today on getting answers. can i be used to reward people who carpool or ride transit and help with urban gridlock and global warming? the first san francisco

mayoral election debate is in the books. the biggest issues, takeaways and surprises. but first, the us supreme court upholds access to the abortion pill as new numbers emerge, showing just how many american women are having to travel to end their pregnancies. you're watching, getting answers. i'm kristen sze. thanks for joining us today. the us supreme court issued a ruling that keeps the abortion drug mifepristone available for now for women to use to end their pregnancies under current fda guidelines. justice brett kavanaugh wrote the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to bring this case. abc's perry russom is at the supreme court with details. >> vice president kamala harris after the supreme court's unanimous decision to keep the abortion drug mifepristone available. >> we are looking at the fact that two thirds of women of reproductive age in america live in a state with a trump abortion ban. this ruling is not going to change that. >> the senate majority leader, chuck schumer, tempering expectations for those in favor

of abortion rights. >> this decision was based not on the merits, but on a lack of standing. we are not yet out of the woods. >> this morning, the court, rejecting a legal challenge to the fda's regulation around the drug and the court's opinion, justice brett kavanaugh writes the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that fda's relaxed regulatory requirements would likely cause them to suffer an injury. abortion opponents call the high court's decision deeply disappointing. during oral arguments, lawyers for alliance for hippocratic medicine accused the fda of unlawfully easing restrictions and failing to study the dangers of mifepristone. the fda says the drug has been used safely by millions of women for decades, with serious side effects exceedingly rare in the short term, at least. >> any efforts to restrict access to mifepristone. i think, will be directed at the fda and the executive branch because, you know, a different president could make a different set of directives. the fda could change its decision about mifepristone. so, you know, i think this issue is far from definitively resolved, even though this case is over an anti-abortion rights

group outside the supreme court today. >> obviously, we were disappointed. so the court ruled against the alliance for hippocratic medicine, but we weren't super surprised. that was what we expected, and we're going to be back. >> and a spokeswoman for danco, the maker of mifepristone, says they are pleased with the high court's decision today, calling it an incredibly important case. perry russom abc news at the supreme court. >> now, even as the medication abortion options remain available for now, new numbers out today show that ever since the high court overturned roe v wade two years ago, traveling out of state for surgical abortions has skyrocketed. joining us live now to talk about the first in-depth look at this trend, kelly baden, vice president of public policy for guttmacher institute. that's a research and policy organization that was once part of planned parenthood but is now independent, and it works to advance sexual and reproductive rights. kelly thanks for your time. thank you. first, let me just quickly get to your reaction on today's scotus ruling that upholds the

availability of mifepristone. what do you think? >> sure. well, i think the fact that the court even took this case in the first place was outrageous. and so it really did. the only reasonable thing it could do, which is toss it out on its standing. it does not mean that this issue is over. we know that opponents of abortion, two years after they overturned roe v wade, are not stopping with that. and so this case, when it comes to medication abortion and mifepristone, really just leaves things as status quo and the status quo right now for abortion access in the us is not something worth celebrating necessarily. 14 states still have total abortion bans, so there's a lot to improve upon. but at least today, the court did not make things worse. >> right. and then many more have restrictions, such as only allowing a few weeks right during your gestation before you have to get the abortion. so lots of restrictions in about half the states. and as you said, it all became reality due to dobbs, which throughout roe. so let's talk about your research, which took place in the aftermath. you have

estimates now on how many patients traveled for an abortion last year. tell us about that and how you came to those numbers. >> absolutely. so we have a project called monthly abortion provision study that works with brick and mortar clinics and telehealth abortion providers to get estimates on a state by state, month by month basis to better understand what the access to abortion care looks like in the states. post dobbs, when, again, as we said, 14 states have total abortion bans and others have other early abortion restrictions. and so what we have been seeing and what we released today is estimates from 2023 that show about 170,000 patients had to cross state lines last year in order to access abortion care in a state where it remains legal now. people have always traveled for abortion, care for a variety of reasons, but that is a marked increase and, of course, reflects the fact that so many thousands of women live in states where abortion has been banned and have been forced to navigate what could be really substantial financial and logistical barriers to access

abortion care in a state where it remains legal. >> right. but which states are most traveled to for these surgical abortions? and which states are the residents states of the women who are doing the traveling from? >> absolutely. well, what we know is that entire swaths of the country right now have banned abortion, right? if you look at a map, you see that whole south southeast section of the us has either total abortion bans or early abortion bans, such as georgia and now florida, which only recently put a six week abortion ban into effect. so folks in those states have really been forced to travel. and in one place where they go in large numbers is illinois. illinois has done a lot of great work over the last few years in shoring up abortion, legal protections, and access to be able to receive those patients. we also see a lot of folks from texas go to new mexico. and patients, of course, also go to colorado, california and a variety of other states. yeah. >> i mean, you know, california has done a lot in terms of ensuring access of women want to

come here and that doctors who maybe have licenses out of state could, you know, practice here to do abortions. i guess not a lot are coming here because we're kind of surrounded by states that also allow abortion. so people don't have to come as far as california. but let me ask you, in states such as illinois, where a lot of women are suddenly going, there from other states, what's the impact on them? and the clinics there and their ability to operate? >> sure. well, again, i think because folks have really been preparing for this for several years, really since the 2016 election, when it seemed like the writing might be on the wall, that the supreme court could one day soon overturn our 50 years of our constitutional right to abortion. right. and so they have been able to enact policies ensuring public insurance coverage for abortion care, right. making sure that people who. through medicaid can have that abortion paid for. they have a invested in clinic security and safety and invested in provider training clinics, have done a

lot of work just at the workforce level to be able to receive the patients that come from again throughout the midwest and the south of the us to be able to get care there. so there's a variety of policy and regulatory and administrative actions that states can do. california, as you said, has done several new york, new jersey, maryland. there's some really great work happening. and i think it's paying off in that it's helping folks be able to get the care they need. >> i mean, i know funds have been raised right, and there is some support, but nonetheless, talk about the barriers for women to travel out of state and what that means. socio economically in terms of who can still access abortions and who might otherwise have to bear a child that they're not ready to care for. >> absolutely right. abortion itself can cost more money than many people might have in their bank account at any given moment. and then when you tack on all of these extra costs of leaving a state that might be gas money, it might be a flight, it might be access to a car. if you don't have one, it's time off work. it might be childcare. we know most women still who get

abortions are already parents. and so we are talking about somebody who has to go, race against the clock, really to raise the funds and figure out the logistical, situation to, in some cases, cross, many state lines to get abortion care. right. somebody in louisiana for example, used to be able to, get an abortion nearby but now has to cross multiple state lines in order to find a state where abortion is still legal. and that does have very significant financial costs. and there's a lot we don't know yet. our data tells us a lot about where folks are coming from and going, but it's not telling us yet who specifically is being left behind, who is being disproportionately harmed by these abortion bans in 14 states and more. and we know historically that it is communities of color, rural people, young people who pay the price the most. >> all right. well, a lot more questions and i suppose you guys will be doing more surveys, which hopefully you'll share with us in the future. kelly baden with the guttmacher institute, thank you so much for coming on the show. >> thank you.

>> up next, using artificial intelligence based traffic signal systems to incentivize ride sharing, how would it work and

>> another huge day for shares of ai companies today on wall street. this after apple shares hit new highs. after the cupertino based company unveiled its new ai features. it's clear i will drive the future in many ways, including urban intersections that make people want to finally ditch their cars. maybe joining us live now to talk more about a new ai based traffic signal control system out of uc berkeley, associate professor and director of california partners for advanced transportation technology, or path, scott. maura scott, good to see you.

>> good to see you, chris, and happy to be with you. >> well, i'm interested in this. you guys are actually working on an ai based traffic signal system called human light. how does this work? >> yeah, so the way that traffic lights work today is they're often scheduled to be read for a certain period and then green for a certain period. sometimes they're a little bit more advanced and they will prioritize these busses or other types of transit. but the funny thing is, what we really need to prioritize is people. so what we developed is basically an ai driven method that controls the timing of traffic lights. so it prioritizes green, it provides green in directions of flow where there's vehicles with high occupancy. so say in a four way intersection, if there's a lot of busses or shuttles and there's high occupancy in them,

then it'll stay green longer to move more people through the intersection, as opposed to east west, where there might be a lot of cars, with single occupancy vehicles. >> so just so i understand, an ai drives it, this is like algorithm at this point, right? no pilot has been done where, because i was kind of curious how it would know which direction has more high occupancy vehicles, busses, rideshare, for example. >> yeah. great question. so it turns out that vehicles are becoming increasingly more connected. we already have all sorts of infotainment features and vehicles. meanwhile while, you know, our coauthor, jane macfarlane, used to work for general motors, and she was commenting that all vehicles have airbag sensors and they know who's sitting in what seats. so the vehicles know how many people are in the vehicle, given that they're connected, we could actually leverage this data, send it to traffic signals , or send it into the cloud to the ai, and it can understand, you know, what vehicles are coming towards an intersection and have more people in the

seats. >> can i just ask you then how does this reward individuals who make that, you know, difficult choice perhaps to say, okay, i'm going to ditch my car, i'm going to take transit because like the car next to you that may just have a solo driver when they also benefit from the additional green light time, even though they're still a solo driver. >> that's that's a really good question, to be honest. when we started this, what you described was a surprising outcome. i didn't expect this. okay. when we started this study, we thought, hey, it would make sense to prioritize how you occupancy vehicles. but then what we found is when we added a model that described people's preference to take a private car versus a bus, and the difference in travel time, we found that this reduces travel time a lot for people who are in busses, because those routes get green waves, whereas routes with a lot of private vehicles don't get green waves. and so more people might then start to take busses and shuttles, because they're prioritized. and they'd be less

likely to take their private vehicle because because it will in fact, take longer. that's kind of the idea that we move more people quickly. >> and i apologize for jumping to the implementation stage when you're still at this very exciting idea stage. i imagine we'll have to do a follow up interview at some point, but i wonder what would the ai be trained on? >> yeah. excellent question. it would be trained on existing traffic, knowing, knowing how many people are in vehicles today and are moving from point a to point b and what types of vehicles they're in. so we could actually learn. how long does it take, for this vehicle with this occupancy to move from point a to point b with this existing traffic light timing, and then based on variations of traffic light timing and learning how people in a bus might go quicker from a to b or slower, it'll then start to learn, oh, here's the timing. we need to move more people quicker. >> all right. so we've got i'm

going to ask you to do the impossible. we have about 40s two questions in one here for you. i wonder if you think there'll be support, because a lot of people are afraid of giving ai more control. and then the last question also is, just what would it take to make this actually happen in terms of coordination between cities, transportation agencies and car makers, trust is a big issue. >> i'll leave it at that, if it helps people move from point a to point b faster, then that's significant. what do we need to make this happen? we need vehicles to be connected, which they largely are, but we need them talking to our infrastructure. so i've been with you a few times on on this program to talk about if traffic lights and intersections are smarter, they're connected to the cloud and they can do more advanced things in terms of traffic, light timing or even identifying vulnerable road users, pedestrians, bicyclists and the like, then we can improve. so we need not just automated vehicles, but automated intersections, connected transportation.

>> frastructure scott, i think you did the impossible. scott. maura from pat at uc berkeley, where they're working on human light. thanks so much for coming on. >> thanks, kristin. >> up next, the five leading candidates in san francisco's race for mayor faced off for the first time last night. we'll have a bredown of last night's debate

in san francisco. so what did the city's major mayoral candidates think about these issues? last night we heard interesting responses and sparring as they held the first formal debate. abc seven news reporter tim johns was there. >> dozens gathering outside the sidney goldstein theater in san francisco wednesday afternoon, all of them there to show their support for the person they hope becomes the city's next mayor. inside the theater, the five major candidates running for the job participated in their first

formal debate. current mayor london breed, defending her record since taking office. breed saying the city is on the rise again and that her leadership has steered it through some of its toughest challenges, including on homelessness. >> right before i was elected mayor, ten encampments were 58% higher than they are today. in fact, i've increased our shelter capacity by over 60. i've increased our permanent supportive housing by over 50. >> other top issues included crime and public safety. businessman daniel lurie, who came under attack for his lack of governmental experience, said all of the politicians on the stage seemingly couldn't fix the problems plaguing the city despite their years in government. >> we need a fully staffed police department. we need a fully staffed sheriff's department. 9-1-1 dispatch office also needs to be fully staffed. and frankly, the last two mayors have underwhelmed on this issue. >> the cost of housing was another key talking point, with all five candidates saying more units need to be built.

supervisor aaron peskin, who has been accused of being anti-development, says if he was mayor, he would find ways to fast track new developments while still preserving the character of the city's neighborhoods. >> in my own district, i've built every kind of housing affordable market rate and homeless shelters, and i've never voted against any affordable housing. >> candidates were also asked about their plans to revitalize the city's downtown. supervisor asha safai, saying he sees the current office vacancy rates, which sit at all time highs, as an opportunity to transform the city like never before. >> i put forward legislation that would allow us to create a downtown public education district. we have a historic opportunity to purchase buildings and turn them into universities. >> the city's infamous $1.7 million public toilet also getting a shout out during wednesday's debate, former interim mayor mark farrell saying it's another example of the bureaucracy at city hall that's holding san francisco back from tackling its most

pressing problems. >> an endemic how our city government is spending its money today. to me, we have to completely rethink not only our budget process, but how we are allocating our city funds in san francisco. >> tim johns, abc seven news joining us live now to offer up his biggest takeaways and surprises, as he did in his new article in the standard today. >> josh keane, senior reporter from the san francisco standard. hey, josh. >> hey, kristin. how are you? >> i'm good, i'm good. so we've already seen the highlights and we've read the stories. but what we don't have not yet, but we'll get right now is your take on the biggest surprises and who went after whom. so give us your quick take. >> quick take is that nobody actually won this debate. maybe. but they definitely kind of carved out their lanes for what we should expect to see over the next five months. uh- mayor breed is obviously trying to strike an optimistic tone and say that we're turning the corner here in san francisco, whereas the other four

candidates who the mayor pointed out are all men are trying to drag her down and talk about why we should feel bad about ourselves, there was a few zingers. there was a protest that interrupted the event, and there were some definite attacks. and so i think actually it was a very entertaining first debate, and but this is just the very beginning. >> you know what? speaking of entertainment, i think there are a couple of questions that lend themselves to that. one was the one about, hey, sort of if you could wave a magic wand, what would you change about the city? right. what would you fix? presto. and the other one about your favorite san francisco tradition. so kind of give us what the candidates said about those. >> yeah. so let's start with the traditions, because that's kind of a more fun one, supervisor asha sapphire said he loves the cable cars. nobody actually hates the cable cars. true. >> not controversial. >> yeah. daniel lurie, nonprofit founder and heir to the levi strauss fortune, said he loves opening day at the giants games also perfectly fine, then there

was a little bit of a questionable one when mark farrell, former mayor and supervisor, said that his favorite thing to do in san francisco is go to alcatraz, which is a defunct prison, and it's weird to think, hey, kids, let's go to the prison and have a great day multiple times over, okay, okay. >> but josh, i do like going to alcatraz myself. i'm just. it's fine. it's fine. >> hey, no. it's fine. i mean, if you go every week, i think that says something, but then, aaron peskin, supervisor, said that actually he likes to swim back and forth from alcatraz, which was kind of a flex, but we also have a photo of aaron peskin in a swim cap, and it's not necessarily the flex you might expect, okay. that's the first one. let's go to the other one, which is if they could wave a wand, what is the one thing they'd change about san francisco, again, a really reasonable answer was, daniel lurie. actually, daniel lurie said he fixed the schools. people are upset about public

schools. that makes sense. it's not the mayor's job, but sure, fine. but one other one that was kind of questionable. again was mark farrell saying that he would bring the 40 niners back. meanwhile ash-shafi'i supervisor said he would fix the drug overdose crisis, you had mayor breed saying that she would get 100,000 more units of housing. so it's kind of a flippant answer, again, that like, kind of felt a little off key. i heard people around me kind of groaning and that's just it. like there's a fine line for these candidates to be clever and fun, but also be like of substance and really address the issues. and so there were some hits and misses in those portions. yeah. >> farrell's bringing the 40 niners back. that's one that we'll have to see the details on because, let's just say there will be a lot of challenges to work through to make that one actually happen. okay, hey, josh, i heard you are hosting because, you know, man, about town that you are a super exclusive mayoral debate watch party on monday night. how exclusive is this thing?

>> it's so exclusive that anyone can sign up, we're going to have exclusive. we have, beer, pizza. we're going to have a watch party for the mayor debate on monday night here in the sf standard's offices, we're going to be tuning in live and then having a discussion afterwards. this debate is hosted by the local democratic party. i think what we saw was a little bit of nerves in last night's event. and i think by monday they're going to have their talking points a little more fine tuned. i would also say that the knives are going to come out a little bit more at the very end of last night's debate, aaron peskin made sure he had the closing argument. the very last statement, and he attacked everyone. and then everybody was like, all right, thank you for people want to get back.nk

you made a cow! actually it's a piggy bank. my inspiration to start saving. how about a more solid way to save? i'm listening. well, bmo helps get your savings habit into shape with a cash reward, every month you save. both: cash reward? and there's a cash bonus when you open a new checking account to get you started. wow. anything you can't do? ( ♪ ) mugs.

♪ bmo ♪

the panthers. coverage starts at five. then keep it here for after the game. that's followed by edge of the unknown at 830. then wheel of fortune in jeopardy starting at nine. then a special edition of abc seven news at ten, followed by abc seven news at 11. so that's our lineup. thank you so much for watching getting answers. we'll be here every weekday at three, answering questions with experts from tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. the state of emergency right now in florida. sheets of rain still coming. the flooding emergencies playing out. the potentially record heat now moving into the east. and the wildfires tonight. also, the supreme court's unanimous decision on the