good afternoon. thanks for joining us for abc seven news at

three. i'm kristen sze it's nice to have you. our top story is an update on something we've been following for years. the fight for reparations in california. today, the state legislature passed two reparations bills. the first would issue a formal apology to black californians. the other would require the california freedmen affairs agency to compensate families who have had their property taken from them in racially motivated applications of eminent domain. two other bills are up for vote later today. they all revolve around creating a fund for reparations policies that are approved by the legislature and governor, and creating a state agency to dispense those funds. abc seven news anchor and race and social justice reporter julian glover has been following this process very closely, and he'll have much more on abc seven news at five. you can also watch the abc seven originals documentary california's case for reparations. it dives into the groundbreaking work of the reparations task force and examines bills that came out of it. it's now streaming on demand

on the abc seven bay area app. a quick moving grass fire damaged a house in san jose and came within inches of several backyards. you can see the burn scar and just how close it is to those homes. the fire started in a grassy area between blossom hill road and highway 101 around 1:00 this afternoon. fire crews say everyone was able to get out of the house. that burned. it's not clear if other homes were damaged. a neighbor says part of the house was engulfed in fire when crews got there. what's bad? >> what's bad? firing up and popping. i don't know what's exploding there. and. yeah, by the time they got here, the house was gone. >> the owners of the house that burned say they first saw the flames burning in the field. they say by the time they called 911, the fire was at their back fence and had blown out their patio door and windows. developing news now. united airlines flight attendants nationwide have voted to authorize a strike. united

airlines flight attendants have spoken. of san francisco international airport when the strike was authorized this morning. flight attendants are asking for a double digit bay pace increase, among other demands. abc seven news reporter gloria rodriguez was at sfo and has more on today's vote and potential future impact to travelers. reporter what do we want? >> contract. when we want one. >> united airlines flight attendants at san francisco international are joining others in a picket at airports nationwide. the picket comes as workers announce the results of a strike authorization vote by the association of flight attendants, cwa. we have taken a strike authorization vote with a 99.

>> 99.9% not. >> but this doesn't mean they will go on strike. >> it would be, at minimum, a 30 day period before we would be permitted to strike. united uh- obviously doesn't want that. flight attendants don't want to have to go on strike, but we will use whatever means are necessary up to and including a strike so that we can propel our negotiations forward. >> united flight attendants are demanding better pay pay for all the time they are at work, schedule flexibility and more. >> there is billions of dollars in revenue and profit at this airline. flight attendants are only asking for their fair share. >> liam haugen has been a flight attendant for united for just over a year, making the amount that we do and working the amount of hours that we have away from home and still being unable to make ends meet is entirely upsetting to me and to

a lot of flight attendants. united airlines is sending a statement saying in part, quote, we continue to work toward an industry leading agreement for our flight attendants, including negotiations. this week and every month through november. we remain eager to reach an agreement. and this is all happening as the labor day travel kicks off tomorrow through tuesday. sfo is expecting a nearly 9% increase in travelers over last year for the holiday weekend. at sfo, gloria rodriguez, abc seven news. >> interstate 680 is back open through pleasanton after being shut down for more than 5.5 hours this morning. the chp closed all northbound lanes when the bed of a dump truck flipped open and hit an overhead sign near stoneridge drive just before 4 a.m. authorities shut the highway, fearing the sign might fall down. crews were called in to remove it and traffic was flowing again just before 11 a.m. no word on when the sign will be reinstalled. now we want to check on your accuweather forecast. much of the bay area is seeing a slight

cooldown today. few. you can see that fog right there, but the heat does return this weekend. let's check in with abc seven news meteorologist lisa argen. >> so 24 hours ago. here's the difference. cooler today by five degrees. so notice we're not coming up as quickly as we did yesterday. it's still a warm day though, and as we track the low clouds and fog from marin county to the san mateo coast throughout the afternoon, and then it pushes all the way across the bay. mist and drizzle for your thursday morning. pulls back thursday, midday and today. the winds will keep it comfortable out there with temperatures staying out of the 80s. over in oakland, but in hayward and fremont it will still be warm into the mid 80s, but winds up to about 23 miles an hour, allowing for that summer feel all across the bay. so when we cool down, it's not going to be all that dramatic. it will still be warm inland, low 90s. look at friday. so friday to saturday. not a big change. we've got pleasant 70s to near 80 from mountain view to

san jose and then as we get into your sunday, this is the coolest day. so we'll knock off those 90s and keep it in the 80s inland. but that's just brief. that brief cooldown because we warm right back up for labor day. highs today around 90 in san jose, 86 for you in milpitas on the peninsula. you've got the fog, the sea breeze. so it's comfortable from the 60s and 70s at the coast. but heading down towards redwood city, palo alto, we've got some 80s there, even upper 80s for you, perhaps in redwood city, 75 south city, san francisco. really a nice day, near average in the low 70s up in the north bay, low 90s. santa rosa. that's an improvement from yesterday. still warm out there. very pleasant here from upper 70s in berkeley to 82 in san leandro. you head inland, though, and we are looking at that warm to hot afternoon, 97 in livermore with the san ramon valley in the low to mid 90s. the accuweather seven day forecast. so today, the last really hot day. then we begin to see the temperatures come down

for your thursday. the cooling continues on friday near average saturday, a bit below average for the first day of september. and then we're going to crank up the heat again. >> and as we look ahead to labor day weekend, we are gearing up for a busy travel time. if you're hitting the roads, be prepared to leave early and plan ahead. abc seven news. amanda delcastillo from abc seven mornings has some tips for a smoother drive. the city of san francisco is one of the top ten destinations in the country for labor day travel this year. >> that's according to triple a. seattle takes the number one spot for 2024, followed by orlando, florida and anchorage, alaska. back here in the bay area, if you are hitting the roads, let's get you through the best and worst times to depart with a focus on the end of the workweek. thursday leave before 11 a.m. avoid travel from 1 to 7:30 p.m. friday. you should be in the clear if your commute starts before noon or after six. then saturday the 31st leave after noon and avoid travel from

8 to 11 a.m. now for that return trip sunday. the best time to leave is before noon. the worst traffic is expected between 2 and 8. on monday, labor day. leave before 10 a.m. and avoid travel from 11 to 8. then on tuesday, the third, it's best to leave after 1 p.m, with the eight to noon window expected to be the worst. triple a says we will hit peak congestion on monday around 4:45 p.m. the drive on westbound 80 from sacramento to san francisco taking an upwards of two hours and four minutes. now i'll leave you with tips for a smoother travel. leave early, use traffic maps and tools and call 511 for updated travel information from the state. of course, the abc seven bay area app and abc seven news.com are also great resources. i'm amanda delcastillo with your labor day weekend travel. look ahead. >> new at three. some much

needed federal funding is on its way to two important housing projects in santa clara county. today congress member zoe lofgren presented checks totaling more than $2.6 million for the two projects. one will help bring farm worker housing up to code. the second will fund repairs for housing for homeless local veterans and their families. up next, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. special counsel jack smith changes up the playbook and files a new, revised indictment against former president trump for his role in 2020. election interference will smith succeed despite the supreme court giving future

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new filings by special counsel jack smith this week to try again to try trump on mishandling classified documents and plotting to overturn the 2020 election. you might be wondering, how didn't the supreme court rule that presidents have essentially immunity for actions on the job? well, smith has changed up his tactics, hoping going narrow will have wide reaching consequences. joining us live now to explain is doctor nolan higdon, lecturer in the education department at uc santa cruz. doctor higdon, first of all, it's different. we had always introduced you before as being with cal state east bay. this is a new role. >> yeah. just moved over this year. >> all right. well congratulations on the new role. we can certainly get used to saying that uc santa cruz is a lovely place. look, let's get down to business, because trump and most people thought those federal cases against him were dead on arrival and not likely to impede him any more heading into the election. but jack smith is not giving up. so explain how he's able to refile those indictments. >> absolutely, kristen, good to

chat with you. my understanding is that jack smith is trying this case again with making a few alterations. a few charges have been dropped, but not a lot of the major central charges. and he's basically trying to circumvent this supreme court ruling that said that jack smith could not move this case forward because the evidence presented was coming from trump's so-called official duties when he was president. but jack smith thinks he can still get a guilty verdict on trump for these crimes without having to use the evidence that the supreme court deemed was not admissible. >> so how did he tweak it so that this is more about trump's actions as candidate, which doesn't get that broad immunity versus you know, his role as president? >> yeah. my understanding is he had to take away some of the communications that were deemed official communications in particular. there was a lot of folks in trump's cabinet who had told trump while he was president that the election was

not stolen. and there was no evidence to back up those claims. jack smith wanted to present that as part of his conspiracy trial, but due to the supreme court ruling, he's not going to be able to present that. so he removed that from his indictment. and it's things like that that can be perceived as part of the official duties, is what jack smith took out of the indictment. >> all right. so we'll see if that works in terms of addressing it from this different angle. but does smith have to prove that these actions were taken as a candidate, or perhaps taken outside of the official capacities and responsibilities? is that a difficult thing to do? >> it seems like it it would be, but it seems like jack smith has done a lot of work to make the case. if you read through the indictment, a lot of times he points out how trump is engaging in private communications, or trump was organizing events with private money, or trump was using his twitter account for personal reasons. and i'm emphasizing those words because jack smith quotes those words

throughout his indictment. and so jack smith is trying to make the case that this effort to overthrow the outcome of the 2020 election was not official duty. it was something that trump, the private citizen, was doing. >> all right. by the way, i should mention that this is a different grand jury. so there's that as well. but i want to ask you, and this is really right up your alley, you know, one of the headlines out there by one of the national networks says the return of trump's legal issues to center stage presents new challenges for harris. how could this be an issue or challenge for harris, his opponent in the presidential race? >> i could see harris using this to her advantage. after all, vice president kamala harris is a prosecutor and has rhetorically used this over and over again that trump, in her opinion, is this guilty criminal and she's the prosecutor, and she's using the election as a metaphor to serve justice, just like she claims she served justice in the courtroom. so i think in that sense, it can be good for her. also, a lot of the

attacks on trump for being a felon and a criminal really get democratic voters excited. so that's a way she might be able to turn out some of those critical voters, particularly in swing states. >> all right. well, do you think based on these changes smith made, the case will go to trial and if so, when? >> you know, i don't know if it will go to trial, but from what i've read, it's basically impossible, i guess unlikely that the trial will take place any time before the election. this is going to happen afterward. and so i imagine once or if it does go to trial, there will be a lot of discussions about trump running for president to try and get himself out of these charges. once he's elected. i'm sure that'll be a major talking point for both sides. >> so much that is unprecedented here. nolan higdon, thank you so much for joining us. really appreciate your expertise. >> always a pleasure to talk to you. thank you. >> up next we're going to shift gears. the largest lunar new year celebration outside of asia has a new home right here on abc

seven. all the detai what's the definition of character to you? umm... would you be a superhero or a supervillain? if you could say one thing to big tobacco,

what would it be? it's so important in this time of change that we reclaim our sacred ways. i had to open my eyes. you can't continue to do this. deep breath. i'd want to ask them “why?” (♪)

have a big announcement here at abc seven news. lion dancers stopped by our station to celebrate the new home of the san francisco chinese new year parade, the nation's oldest, largest lunar new year celebration will be broadcast live right here on abc seven. in february. parade organizer tony lao and the president of the san francisco chinese chamber of commerce, donald liu, talked with us about the exciting news on abc seven mornings. >> both of you, welcome to the abc seven family. thank you. good morning to you. we're so excited. oh, we are so excited to. this is just really great news. and we're honored abc seven to be a part of this community celebration. what can we expect from the parade this year? >> well, good morning everyone.

this is definitely exciting. i'm so excited for this past two months. you know, just going over, like, all this agreement and stuff. but definitely we're excited to partner with abc seven to celebrate one of the largest, one of the largest, chinese new year celebration ever in the united states. so we're excited to look forward for the year of the snake next year, we're going to have the same and better, a lot of flow parade route and event to celebrate this chinese new year. >> this parade has such a rich history that is essentially, you know, married to the history of san francisco. i mean, the two things go hand in hand. so, donald, tell me a little bit about when this all started. >> so this parade started during the gold rush. this started in 1860. at the time when, chinese american was, you know, still facing a lot of prejudice, chinese american at that point. think about, you know, how to

how to bridge the gap between the two cultures. and they thought of the idea of putting the putting together the parade. the parade is actually an american, concept, but they combine combine that with many of the chinese new year festivals. elements to, to bring it, to make it a festival that we, we've been witnessing. yeah. and over time, i thought it was very interesting that this was not a tradition in china. >> this was a way for people who had moved to the united states to show off their culture and to get people excited and educated about what they brought to the country. >> that's right. that's right. and also, you know, initially it was started as a very small, new year celebrations, and then in 1958, the chinese chamber of commerce took over, since then, out the milestone has been has been, has been big every at every year. and in 1987, we had the first local tv broadcast and

now in, in partnership with kgo, abc, we hope to have this broadcast nationally and also internationally. so we're very excited about that opportunity. >> yes, i was excited to tell people about that. we are happy to be partnering with you so we can share this parade nationwid. we're going to be sharing it on our other own stations around the country. we're going to be streaming it on hulu and on abc news live. so it's going to be a large audience. i would say the largest ever. what do you both hope that people will see in this year's parade? >> maybe, tony, i'll let you know. >> this year we have already started preparing all this event coming, we have different sponsorship coming. we have a lot of amazing events, includin, i'm not going to share with you guys yet, but then we are actually having our grand marshal coming. and then we're going to have a lot of fun, that may include some of the fireworks, some of the new show,

like i said, it's going to be exciting. and amazing. and one of the reasons why i enjoy so much is because this event has tied our community together to celebrate one of the largest chinese new year celebration, and our culture, together with the with the community. >> and i understand that there's actually something that's coming up very soon in chinatown, so we don't necessarily have to wait till february to, to start anticipating what's happening. just around the corner. >> so, tomorrow we are hosting the chinese new year, or not the chinese, i'm sorry, the chinese chamber of commerce, along with many other important organizations in chinatown, are partnering with the police department. we are putting together the tent and the tent. chinatown night out. this is an opportunity for us to continue to educate the community and those especially, especially those who are seniors, who are monolingual, to about public safety, to for them to come out

to portman square to coming o september 4th at 4 p.m, many of the local police, policemen from the, from the local, from local, station will be coming out and just to, excuse me, just to, have a have a conversation and get to get to know the residents of chinatown better so that they, they feel a connection to the police. so there's no, they can approach them more easily. >> well, donald and tony, we're so excited about this. abc seven has committed to airing the parade all the way until 2030, which is a long time. but this year is the year of the snake. so talk to us about what's lucky about us kicking off this partnership in the year of the snake. >> well, the year of snake is an interesting year, it is it is, the year after the dragon in chinese. we they actually call it the little dragon. but i think the opportunity for

growth, the opportunity for rejuvenation, it's kind of coincide with what we do. what the partnership that we have with, abc right now, we look forward to a great partnership. not just, this year with the program that tony is putting together, but also until 20, 20, 30. >> i just want to make sure the snake is good because i am the year of the snake. that's good. right? >> you are very good, intelligence wise. but but not. but definitely not introverted. >> very obviously. yeah you got that right. type him up. hike him up. come on. year of the snake. >> well welcome again to the abc seven family. we are so excited about this partnership this year. all the years to come, all the years to come. >> and you can watch the first year of the inaugural event here on abc seven. the 2025 san

francisco chinese new year parade right here on abc seven. and everywhere you stream on february 15th. all right. stay with us.

data from the first half of this year and compared it to the same time last year. the presidio tunnel tops park saw the biggest boost in visitors, with an estimated 45% increase. salesforce tower saw 34% increase. not too bad. ocean beach saw 18% more visitors and sfmoma saw 15% more. finally, today our daily dose of cuteness the fresno zoo is celebrating an

elephant baby boom. two african elephants were born at the zoo less than two weeks apart. both calves are healthy and will be closely monitored by staff until they are ready to join the elephant herd. the zoo's director called the births an historical milestone and praised the staff for their great work. all next time you're in fresno. thanks so much for joining us for abc seven news at three. today. world news tonight with david muir starts right now. and i'll see you back here for abc seven news at four. tonight, several breaking stories as we come on the air. bracing for severe storms moving into the east amid dangerous heat fueling these storms. also breaking, the emergency landing of