by training exercise by the sheriff's department. also could scott peterson get a new trial? the answer may hinge on dna testing. we have the update from san mateo county, plus former president trump's hush money trial. now in the hands of the jury, will the verdict have any impact on the election? and san

jose is facing a $52 million shortfall. so what's on the chopping block? we're eliminating vacant roles, but that doesn't mean job cuts. that doesn't mean layoffs. mayor mehan, in studio with us. good evening. this is nbc bay area news tonight. i'm raj mathai. could the bart extension to downtown san jose be derailed? we're going to get to mayor matt mahan in just a few minutes. but we start with scott peterson. the 51 year old convicted murderer wants a new trial. the l.a. branch of the innocence project is fighting to get his murder conviction overturned. this all hinges on new dna testing. today, though, a major setback for peterson and his attorneys. his legal team was back in a san mateo county courtroom in redwood city. peterson joined. you see there this hearing virtually from mule creek state prison in amador county. his attorneys argued

that they should be able to test 14 pieces of evidence, including a mattress found inside a burned out orange van near the peterson's home in modesto. it was found the day after laci disappeared. that was his wife, and the defense claims it may contain blood evidence pointing to another killer. prosecutors argued the evidence had already been tested and nothing was found. in all of my years, i have never had to litigate a dna motion to this extent because dna is just an brainer. it's very concerning that they are so vehemently opposing dna testing. in this case, the trial judge has ruled on this particular evidence. so it is law of the case. in this particular case, we don't get to overturn it. we don't get to go back and rehash it because this defense team could do it a different late today, the judge ruled the defense could only retest one of those 14 items a piece of duct tape found with lacey's body.

both sides are set to return to court on july 15th. peterson, by the way, was convicted 20 years ago for the murder of his wife, laci, and their unborn child, conner, another bay area city, is signing up for license plate readers. mountain view has voted to install them in order to try and catch criminals. a total of 24 cameras will go up throughout the city of mountain view. officers say the readers will capture a still image of the back of each car that drives by, and will then compare the license plates to a law enforcement database to see if that car is connected to any crime. the city council also decided it will review this program after a year and decide whether to continue to use it. moving forward. other cities, including san francisco, san jose and oakland have recently announced they too will be installing license plate readers. well, it is starting to feel like summer warm today and even warmer tomorrow. this is a live camera now in walnut creek where it should hit the 90s. we

believe on thursday. let's bring in our chief meteorologist, jeff ranieri. jeff, what are you seeing? well, some of that early summerlike sizzle back in the forecast. as we head through tomorrow. let's take a look at those temperatures. we had today. well above the averages. we got to 89 in santa rosa. the average 78 also up to 88 in concord livermore right there at 86 now wasn't good enough for widespread records, but now with the official numbers coming in, we actually did tie a record in santa rosa reaching that 89, so again, tying it that old record, back in 2002. so as we head through tomorrow, high pressure keeps the storm track well off to the north and allows all this warm air to move in from the desert southwest. so we're going to start it off in the morning, 50s and 60s. then as we head through the noon hour, some high clouds move in. tomorrow will be up to 87 by 2 p.m. and then some low 90s on the way through our inland valleys. once we hit that afternoon. now not going to be nearly as hot at the coastline. we still have that ocean breeze with 50s and 60s. i'm back with

a full look at that forecast, plus severe weather hitting the nation. those updates again later on in the show. jeff, we'll see you shortly. here's a bizarre story now on the peninsula elementary school students getting violently ill after a nearby training exercise tonight, there are questions about exactly what they were exposed to. that training exercise happened at the san francisco sheriff's department jail property in san bruno. this happened on may 22nd. the training involved testing a number of chemicals used in tear gas and pepper spray. now, some of the fumes apparently made their way to the campus of portola elementary school. about 20 kids reported burning sensations in their nose and throats as reports started to roll in. that drill by the sheriff's department was called off. parents we spoke with didn't want to be on camera, but some say their kids were sick for days afterwards, she continued to have like coughing, lung inflammation and nasal inflammation. we took her to her doctor, pediatric doctor, who

confirmed that these are symptoms of tear gas exposure. that's pretty remarkable. tear gas exposure for kids. nbc's robert honda is on this story for us. first and foremost, robert, this happened a week ago. are those kids okay now or are they still dealing with some of the residual effects? yeah, they might be, still dealing with some of the residual effects. but the parents that i talked to, including the one that you just heard from, said that most of the real violent symptoms happened almost like 24 hours after the exposure. at first, it did seem like minor irritation, but then it just got worse and worse and pretty much everyone said that it included vomiting and you heard that the one parent said that. the doctor said that those were symptoms of tear gas exposure and also told her that the relative light body weight and the youth, of the people involved really made the tear gas exposure much more heightened. so even though a lot of people, including us who have

been in stories where we got, exposed to tear gas, we know that almost debilitating effect it can have, but on a child, much more so. yeah, nothing minor about tear gas and pepper spray. what do we know exactly about the chemicals, though, used in that training drill? have we have they talked about it. oh, they talked about it. generally speaking, what it was was a training drill so that officers from multiple agencies could get used to not only dealing with pepper spray and tear gas, but also knowing how to, like, dispose of it and do other things with it. so generally speaking, the training drill was all about those chemicals and so they broke it down into the chemicals that are involved in tear gas and pepper spray. i'm not really a good scientist to be able to repeat the names of those, but generally speaking, those were the compounds that they were talking about. generally the ones that law enforcement do have on them and ready to use, you know, whenever they need to. and, but they don't always get a chance to use them very often.

and so that's what this training was for. basically tear gas, pepper spray and chemicals that they use in on the job. yeah. final question for you here. i mean just a common sense approach here doing those training. obviously that's very important for the sheriff's department. any sheriff's department. but how far away was that? elementary school, portola elementary, from where they were doing the training. is it just a block or is it like a couple of miles down the road? it's interesting because i was there and i actually fronted my story that we ran at 6:00 from that san bruno jail facility. and even though at the time i said it was less than half a mile, specifically, it's about a third of a mile. and so it's a very it's not a very long distance. however the jail facility is up in the hills. and so you can't really even see the school from there and probably gives you the feeling that the distance is more than it was. i should have asked jeff about some of the wind patterns, because it seems to me that being how elevated that the facility was, i could

see where those kind of fumes would be able to get down to the school. i should point out that the sheriff's department said they've done these kind of drills for about 20 years, and this is the first time that this kind of thing has happened. okay, just some bad luck. there for both sides. robert honda, appreciate the reporting. keep us posted if there's any update to this story from portola elementary in san bruno, let's move on. now get to that big national story. the hush money trial for former president donald trump. here's the million dollar question. will the verdict have any impact on the upcoming election? this trial is now in the hands of the jury. the former president is facing 34 felony counts. he's accused of falsifying business records in connection with the hush money payment made toward former star stormy daniels. this case went to jury yesterday. today, those 12 new york jurors spent about 4.5 hours deliberating. they asked the judge a series of questions and went home without a verdict. they'll be back at it tomorrow morning, 6:30 a.m. our time. the former president has

pled not guilty to all the charges as they don't know what the crime is. that's what the problem is. it's a disgrace. this thing ought to be ended immediately. the judge ought to ended. so what happens when we get that verdict? guilty or innocent? joining us now is our political analyst, larry gerston , larry, we mentioned this million dollar question. do voters care here about this trial or even the verdict? yeah, they do. raj about 55% of the voters have actually paid close attention to what's going on as to how they feel about this election. is trump guilty? innocent? poll taken just about a week ago shows look, 56% say he's definitely or probably guilty, 44% say definitely not or probably not. so it's about a54 margin now. now bear in mind five four is pretty close and in equally important here is the fact that opinions can change. you know, as well as i do that that public opinion polls are snapshots in time. and if a week or 2 or 3 down the road, it

could be a lot different. but the fact is, for the moment, a majority thinks that trump is guilty. okay, let's fast forward. meaning we could fast forward just literally to tomorrow when that jury could announce the verdict here. if president trump is found guilty of any of the charges, will that sway voters? someone thinking, okay, i'm on the fence, and now i will not vote for him because of whatever the verdict is. now you're getting somewhere. look, if he's found innocent, take the other question first. there seems to be no real big change. everybody goes the way they were going to go. if he's found guilty, about three fourths of the voters say they'll vote the same way. but about a quarter. there you have it. 24% say they're likely to vote against him. now, who are these people? that 24? well, close to half, 11% or so are are, republicans. excuse me? 10% of republicans, 11% are independents. those folks could move. they say they are likely to move. now you say, well, what's a quarter? they're not really much. but the fact is, we know in so many states, 20,000, 30,000 votes make the

difference. so in these states that could make a difference. although again, we have to wait and see how it all settles out in the end. yeah, the margins are very thin. final question for you. if he is guilty on any of these charges, what happens? is there jail time? is he on probation? house arrest? what are the options here? okay, if he's guilty, the judge will then have the option of a number of things. he could in fact sentence the president to up to four years. the former president said up to four years, he could give the president former president again, a probation, there are a number of things he could sentence the former president to house arrest for a certain amount of time. most people believe that if it's found guilty, former president trump will not go to prison per se. but there could be a slap on the wrist. and it would be, of course, the first time already we've seen the first time a former president has gone to trial. it could be the first time a president is guilty and it would be history in the making. raj will all be part of it. we could get that verdict as early as tomorrow morning. larry gerston. thank you. have a good

evening. up next, will bart ever reach downtown san jose? we're talking to mayor matt mahan about this project, the billion dollar ballooning project and a mountain lion spotted in the south bay just going through some backyards. we'll tell you where and what's coming next.

san jose is facing a $52 million budget shortfall. that usually

means deep budget cuts and or layoffs. next week, we'll get some answers about the budget cuts. mayor matt mahan will unveil his solution for the deficit. he'll make the budget public on monday, then the city council will vote on it the following week. joining us now is the mayor of san jose, matt mahan mayor mehan, nice to have you back in studio. okay. this is what you said. this is your busy time. this is where you earn your money this saturday, state of the city. and then soon after that is the budget. let's start with the budget. i believe it's a $52 million shortfall for the city of san jose. i would imagine from the outside looking in, there's got to be some job cuts out there that you're going to have to make some tough calls on. actually, we think we're going to be able to avoid layoffs in this budget cycle. what's driving the shortfall this year is, is our need to comply with the clean water act. we have, as you know, thousands of people who are homeless living along our waterways. we need to get people back from the channel and prevent trash and bio waste from going into our

waterways and flowing out to the bay. as we do that, we can't simply send people into the neighborhoods. we need to create basic, dignified shelter. i'm talking about safe sleeping sites, safe parking, prefabricated, modular or tiny homes on government owned land, converted motels and all of the above approach to create safe places where people can go as we clear them out of our waterways so if we're if i'm watching, i'm a city employee. you think my job is safe? i do. you know, the way we're balancing the budget is we're using our homelessness and affordable housing dollars more flexibly to meet the urgent need on our streets. and we're eliminating vacant roles. but that doesn't mean job cuts. that doesn't mean layoffs or cutting existing jobs. it means is not expanding our workforce at a time when we simply can't afford to. we had a guy on the program last night. i don't know if you saw, but he was a downtown business owner, said one of the latest reports was san jose's downtown office vacancies. about 36% vacant right now. what are you doing specifically,

tangibly, to get people back in there, whether it's nightclubs and restaurants or companies? you know, when you look at our downtown, it's really a tale of two downtowns. you mentioned the office vacancy rates. our foot traffic during the week is back to about 85% of pre-pandemic levels. so there's no doubt we've taken a hit on that front nights and weekends. however, totally different story. we're at 120% of pre-pandemic levels, so you're seeing social numbers there. in terms of people, it's all about the experience economy. it's creating an environment in which people want to spend time, go out to dinner, an arts or culture performance, a music festival holiday season was incredibly busy. for us. it's about creating an environment that's fun, that's safe, where there are things going on as we do that, i'm confident that the office environment will turn around. but you know, we don't have control over who signs leases. what we can do is create an environment that's safe, clean, vibrant, where people want to spend time. okay, here's something that's kind of a long, slow burn. i grew up in the bay

area in the south bay. we've been talking about this since i was a kid. even when i was a young adult. mayor tom mchenry was talking about bart to san jose. this is not something that this is something you inherited. so this is not on you, but at what point do you say, you know what? it's just costing too much money. and at what point do you say we're going to keep moving forward? with that said, before you answer, let me tell you what mayor mchenry said just a couple of weeks ago when we talked to him. take a listen. the other day, nassau came out and their latest mission to mars is going to cost $11 billion. i said to somebody with another billion, they could get the berryessa. okay, the mayor with a little tongue in cheek, but talking about the rising costs here. but that is an issue, especially something that's fiscally responsible, like you campaigned on. how much is too much to spend on this? well, we're going to get the answer to that question this year. this is the critical year we're in the new starts program. the federal government is evaluating the project that they are going to tell us before the end of this calendar year how much money they're willing to commit. we've already completed our portion of the local funding. when we hear back from the federal government

and understand what they think the project is worth and how much they're willing to invest, we'll decide if the scope is correct or not. we've got a complete design. we have environmental clearance. as you said, i've inherited a vision that's 30 some years in the making. let's see what the federal government says. let's see what they're willing to invest in connecting rail around the bay. this is not the kind of investment you make for a 20 or 30 year time frame. you make it intergenerationally. this is something that could benefit generations four or 5 or 6 from now. and we need to know what the federal government's commitment is if they're all in on the project. i say we get going and get it done. if they're not, we're going to have to step back and re rethink the scope of this project. one last question. you got the state of the city this saturday morning. usually i will say it's somewhat of a boring situation with all the mayors. but you're turning it around a bit right. yeah we're doing a little bit differently. we'll be out at happy hollow, which is our park and zoo. it's at my kids dragged me there almost every weekend. we'll be doing a short speech and recognizing some of our

community heroes. but the state of the city, this year is centered on service. we have nine service projects, from painting and planting trees to taking litter and trash out of the creek, to beautifying our japanese friendship garden and vietnamese heritage garden, we'll have hundreds of people out rolling up their sleeves, working side by side. and as we head into a tough budget vote, this is a moment for everyone in our community and all of the council members to recognize that we have common values and common goals for our city, and that by working together, we can ensure a brighter future for our kids and grandkids. so that's really what this is meant to symbolize, and i'm excited to get to work with some of our fellow residents saturday morning. happy hollow saturday morning, 9 a.m. happy hollow. everybody's welcome. you can rsvp on any of my social media channels. thanks for coming in. thanks for having me. let's move on now. some rattled nerves after things got wild in the south bay today. a mountain lion roaming in milpitas right there in this neighborhood. security camera video shows that mountain lion strolling along a patio of

a mobile home park early this morning. hi fi says his security camera caught the big cat hanging out right next to his home. in fact, at one point, video shows the animal leaping onto a shed and right in front of the camera. he's not worried about his mom safety. yes, i talked to my mom. don't go outside to do something he she will do. water the plant. i'm shocked. yeah, because you might see coyote, right? but not mountain lion mountain lion is a big deal. around 4 a.m, another security camera, a couple of miles away captured what could be the same mountain lion scaling a fence. police used a police used a drone with heat seeking technology to try to find the animal. but they never did. state fish and wildlife says if you do encounter a big cat mountain lion, do not run. instead put your hands up to make yourself look as big as possible and make a lot of noise. let's take you outside

now. a live look at our camera, looking at the golden gate bridge. no fog. that means it's warm. a lot warmer tn usual. jeff isha

beach to get the surf and the surfers and the sunshine. we know it's a warm weather trend. looking good out there. jeff ranieri waves look pretty good too and we got heat in san francisco as well. yeah, we got

up into the 70s. so that's just, you know, really comfortable out there across downtown. i think the immediate beaches through tomorrow still going to be on the cool side. but we are expecting sunshine, which is going to make a really nice if you're headed out over the next couple of hours. we're still hanging on to 83 in santa rosa, 77 in napa and 82 in concord. let me show you more on that forecast for tomorrow. and here it is high pressure sitting over the west. that's what's helping to bring in the heat. so we're locked in for this pattern for one more day. and then we'll talk about a few more changes coming in a ten day forecast here in a second. but we're going to start it off with temperatures in the 50s. and by the afternoon. here we go 90s coming your way. santa rosa napa concord and livermore. we'll be up to 87 in san jose, 86 in palo alto and 73 in san francisco. so one day event on that for us. we drop it down to some low 80s this weekend, then up to 95 by wednesday. drop it back down again for the following weekend if you're doing any traveling.

dallas more strong storms, severe weather tomorrow, so watch out for that on the 7-day forecast. here we go. low 80s this weekend, i think a little bit of the sizzle isn't too bad. we at least get those 90s out of here pretty qcklyit's been a while. thank you. jeff. coming up tonight in prime time, it's chicago night, chicago med at eight, chicago fire at nine, and chicago pd at 10:00. and then we're back with our 11:00 news live and local. that's going to do it for us here at 7:00, for everyone here at nbc bay area, including our community relations manager, liza catalan. thanks for joining us. we hope you enjoy your evening. we hope to see you back at 11.

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