i brought in ensure max protein with 30 grams of protein! those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. -ugh. -here, i'll take that. woo hoo! ensure max protein, 30 grams protein, 1 gram sugar, 25 vitamins and minerals. and a new fiber blend with a prebiotic. (♪♪) i'm raj mathai. next on "nbc bay area news tonight," it's all about the wind. strong gusts across the bay area. so how much longer is this going to last? also, why did the cops let him get away? we have the exclusive video from

a south bay cannabis shop, which shows burglars passing right by squad cars. so what's the response from sjpd? and a plea deal in san francisco against the 78 protesters who blocked the bay bridge for hours. plus, an alarming number of asian american women are getting lung cancer despite never smoking. it's baffling researchers at ucsf. good evening. this is "nbc bay area news tonight." i'm raj mathai. how much longer for all this wind? jeff is going to join us in just a few minutes. but we want to start with some late developments in alameda county. the effort to recall district attorney pamela price. it's going to take a little longer to validate those signatures. last month, a group behind the recall effort dropped off the boxes filled with signatures of people supporting the recall petition. they said that they had more than 123,000 signatures, well over the minimum needed to kick

in the recall, which is about 73,000 signatures. late today the alameda county registrar of voters says it's not clear if enough of those signatures are valid. the county used a random sampling method approved by the state. the results weren't high enough to trigger a recall. now the registrar's office will count the old-fashioned way, manually. no word on how long that's going to take. well, they're still counting the votes from super tuesday. we have an update in one of the closest races in the state, the runoff to replace anna eshoo. former san jose mayor sam liccardo leading. but silicon assembly man evan low vaulted into second place ahead of santa clara county supervisor joe simitian. low now leads by 63 votes. the top two advance to the november ballot.

more than 23,000 ballots still need to be counted. another story we're watching closely. a sudden change in the legal case against those 78 protesters who blocked the bay bridge. the case against them could be dismissed. ♪♪ today you can see them, you can hear them. dozens of people, including some of those protesters from that day, packed the hallway's of a san francisco courthouse. the protesters were all facing five misdemeanors each. it happened last november during the apex summit in san francisco. it halted traffic across the bay bridge for hours. after learning the case could be dismissed, the lawyer representing the so-called bay bridge 78 said it was a victory for those exercising their right to protest. >> we think this is a good resolution to return the focus to what's happening in gaza and

to the genocide and all of the devastation that's occurring there and get out of the courtroom and get back to trying to influence, you know, this government and this country to stop the genocide. >> all right. so here are the details of the plea deal. the protesters agreed to do five hours of community service, and the group will pay $4,400 total in restitution. at that point, this case will be dismissed. all right. also tonight, no matter where you were, no matter where you are, you got a little bit of this or maybe a lot of this. the bay area swept up by some strong winds. in pleasanton, the gusts brought down this tree on top of power lines. people across the bay area dealing with outages as well. delayed b.a.r.t. service today was also blamed on the weather. so what's on tap as we head into friday? let's join our chief meteorologist, jeff ranieri. you're not going to mess with our friday or saturday, are you? >> well, a little bit here tomorrow morning. i know that wind, it was

ferocious out there. >> it was. then i started sneezing a lot. i saw a bunch of the yellow pollen on my car. >> today was a little rough even though we had the sunshine out there. look at these gusts. mount umunhum, 70. once you got above 3,000 feet, it was 50 to 70. a lot of places where we all live, anywhere from 30 to about 45 miles per hour. they were on and off and pretty rapid throughout the day. pacifica, 42. redwood city at 32. the forecast for tonight, winds continue to come out of the north and the east, 20 to 50 miles per hour. highest at the coastline, right there through the east bay mountains. tomorrow morning's commute could be really rough, especially up in the north bay. 50-mile-per-hour gusts in napa. 38 santa rosa. 40 in oakland. that's for that morning commute. maybe not as bad in san jose and redwood city. by tomorrow afternoon, the winds should begin to taper down, and that's going to set us up with much better weather, at least by tomorrow afternoon and evening.

>> that's good news. the sunshine's great. we're not complaining about that. what about going into the weekend saturday and sunday? >> we're going to be really hitting the best stride of this weather. i'm going to be on everyone's good side as we head into saturday and sunday. we've got 74 here on saturday. 72 on sunday. this is for san jose. you know, a lot of the bay area is going to mirror this forecast as we roll through this weekend. low 70s. even early next week, mid-70s monday, tuesday. then right over where you are, look at how those temperatures drop. >> i don't want to be debbie downer. the temperatures drop. any rain in the forecast you're seeing? >> there will be. it doesn't look like a ton of rain, but maybe by next saturday when we hit that 65 in san jose, we could see a system kind of moving on down. right now it doesn't look like an atmospheric river, but we could get into some more rain chances by the following weekend. so make your plans for this weekend to be outside and enjoy it because the following weekend -- >> i'm already daydreaming and envisioning. >> me too. it's been hard to concentrate all day.

>> to stay up to date on the latest weather, make sure to download our free nbc bay area app. it's a great resource. just use the camera on your phone to scan that little qr code on the left side of your screen. it's going to take you right to our weather page where you can see our radar. well, also tonight, the cops were there, and they watched the burglars get away. no chase. no arrests. cannabis business owners saying they're increasingly being targeted by thieves, and they're not getting enough help from police. the san jose spotlight obtained this surveillance video from the exotics weed shop in south san jose. the business was burglarized last month. you can see a man putting items into that black suv on the right side of your screen. at the top of your screen, two police cars show up. the man jumps in his car. two other getaway cars pull up and just drive right around the police cruisers. the two sjpd squad cars stay put. we saw similar video in an

incident in san francisco with sfpd a few weeks ago. joining us now is a reporter with the san jose spotlight who broke this story today. jenna, nice to have you on the program. not just a san jose problem. what's the response, though, from sjpd? >> well, they say that this is a problem with their policy of pursuit. this is -- they outweigh the risks versus the seriousness of the crime. >> sure. so in theory they're saying, we don't want to pursue them because we could hurt some innocent bystanders if they had a high-speed chase through san jose. >> exactly, yeah. >> how did you come across this video? >> i've been working on the cannabis conflict for some time, and one of my sources sent it to me. >> this is part of a larger frustration from cannabis business owners. we see these burglaries. we see it in san jose and oakland. what can they do? what are they doing, these cannabis business owners?

are they meeting with the police departments or maybe the mayor's office in san jose? >> they're meeting with city officials. they've been working with city officials for some time to change the way the city regulates the legal industry and cracks down on the robberies as well as illegal industry. they are very frustrated with the high fees that they say have not, you know, come back and supported them. >> is it still worth it, the ones you speak with? is it still worth it to stay in business here, or do they just want to move on? >> some say they are getting close to closing. we've already seen two dispensaries in san jose close their doors. that's two out of 16, and a lot of them are struggling. >> very good. jana, appreciate your time tonight. well, should san francisco be doing more to clean up the tenderloin? those who live and work in the neighborhood are now suing the city, accusing leaders of turning the neighborhood into a containment zone for drug use and homelessness. a federal lawsuit was filed

today on behalf of two businesses and five residents. it accuses the city of san francisco of tolerating the encampments and illegal drug markets and not doing enough to address the longstanding situation. it says public spaces have become unsanitary and inaccessible. residents don't want money. they want a judge to force the city to do more to solve the problems. >> that the city has for years treated the tenderloin as the containment zone for narcotics activity and associated harms and that conditions have gotten much worse in recent years, maybe in part due to the fentanyl crisis. >> it is a major issue. separately, the uc college of the law has also filed a motion calling for a court to enforce a prior legal action against the city. in 2020, a judge ordered the city to make, quote, all reasonable efforts to bring encampments to zero in the neighborhood. the city attorney's office said

they will review the complaint and respond in court. but also the city has taken major steps, said the city attorney, to reduce crime and disrupt open-air markets. up next, why are so many asian american women who have never smoked getting lung cancer? we're joined by the ucsf researcher working on this case. also a popular barbecue spot in oakland won't reopen after a recent fire. recent fire. the owner explains why

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welcome back to "nbc bay area news tonight." there's a medical trend that's baffling researchers at ucsf. why are so many asian american women getting lung cancer despite never smoking? one of the ucsf studies found that non-smoking asian american women were the most at risk for developing lung cancer. of the non-smoking patients they studied, more than half were asian american. that's much higher than other groups and more than double than that of non-smoking women, white women. researchers are looking into potential causes. they've launched the fans study. fans stands for female asian never smokers. they're looking at genetic, environmental and cultural factors. joining us is dr. scarlet gomez, a professor of epidemiology and head of the study at ucsf.

no one was researching this before you and your colleagues. how did this come about? >> thanks for having me, and happy pi day. this really started 20 years or so ago. the way it really started is quite an interesting story. a medical oncologist, thoracic oncologist at stanford university, dr. heather wakely, approached my group at the time. she was interested in this phenomenon that was happening in her clinic and they were diagnosing more and more asian american women with lung cancer. they have no history of smoking. so she came to us with a simple question of, are rates of lung cancer going up among asian american women? that actually launcheds a really productive history of 20-plus years of collaborations. and the reason i want to just note that she came to us is because i am involved in the statewide cancer registry. cancer is a reportable disease by state law in california as it is in every state in our nation.

and this is a powerful tool for us to be able to understand who, what, where are trends of cancer occurring. >> and this is fascinating. dr. gomez, just to be clear here, your research does show asian american women who haven't smoked have more lung cancer than others, especially white women. >> correct. so using this cancer registry data, we were able to show that the prevalence of never smoking among asian american women was as you show, about 50% higher. that's about two times higher than other racial and ethnic groups. that proportion is as high as 80%, for example, among chinese american women. we show last year in another publication that the rates of lung cancer are nearly two times higher among some ethnic groups of asian american women compared to white women. >> when we talk about asian american, it's a broad category as you know. is this specific? you mentioned chinese women. what about japanese or indian or

filipino? >> absolutely. you're absolutely right, raj. i think this really becomes a data equity issue. the reason this hasn't really been studied is because the statistics to date have combined all the asians and native hawaiians and pacific islanders into one group. we've been aiming to disaggregate the data. when we do so, we are finding there are differences in lung cancer rates across the groups. >> dr. gomez, i'm asian american. i don't know of this. does the asian american community, especially for the women, are they aware of this? is the word getting out? >> i think that you touched upon the most important thing that we've noticed since we started doing this study and since we started doing outreach and recruitment. probably the number one thing that people tell us is they didn't know this was an issue. i think it in part, again, is because we haven't been researching it. we haven't been producing the data to show this is the case.

so i think that partly this is important to be able to raise awareness around this issue because i think when people know, when people are aware, they have the tools, the data to be able to advocate for their own health. >> final question. what's your guidance for asian american women right now? to go get tested for lung cancer? what do they do? >> yeah, this is the tricky thing. our current lung cancer screening guidelines do not include never smokers. so if you're a never smoker, you're not currently eligible in terms of insurance reimbursement for lung cancer screening. but, you know, the guidance is to avoid the risk factors that we do know are associated with lung cancer. that includes secondhand smoke, even thirdhand smoke, exposure to cooking oil fumes. i think if women are interested in being involved, we are recruiting for the fans study. we're interested in women of much older age groups, but asian

american women who have never smoked, whether you've had lung cancer or not, we would encourage you to participate. >> it's fascinating. please keep us posted on your research. dr. gomez from ucsf, appreciate your time. >> thank you. also tonight, the future remains unclear for a popular barbecue spot in oakland. as restaurants close because of safety concerns, horn barbecue has announced it will not reopen. the west oakland barbecue is one of multiple restaurants owned by matt horn. there he is. horn says it's just not safe to run his barbecue spot. in an instagram post, he blames a number of issues, continuous theft and crime, vandalism, and damage to the restaurant's building there. the restaurant has remained closed since a destructive fire last november. on his instagram post, horn wrote, these occurrences, each an ordeal on their own, collectively have created an environment that at this point is untenable for us to operate safely and effectively. now, despite this announcement, oakland city council member

carroll fife says they're still working on the possibility of staying open. >> i'm going to work to help the owner in any way that i can. but that he's really interested in that space, but he's lost communication with the particular owner at this time. so i'm going to try to help him to make those connections. he's looking at other possible locations in the city. and i wanted to make sure that people know that he is here, and he's here to stay, but he's just looking for other opportunities at this time. >> things are moving fast with this story. matt horn just posted on instagram saying that they have not received the $100,000 grant from the city yet, and they are actively have been in conversations for a new oakland location. let's take you outside. a live look now at the bay on this beautiful thursday evening. that's alcatraz. je is gffoi

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all right. take a look. can you guess what this long line is for? well, check the calendar. it's pi day, 3-14, also known as pi day. people around the world celebrate the never-ending number pi. you got to be into math for this thing. fast food restaurants are giving out discounts from pizzas to pies. this was the line outside blaze pizzas in san jose. pizzas for $3.14. pi day, jeff, is actually rooted in the bay area. physicist larry shaw is credited with founding the first ever pi

day in 1988. today the museum celebrated its 36th pi day with games and lectures all about the number pi. it's that never-ending loop. >> man, i'd like to be in that never-ending loop with that pizza for $3.14. i am there. that sounds good. thankfully the wind is not going to be never ending here. we are going to see an end to that through the next 24 hours. i have all those details and what's ahead for the weekend in your microclimate forecast. as we roll through tomorrow morning's forecast, we still have this area of low pressure to the south. that's what's been bringing the wind today. so that hangs on through tomorrow morning. but we're going to see a change by late tomorrow night and into this weekend. that windy city is going to move off towards the east. that is going to get that wind out of here. we'll have some sun for the weekend from this area of high pressure and also some relatively warm temperatures. saturday and sunday shaping up much better for us. tomorrow morning still very

gusty, especially in the north bay. up to 39 in santa rosa. 46 napa. san francisco, 33. oakland, 33. those strong winds out of the north and the east. then through the afternoon, that wind does start to calm on down. we'll start it off blustery, 40s and 50s. then by 3:00, 4:00, and 5:00, numbers in the low 70s across the bay area. so it does look pretty fantastic once we hit the afternoon. look at this weekend. 75 on sunday. we'll hang with 70s all the way through next wednesday. so spring officially starts next tuesday. this is going to be feeling spring-like for us. >> wrapping up our winter. thank you, jeff. as we wrap up, mario lopez is just getting started with "access hollywood." >> it's all about the drama tonight as princess kate's photoshop scandal just keeping fueling the conspiracy theories about her whereabouts. we're going to show you what william had to say about his wife today. and that's not all he's got on his royal plate because both william and harry are participating in an event honoring their mother, diana, tonight. but we'll show you why it's

unlikely this will help bridge the brothers' great divide. an exclusive update from "today's" hoda kotb on what she learned from daughter hope's recent health scare as hoda also opens up about what's going on with her dating life. plus, it's been 11 years since *nsync performed live onstage, but the boys joined justin at his one night only show. we've got all that and more just moments away on "access hollywood." coming up on our 11:00 newscast, thousands of women are suing uber, claiming the rideshare company didn't do enough to prevent sexual assaults by the drivers. now many of them are being forced to wait years for any sort of resolution. that story coming up on our 11:00 news. that's going to do it for us here at

tonight on "access hollywood" -- >> ian's choice, which i respect and understand. he didn't want to be here anymore. >> regina king opens