fire ripped through that home depot this past weekend. the atf has joined the investigation. robert handa joins us from the home depot. i know you've been talking to people that you clearly think investigators will also want to talk to. >> reporter: i think they might have something interesting to say. there are now a lot more investigators swarming this home depot building on blossom hill road. and remember, there were a lot of people in and around the store when the fire broke out. so that combination of information might be what finally leads to a definitive cause. we began seeing atf agents on the scene of the home depot fire

as early as sunday, but it wasn't until today that the san jose fire department formally announced they'd joined the investigation. so far, investigators speculated the fire started in the lumber section, but rick garcia of san jose who shot this video and says he was in home depot at the time adamantly disagrees. >> it definitely didn't start in the lumber area, and i can tell thaw for sure because i was in the lumber area. it started two aisles over in the roofing section. >> reporter: that section was stocked high with products, and he thinks that might have explained the fire's path. >> it was able to keep that fire consol tatd and allow it to get hot because was so concentrated that by the time it got up, it was really hot. it had a lot of fuel to catch on its way up. >> i looked back, and all i told my mom was to say good-bye to her house. >> this is our life now. >> reporter: sherry is grft to have a home to return to.

she lives right behind home depot and embers from the fire damaged her roof. she's not surprised the atf is involved and said it will be hard to forget the flames, smoke and explosions. >> i didn't know home depot had tanks back there storing. but yeah, they did. they were going off like atomic bombs. >> reporter: garcia's glad the atf is involved in the investigation. >> it's good that they've escalated it to the atf. hopefully the investigation will be thorough. >> reporter: of course being thorough at a fire site like this one is going to take a long time. the fire department has federal resources to help confirm or clarify exactly how this happened. live in san jose, robert handa, nbc bay area news. >> thank you, robert. let's talk about the weather. we are tracking rain headed our way this evening.

chief meteorologist jeff ranieri joins us now with the timing that storm. and what are you thinking? >> we're thinking we'll get in on showers in the bay area, and this would continue into tomorrow's forecast. we've got some over the central valley moving off to the east. a little off in the pacific. but showers falling in the north. can you see over ukiah, over to clear lake showers beginning to vil. we should see showers beginning to pick on up. as we move through tomorrow morning's forecast, i do see this continuing, right fear the coast, sf. while this rainfall is great for us on pushing back that fire season, it's not going to be able to put a huge dent in the deficit we're seeing. we're down 7.65 inches here in santa rosa. i'm back with a full look into easter weekend in a few minutes.

she faked her own abduction. and today northern california mother faced a judge. she admitted she faked her kidnapping and is expected to plead guilty to mail fraud and making false statements as part of the deal. she claims she was kidnapped by two hispanic women. the fbi says she was really staying with an ex-boyfriend in southern california. last month federal authorities arrested her. she face up to 20 year in prison and must pay $300,000 in restitution. cain velasquez accused of attempted murder. today the man he was chasing down was in court to face charges of his own.

damian trujillo spoke exclusive with galarte's attorney. >> reporter: emotions were high here at the morgan hill courthouse. gulart never showed up in person. supporters of cain velasquez came out in force to confront the man police believe cain was trying to shoot. but he never showed up. >> with mr. galarte not here for security reasons? >> absolutely. >> tell us about that. >> not much to tell, he was shot at. >> are you worried about his safety or his life? >> of course, you see the crowds around here? >> reporter: this is exclusive video of part of the chase.

ultimately, it was galarte's stepfather who was shot and wounded there was no plea today the hearing was continued. >> it will be virtual? >> yeah. >> what's his explanation of what happened? >> didn't happen. >> and it appears velasquez' supporters may not see gulart for some time. >> i will want him to be present, absolutely. >> reporter: cain's supporters are angry that he didn't have to show up in person. why didn't he show up, because he's afraid to face reality, says evelyn morales.

damian trujillo, nbc bay area news. now to the latest on the second theranos trial. another employee was on the stand testifying about how much sunny balwani knew and when he knew it. balwani say accused of the meltdown of theranos which at one point was valued at $9 billion. they are trying to establish that holmes and balwani were in lock step when it came to its successes and failures and he helped hide the company's problems. >> not necessarily to be a time clock and track his hours in the theranos office, but rather to be able to make observations about whether sunny balwani had enough control over the company. >> we also saw more text messages between holmes and balwani. prosecutor's goal is to try and establish the couple had both a personal and professional relationship while running

theranos. let's talk baseball and history. a lot of smiles as the giants beat the padres. but fans are still buzzing about last night's game. a female coach on the field during a regular season game. audrey? >> reporter: well, raj, to help put a little perspective on this, professional baseball has been around for about 146 years, it's been around for a very long time. so were you able to see that moment last night, giants assistant coach alyssa nakken broke one of the last remaining glass ceilings, being an on-field coach during a

regular-season game. she was called onto the field after the bottom of the third inning. fans we spoke with today say seeing nakken make history is inspiring and long overdue. >> i was prepared for this moment never knew if or when it would happen but was ready to step in when the team needed me to. it means a lot. >> i think it's kind of crazy. >> why is that? >> because women, we have so much more to get to the table besides cleaning and cooking . >> you can't really put it into words because if were you a title ix person who never got scholarships and to see it happen, and they're finally playing on an equal man's turf. >> good perspective from that fan, audrey. nakken could be herself a manager some day. the players and fans and coaches

have a lot of respect for her. >> reporter: absolutely, and capler, he talked about that moment, he needed someone to take over first base, right? he actually said he needed a responsible person to take over. and it was the natural, obvious choice to put nakken in that place. they understand how well-respected she is by a lot of fans and colleagues as well. they paid close ttention to her career. and nakken, humble, says she was just doing her job. as audrey just told us, nakken was able to make history because the regular coach was tossed from the game. he got mad after something somebody yelled about him.

he claims it wreaked of undertone tos undertones of racism. they cleared the air. >> what i was trying to do is bring awareness to how words impact the community, even though they may not have ill intent. it's just helping us to be more aware of what those things mean when we do share them. >> capler says i trusts richardson's judgment 100%. up next, you're going to have to keep that mask while flying in the air or on b.a.r.t. in a bus. plus, helping save ukraine's history. the archivists and hundreds of

volunteers who are making it happen. and look at this. from thursday into saturday, one to three feet of snow over the sierra. i'll show you how much rainfall for the bay area, and severe weather moving through the u.s. right now. back with that in about eight minutes.

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and technology needs. but when you choose comcast business internet, you choose the largest, fastest reliable network. you choose advanced security. and you choose fiber solutions with speeds up to 10 gigs to the most small businesses. make your business future ready with the network from the most innovative company. get internet and voice for $49.99 a month with a 2-year price guarantee. and ask how to get up to a $650 prepaid card with a qualifying bundle. the clock is ticking, and the race is on to save ukraine's identity and culture as bridge, monuments and entire communities are destroyed. now archivists from around the

world are rushing to back up the country's website in order to try preserve them. among them is a berkley woman. here's stephanie magallon with more on the effort. >> you see this stop button? >> reporter: right now with the help of technology, thousands of volunteers across the globe are rescuing ukraine's history and culture, one website at a time. >> our goal is to make sure there are safe backup copies of as many websites as we can typed that represent that culture and the lives of every day people. >> reporter: the effort is called sucho and started on twitter shortly after russia's invasion and after several people struck up a collection about preserving music collections in ukraine. by march 1st, a group was archiving anything from museum sites to census data and afterschool language programs. >> we have people walking through the streets, using google maps, looking for museums

that we may not have been able to find up to that point. >> reporter: the army of volunteers is made up of archivists, librarians and even regular people. >> you have a backup just to be safe during this war. >> reporter: even dombrowski's 8-year-old son who switched his video controller to a laptop. they spoke to students at malcolm x and got a few students. >> we want to make sure we still have copies of them. >> reporter: they have already seen an impact after saving data from sites that just stopped working due to nonpayment or server destruction. at least 98 cultural and religious sites have been damaged or destroyed touring russia's ongoing invasion. >> the kharkiv state archives

were a site that was damaged and it's gone down in march and has not been able to come back up. that was a site sebastian was able to archive early on. >> reporter: and they won't stop until they preserve who is this country at war. the cdc has announced the national mask mandate on plane, trains and buses will be extended until at least may 3rd. the recent surge in covid cases this month prompted the extension. b.a.r.t. tells us it's prepared to follow whatever tsa directs them to do. while a few passengers said they're ready to get rid of the masks, most told us they're fine to keep masking up for a few more weeks >> i think a mask man tait extension is a good thing. we haven't seen the worst yet. >> b.a.r.t. says passengers have

largely complied so far. 98% of people on b.a.r.t. wore the masks. keep masking up for a few more weeks. let's bring in jeff and talk about that rain. it's getting really gloomy outside. >> north of santa rosa. it's going to push down as we head through the next couple hours. we're going to keep on and off rain chances in the forecast until easter weekend. we'll get you all squared away on this as we bring you into the microclimate forecast. we want to give you the top-down view. we have a chance of rain. better bet of widespread rain with the second system as we move into saturday morning. we're dry through the bay area right now. there's rainfall off to the north. i do think by 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, better bet through tomorrow morning at 8:00 near the coast, san francisco, east bay maybe some spotty showers to

the south bay. it will stay in place through the afternoon, and by tomorrow evening we'll see that clear on out, and it actually looks like a break on friday. originally, we were thinking maybe a few showers, but we're actually going to get some sun on friday. it will be a small break for us, and then we see things pick up again as we head to saturday. might even get some small hail, isolated lightning strikes and gusty winds early on. i think overall this would start to push out as we head through saturday afternoon and also evening for us. rainfall totals not too bad. you can see the key at the top and line it up with your city over the north bay, about a half to one inch total from tonight through saturday. right around a half inch for the east bay and peninsula. quarter inch or less toward san jose. so remarkable news, considering we had summer-like weather last week. this is just what we need to continue to push back that fire danger for us. so as we start it off for

tomorrow morning, it's going to begin on the chilly side with some of those wet roadways returning. temperatures in the 40s. 48 in the peninsula, right over san francisco down to 49 and the north bay at 45. daytime highs tomorrow, 50s and 60s, keep that jacket han at this through the tay. we have tornados possible from cincinnati to memphis all the way to new orleans, also heavy downpours and winds of 50-plus miles per hour. we have more on that on nightly news coming up after this show. on our seven-day forecast, we'll dry it out for easter, sunshine and 60 degrees for san francisco. and for the inland valleys for easter, we're also warming pack back up to 70 degrees. we're getting at least one clear

day for the weekend on easter. >> all these days of mixed forecast and then sunshine. >> the bunny cake. up next, saving baby herons. 123450 ♪ ♪

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. okay, cautiously optimistic. the a's continue to march forward in the effort to build that new ballpark at howard terminal. a new survey shows how some people feel about that project, 800 were surveyed. 76% said they want to vote on any deal that the a's agree to with the city. on the peninsula, 5,000 stanford nurses are threatening to go on strike on april 25th after the union failed to reach an agreement with the hospital. the nurses are now in the second week of working with expired contracts. they're asking for competitive

wages as well as help with staffing. the nurses union and hospital have negotiated covering 13 weeks. stanford sent us a statement that reads in part, if the strike takes place, both hospitals will remain open and our community can continue to rely on the safe, high-quality care. while we respect our nurses' rights to enghaj this work action we are disappointed that the union has chosen this strike. black herons are not endangered, but they are looking to present them. in the wild, they leave the nest at a month old but don't fly until they're six weeks old, in the city, that's a prblem. they did fall on sidewalks or streets. so they have a team to check the nests. back on b.a.r.t.

ridership is heading back to pre-pandemic levels. here's a look inside rockefeller center. you can see lester holt preparing for fightly news. nbc news travels to put buying bitcoin to the test. a show ail want to see y want toe e e e e e e.

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with a qualifying bundle. we knew this was coming. b.a.r.t. is bouncing back. it's reach add new pandemic

ridership record. >> yeah, nearly 141,000 people took it yesterday, the most to ride it since the pandemic took hold. b.a.r.t. still has a long way to go. that number is only about one third of pre-pandemic numbers. tonight at 7, teenagers, even kids, dying of fentanyl overdose and what parents need to know about this fentanyl crisis. but up on nightly news, new evidence of atrocities in ukraine. nbc news finds soldiers clearing the area of artillery that russian troops left behind, we also see the bombed-out remains of a kindergarten, the blue and white swing set still standing. lester holt joins us now. b tonight. the suspect in the new york subway shooting rampage under arrest the suspect, frank james, taken into custody after police say he called in a tip on himself james facing a federal charge after police say he put on a gas mask, set off smoke

canisters, and fired a gun 33 times on a subway train, wounding 10 people. new video of the suspect entering the subway before the attack now details on how he escaped and his disturbing trail on social media also tonight, president biden stepping up military aid to ukraine $800 million in weapons, ammunition, and other security assistance and the latest satellite images where that massive russian convoy is headed severe storms on the move after a tornado outbreak injured nearly two dozen in texas al roker is tracking it the cdc extending the mask mandate for planes and public transportation how much longer will travelers have to mask up oscar winner cuba gooding jr. pleading guilty to forcibly touching a woman at a new york nightclub will he avoid jail time our series "crypto universe." inside the first country to make bitcoin its national