To is the napa earthquake, which damaged the schools heating system, and since then they have been conducting repairs on that system, which is naturally cast fed, and as they were going around room to room today checking on that construction and the gas, there was an explosion in the photo lab. There was no students present. In fact, the lab is not being currently used by the school. It is one of the buildings that is furthest from the center of the campus, and as i say, they were walking room to room to check on the gas feed and the heating system when this explosion happened. They are still trying to determine what it was that set off the explosion, but presumably, it was caused by a fault in the gas line. Serious burns to that one district employee. And no students present. No students injured. I understand that they were evacuating the students at first to the student stadium, but im looking at it now and thats cleared, so i think classes have resumed. Thats the latest. All right. We know that you will continue gathering elements for our later newscasts, but if anything big happens, well certainly go back to you. Thank you very much, Mark Matthews. Now to new details on a bay area case thats gained national attention. A teen who lit another teens skirt on fire, finding out how long hell spend behind bars. Nbc bay areas bob redell live in oakland with reaction from the victims family. Good morning, bob. Reporter good morning to you, scott. Within the past hour an Alameda County superior court judge agreed to Richard Thomass plea deal, sentencing this young man to seven years in state prison for lighting the skirt of another young person, Sasha Fleischmann last year on a transit bus. Fleischmann was badly burned on her legs and what the judge agreed this morning was a tragic prank. Fleischmanns parents were in court for the sentencing. What was remarkable is how bad they feel for their sons attacker who at 17 years old, faces several years in prison ahead of him. The thing that just struck me when he walked in was, my god, hes just a kid. Hes still just a young kid. That was sashas father. Sashas mother debby also addressed Richard Thomas in court this morning for about two minutes, told him that what he did to her child was horrible, described the painful recovery for the burns to her childs legs, but then told thomas that they dont hate him and dont want him to come out of prison being hateful and hope that eventually some day he will be able to stand up for those who are bullied. She told us this was the first time she was able to look her childs attacker right in the eye. He seemed very moved and it was really hard. I felt like partly i was being harsh about how awful what happened to sasha was, and it was hard for him to hear. I mean, i think he felt really bad about it. He feels terrible about what happened. It was it started out to be a prank and ended up to be a horrible, horrible result, for which he, essentially, he doesnt use the term, but it will be eternally sorry. Thomass attorney tells us his client did write an apology letter to Sasha Fleischmann 48 hours after his arrest, but because of some bureaucratic mixup, that letter has not yet been submitted by the court. They are supposed to do that some time in the next few days. By pleading no contest, thomas had the hate crime charge dropped. His sentence could be dropped to five years minus time already served if he behaves in prison. Sasha fleischmann, now 19 years old, was not in court, is at school at m. I. T. , thats on the east coast fleischmanns parents telling us their child just wants to move past it. Reporting live in oakland, nbc bay area news. Thank you much. Happening today, we could hear from the former dublin chp officer accused of stealing nude pictures from multiple dui suspects. Sean harrington is charged with felon Computer Theft and admitted to investigators he took the photos from the phones up to six women he arrested and shared them with other officers. His Attorney Says harrington told him he thought sharing the pictures with his colleagues would be funny and hes willing to pay the price for his actions. He could serve more than three years behind bars if convicted. Also in court today, an alameda man charged with murdering his wife. He calls that act a mercy killing. 72yearold Jerry Canfield told police he killed his wife because she was ill and they had made a pact, when she couldnt handle the pain anymore, he was to kill her. When police got to the apartment last month, they found his wife shot to death with flowers by her side. Police would not elaborate over her illness. A neighbor, though, told us she had dementia. The south korean government is ordering Asiana Airlines to suspend flights to sfo for 45 days. This is a penalty for ignoring safety rules during last years deadly plane crash. Stephanie chuang shows us how the airline is fighting back. Reporter good morning. Asiana airlines calling this decision too harsh, with one Company Official saying if the appeal is rejected, the company may take legal action. This temporary route ban could cost the company an estimated 14 million. Asiana has been urging the government to issue a fine instead. That carries a maximum of about 2 million, but the ministry of land, infrastructure, and transport issued the suspension to signal a clear warning to ensure safety is top priority. Asiana says the government is ignoring the u. S. National Transportation Safety board findings that concluded it was mainly pilot error that caused the boeing 777 to crash, killing three people and injuring 180 others. The company adding that this would hurt passengers by taking away flight options. Asiana says it sells about 175,000 tickets a year with 70 of customers being nonsouth koreans, but the government says it will ask other airlines to increase Passenger Capacity for flights between San Francisco during this 45day suspension. Asiana has about two weeks to file an appeal and the south korean government says it will make its final ruling within a month of asianas appeal, which means if the decision sticks, it could take effect as soon as the start of next year. At sfo, stephanie chuang, nbc bay area news. The parents of ray mcdonald are speaking out for the First Time Since prosecutors decided not to charge the 49er with domestic violence. Ray mcdonald sr. And his mother are criticizing the San Jose Police department for the information that officers released. They say that led to their 30yearold son being, quote, slaughtered by the lynch mob. The original Police Report says there were visible injuries to mcdonalds fiance the night he was arrested in august, but this week the d. A. s report showed there was insufficient evidence and conflicting testimony to charge him with an assault. A San Jose Police spokesman told us they will release a statement regarding the matter shortly and well have an update in our 5 00 newscast tonight. Virgin America Airlines started trading this morning, the stock jumped nearly 30 in its first hour of trade. Theres the ceo along with flight attendants and pilots this morning. Frequent flyers even joined him. The Virgin America flights have been serving free champagne to passengers all day, as well. This morning authorities in the south bay are trying to figure out whether a janitor arrested on charges of child pornography had contact with children while on the job. He was taken into custody while he was cleaning Office Buildings in los gatos. With a search warrant in hand, authorities took his laptop and say they found more than 100 videos showing children in sexually explicit acts. The age ranged anywhere from toddler to 12 years old. Its very difficult based on the video to determine the exact age or even the identity of some of these children, but again, thats a lengthy process and followup investigation. Perez worked through a third party contractor, a Silicon Valley child porn task force is now leading that investigation. Police warning students and parents to be on the alert for a suspicious person spotted near san mateo high. They say a man pulled up alongside a girl thursday morning, tried to talk to her. Monday a man tried to talk to a different female student and another incident reported last night. Detectives say students ignored that driver in all cases. They are not sure if it was, in fact, the same driver. An nbc bay area followup now. Expert investigating the death of a baby gorilla at the San Francisco zoo says the gorilla enclosure is outdated and unsafe. The zoo hired a gorilla expert to look into the death of the 16monthold, who died after she was crushed by an automatic door. San Francisco Chronicle reports one of the experts main tasks is to figure out whether the worker who was operating the door kept her hand on the emergency shutoff switch the whole time, but the expert says the workers cannot keep their hands on the emergency switch and see the door at the same time. The expert recommends rebuilding the enclosure to make it more state of the art. Still to come, a new investigative report reveals the small airplane overhead could be a spy. Well explain next. And he did it. Well show you the highlights, maybe even some of the low lights, of rokerthon. His voice sure dropped to an alltime low. It was hard to hear him at the end of that. Checking out the fall fashions meanwhile on the golden gate bridge, a lot of spectators. Temps in the 60s more of the same for your weekend, then we get ready for two powerful storm systems. How much rain we may or may not get coming up in your full forecast. Welcome back to you. The wall street journal this morning discovered an american spy plane program. Small airplanes carrying cell phone receivers gathered up signals information looking for bad guys. The journal says the devices located on dozens of small cessnas like this one flown constantly above american cities. These devices pretend to be cell phone towers and your cell phone connects with them, or at least pings them, and the device compares your number to see if youre listed as wanted and where you are and your location is noted. The program is, according to the journal, run by the air marshal service. Hey, if youre a teacher or you know a teacher, listen to this. Theres a thing next month called hour of code, where teachers all over the u. S. Will teach computer code, so you should teach your students or Boy Scout Group or church group code. I know what youre thinking, i dont know how to program a computer, how can i possibly teach it . Well, the organization code. Org has made it super easy. Weve made it incredibly easy for teachers of any background and for students of any age range. How . So weve made, first of all, the coding you do on our website doesnt involve typing, you drag and drop the commands that the computer needs to interpret and then you hit the run button and youre writing code by dragging the demands for an angry bird to find the pig and kids think its a game, so when a teacher puts it in front of the kids, the kids start learning on their own. Founder of code. Org will be my guest this sunday on press here. Kris . If they can make it that easy, why doesnt my computer ever work . Fair question. Ill call india. The postmaster general announced today hes retiring after leading the struggling agency for years. 39 years with the Postal Service, his retirement announcement comes as the Agency Reports an overall loss of 5. 5 billion for the year. The board says Postal Service veteran Megan Brennan will now take over the new postmaster general spot in february. And now to an Investigative Unit exclusive. You have heard of the controversial practice of fracking, that process that uses lots of water at High Pressure to break up rocks deep underground to get at trapped oil. More than two years ago, our Investigative Unit first uncoffu uncovered fracking here in california was doing damage to our water supply. Now nbc bay areas Investigative Team has learned that toxic chemicals used in the fracking process are turning up in underground aquifers. Augu they are considered off limits to such activity. Its inexcusable at a time when californias experiencing one of the worst droughts in history that were allowing Oil Companies to contaminate what could otherwise be very useful Groundwater Resources for irrigation, for drinking. Its possible these aquifers are contaminated irreparably. They are in the middle of testing some of the aquifers were the waste water was injected to make sure drinking wells are not contaminated. Tonight we show some of the wells and get answers from state regulators about how this could have happened. Thats tonight at 11 00 on nbc bay area news. Well, theres concern this morning about trees in San Francisco and whether many of them can withstand the rain coming our way after yesterdays Early Morning storm, some tree limbs snapped under the weight of the extra water. One limb pinned a man. Arborers tell us because of the drought any rain will likely cause trouble for trees. I think were going to have a buildup of trees that didnt have any failures, and now we could get a surge because its been dry for so long. Another major concern is rain will loosen the soil, causing the entire tree to topple, and we do see that from time to time. We sure do. I dont know how soon we might see a danger of that, but i think it might be coming up in the weather forecast. Heres meteorologist christina loren. Oh, little birdie. Yeah, you know, its funny, these models cannot agree on anything, but ive seen this before, this pattern before when it comes to the rainfall were expecting next week and i still think were going to get significant totals, particularly up in the north bay, and im going to show you that, your future cast coming your way in just moments. Right now, though, temperatures comfortable out there. Gorgeous day to get outdoors. Notice its a little cool in the north bay valley spots, temperatures still in the 50s. At this point we do have showers coming down to the north of the bay area. Theres still a little area of low pressure, but High Pressure firmly in control, its going to build through the weekend, keeping our sky nice and clear, just like were seeing over healdsburg for saturday and sunday, both afternoons looking good. Intervals of clouds at times, you will notice as that jet stream stays right on top of us. Heres the deal for the weekend and next week, temperatures looking good. Were going to hold on to the upper 60s for saturday and sunday. By next monday and tuesday, though, thats when the real changes start to come in, but i get to show you something thats so cool, our future cast now showing you that Atmospheric River tap, so heres the deal, heres our area of low pressure. What has to happen is it needs to connect with a plume of sub tropical moisture and at that point does look like thats the case. Look what happens when the two connects, origins, reds, yellows, thats heavy and moderate rainfall looking organized on its way to the bay area. We stop that clock on your future cast at 5 00 p. M. On tuesday and thats when were expecting our first round of rainfall, but what youll notice, not just dealing with the green, we have heavy stuff, as well, moving right over the north bay as we head throughout tuesday night, into early wednesday morning. For us here in the south bay, were still going to get some pretty good totals, but nothing like what were expecting in the north bay. Let me move you further into the week. We stop that clock for you again getting into the following friday. This is seven days out, but take a look at this. This could provide some very good looking rainfall totals as it moves over the bay area, kind of loses some of that energy. 4 00 friday shows you still getting that moderate rainfall up in the north bay. We take you into sunday. Were talking about showers on friday, on saturday, on sunday of next week. If everything times out. Heres the question mark. Weve got the polar vortex over there on the east coast. If that thing stays put, were not going to get any rainfall whatsoever, so hopefully that thing will start to nudge to the east as we head throughout the end of next week. That will be good news for them. And good news for us because we get the much needed rain. Im going to be watching it like a hawk all weekend because im a geek like that. Back to you guys. We know the folks in the east and midwest would love to get rid of the polar vortex. They are complaining. Smug look right there. This morning, nbcs today show al roker went to the record books for the longest continuous live weather broadcast, 34 hours straight. Im tired just thinking about it. When it was over, his voice was worn to a croak, but his spirits were still very high. Behind the scenes talking with al. He did it well, we did it, because it was a real team effort of both our Meteorology Team and producing team. We really put together a group that allowed me to do it. No way one person could do this by themselves. The thing is, al, youre still here. What are you still doing here . Now youre on adrenaline at this point. Once you stop, everything will shut down. As long as you keep moving, everythings fine. How does it feel, really . Humongous feat, 34 hours. I dont think its set in. The odd part is, in many ways it doesnt feel like it was 34 hours. I dont know how to describe it, but it really doesnt. Everyone supporting you, watching you, what do you want to say . Thank you so much. Could not have done it without you. Most importantly, the people who donated to crowdrise. Com ro