francisco is changing its approach to the city's homeless crisis. the new top priority relocating those individuals. hello, i'm kristen sze thanks for joining us for abc7 news at three. mayor london breed just issued a directive to all city

departments telling them to offer relocation help, first and foremost to unhoused people and to do that before providing any other services, including housing and shelter. first responders will also be required to provide handouts on the city's relocation services and a contact number. the city will also establish a tracking system to monitor the program's effectiveness, according to the mayor's office, 40% of those living on city streets came to san francisco from another county or from out of state. now, this comes as san francisco begins enforcing existing but long ignored parking restrictions around lake merced, where people, including families, live in rvs. dozens of rvs have sat on winston drive between lake merced and stonestown galleria for years, but those rv dwellers began to relocate this week ahead of new parking restrictions and a repaving project scheduled for september. our media partner, the san francisco standard, reports about 30 rvs moved on

monday to a private parking lot owned by the san francisco zoo, but they were then removed by police. many are now parked along roads without parking restrictions in the same neighborhood. our coverage of san francisco's increased enforcement efforts in unhoused communities continues on abc seven news at four, with more on the city's new journey home directive and firsthand accounts from families living in those rvs. a teen is dead after a crash overnight in walnut creek. the 18 year old was ejected from the vehicle after slamming into a utility pole on ignacio valley road. the road is still closed at this hour, and as abc seven news reporter gloria rodriguez reports, it could take the rest of the day to fix the pole and get power back on for nearby businesses. >> a car flipped over and crushed after striking a power pole in walnut creek. the driver was pronounced dead at the scene and the passenger was sent to the hospital, but is expected to

be okay. it happened after one thursday morning on ignacio valley road between north broadway and civic drive. joseph rausch was working at the gas station nearby. it was a loud bang. >> it was just a loud, just big, solid thud against when it hit the pole. and then it ended up cracking and falling over. we had, i had gone out to see if anyone, if i could help anyone out there. and then we had other others that had driven up and they were already calling 911. so i ran back in to hopefully get the first aid kit that we had to back to the, to the, vehicle. but by the time i had grabbed it, there was already an ambulance there. >> police say nobody else was involved in the wreck, and that they think the car was going fast, but they're still investigating the gas station lost power for a little over an hour, and part of the road was closed for the investigation. >> p-g-and-e's responded fairly quickly to get the power restored. unfortunately, they said due to the damage to the pole, it's possible the traffic

could be diverted all day. why they replaced that? i do not have an update from them at this time, but we expect it to be closed for a majority of the day. >> i just hope the family can pull through. okay. it's a terrible thing to have to go through. >> gloria rodriguez, abc seven news. >> we're following up on the story about the oakland bookstore destroyed by a fire. this week. the east bay booksellers bookstore had been operating on college avenue for decades before tuesday morning's blaze. when we spoke with the owner, the morning of the fire, he told abc seven news, he was too overwhelmed to think about the future of the shop. well, now there's hope on the horizon in just two days. a gofundme has already raised $135,000. if you'd like to help, we have a link to it on abc seven news.com. developing news and historic prisoner exchange between the u.s. and russia brought freedom for 24 people. president biden said. this morning. it was the result of

years of negotiations between at least seven countries. >> this is an incredible relief for all the family members gathered here. it's a relief to the friends and colleagues all across the country who have been praying for this day for a long time. >> those released include former us marine paul whelan and wall street journal reporter evan gershkovich. we get details now from abc news reporter perry russom in washington. >> president biden says the prisoner exchange includes the release of three americans and one legal permanent resident among the released are evan gershkovich and paul whelan, and now their brutal ordeal is over and they're free. gershkovich is a reporter for the wall street journal. arrested by russian authorities in march of 2023. >> we want him to come home as soon as possible. >> russian authorities charged gershkovich with espionage, a charge both he and the u.s. deny. >> we condemn the detention of mr. gershkovich in the strongest, in the strongest

terms. >> gershkovich faced a three day trial in moscow two weeks ago and was found guilty. sentenced to 16 years in russian prison. >> this was a fast, secret and completely bogus trial. >> everything about it was a sham. >> paul whelan is a former marine arrested while traveling in russia in 2018. he was also charged with espionage, convicted in 2020, sentenced to 16 years in prison. whelan, the biden administration and trump administration denied the allegation from russian authorities. >> the deal that made this possible was the feat of diplomacy and friendship. friendship multiple countries helped get this done. they joined a difficult, complex negotiations at my request, and i personally thank them all again, biden says while he celebrates the return of the americans and rejoices with their families, he says the u.s. will never stop working to bring home the other americans still being held in russia. >> perry russom, abc news, washington. >> the phrase childless cat ladies is being used

derogatively by the republican presidential ticket, but more and more people are choosing to be childless. we'll explore the trend with a sociologist in a marathon mistake. hundreds of runners are finding out about a false finish for the san francisco race this weekend, and they are 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. (vo) with fargo, the new virtual assistant from wells fargo, you can pick up the tab even when you forget your wallet. and help save us from outages. (kaz) i got this. (ben) fargo, send kaz $145 dollars with zelle®. (kaz) smooth. (vo) want faster, easier banking?

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things about people without children. >> we're effectively run in this country via the democrats, be it via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made. and so they want to make the rest of the country

miserable to. >> vance has also referred to the childless as sociopathic, psychotic, and deranged. the clear implication it's bad to not want to have children, yet it is a choice more and more people are making for different reasons, which the book childfree by choice, lays out. joining us live now is the book's author, doctor amy blackstone, a sociologist at the university of maine. doctor blackstone, thanks for joining us today. >> thanks for having me. happy to be here. >> well, what do you think about vance's characterizations of childfree women as childless cat ladies? >> well, i, i have a lot to say, and i think a lot of things, let me start by just wishing vance and everyone out there happy international child free day, it's kind of funny. we're having this conversation today. in 1973, the national organization for non-parents declared august 1st international child free day

to raise awareness about parenthood as a choice. and it's funny, over 50 years later, we're still having the same conversation. and i would say that, vance, i guess, isn't a real fan of fact checking because if he was, he would find out that non-parents, including the childfree. so people who have opted out of parenthood intentionally and thoughtfully actually are are quite happy, probably not good news for parents and not good news for policy makers in the us. were actually happier than parents and the reason i say it's not good news for policy makers is that i think the takeaway for policy makers is that there's much more we could be doing to support families and working parents in the united states. if you compare us to other western industrialized nations, parents are much happier in countries where supports like childcare and, and good parental leave

policies are provided for parents, we find happier rates among parents, and equal rates of happiness among non-parents and parents. so in the us, the childless cat ladies are actually quite well adjusted and quite happy. >> that is really interesting. and i wonder if that is why more people seem to be making that choice. because if my numbers are right and maybe you can give us some numbers, global fertility rates are down right, especially in the wealthiest nations. >> they are, so globally fertility rates are actually still on the rise. so that's it's a misnomer to say that globally, fertility rates are are down because we are still seeing globally fertility rates creep up. >> now where people like elon musk, you know, saying, oh my gosh, this is the decline of our civilization. this is the worst thing, worse than climate change. >> it's a great question. the

reason that people like elon musk are saying that is that within nations where, fertility rates are down, those nations are generally western nations, more industrialized nations. and those nation states are concerned about population again, within their national borders. but we have solutions. we have, within our own nation, we have people trying to get in. so one solution might be to look at our immigration policies and the reason that we're not doing that, i think has a lot to do with race. and that's what we're not talking about. so i think these are coded messages, and the thing that vance is not saying is that he doesn't want the white population to be over, run by people who are not white. and i think what people like vance and elon musk would like to see is white women out of the

workplace and in homes and having babies and women of color in the workplace and caring for white babies. >> well, look, you know, if the society message has been, hey, the norm is to have kids. and, you know, you're somewhat weird if you opt out. how does one fight that? i mean, i know you're you know, in your book you have a lot of evidence that people who are childfree can be very happy, if not happier, right? for many of the reasons you outlined. but how do you fight that notion? how do you face that pressure, which i assume even today, especially for women? >> it is quite real conversation for decades. but i think that gen z and millennials are finally moving the needle and pushing us to have these conversations outwardly and publicly. and i give them a lot of credit for doing so. and one thing i think that they're doing, that hasn't been done to the extent that they they've done it, is again, point out that parenthood and non

parenthood are both choices that should be made thoughtfully, an, and, over time and in consultation with one's partner, family and friends. and i think that that's, it's a good thing that people are making this decision carefully, both in terms of whether they want to be parents and whether they don't want to be parents. i think even vance would agree that parenthood is a decision that should be made carefully, that parenthood is not easy, and that we want people to go into that decision with eyes wide open, >> by the way, vance also suggested people without kids should face higher taxes and reduce voting rights, i'm not going to ask you what you think of that, because i think i know, but real quickly, how do people without kids contribute to society in ways that maybe are overlooked? >> all kinds of ways. so we do contribute our taxes, and we do

have an investment in the future. in my own research, for example, i found that 25% of the people, the childfree people that i interviewed, actually chose careers that involved the lives of children because they wanted to make a difference specifically in children's lives. so their teachers, their counselors, their social workers, their psychologists, another study found that 80% of non-mothers have children in their lives, for whom they make a real, measurable difference. either their nieces and nephews or their mentors through big brothers, big sisters programs. or again, they may be teachers or camp counselors, lots of research shows that children need adults in their lives who are not their parents, so that's just one way that we make a difference, we volunteer. >> i think we're probably going to have to read your book because we are out of time. but, doctor amy blackstone, thank you so much for joining us. your book is called childfree by choice. >> thank you, thank you.

>> up next, a major marathon mistake. thousands of runners who flocked to san francisco are now realizing they were cheated by the race

buildings and dividing them into more units than what they're authorized for. our media partner, the san francisco standard, has a new article out detailing how landlords illegally chopped up 17 apartments into 49 units, and now they're paying out millions in a new settlement. joining us live now is kevin truong, the standard's business editor, who wrote that article. kevin, thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> okay. so you're talking about illegal apartment subdivisions, right? not a new concept, but has this practice become more prevalent? san francisco? >> yes, i would say it has. and partially because of some of the issues that we've talked about in the past, the housing crisis is really, really not abated at all. and some, some unscrupulous

landlords have been taking advantage by essentially shoving more people in to apartments and, and properties that then there should actually legally be. and that leads to all sorts of life and safety issues. >> okay, before we get into those issues, just where are these apartments? mostly in the city. >> so the settlements that were signed by or the judgments that were signed, earlier last month, were across the city. so we had some units out in ingleside heights. we had some units out in the mission, but this has been a sort of a continuing problem that the city has, kind of whack a mold around the city. >> yeah. what are some of the stories you've heard from people living in those subdivided apartments? the conditions, the violations, how it's impacted them? >> yeah. so in one of the apartment buildings that i wrote about, one, property was legally allowed to have four units, and

it turned into something like 22. and the reason why they that happened is they were turning essentially basement units, storage units into places where people actually lived. and that means there was no fire escape. that means in some cases there were no windows. and in some cases that means that there were issues with leaks and rodents and pest infestations that, you know, do not make a really, really nice place to live. and, you know, basically, raise a family or what have you. >> right. and especially with the health and safety hazards, so did the city have inspectors? is that how the city attorney, you know, how they learned about these? and then the city attorney go after the landlords and got this settlement. how did that play out? >> yeah. so a lot of times this starts with initial inspection. a complaint either comes from a neighbor, somebody a passerby who might have seen a situation that they're concerned about or even sometimes the residents themselves. inspector comes in, starts to find, evidence of

unpermitted work or people sleeping where they shouldn't b. and that ends up in, often in the courts, through an enforcement action. okay >> so, of course, this time around, we do have this huge settlement. how will the money be divided up? and then what's going to happen to the tenants? >> yeah. so this is a bit of a, one of the issues is with these illegally, subdivided units, there has to be a process of legalization. and in some cases, these units cannot necessarily be legalized. and so from the landlord's perspective, they're saying we're leaving these people out in the streets or we're having them. we're forcing them to move, of course, the city's take on this whole thing is that, you know, these people shouldn't have been living in these places anyway. so the city is taking these penalties, and, you know, utilizing some of these for affordable housing. initiatives as well. >> okay. i mean, of course, kevin, this is not a san francisco unique problem, right?

you see this in new york? you see this in other big cities. you've seen it in chinatown and the sros. and, like you said, it's kind of a whack a mole. but thank you so much for sharing the story with us. thank you. you can check out kevin's story and more of the san francisco standard's other original reporting on their website, sf standard dot com. now to a story that's trending on our website. the san francisco marathon is having to do a bit of damage control. hundreds of runners who participated in sunday's race are finding out the finish line wasn't actually the finish line. after all. organizers sent runners an email explaining one of the half marathon courses was actually miscalculated. so instead of the course being 13.1 miles, it was actually 12.6 miles. now some runners are asking for some form of compensation. they say this marathon is one of the most expensive races with a $230 registration fee. one runner says she knew something was off when she saw the mile markers. >> i got cheated from that

experience because i did spend a couple of miles just mentally being like, what's going on? who do i listen to? what pace do i follow? do i look at my watch? >> organizers tell abc seven news the certification map was drawn incorrectly and the mile markers were added based on that map. up next, the weekend is almost here and we're looking ahead with a warming trend. your accuweather forecast is coming up. and remember, abc seven news is streaming 24 seven. get the abc seven bay area app and join us whenever you

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for one and you guessed it, that san francisco uh- spencer. we kind of have the fog back, right? it's fog est, and i think people forgot about the time when it was normal to start out every summer day with fog. >> that's true. but here in san francisco, we are reminded daily that it is normal. but for the rest of the state, as you just pointed west of the bay area, rather as you just pointed out, it was the hottest july on record. that's that's a heavy consideration. so san jose, santa rosa, oakland, hayward, napa, all these places you see listed had their hottest july on record in this past month. now, as you look at the bigger picture globally, july 22nd was the earth's hottest day on record. i mean, that's a staggering thing to consider. june of 2020 for this. the month before the last one was the hottest june on record globally. so long term warming trend is driven by human activity. as we've been telling you for year, primarily because of the emission of greenhouse gases. so when we go to a look at current temperature readings up and down the bay area right now, we have

low to mid 90s in our inland areas. it's a warm to hot day inland and going to get hotter. we have mid to upper 70s around the bay shoreline. we've got the fog over the golden gate right now, but it's not cooling down the inland areas. so these are our forecast headlines. this warm to hot pattern will be with us through the middle of next week. inland highs will range from 94 to about 98 degrees during this period of time. and the heat will reach its peak around the middle of next week. so for tomorrow, look for hot conditions inland once again with the highs of 95 at antioch, 97 at fairfield, 93 at santa rosa, 93 livermore. and as a as we look at the accuweather seven day forecast, you can see virtually no relief from this string of hot days, at least not in the next seven days. so we'll see mid to upper 90s inland through next thursday, with the peak of the heating possibly occurring on tuesday and wednesday, when inland highs will be close to 100 degrees in the warmest locations around the bay shoreline. we'll see mid upper 70s until next tuesday and wednesday, when we may see some bayshore locations hitting 80 degrees or above and around the

along the coast. of course, the fog will keep us cool, so not much warming there. kristen. >> all right. hey, sounds like decent, fair weather to me. >> spencer yeah, it sounds pretty good to me, i know, so let's tell people about it. >> the sonoma county fair is officially underway. today is the opening day. the fair includes a rodeo monster trucks, and a demolition derby. and new this year with the fair calls the world's greatest equestrian trainer and performing artist. the fair runs through next sunday, august 11th at the sonoma county event center in santa rosa. gates open at noon each day. tonight, nfl football is back. it kicks off right here on abc seven with the pro football hall of fame game. former 40 niners linebacker patrick willis is one of the players being inducted. willis played eight seasons with the red and gold, making the pro bowl seven times and first team all pro five times. he also won defensive rookie of the year in 2007, the hall of fame induction ceremony happens saturday. you can see tonight's pro football

hall of fame game right here on abc seven, starting at five. the chicago bears take on the houston texans. that's followed by a running wild with bear grylls at eight. then stay tuned for wheel of fortune and jeopardy! starting at nine. at ten, we'll catch a special edition of abc seven news, followed by abc seven news at 11. thanks so much for joining us for abc seven news at three. i'll see you back here at four. world news tonight with david muir starts right now tonight, breaking news, on an historic day. three american prisoners, including paul whelan and evan gershkovich, soon to be reunited with their families. part of a multi-country swap with russia involving two dozen prisoners. the biggest deal of its kind since the cold war. whelan and gershkovich and another american journalist detained by russia taking off from turkey, heading to the