Crews are cleaning up two downed trees at highlands park. Trees are also a problem in San Francisco. Thats where abc 7 News Reporter lillian kim joins us live with details. Reporter its no longer raining where we are but from falling trees to clogged storm drains, city crews were busy. This is what a clogged catch basin looks like. Workers with the San Francisco Public Utilities commission have been clearing one after another in hopes of preventing the street from flooding. In most cases they find leaves and litter but this time it was just plain dirt. [ inaudible ] you do the best you can. Reporter at lombard street and buchanan, workers cut up a large ficus that crashed on top of a parked prius and blocked all southbound lanes. The roots were up in the air as it rocked over the car. But it just went right across all lanes of traffic. Reporter ficus trees have been problematic in San Francisco this rainy season. The weight of all the water on the already topheavy trees causes them to fall. Crews have been either eliminating or pruning them to prevent more incidents like this one. They were planted 40, 50, 60 years ago. We dont plant any more now. They really, many of them are not suitable for San Francisco. They are very tall trees, big trees, and when they come down, they come crashing down hard. Reporter city workers are looking forward to the stretch of dry days coming up. Time they say to dry out and rest up for the next storm. Lillian kim, abc 7 news. After praying for rain, bay area farmers get their wish. Almost a year ago, the drought was at its peak and we introduced you to a north bay dairy farmer who was kicking up dry ground. Don bernardis farm is west of petaluma. Abc 7 News Reporter Wayne Freedman went back today to see how hes faring after all this rain. Reporter he is thrilled to death, as are all the ranchers along the Sonoma County marin county line. This time last year, they were wondering when the rain was going to come. This time, they are wondering when its going to stop. We will show you a little bit of then and a little bit of now. Maybe youre tired of the rain but we know a man for whom this sight and sound is more welcome, more beautiful, than anything else on earth. Nobody ever thought we would have this much water this time of year. Reporter don dibernardi. Maybe you remember him from last year. That is when we paid multiple visits to Sonoma County following the saga of drought. We will never forget the day don followed a green pack on the ground and spent a bundle hoping for a well. What does it say . Youre in trouble. I was pretty desperate. That was just a little dribble in the ground but i was happy. It didnt turn out to be any water. Reporter not like this month of december, from basically no water last year, don now has almost too much of it. Not that hes complaining. Take a look at all the water he had left last year in one of his dams and take a look at it now. Two weeks ago that rock was way out in the water. Unbelievable. Reporter with water comes the lifting of a burden for all ranchers around here. Neil mcisaac had the same concerns last year. This is beyond dry. We have no pasture. Reporter this morning he had a full rain gauge and peace of mind. We wont haul any water. Were done with that. Our water tanks are running over for our houses. Our springs, our wells have all been recharged. Our reservoir is running over. Reporter its not even winter yet. Thats fine. Reporter in the north bay, fine would be an understatement. From the sonoma marin county line, Wayne Freedman, abc 7 news. The weather is causing all sorts of problems at sfo. Flight aware says as of late today, there are more than 3500 delays and cancellations nationwide, many of them at sfo. Flights are running two and a half hours behind. President obama says sony made a mistake when it decided to cancel next weeks release of that seth rogan film the interview. The comments came at a White House Press conference. A few hours earlier the white house said north korea is indeed responsible for the ongoing hacking of sony. Mr. Obama wishes that sony executives had talked to him first before making their decision. We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States. The president said the u. S. Will respond proportionally in a place, time and manner that it chooses. Minutes after the president s comments, it was sonys chance to react. Abc 7 News Reporter Lyanne Melendez joins us live with that, and reaction to the hacking crisis. Well, this is the first time that sony has talked in public about this. The ceo of Sony Pictures said we would still like the public to see this movie. Also, he admitted he was upset with president obama. I would be fibbing to say i wasnt disappointed. Reporter thats Sony Pictures ceo after president obama criticized the company for allowing hackers to intimidate them. We have not caved. We have not given in. We have persevered and we have not backed down. Reporter he said it was the theaters that pulled the plug on the movie, scheduled to be released on december 25th. The movie theaters came to us one by one over the course of a very short period of time, we were completely surprised by it, and announced that they would not carry the movie. Reporter at that point, he says, they had no other choice but to stop the release. Hello, north korea reporter the movie is a comedy about two journalists who landed an interview with the north korean dictator and are asked by the cia to assassinate him. Now hackers believed to be associated with the korean government are demanding that all trailers be removed from the internet or they will release more damaging information against sony. Steve maher teaches Information Technology at uc berkeley. He says why not do what the wall street journal is proposing . I think it makes a lot of sense. It is that the American Government either buy the film or get a copy of it gratis from sony and put it on the internet with no contract restrictions. Reporter m. I. T. s Phil Zimmerman is one of the nations top encryption experts. He facetimed us today. Encryption is exactly what they would have been unable to penetrate. They could penetrate firewalls or, you know, password protections or things like that. But they are not going to get through encryption. Strong encryption would have prevented so much of this. Reporter sony has now hired a Silicon Valley country, fireeye, to help with the hacking issue. It is their response arm that deals with forensic analysis, repairs and network restoration. Lyanne melendez, abc 7 news. Thank you. Also making headlines from the president s news conference, all eight reporters that he called on today for questions were women. The white house says the unprecedented move was deliberate. A Spokesman Says the president wanted to highlight the hard work that women do every day. In other news tonight, a shelter in place has been lifted after an Early Morning shooting in san jose. Police issued the order after a man was shot on southwest expressway around 5 00 this morning. Blackford elementary school, Valley Christian School and Delmar High School were ordered to shelter in place. The order was lifted just before noon. Police have not found the gunman. The victim was taken to the hospital. One of the schools under the shelter in place this morning faced another emergency at the same time. A man dropping off his child at blackford elementary had a medical emergency and crashed into the front of the building. He and his child were taken to the hospital with minor injuries. No one else was hurt. Health officials are telling people to stay away from prepackaged caramel apples because of listeria poisoning. The centers for Disease Control and prevention is linking the treats to five deaths, including one in california, and some 28 people sickened in ten states. The people got sick between october 17th and november 27th. The cdc says its possible that other illnesses have occurred since then. Investigators are trying to determine the specific brands that are involved. Federal authorities have found one of the worlds most destructive pests at the port of oakland. They examined several large food shipments from india last month. The containers were sealed when they found live and dead beetle larva. More than a Million Pounds of soy beans were sent back, 88,000 pounds of rice also turned away. The beetle can survive without food or moisture for a very long time and poses a serious risk to u. S. Food and agriculture. Remembering a hero. A Highway Patrol officer killed in the line of duty. Coming up, the heartfelt plea from his wife. Also, Surveillance Video capturing a man dumping a dog over a fence. The daylong odyssey to get that dog back to its owners. If he had done that to my dog, what would he do with other dogs . Safeguarding a treasure. The protection local officials are asking for. Free Internet Service and a great item you can give as a gift. A fallen bay area chp officer is getting a special tribute at the rose parade on new years day. Officer youngstrom was killed in the line of duty two years ago on 680 in alamo. Today his family put the finishing touches on a floral portrait that will appear on a rose parade float. The 37yearold father of four was a registered organ and tissue donor who helped save the lives of several people. I hope one day to meet those that received a part of him. I especially hope to one day have the man that received his heart so i can once again hear his familiar heartbeat. The officers portrait is one of 72 donors being honored. More than 125,000 people in the United States need an organ transplant. 18 die each day because there is no match for them. San francisco based sidecar trying something new to make riders feel safer. The Ride Share Company is giving customers the option to choose the gender of their driver. Sidecar made that move after noticing more female riders chose female drivers when given the option. The company publicized the move in a blog post about safety during the holidays, just days after an uber driver in boston was accused of raping a passenger. In napa there is a new push to declare the barry s. S. Snow Mountain Region a national monument. The secretary of the interior talked about the 346,000 acre nature and Recreation Area during a Public Meeting this afternoon in napa. The area thats being discussed covers 346,000 acres in napa, mendocino, lake and yolo counties. Business representsiv officials want president obama to permanently protect the region, which would allow more recreational opportunities there. The lake would not be included in the National Designation because it doesnt have historic or scientific value. No word on when a decision is expected. The farmtotable movement could become the farmtocafeteria movement. A new federal Pilot Program wants to put Fresh Produce on the plates of California School kids. The new department of agriculture project gives 300,000 to the state. School districts can use that money to buy more fruits and vegetables from local farms and wholesalers for their state assisted meal programs. California is one of eight states taking part in this program. Security cameras usually capture suspects taking items. But one Sacramento Homeowner was shocked when his camera caught someone dumping a dog over his fence. Reporter George Warren has the details. Reporter his name is pumba, a young black lab. How he wound up here at the front street Animal Shelter is a very strange story. It was a long leash. I would say probably about 10, 15 feet. Reporter Andrew Singletary came home yesterday to find the dog trapped in the narrow space between two fences in his side yard. He wanted out. You could tell he wanted out. Reporter after making sure the dog was okay, he checked his Video Surveillance system to see how he got there. I saw this guy just down the alley and then just pick up the dog and drop it over the wrought iron fence. I was like wow. Hes dumping the dog. After he dropped it off, he ran. He bolted out of here. There are all kinds of things that go on in this alley. I frequently post the weird ones because sometimes they are entertaining. This one is heartless. Reporter remarkably, the dog still carried his name tag and vaccination information which led us to this house in elk grove owned by a family from southeast asia. No english . The older woman who peeked through the blinds didnt seem to know what i was talking about. Meantime, at the Animal Shelter, the staff had left a message at the phone number listed. Look at him. Hes sweet. Hes healthy. Hes friendly. Hes young. Maybe eight or nine months old. Beautiful dog. Lets find the owners, find out what happened. Reporter minutes after that interview, a young man named josh jong showed up at the shelter to claim the dog. After giving him away yesterday morning because he said hes too busy with work and school. This video of some guy named george was recorded the same morning that he took the dog he found on craigslist. Wait until you see the video. How bad is the video . Reporter its heartbreaking. Just hearing it breaks my heart. Reporter we showed him the video of his dog being dumped over a fence. What do you think when you see that . That ticks me off. If hes going to do that to my dog, what can he do with other dogs . Reporter thats probably a question that Sacramento Police will be asking the man in this video. In sacramento, George Warren, abc 7 news. The San Francisco Fire Department grew by 52 today. These cadets were sworn in as fullfledged firefighters during a ceremony this morning. They left jobs as muni drivers, realtors and retail clerks to join the department. The mayor welcomed them and promised to make San Francisco affordable for them. I pledge that i will work with the union, with their credit union, within the city family to build as much Affordable Housing as we can so they can be here. 32 of these 52 new 13, 13 of the 52 new firefighters already work for the department as paramedics. They will now serve as firefighter paramedics. More hybrid firefighters are going to be hired next year to help San Francisco lower its ambulance response times, which have not met city standards. Congratulations to all of them. On this rainy day, we expected it and its here. Sandhya patel is here with the latest. Getaway friday isnt exactly a getaway. Its a crawlaway. Really rough on the roads, obviously. Wet roadways out there. As we take a look at live doppler 7 hd, this storm is Still Producing showers as you will notice, especially in the east bay, down towards the south bay and the peninsula. We will take you down to the east bay pleasanton, Union City Area getting some rain. Street level radar here, around newark, also fremont and down towards the Santa Cruz Mountains in the south bay, we are seeing scattered showers as well along with the peninsula. Visibility is poor in some spots due to the fog. Look at san carlos, just over a mile. Two miles a little over two miles in hayward. Concord, fairfield. Drive carefully. Chain requirements on 50, 88 and 4 right now as the sierra is seeing some snow. When we take a look at basically how many wet days weve had in december, this is really interesting. 14 of the past 19 days, we have actually seen rain here in december. This is great for our drought situation. High surf advisory is going for the coastline. This was expanded this afternoon to include the entire coast. That storm has generated some rough surf and that advisory runs until 3 00 p. M. Tomorrow afternoon. Occasional breakers over 25 feet so it is going to be dangerous out there. Keep that in mind. Temperatures right now in the 50s. Sfo is still reporting arrival delays of over two hours. From our exploratorium camera, murky view. Showers wind down overnight, areas of light rain this weekend. Winter begins sunday at 3 03 p. M. We will get some brief dry days as we take a look beyond that day. Rain tapers this evening as the cold front goes through but we do have a lot of low level moisture so we will keep it on the drizzly side for your evening plans. Keep the umbrella around for tonight. Powerful jet stream is going to drive another system through here, but this one is going to remain mainly in the north. So the Current System will keep a few light showers going into tomorrow morning and then the chance of light rain remains as that next system clips the north bay so saturday evening, if youre going to be in the north bay, keep the umbrellas handy. Early sunday morning a chance of light rain just about anywhere. Hopefully you will be asleep during this time period. Then we dry out sunday afternoon. In the sierra, additional couple inches of snow above 6,000 feet. It only runs until 10 00 p. M. Tonight. Carry your chains if you are going up to the mountains. Tomorrow morning, temperatures upper 40s to low 50s. Doesnt hurt to keep the umbrella around. Then tomorrow afternoon, we will keep the shower chance, especially in the north bay, but its not a big storm that will impact us. I wouldnt cancel your weekend plans. Not a washout. 50s, 60s for saturday afternoon. Accuweather seven day forecast, you still have time to get the Holiday Shopping in without having to lug umbrellas and all your bags. Monday, tuesday, fog in the morning, dry and milder for the afternoon. Christmas eve, we have a chance of a few showers but cooler, sunshine, just in time for christmas day. That sounds great. Thanks, sandhya. Well, if you are looking for a way to cut the cost of your internet bill, wait no more. Finneys friday free stuff is next. Tonight at 6 00 you must save my grandfathers life. I wanted to repay a sort of debt. A new film connecting all is calm all is bright you can hear them we will tell you what the singers are doing. Its a choir that treated passengers to an impromptu Christmas Concert in the sky aboard an air lingus flight to dublin this week. The airline called it the ultimate in inflight entertainment. If you just close your eyes peaceful. Yes. Now this. No way oh, no, she didnt. Yes, she did. Hang on. Wow. You think youre good at jenga, this student at the university of michigan pulled off that incredible move. It seems neither she nor her friends could believe she nailed it. The whole thing stands up. Very cool. Speaking of cool, 7 on your sides Michael Finney giving us the gift of family photos and low cost internet with todays friday free stuff. This is we do a story on this, freedom pop. This is one of their new devices. You plug it into your computer, it uses a usb, you get three free gigs of internet broadband service. For the first month its free. After that you can get one gig for free or if you want to pay, you can get some more. We have used it around town. It actually works. Way cool. Very nice. Heres the next one here. What we are giving away is not that beautiful picture of someone elses little girl. Or someone elses vacation. What we are giving you is you can make your own like this. You can go online and make pick any picture, any image you want, put it on a wrapped canvas like this. This is from snapbox. You can actually do it from your phone. I just did it upstairs to see how long it takes. About five minutes. Five minutes . Yeah. How cool. Its really cool. Maybe not quite in time for christmas but thats cool. You have to do the fast shipment in order to get it. You want to get this stuff, let me tell you how to go about it. Go online to abc7news. Com or call that number right there, 8005467177. Thank you, michael. Im good. Well, it is about the music and more. Tomorrow will come and girl i cant wait coming up, how a local band is making the holidays that much tomorrow on abc 7 you can watch Colorado State and utah in the royal purple Las Vegas Bowl live from Sam Boyd Stadium tomorrow at 12 30 on abc 7. Coming up on abc 7 news at 6 00, new questions over last nights flareup at the richmond refinery. Is sending tweets to 4,000 people really enough to keep the whole bay area informed . Also, the shocking illegal images found on a Police Dispatchers thumb drive. The abc 7 news iteam looks into how it happened. A new version of an old scam. 7 on your sides Michael Finney with a warning about a phone call that might be coming your way. Thats all coming up in half an hour on abc 7 news at 6 00. Well, back for the holidays and in the giving spirit. Yes. Oaklands own tony toni tone opens up a set tonight. Tony toni tones first album went gold in 1988. In 2006, they regrouped and have been touring the u. S. Ever since. Now the band is back in the bay area but its not all about the music for these local musicians. They are also hosting a toy drive at each show. For dwayne wiggins, its all about coming together as a community. Its tony toni tone live tonight and we are doing a toy drive, bringing the spirit of joy this season. Out of all the craziness that happens, we want to give back. Come on, contribute to the toy drive. Tony toni tone has done it again. The band says people can drop toys off during each of their four shows. Part of the proceeds will go to the nurses Childrens Association in oakland. That is great. World news tonight with david muir is next. Im ama daetz. Im larry beil. Thanks for the time. Welcome to world news tonight. Breaking now, the new threat. The hackers and their new demand tonight, or else. Amid outrage, sony pulling the movie. And the president saying sony made a mistake. The christmas storm brewing. As millions travel. And the other breaking headline for drivers. More than 3 million more vehicles in a new recall tonight. And Michael Phelps in court today. What he said. And the video revealed that led to his arrest. S and an abc news exclusive. Ray rice, what we didnt see until now. The video he fought to keep secret