For president. Former Vice President and current president ial candidate joe biden made a stop in one of the richest parts of the country today to shake hands and collect donations. First stop was a small private fundraiser at the home of venture capitalist greg sands and palo alto. Theres nothing like meeting someone in person. Reporter bidens visit comes after a new berkeley poll shows he has work to do in california. Right now hes in third place among likely voters trailing Bernie Sanders and elizabeth warren. This is a good time for people to come here and raise money. Then theyre going to be with the folks in iowa and New Hampshire and beyond. Reporter still supporters are confident biden with move the needle with voters in the golden state, including people who previously supported Kamala Harris who dropped out of the race last week. I dont think senator harris had near the support the major candidates had. The day he takes office hopefully, hell know where every instrument of government is. We dont have time for on the job training. Reporter and again mr. Biden is at the fairmont hotel. His final stop will be here in San Francisco. No word on whether he is going to be spending the night in the bay area. Anoushah rasta. In Mountain View an odd and dangerous story. An overheated car battery started releasing potentially toxic chemicals. It happened around 10 30 this morning at niro a robotics company. Someone was charging their prius in an enclosed area. The battery began releasing a strange smell and people started to feel sick. Hazmat crews evacuated the building but determined the area was safe. Paramedics took five employees to the hospital. A body guard accused of getting rid of her exboyfriends body. Police believe adella disposed of the body in 2016. Adella contacted a defense witness in tiffany lees trial. Lee was acquitted last month. Adella pled no contest to being an accessory to murder. He is facing a sentence of three years in jail which he already served. Now the focus turns to lees boyfriend who could be retried for murder. An east bay murder has been charged with attempted murder after being accused of running down her childs barber with her car. This is a story weve been covering for many days now. After being on the run for more than a week, Ruby Delgadillo turned herself in yesterday. She was so upset the way a barber cut her sons hair that she hit brian martin with her car. Martin broke his leg and is expected to be okay. We did speak with him at the hospital. He actually says he forgives her. Her bail is set at more than a Million Dollars as she awaits trial. They ring their bells over the holidays to help the needy, but no the Salvation Army is the one in need after some red kettles became the target of thieves in contra costa county. Melissa colorado joins us at the hobby lobby hit twice. Its the season of taking instead of giving for those thieves. Reporter unfortunately its the season of taking for the grinch out there. Twice red kettles were snatched outside this hobby lobby. The volunteer, she just wanted to stretch her legs so she takes a couple of steps away from that et canal. She turns around and she sees that kettle holding more than 200 was gone. Theres a reason Brandon White guards his red kettle closely at his usual spot outside the hobby lobby in concord. Hes trying to deter opportunists from striking again. It happened twice already at the same spot. Thank you. And thats sad. Thats really sad when you have to sit there and stand really close to your bucket so nobody would steal it. Reporter one kettle was snatched last month and another kettle stolen yesterday around 5 00 p. M. The hobby lobby surveillance cameras were no help because they were facing a different direction. The Salvation Army concord predicts they lost about 500. It helps buy food and fill our pantry. We have to work harder to find that money. Reporter over in martinez the Salvation Army says a con man with a clipboard went up to the bell ringer and claimed he was signing out the kettle. This volunteer lovely guy just look him at face value and handed him the kettle and he walked away with it. Reporter the string of thefts is discouraging volunteers from coming out to help with donations. Weve lost volunteers because theyve heard these stories and theyre like i dont know if i want to do that. It sounds like it might be dangerous. Its not. What would you do . Stop them. Reporter Salvation Army did file a Police Record with Concord Police but if you want to help out, this is the actually the first year you can donate money to the Salvation Army using your phone using apple or google bay. Im melissa colorado, nbc bay area news. A fight over a sparking space landed a man in handcuffs. It happened yesterday in el camino rio. Douglas took a parking spot from a woman. That woman got out of her car and confronted him. Thats when investigators say he drove his car toward her and hit her leg. She backed away but he drove into her again. The woman called police and Police Tracked him down and arrested him. Now having impact on Emergency Preparedness in the south bay. The city says it had to postpone drills because it had to prepare for those blackouts. Damian true heejillo is one of the neighborhoods with what people are saying about the lack of drills. Reporter things seem back to normal along san joses 19th street but it was a much different picture three years ago. It was scary. I was shocked that water could come up into these neighborhoods. Using Lessons Learned from that flood, the city and Water District began collaborating on better preparedness and response methods. They now train year around. The joint exercises and the training is very important. Reporter but then came the pg e blackouts and planning meant that san jose and valley water had to postpone their annual Winter Readiness exercises, had to be moved to january. We all have a role to play when were dealing with emergencies. So, more often that we get together and practice our roles and practice communicating and coordinating the better it is when the actual events come so we dont have to figure it out as we go. Reporter victims say Training Operations are crucial, anything to prevent the same thing from happening again. You cant multitask. You have to take care of both things. Flood victims say everyone is lucky another 100 year flood didnt hit. Right now the reservoir levels are low, creeks are well within their banks, and the agency say theyre better prepared. You cant blame them for being skeptical and apprehensive, not avenue living through one of the scariest moment of their lives. A jane doe found murdered 43 years ago in San Francisco has her true name restored this evening. The story of 14yearold judy gifford has several missing chapters. Her family stopped hearing from her in 1976. That year her body was found buried near the lake in San Francisco. Her half brother reported her missing so police had a possible name. But this year, detectives located an elderly aunt in new jersey. That aunt provided a cheek swab for dna match along with this photo and police were stunned to see that necklace judy is wearing matched the necklace found on her body in 1976. Commuters who rely on muni in San Francisco are having a bad day. Instead of using multicar trains theyre using single car trains. Our Investigative Unit first told you about a problem with the couplet system back in april. Theres a lot of finger pointing over why it broke down again. Obviously this is hugely disappointing. Reporter supervisor aaron pep kin oversees the authority. He was assured all the problems with doors and couplings had been resolved. We are back to square one. I want to know who knew what when. Reporter according to this memo a muni operator reported feeling a constant slamming against the back of a twocar train wednesday morning and drove the train here to this muny yard. The culprit . The same coupler system between cars that failed in april. The train maker warned just two days ago that new coupler pins that set muni up for the last failure cant be expected to last more than 120 days. Because of unexplained fatigue issues the pins help absorb the impact of the crashes, leaving muni no choice but to stop linking them together for the time being. Spokeswoman says muni got 30 new pins today and another 200 are expected tomorrow. So, rider impact should be very minimal as we head into early next week. Well continue to get pins until they reengineer a better design. Reporter but supervisor peskin says the new problem buts munis request for funding in jeopardy. This episode continues to be disappointing. We are going to ask the tough questions. Were going to get answers. If this is not ready for prime time were not going to fund it. Jaxon van derbeken, nbc bay area news. Up next at 6 00, millions of dollars of stolen laptops, phones, and cameras. Maybe its yours. The crime ring Bay Area Police just took down and how investigators used crooks used aluminum foil to hide their loot. Plus stay off the beach, the wave warning along the coastline. Storm ranger mobile Doppler Radar shows spotty showers right now. Ill show you the major impact this has had on california, recent rain coming up in about six minutes. 2 million bucks worth of stolen goods were seized in a bust. Laptops, phiones. All okay. Take a look. 2 million bucks worth of stolen goods were seized in a bust. You can see it there. Phones all sorts of products there, laptops. It could be yours. Theres now a unique opportunity for victims to get their stuff back. Nbc bay area Christie Smith is in San Francisco this evening with the details. Christy. Reporter i tell you, we saw what they spread out. We saw cell phones and laptops. But there was also about 750,000 worth of clothes and hand bags taken from stores. Theyre still trying to figure out where all of this came from. Here in union square theyve had issues of people walking into stores taking what doesnt belong to them. So they think this whole operation sends the right message. What has been seized definitely signifies that we are dealing with organized crime. Reporter laptops, cell phones designer hand bags even laundry detergent. All that you see here believed to be stolen now recovered in the takedown of a massive fencing operation. 30 warrants were served. Many of the phones with recovered were wrapped in aluminum foil in a bid to avoid detection. Reporter there was even an electronic chop shop according to d. A. Who with state and local Law Enforcement reviewed what they called operation. What creates an incentive to break into cars and to break into homes is if you can quickly turn whatever you stole into money. And a fencing operation makes that possible. Reporter a piece of the investigation includes trying to get some of the Electronics Taken from car break ins back to the owner. Returning valuables back to people they belong to important for all of us. Some of the hand bags are certainly coming from union square. Reporter cairn is with the district where a network of surveillance cameras is important. Its an important time for us with the holidays and to send that message that if you steal from us you will be caught. Theres a lot of theft going on. Reporter so what do you do if you think some of those items recovered belong to you . It all starts with a phone call that we have at the bottom of the screen. We also have information on our website, nbcbayarea. Com. Of course you would want to provide a serial number or some sort of information to prove that its yours. Reporting live in San FranciscoChristie Smith, nbc bay area news. Some good news for more than 7,000 bay area retirees. Their 10year legal battle came to an end. This is a story weve been covering exclusively. Those retirees were fighting for their Health Insurance that was promised to them by the uc system. Im embarrassed and they should be embarrassed to have this thing on their plate. I want to see it cleared up. We met with some of the retirees earlier this month. They told us no one was paying attention to their stories. They worked designing bombs and missiles for the u. S. Military. But u. C. Berkeley turned over control of the lab to a private entity. Soon after their Health Benefits were slashed costing them thousands of dollars. First university had made a promise to us throughout our whole careers that continues medical coverage would be on them since we were university employees. So what happened . Yesterday they came to a settlement for 84 million. Bottom line the u. C. System will make good on its promise. We spoke with one of the retirees this evening. Jay davis tells us were pleased with the settlement. We got what we wanted in terms of both payment for past settlements and payments going forward. The university has not had a very good half decade in public view and beating up on old people is not an issue that would make them look good. A warning tonight, the california coast could see 24 foot waves. Its not just how big the waves are going to be but how frequently theyll hit the coast, maybe even 17 or 18 seconds apart. It is quite the show. Theyre pretty amazing. Im surprising theres not surfers out here. They are bigger. I wouldnt bring the kayaks out. Thats for sure. And potentially dangerous. The swells trigger worries about erosion. The waves have devoured parts of the coast for years in that area at one point even forcing the city to close and demolish a series of apartments that teetered on a cliff. If you get too close to the waves as well theres that danger. Sneaker waves. And the waves are beginning to kick up right now. We have a look at that in the microclimate forecast tonight. We can show you how things are developing at this hour. Lets take you to it. Thats my top headline at least right now and they are averaging about 16 to 17 seconds apart. And right now waves of 10 feet. We expect them to pick up even more so as we head into friday and last through about saturday morning at this point. So rip currents sneaker waves, also isolated coastal Flooding Issues are top concerns. Best advice stay away from the coastline if you can. Lets bring you into the storm ranger mobile Doppler Radar, few spotty showers, mist drizzle today. Thats the mode were in for tonight. I dont see any heavy rain in the forecast through this evening. Speaking of heavy rainfall i wanted to switch gears and get this birds perspective at california. We have seen as you all know a tremendous amount of rain in december. Anywhere from 2 to 10 inches here across the bay area. Sierra snow pack averages 115 of normal. So the Drought Monitor as of yesterday had most of the state abnormally dry. And then watch as we fade on the Drought Monitor today. You can see most of the state has now cleared from that abnormally dry status. Only 3. 4 of Northern California remains just a little bit dry here. Weve pushed off any kind of drought with the most recent december rain. Good news on that front. What about tomorrows weather . Weve got more clouds, more gray skies. Well talk about this next wave of rainfall moving in by the afternoon and when yes, when when we finally get sunshine in about 25 minutes. Okay. Jeff. Well see you soon. Up next a makeover at oracle park. Well show you what to expect the next time you head to a giants game. Stay with us. Steyer im about to say two words that will make washington insiders very uncomfortable term limits. You and i both know we need term limits, that congress shouldnt be a lifetime appointment. But members of congress, and the corporations whove bought our democracy hate term limits. Too bad. Im tom steyer and i approve this message because the only way we get universal healthcare address Climate Change and make our economy more fair is to change business as usual in washington. Sarahs last tuition payment, sent off. Feeling good . Oh yeah. Now im ready to focus on my project. This is why we plan. You never cease to amaze me, maya. See how investing with a j. P. Morgan advisor can help you. Visit your local chase branch. Well the giants roster isnt the only thing undergoing a major overhaul. Oracle park is also getting a makeover. This isnt just cosmetic. Its strategic. We have the reasoneder. The bullpens will be in the outfield. You can see it beyond the center field fence. Theyll be on each side of the garden out there. Heres the strategic part. The giants are brunging in the fences which should lead to more home runs. The Left Center Field wall will be brought in five feet. The center field wall will be brought in eight feet. Okay. Do you know what this means . Adulting. Its an actual thing. At a time when students are cramming for placement tasks, base ec life skills are falling by the wayside. You know this if you have young adults yourself. Barrage wait with a firm place in the work force. Many were telling researchers they had trouble with personal budgets, time management even meal planning. Cal is one of many schools offering adulting classes. That means they teach you how to be an adult. The class is always full and dozens of students are turned away each semester. In addition to budgeting, meal planning which is really shocking. Classes also push students to look up from the smartphone every now and then. You can actually look up from those . A whole class just to teach you h