stay wednesday, march 18, 2015. announcer: from nbc news this is today with matt lauer and savannah guthrie live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. good morning everyone. welcome to today on a wednesday morning. you may be enjoying your coffee. if you like to get it from starbucks you might be interested in this. they are causing a stir on line. there is a new campaign the coffee giant offering something extra with your latte. it s definitely stirring controversy. people weighing in on both sides, good and the bad. we ll tell you more about that later on. let s get to the top story on a wednesday morning. the phone calls to the u.s. embassy in japan threatening to kill caroline kennedy. katy tur has the latest on this. officials are not taking this lightly. not at all. the calls reportedly came in from somebody speaking english. caroline kennedy, daughter of jfk, assumed the post in 2013. she is obviously a very high profile figure over there. and with the vio
the fire. it started a few hours ago in campbell, just west of the 85/17 interchange. bob redell live there now. bob, investigators think a water bed of all things might be to blame. yes. good morning to you, scott and kris. santa clara county fire tells us a woman who lives by herself was moving her waterbed in her second-floor bedroom when the fire started around 8:45. a neighbor we spoke with believes the waterbed s heater mal malfunctioned and caused this. campbell police video shows just how bad the fire got. flamed bursting through the windows of the second floor of her two-story unit. the woman and therneighbors in the attached unit were able to escape unharmed. had the fire knocked down in about 15 minutes. the biggest challenge for them was keeping it contained to just the one unit. they did have to cut a hole in the roof of her condo unit to let the smoke ventilate and the fire ventilate out of the attic so it would not spread into the unit next door. there was
coming up. is that what they call wings? [ laughter ] farrah fawcett wings, new look! [ laughter ] it is 4:31 now. new this morning a fire at a san francisco hotel near union square at 2 a.m. at sutter and grant. everyone was evacuated. guests ran out in their nightclothes. many wrapped up in blankets. fire crews are on the scene. no reports of injuries. an out-of-control woman goes on a rampage behind the wheel turning van ness and pine street in san francisco into demolition derby. it all started about 7:00 last night. two plainclothes officers found what they believed was a stolen volkswagen sedan. officers say when they identified the themselves, the woman in the car drove toward them and hit a gas station before driving up pine street. then she turned around and she drove on the street and on the sidewalk. she hit a number of cars barely missed a man on a motorcycle and was headed right toward the officers. i was down the street and i heard, like, five shots
kcbs radio reporter doug sovern says the shower systems are active in four outdoor alcoves. they go off throughout the nature. doug spoke with one homeless man who had been drenched. we re going to be wet all night. hypothermia, cold, all that other stuff could set in and keeping the church clean but you know you re making people sick. reporter: and it looks like the plumbing system itself was installed illegally and may also violate water use regulations. the archdiocese says it is trying to help homeless people in several ways. we ll hear from them coming up in the next half-hour. back to you. thank you. we re going to take a live look at the beautiful bay bridge on this hump day this wednesday. and all is calm out there right now. let s see how our weather and traffic are doing as we head towards the weekend. the winds are calm at this hour. just a westerly at 7 miles per hour at sfo. but later today these winds are going to increase, breezy as high pressure co
archdiocese is taking unusual and potentially illegal steps to deal with the homeless. anne makovec is at st. mary s cathedral to show us what the church is doing. anne. reporter: i m here at one of the many entrances to st. mary s cathedral. you can see the pavement here is wet behind me. the stairs are wet. and so are the belongings of a homeless person who once thought that this was a safe place to sleep. what appears to be the source of this water is a sprinkler system installed high overhead. in an exclusive report from kcbs radio doug sovern reports the shower systems are active in four outdoor alcoves meant to prevent homeless from sleeping there. they go off periodically throughout the night and doug spoke with one man who had been drenched. we re going to be wet all night so i mean hypothermia, cold, all that stuff could set n keeping the church clean but making people sick. reporter: looks like this plumbing system itself was installed illegally and also may v