schiff is calling on president biden to step aside the front

runner in the state's senate race and close ally of nancy pelosi's, is arguably the most prominent democrat so far. to ask biden to pass the torch. hello. i'm kristen sze. thanks for joining us here on abc7 news at three. shefs announcement is the first call for biden to end his reelection bid since the failed assassination attempt of former president donald trump. in schiff statement, he praises biden's legacy but says, quote, our nation is at a crossroads. a second trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy. and i have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat donald trump in november. while the choice to withdraw from the campaign is president biden's alone, i believe it is time for him to pass the torch. schiff statement comes as a group of house democrats, led by san rafael congressman jared huffman, call off a letter asking the democratic national committee not to fast track biden's nomination. huffman says the move comes after the dnc said it will not rush the

process through this month. abc news is learning more about schiff's call for president biden to step aside in some newly obtained audio. it comes as the republican national convention ramps up with the vice presidential nominee, ohio senator jd vance, set to speak tonight on night three. abc's maryalice parks has more. >> former president donald trump walking through the convention site in milwaukee this afternoon, preparing to accept his party's nomination thursday while president biden is facing new calls from inside his own party for him to step out of the race, high profile congressman and california senate candidate adam schiff, a longtime biden ally, now also saying that biden needs to pass the torch. >> i do not think he is the best person to go into this election. i think if he is our nominee, i think we lose. >> democrats now planning to hold a virtual vote. the first week of august in their nominating process, sources telling abc both senate leader chuck schumer and house leader hakeem jeffries pushed for this

timeline. a poll taken last week and released today by the associated press found 65% of democrats said biden should withdraw. but on the campaign trail yesterday, president biden said he's not going anywhere. >> i think i've demonstrated that. i know how to get things done for the country. there's more to do, and i'm reluctant to walk away from that tonight. >> trump's new running mate, ohio senator jd vance, set to address the republican national convention. speaking earlier today at a fundraiser, his first since joining the ticket. >> we're going to get out there and try to fire up the crowd tonight and make the case that we have got to reelect president donald j. trump to the white house. >> vice president kamala harris releasing this video, calling vance a rubber stamp for trump's agenda and make no mistake, jd vance will be loyal only to trump, not to our country. >> and unlike mike pence, vance said he would have carried out trump's plan to overturn the 2020 election. >> earlier today, at a press conference in milwaukee, democrats pointing to senator vance's hardline position on

abortion. and tonight here at the convention hall, we know the focus will be foreign policy. that's an issue where senator vance, as an isolationist, has really disagreed with the more traditional republicans in his party. maryalice parks, abc news, milwaukee. >> live coverage of the republican national convention kicks off tonight at seven here on abc seven. that means you'll have to wait to catch wheel of fortune and jeopardy! starting at ten. now we turn to a tragic story in santa cruz. two people are dead after drowning near westcliff drive, a popular walking path along the pacific ocean. the santa cruz fire department says it appears the victims were swept off the rocks by a wave just after 6:00 last night. they were found face down in the ocean by rescuers. neither could be rescued or resuscitated. no word yet on their identities. now to a story that's helping build a better bay area. as we work for justice on social and racial issues, the us navy is exonerating 256 black sailors who were punished

following a horrific port explosion here in the bay area that killed hundreds of service members on july 17th, 1944. munitions being loaded onto a cargo ship detonated at port chicago naval weapons station near san francisco. the blast killed 320 sailors and civilian, nearly 75% of whom were black. shortly after, dozens of sailors were ordered to return to loading ships, even though no changes have been made to improve safety, the sailors refused, and 50 were tried on charges of conspiracy to commit mutiny. they were convicted and sent to prison. dozens of others faced punishment that kept them from receiving honorable discharges. governor newsom is putting billions of dollars behind a plan to combat homelessness. $3.3 billion in competitive grant funding is now available to provide care to unhoused individuals experiencing mental health conditions and substance use disorders. the funding will come from prop one. the state bond measure was approved by voters

in march to help modernize the state's mental health system and reform the california mental health services act. former san francisco school board member ann hsu wants her seat back. she tells our media partner, the san francisco standard. she plans to run again two years after her high profile defeat. hsu was tapped by mayor london breed in 2022 to replace one of three recalled board members, but she lost her chance at a full term later that same year. now, she tells the standards she has decided to come back to focus on students but plans to stay out of politics. shu still needs to officially file paperwork to run by the august 9th deadline. san francisco's largest private employer will soon require most of its workers to return to the office. salesforce is asking certain employees to show up in person 4 to 5 days a week starting october first. it's a major reversal for ceo marc benioff, who said in 2022 office mandates are never going to work, implying flexibility is

better. here are the details from an internal memo reviewed by our media partner, the san francisco standard. employees in sales, workplace services and data center engineering, among others, will be the ones to return 4 to 5 days a week. other departments will be required to return for at least three days a week, with some minor exemptions. employees will also have full visibility of employee badge, scan data that measures attendance against quarterly goals set by each team. the dashboard will also track the average amount of voluntary time off employees take, even though the company has an unlimited pto policy during the pandemic, salesforce and other tech firms started allowing their employees to work from home. as a result, collectively, office vacancy rates in the city climbed real estate service firm cbre says the vacancy rate hit a record 37% in the second quarter of 2024. thousands of people who work for elon musk's companies in california are likely

wondering about their future. the billionaire is upset about a new law aimed at protecting trans youth. he says he's moving more of his businesses to texas. the x headquarters will move from san francisco to austin. space x will move its mission headquarters from hawthorne in southern california to musk's starbase near brownsville, musk said. the new law, signed by governor newsom on monday that bars school districts from requiring staff to notify parents if their child's gender identity changes, was the final straw. he also posted about x's headquarters, saying, quote, had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building. this is what mayor london breed had to say about that situation yesterday on abc7 news at three. >> in fact, i'm in that area almost every single day and around the entire block, including the alleyway. it's pretty much empty. employees are not even coming back to work to the building, and that's part of the problem. >> referring to remote work,

there is still being very prevalent, but it's still not clear how many jobs would actually be moved to texas. in elon musk case, an economist tells abc7 news it would likely be dozens to a couple hundreds, not thousands. because you may remember, even after musk moved tesla's headquarters to texas, he ended up expanding operations in fremont. up next, our week long focus on the san francisco mayoral race continues today. former interim mayor mark farrell will join us to make his pitch

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francisco mayor's race will impact not only the city, but the entire bay area. so this

week, we're talking with each of the top five mayoral candidates on abc7 news at three. joining us today is former supervisor and former interim mayor mark farrell. mark, thank you for coming in. thanks for joining us. thanks for having me. all right. so in 2018, you were interim mayor for about six months, right before mayor london breed actually won that special election to fill the seat vacated by the late ed lee. you left politics for venture capital. why do you want to be mayor now? >> you know, i left city hall in 2018 because my children, my wife and i are raising our three children here in san francisco. and at the time, they were five, ten and 12 years old, seemed to be the right time to be home with them, to know me as know that i'm a dad first, and i enjoy coaching sports teams, traveling with our children, and being really engaged in their schools. but i'll tell you, i'm running for mayor here in 2024 because of my children. again our oldest child is our daughter who just graduated from high school. she's going off to college in about five weeks. >> congratulations. >> thank you. but i want her to be proud to call san francisco home. i think more than anything, i want her to move

back to san francisco when she graduates in order for that to happen, we need to have a city that's affordable, that's safe with clean streets and with economic opportunities for everybody. in san francisco, those conditions don't exist today. that's why i'm running for mayor. >> okay, so you just held a news conference today to unveil an economic plan, a revival plan for the city and downtown in particular. can you talk us through the key components? >> sure. absolutely. you know, to set the stage, obviously, san francisco ranks dead last in economic recovery post covid in the united states of any city here in our country. and that to me is unacceptable. so what we want to do is create a comprehensive plan to revitalize downtown long term. that encompasses four things. number one, it's making sure that we are aggressive with our business community, offering tax incentives to make sure we bring people back to the downtown core. also making sure we offer tax incentives to employers that will bring people back to the office four days a week. because what we're missing is that vibrancy, right? there's a ghost town. there's a shell effect of downtown. we need to cure that. we need to bring back public

safety to the downtown core. we do that by massively increasing our police force and making sure we have more foot patrols in the downtown area. look, if we're being honest, public safety and street conditions are the reason conventions left san francisco. we still have all the beauty around us, the amazing neighborhoods. we have, the people of san francisco and our spirit and our ethos. but it's those public safety concerns that left or had people leave our city. we need to bring that back. third, we're going to bring tens of thousands of new housing units to the downtown core, making sure that we create an environment in san francisco and downtown where people not only working, but living 24 over seven and then building a brand new park at the foot of market street in front of the ferry building. you know, an amazing opportunity to reframe an entrance of san francisco from the ferry building, but also create that green space for families that are going to move downtown for people that live and work downtown to make sure that they have open space as well, and reinvigorate that part of san francisco. >> right. your plan is framed as a 20 year plan. envision. and the mayor's office points out

that some of those things you're talking about tax incentives, creating mixed use, bringing people back through entertainment zone, things like that are already being announced and done, and it won't take 20 years. what is your response to that? >> nothing's working from the current mayor's office, right? her approach right now has been this spaghetti against the wall approach to downtown. you think about when nordstrom's was announced, leaving the first week. we're going to build science labs. the next week we were going to build housing. the next week it was going to be a uc campus that we know now for sure is not coming. and then it was a soccer stadium that does not provide confidence to anybody that the mayor's office of san francisco has its act together in terms of a comprehensive plan for downtown, announced a plan to bring 30,000 residents and students to downtown by 2030. that means about 5000 people a year. it's already failing. 60 students is not something to be proud of in downtown san francisco. last year, we built 2000 housing units. this year we've approved

16 so far out of the planning commission. this is not a serious approach. we need somebody who's going to combine experience in the public sector, but also what i bring to the table is 20 years in the private sector and business and finance, working with our business community to be proactive, to really make an honest attempt and have an honest solution about where we're going to bring downtown for the future, and voters are going to abide by that. >> i want to drill down a little bit more on crime and homelessness. your proposals have focused on clearing encampments, firing the current police chief, expanding the force and possibly bringing in the national guard. these are things you have mentioned. critics say this is heavy handed, it's punitive, and it's not. san francisco, and it fails to address the root issues. how do you respond to that? >> couldn't disagree more. look, i believe public safety is the number one job of our government here in san francisco to protect our residents. and as we talk to neighbors, as we talk to merchants, as we talk to visiting people, visiting san francisco, public safety is always the number one concern.

no matter where you are in san francisco. and if we're being honest, it was the videos of the smash and grabs downtown in union square that started to crush our reputation nationally and abroad. but it's all the way down to the local walgreens and cvs stores that are getting looted in our city almost on a daily basis. we need to completely change tack. we need to make public safety a priority. we also need a mayor who's going to be very prolific. as i will be to say, we support our law enforcement officers here in san francisco. we support their careers. we thank them every day for putting their lives on the line for us as residents of san francisco, that approach has not existed. our current mayor defunded the police. our current mayor has turned her back on the police department and our firefighters time and time again. we need a different approach out of the mayor's office. and i look forward to bringing that. all right. >> again, i think the mayor's office probably has is looking at different data and would say differently, but we don't really have time to get into all the points. but what i am interested in is i wonder if you think

other big city mayors have also failed because some of these issues were married and other big american cities as well, right? do you look at it as maybe a confluence of timing, the pandemic and all that? >> look, the reality is, let's talk about the economic situation downtown. the pandemic hit everybody across our country and abroad. every other us cities downtown is thriving. san francisco ranks dead last in economic recovery post covid, and that is not something to be proud of. we need to acknowledge that, be honest about where we sit as a city, be optimistic about our future, but be realistic that in order to bring our city back, we need an about face. we need to change tack. >> i want to touch on this. you've been accused of using a ballot measure committee to circumvent campaign finance limits for your mayoral run. and as supervisor, you've been accused of misusing your campaign account for lavish meals, etc. that was reported by our media partner, the san francisco standard. can you explain this to people who think that your campaign finances may be, if not illegal, doing unethical things? >> yeah, it couldn't be more wrong. look, everything that we

have ever done, including this year, is done with the approval and the vetting of counsel. and we will always continue to do that when i am in office this year in particular. it's so important, this ballot measure on the november ballot that i'm supporting, where we're reducing the number of commissions inside of city hall from over 130 down to 65, where we're making all of these commissions advisory by nature and not driving policy that is so critical to the future of san francisco and why i'm actually supporting it 100. >> all right. for more interim mayor mark farrell, thank you so much for coming on to chat with us. really appreciate it. >> thanks very much for having me. >> our interviews with the san francisco mayoral candidates continue all this week. supervisors asha safai and aaron peskin will be here tomorrow and friday. and in september, abc7 news and the san francisco standard are joining forces to co-host a live debate with the top candidates. watch it live. on september 25th at 6 p.m. up next, prime day deals on your next flight. amazon is making it even easier to plan a vacation.

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president of unidos us made the announcement at the latino civil rights conference in las vegas. a short time ago. biden was expected to speak at the group's conference tonight. the 81 year old has been on the campaign trail talking at conferences this week. biden was at the naacp conference in las vegas yesterday, cnn reporting that he has mild symptoms. we'll have more on world news with david muir coming up next, and also on abc7 news at four. with the summer travel season now in full swing, deals are taking off thanks to amazon's prime day. as we look live at sfo, the final day of sales is well underway. amazon and other retailers are offering big ways to save on your next vacation. abc's becky worley has the details. >> amazon prime day is in full swing, but it's not just about

your favorite products. >> sign up to be a member if you want free shipping. >> we're learning about large discounts for travel just in time for the rest of summer and beyond. >> amazon knows you're not going to buy an air fryer every single year. they're doing a little bit more like including travel sales. >> amazon partnering with travel companies for price cuts on travel packages. southwest, the first airline to partner with amazon for prime day, offering up to 30% off airfare. >> certain daetz restrictions apply. it might even say sorry to when people have used that one particular time frame up deals on car rentals, including up to 30% off of avis bookings, plus 15% back in the form of an amazon gift card, and savings up to 40% on carnival cruises. >> but it's not just amazon walmart getting into the travel game in 2023, walmart recently partnered with expedia to offer a special travel deals portal for its walmart plus members, with discounts on fuel and

travel. >> there are plenty of ways you can save and get discounts. these membership programs can just make it a little bit easier. >> well, they don't typically run promotions. costco is also a great place to check travel deals throughout the year. teresita nino uses costco travel and booked her most recent vacation with them. my last trip that we booked, i ended up saving about $700 nine out of ten times. >> costco travel is always giving me a better deal overall than other travel companies. >> access to the deals usually requires a paid membership, but it can be an extra perk and value for a consumers. >> the travel savings are the cherry on top. the ability to save on travel is exciting as well, but it's not necessarily the most lucrative benefit in these membership programs, you have to take the value of membership as a whole, rather than just joining to save on travel. >> that was abc's becky worley. according to amazon prime, members saved over two and a half dollars billion on deals

last year. this year shoppers are saving up to 50% on top brands like dyson, apple and more. see what deals are trending and how you can save this prime day by heading to our website, abc seven news.com/shop. we'll be a power outage is looming. that's just alert, he's always getting worked up about something. flex alerts notify us of preventable power outages. that way we always know when to help stop one. ok flex, just drop some knowledge on me again. oh, ok i will - i'll turn our thermostat to 78... i'll unplug the blender. the hair dryer. - my blankie? - yep! - let's talk about it! - nope. ooo, we can save the laundry til' the morning! oh, yes please! oh! little things like this help save our power and help save us from outages. with flex alerts, the power is ours.

safer option for bikers and pedestrians to travel between oakland and alameda, and this one doesn't involve taking the posey tube. woodstock the water shuttle took its maiden voyage this morning, and riders were pretty excited about this. abc seven news reporter lena howland has the story. >> for the first time ever, people have a new method of getting to oakland from alameda

and back free of charge. >> yeah, we had to be on the first trip. yeah we were excited. >> meet woodstock, the 45 foot yellow pontoon is named not after the bird or music festival, but rather one of alameda's oldest neighborhoods on the west end. >> we definitely want to give more options, more transportation options to oakland residents and to alameda residents. that's our that's our main goal. >> before today, the only way for people to walk or bike from oakland to alameda is through the posey tube, a harrowing walk john goldstein makes twice a week. >> it's about a 15 minute walk through the tube, and it's maybe two and a half or three feet wide. and if a bicycle comes while i'm walking through, you have to stand to the side wall, which is filthy. this is a much better free alternative. >> wednesday's maiden voyage kicks off a two year pilot program designed to help people move easily and sustainably between the two cities, 37 times a day. >> to be able to start in jack

london. there's no grocery store here. you'll be able to go over to safeway and target, alameda landing, all of that. and then for people in alameda to be able to come to jack london, it just opens up whole new doors. and that's that's we're just that's what we're most excited about. >> chelsea sanchez moved to alameda back in october, and she says they've been waiting for this to open ever since. >> first off, we don't have to pay for an uber anymore. we don't have to worry about going through the tube. there's tons of breweries, restaurants, i don't know, a bunch of businesses that we've wanted to try but haven't yet. >> no tickets needed. just make sure you're in line early. each ride only has enough room for 31 passengers and 14 bikes. >> i think passengers are going to love it. i think people are going to. absolutely. it's you know, i think once you do it, once you're going to be blown away. >> for now, this water shuttle is only available wednesday through sunday, starting as early as 7 a.m. the schedule does vary depending on the day, so make sure you are checking the schedule online before you head out in oakland. lena howland, abc seven news. >> okay, the nominations are out

for the emmys. two time winner tony hale and sheryl lee ralph and emmy winner from abc's hit abbott elementary announced this year's nominees from the iconic el capitan theater in hollywood and a pair of hit tv shows on fox fx streaming on hulu. led the way. shogun is the most nominated series the show with 25 nominations. the bear received a comedy series record 23 nominations, only murders in the building was next, with 21. the emmys are sunday, september 15th on abc. we're still waiting to find out who will host the ceremony. disney is the parent company of hulu and abc seven. thanks for joining us on abc seven news at three. world news tonight with david muir tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. we have just learned that president biden has been diagnosed with covid. also two ddeveloping, we ha stunning new video tonight of the