[ cheers and applause ] >> seth: i wanna thank my guests jonathan groff, adam pally, everybody. thank you queen cora for a great week. the 8g band. go to youtube. thanks for watching. we love you, everybody. [ cheers and applause ] ♪me

right now at 11:00. the energy was back. tonight, san francisco buzzing kicking off a new monthly event downtown, which is an area that's struggling to rebound after the pandemic. so the city hopes first thursdays will help them bounce back. nbc's pete serratos is in san francisco, where thousands of people fill the streets. reporter first thursdays is kicking off tonight in downtown san francisco, and organizers believe it's the perfect event to attract business to the city. a party like atmosphere taking over second street in downtown san francisco for the city's inaugural first thursday event and is bringing together the community through music, dance. come get your sample of this and plenty of food. an exciting time for residents who say the energy in downtown hasn't been the same since the pandemic. i just livens people up. it gets people out of their house. you know? it made san francisco exciting. the downtown area as a whole has

seen its fair share of retail closures, with dozens of businesses leaving the area over the past few years and less foot traffic as businesses move towards remote work during the pandemic, according to a report from the san francisco standard. since 2019, around 47% of businesses surrounding union square went out of business. it's why organizers are hoping that first thursdays can bring thousands of potential customers directly to downtown businesses. for me, the most important thing about tonight is to make sure that the small businesses make money, because right now, the people who are hurting the most in our city are the small businesses. steve johnson with sirhan's street foods is one of the many vendors here tonight who says he stands to benefit greatly from the new clientele. this is going to help us tremendously. for once. it's the beginning of the month, and that's when a lot of bills are due in everybody's life. so to have a consistent flow of income to come through here to depend on to have your business back, that's the stuff that we need. and as the night came to a close, san francisco mayor

london breed paying a visit to first thursdays. she hopes the event can activate downtown and show residents it's open for business. part of our downtown economic recovery is to make downtown more of a neighborhood, not just a 9 to 5 financial district. the event will take place on the first thursday of every month along second street between market and howard, until april of next year in san francisco. pete cerritos nbc bay area news. all right, pete, thanks. protesters are still standing their ground at uc berkeley tonight after a confrontation between competing demonstrators has raised concern. take a look at this video from tonight shows a calm night on campus at one point, pro palestinian demonstrators are seen holding hands, dancing and chanting. it comes as you see police investigate a violent encounter near the protests. that's what you're looking at here. video shows a small group walk into the area with an israeli flag. someone grabbed it. police say three people were hurt from this. pro-palestinian protesters tell us that the

person who grabbed that flag is not part of their group. all the campers are very, very much understanding of the goals and are very focused on what we're here for. and it's not to engage with agitators or people who are trying to distract us from our goal. uc officials say they are monitoring that demonstration, but they have no plans to involve police unless the safety of students are threatened. well, take a look. new video shows the moment thieves target a mail carrier in oakland. now $150,000 reward is being offered for any information leading to the arrest of the suspects. nbc's jocelyn moran has more on this growing crime reporter. it's an alarming trend in the bay area postal workers getting robbed while on the job. one of the latest incidents occurred today in oakland on euclid avenue. it happened in seconds. this video shows this letter carrier walked through a gate when she's approached u.s. postal inspector matthew norfleet says at least two suspects took her postal keys.

this has happened to her. from what she told us over the last couple of years, she's had her keys grabbed or attempted to be grabbed a couple of times now. already postal keys have become the target. the keys only have one use. if you're not a united states letter carrier, and that's to steal mail. this isn't the first time it's happened in this area of oakland in march. on euclid avenue. video appears to show a suspect pulling out a weapon, then demanding the postal worker turn over the mailbox keys. the suspect then snatches the keys. this happened in the area, in that immediate area, with with shocking regularity. and it's happening in other parts of the bay area, too. last week, a letter carrier was robbed at gunpoint in san carlos, and in march, thieves broke into a postal workers truck while he was making deliveries in a fremont neighborhood. then, when he returned to the post office where he parked, he discovered that his own car was gone. unfortunately, it's at least a weekly occurrence here in the bay area. we're hearing the same thing across the country, letter carriers are just waiting for

that moment when they're going to be robbed. at this point, norfleet says there's a $150,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible in today's robbery in oakland. one is too many times, and being something that carriers worry about every day, is really just unacceptable . jocelyn moran, nbc, bay area news. and despite what we just saw, new numbers suggest crime in oakland is declining. ng opd data shows a 33% drop in overall crime from the same time last year. some of the biggest drops include a 17% decrease in homicides and a 50% decrease in burglaries, though robberies are up 11. the city's department of violence prevention credits this drop to crime in crime to the return of the city's ceasefire strategy. that program targets gangs and those most likely to commit violent crimes. it also attempts to defuze issues before they trigger violence. we're talking about less than 1% of the population. that's driving

the vast majority of violence in this city. and so with limited resources both at the police department and in the department of violence prevention focused in on those 350 very high risk individuals is what is supporting us. this comes one week before the city of oakland's new police chief, floyd mitchell, starts his position. meanwhile, livermore police are searching for a man they say is responsible for the city's first two homicides of the year. a man and woman were shot on saturday inside a room at the la quinta inn on south front road. neither have been identified. today, police announced they are looking for this man you see right here. johnston vasquez of oakland. police say he knew one of the victims, but no other details have been released. vasquez is considered armed and dangerous. if you see him, you are urged to call 911. new details about a bizarre and shocking story we're hearing from the wife of the man accused of driving her and their kids off of a cliff. she pleaded

in court today for her husband to be released. dharmesh patel is being held without bail. the doctor from southern california is facing three charges of attempted murder in. investigators say he purposely plunged his tesla off a 300 foot cliff with his family in the car last year. this was at devil's slide near pacifica. you see that tesla down below? amazingly, he his wife and their two kids all survived today, doctor patel's wife told the court his actions were due to a mental health episode. the judge is weighing the options now. if doctor patel should be criminally tried or diverted to a mental health program, the captain of the dive boat that caught fire near santa barbara was sentenced to four years in prison. today, the conception was anchored off of the channel islands when a fire broke out back in 2019. a crew member and 33 sleeping divers, including some from the bay area, were trapped below deck. all of them died. five crew members,

including captain jerry boylan, survived. the 70 year old was found guilty last november of one count of misconduct or neglect of a ship officer, which is more commonly referred to as seaman's manslaughter. a live look now over the bay and into san francisco. it's a beautiful shot. the city, though, is facing penalties for allegedly violating the clean water act. the u.s. justice department and california attorney general announced they're taking san francisco to court. the civil lawsuit focuses on a string of sewage treatment plant spills over the last ten years. the lawsuit is demanding financial penalties and improvements. the city says it's disappointed in the decision and that it's already investing billions of dollars to upgrade the sewage system and protect the bay. cinco de mayo is right around the corner, and san jose is getting ready for huge crowds because of two parades and festivals happening at the same time. last year, sapd faced heavy criticism for closing

several streets and off ramps. businesses say it really hurt their sales. organizers promise this year things are going to be different, in part because the festivals are sponsored by the city and because police will be part of the festivities. another key change this year improved outreach. we are communicating more than ever doing, you know, partnering with members of the community, with the small business owners and, and for the first time, doing a city sponsored parade and cruising event. councilman candelas was actually among those who criticized san jose police for their plan last year. he says there will still be road closures again this weekend, but there's much better consultation with the community. we are back in 60s up next. a whistle blower speaks exclusively to our investigative unit, raising the alarm about issues within the contra costa county health care system. plus, the bay bridge lights are coming back. the announcement just made and when the bridge will be illuminated

again. i'm chief meteorologist jeff ranieri. a warm day out here today. got up to 78. in santa rosa, 79 in concord, well above those averages. but all of these temperatures are going to drop and fast with some rainfall coming in by saturday morning right there at 5:00. even some heavier rain at times. we're going to take it through the full timeline of this. and also what's remarkable about it all is how unusual this rain is for this time of the year. we're going to see totals 10 to 25 times our normal daily rain rate for may. we're back with

the unhoused and people with mental illness. but in contra costa county, part of the program may be cutting corners and putting those patients more at risk. tonight, a whistleblower comes forward speaking with investigative reporter candice nguyen. reporter this nurse doesn't want to reveal her identity because she says she's been retaliated against for trying to report concerns. now only on nbc bay area. she's going public with strong allegations that contra costa health denies that the system is ignoring medical needs, inflating caseloads and harming patients. reporter. it's been heartbreaking. it's been

really heartbreaking, because we are supposed to be, helping these patients. this contra costa health nurse says some of the county's most fragile and medically complex patients are being left in the lurch. there are people who are unhoused. some of them have been going to the hospital er multiple times in a week. a patient who had a diabetic ulcer was given to a non-medical staff, non-clinical staff. they then didn't address it. full body infection happened. he needed to have his leg amputated. it's not just this one case. and she says it's not the staffers fault incidents like this, she says, occur regularly through contra costa health's enhanced care management, or ecm benefit, provided through california's new cal aim program. we are transforming medi-cal. it's our

journey to a healthier california for all. according to the department of health care services, cal aims ecm benefit is supposed to address clinical and non-clinical needs, meaning both medical and social care assistance. but in contra costa, the nurse and three other sources familiar with the system tell us the program has abandoned medical assistance altogether. they say the ecm case managers, who are nurses, who were already with the system before the program started, are now being instructed to focus only on social needs, like a member's access to a shelter or fresh food, or their non-clinical staff like housing specialists who aren't trained to properly refer medical issues at all. they've been told if they don't understand what a health condition is, they just should google it. that sounds potentially dangerous. it's extremely dangerous. it's negligent. do you have firsthand

knowledge of patients being harmed or dying as a result of this? yes, yes they do. one fatal case, she warned supervisors and county officials about through email last year involved a patient saying he couldn't get out of bed. a non-clinical staff member unknowingly labeled this patient as bed bound and the rest of his care team treated him as such by only providing telephone visits. as a result, the patient didn't get out of bed for months, and his bed sores turned into bone infections. he later passed away, according to her email. another ecm patient she emailed about received no discussion of health needs or health interventions for a year. when he was clearly sick, he was on death's doorstep, then passed away a month later. i tried so hard to report this internally, and those concerns were both dismissed. and then i also received just the extreme

hostility abusive treatment. we reached out to contra costa health ceo anna roth. she declined our interview request. instead, kim mccarl their communications officer, spoke with us. our members clinical care needs address. so the way that our model is set up, no, except that ecm is a part of the entire care model. but i was looking at this state's description of ecm, and it seems to be pretty clear. it says here ecm is a comprehensive care management benefit to address both clinical and non-clinical needs for the highest needs. members so why isn't that happening in contra costa county? because we don't need to. so contra costa county is what we call an integrated system. so we have a whole clinical arm and we have a whole ecm arm. and so we don't need to have our ecm program provide clinical care because our our clinic system does that. but it

doesn't always. and cases fall through the cracks. that's what the department of health care services found in a 2023 audit of contra costa health after receiving anonymous complaints, the state found patients complained about not receiving enhanced care management services. in one case, a comprehensive history and physical examination wasn't completed and without proper assessments, the state said patients may not receive important behavioral and medical health screenings that can help identify and prevent illnesses. this the state know that contra costa county is not providing clinical care through its ecm program. yes, when we reached out to the state, a spokesperson repeated in an email, both clinical and non-clinical needs must be addressed by ecm teams. there are a lot of taxpayer dollars involved. contra costa health took in nearly $3 billion in medi-cal revenue in 2022, and 2023. of that, it spent $56 million on ecm, according to the

state. i think that it's wrong. this nurse says she's concerned cutting corners on medical allows the system to report more patients to the state to get more funding. it gives them an excuse to really inflate caseload sizes and add, because by ignoring clinical needs there, then it's then okay, it's totally manageable to manage just the social needs of 100 patients. contra costa health denies that serving more medi-cal members means more money for the system. the state actually determines the formula upon which we get paid, so having more of them is not a financial benefit to us. we checked what other health systems are doing la care plan and san francisco health plan tell us their ecm benefits address clinical and non-clinical care, but in alameda county, alameda alliance's program appears to be similar to contra costa's. although we haven't heard of any

issues there currently. contra costa health says it's working to correct the problems detailed in the audit with the investigative unit. i'm candice wen, nbc bay area news. candice, thank you. and if you have a story for our investigative unit, you can call 888996 tips. or you can visit our website, nbc bay area.com/investigations. let's turn things over to our chief meteorologist jeff ranieri. we are about 40 minutes away from friday. we need it this time, buddy. yeah, it feels good. right. and we are going to come in with some excellent weather on our friday forecast, sunshine and warm temperatures. we do have a storm system. we're tracking out here in the pacific, but we have one more day of this great weather because of this area of high pressure at setting up just to the north in the east of california. so that's going to keep that rain at bay for one more day. let me show you more about your friday forecast, and then we'll get to those rain totals here, coming up in just a bit as we roll through tomorrow morning. no problems on that commute. mostly sunny skies,

temperatures here in the low to mid 50s. this will put you to 54 in the peninsula and 53 in the south bay. similar weather here through the east bay, san francisco and the north bay. daytime highs for tomorrow. cool off a couple of degrees, but still overall above average and just enjoyable outside. look at these numbers, double sevens up towards santa rosa, napa, martinez. also down to morgan hill over to livermore 76. same thing there in san jose, 75 in palo alto. and for much of the mid and southern peninsula. and you go to the coastline, we'll be in the 50s to 60s from half moon bay to san francisco. it'll be a little bit breezy there. at the coastline, two winds out of the northwest, 15 to 25. okay, let's move it into the rainfall. storm system moves down by saturday. and by all accounts, this is unusual for may. the amount of rainfall we're going to see moving in. now, we're not expecting any flooding, but it certainly is going to be adding up for us. so we start to see this rainfall returning here by saturday morning. so everything really looks compressed into the morning on saturday for some of

those heavier downpours. so it'll start up into the north bay first around 5:00 in the morning, gets to the peninsula east bay by 8 a.m. and down there to the south bay by 11:00. now, by 11:00, we're still likely holding on to some rain up into the north bay. and that's how things are just going to be adding up for us. and then we should start to see this moving on out through the afternoon and evening. on saturday, rain totals were locked in for a half inch for the entire bay area. now some of our higher elevations could get in on three quarters of an inch, maybe even a bit higher. not only that, but sierra snow. look, this is just in one day, 21in kingvale on saturday, 12 in south tahoe, 20 in kirkwood. snow levels around pollock pines . we may actually get some road closures in the sierra because it's just a lot of snow in a short amount of time. on the 7-day forecast. we'll dry it out on sunday's forecast and we stay dry through next week, going from 79 tomorrow to 59 on saturday. just in case anyone

missed the winter conditions we brought. we we're bringing it back. okay it's saturday though. it's okay. we're not complaining. oh man. the next the weekend after that. it's looking much, much better. it's mother's day weekend. that's perfect. okay there we go. thank you jeff. up next, the bay bridge will be lit up, illuminated again. we'll tell you when and for how much money happening now. new details tonight on that stolen ambulance in sonoma county. police say a man was being treated by a paramedic in santa rosa when he jumped into the ambulance, drove off with a paramedic in the back . police caught up to that ambulance by using spike strips to stop it. you can read more on that story. plus, see video of th

on last march, the nonprofit illuminate was forced to turn those off. turn off the lights

because it couldn't afford the upkeep. so it started crowdfunding. it secured $10 million in donations. it's now closing in on the final $1 million needed to bring the installation back. once that happens, it will be about 8 to 10 months before those beautiful bay bridge lights are back on in full effect. it's going to be so nice. a very special night in the bay area honoring influential women. the ywca, golden gate silicon valley held its annual tribute to women award, honors women leaders and innovators in different industries, and celebrates their legacies. news director sandra perez from our sister station telemundo 48, was among the honorees as well as our very own. you recognize her? yes. janelle wang, who also emceed. janelle, we wanted to wish you all the best as the ywca honors you. congratulations on being recognized for all the work you do for women and families in the bay area. wow, how cool is that? savannah and hoda, i know, but

you know what? it's well deserved. janelle and sandra are amazing, and with both of them, they bring out the best in people. so we're ve happy

start to talk about who they're going to bring in next season, maybe see a blockbuster trade, maybe lebron james, maybe a reunion with k.d. kevin durant. we will see the big story tonight though. new york fans look at this celebrating at a bar in manhattan. it's like they just won the nba title. they didn't win the title. they won round one. they even had the empire state building in knicks colors. it was fun. knicks in philadelphia final minutes here. jalen brunson he's the star here 41 points tonight for new york. and then here's the backbreaker. brunson over to josh hart with the clutch three. knicks eliminate the 76 ers in six games 118 115. your final. new york will now face indiana in

round two. well the giants today in boston. that's the family of giants outfielder mike yastrzemski. it's mom and grandma. grandpa by the way is red sox legend and hall of famer carl yastrzemski. mike gave his family something to cheer for. top of the third inning, a solo home run. thairo estrada knocked in the go ahead run in the seventh inning. giants win it 3 to 1 and avoid the sweep there in philly tomorrow. we're back in a moment