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tv   ABC7 News 500PM  ABC  March 2, 2015 5:00pm-5:31pm PST

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increase in incidents compared with the same period last year. >> we did not anticipate that we would have more people hitting the par years than we did in the past. in fact, not sure that's actually the case. >> reporter: bridge manager carrie witt blames drivers going excess of 25 miles an hour through openings designed in a day when people stopped to pay tolls. despite these barrier overlaps the district insists lane widths remain the same at their narrowest points. >> it is narrower right in the middle where you used to stop and pay your toll. still. >> still? >> doesn't look that way though. >> it is that way. >> reporter: the district describes the new par years as not complying with the federal highway guidelines. they have also cost the bridge $187,000 for repairs in less than three months. no price on safety the district told us. >> it comes to the potential for loss of life or serious injury in a head-on collision with a
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fixed concrete block perpendicular to the direction of travel, there really aren't tradeoffs. went for the safest system we could get. >> reporter: safer and more expensive on both sides of a collision. from the dpg bridge wayne freedman abc7 news. pockets of rain hit throughout the bay area today. check out this surprisingly heavy downpour outside san jose's city hall. very few people had umbrellas when the rain fell around lunch time. abc7 news reporter david louie was one of those stuck in the down pour. he tweeted this video. and check out the gray skies in hayward as rain started to fall late today. sky 7 hd shows the wet roads around 3:30 this afternoon. check out a wet commute on the san mateo bridge, the rain covering up the lens on our bridge camera. abc7 news meteorologist is here now with live doppler 7 hd. hi, drew. >> hi, al match showers popped up across the region today came down in buckets, not everyone is
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seeing the rain at this hour. live doppler 7 hd show you the activity is diminishing in and staying in the east bay 680 danville livermore, north of fremont. light showers at this hour. plan your evening the next couple of hours those showers are going to exit around 7:00. we are in store for a cool evening and mainly clear skies will prevail nearing the midnight hour much once this rain moves out, now tracking mild air moving in, we will have the warm numbers the fall accuweather seven-day forecast in just a few minutes. >> okay, drew, thanks very much. terrible story to report. four people remain in the hospital following a deadly head-on collision last night in santa cruz county. a mercedes sedan ran into a pickup truck on freedom boulevard. four people in the mercedes ages 16 through 22 were killed. three others in the car suffered life-threatening injuries. none were wearing seat belts. chp believes alcohol was involved. the driver of the pickup truck was injured but expected to
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survive. a bicyclist being treated for life-threatening injuries as well after being hit by a car in san francisco intersection. the crash happened around 12:30 this afternoon at 14th and fulsom street. the man on the bicycle didn't stand a chance witnesses say. the driver ran a red light at a high rate of speed. >> no problem. responsible person the white car. cruising red light. >> a police officer performed cpr on the bicyclist until paramedics arrived. he is being treated at san francisco general hospital. mean time, san mateo county authorities investigating the death of another bicyclist this one in belmont. reports say the cyclist was riding down hill, lost control and crashed into the center divider at ralston avenue and cipriani boulevard. he was wearing a helmet but the impact was just terrible. he was pronounced dead scene. no other vehicles were involved. sky 7 hd over the scene between richmond and berkeley this afternoon where an amtrak
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train hit a pedestrian. authorities salt person was trespassing. the train had left sparks, nevada, this morning, bound for san jose. other traipse on the capital corridor are experiencing delays as a result. the state supreme court today rejected a blanket ban on where sex off benders can live. justices say california's voter-approved jessica's law violates offender's rights, specifically prohibiting them living within 2,000 tweet of a school or a park. this decision immediately impacts san diego county but will almost certainly apply to the bay area as well. abc7 news reporter vic lee is in the newsroom now with more on this decision and its ramifications, vick. >> reporter: in this ruling the court essentially agreed with a lawsuit that the residency requirements actually make it less safe for children because you're driving the sex offenders underground and that makes it more difficult to enforce other measures like megan's law which requires them to register their addresses. >> end up telling their sister
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and the sister told mom. and mom went to the police. and arrested. >> reporter: ted was arrested for molesting two of his children. we interviewed him years ago after jessica's law was passed. even then, this parolee had problems finding a police to live that wasn't 2,000 feet from a school or a park. he ended up living in a motel outside san francisco pause there was nowhere he could live in the city without violating the residency revision. he told us he probably would end up homeless. lawyer ernie gal van says that's the problem with jessica's law's residency restrictions, inmates are difficult to track them. >> what good is aing me.'slaw registry if you drive people into homelessness and so there's no address for them to register at? they might billion is not register at all. >> reporter: the california supreme court ruling impacts san diego county. the most likely will apply to other large urban counties as well. the court said such enforcement has imposed harsh and severe
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restriction and disabilities on the affected parolee's liberty and privacy rights. and it bears no rational relationship to advancing the state's legit what the goal of protecting children from sexual predators. gal van, whose firm filed the first lawsuit against jessica's law, says san diego was a perfect example. >> once the law went into effect, there were five times as many people who were paroled sex off in other words were untrackable essentially pause they were homeless. >> reporter: those we spoke to at this play ground were stunned by the court ruling. >> i think when someone's a criminal like that at some point, they have no rights. >> they are living near a school, i feel it is wrong. near the park, i feel it is very wrong. >> reporter: the attorneys we spoke to say the ruling now gives the legislature a chance to fix jessica's law and come up with a bill that can better protect children and a law that can also enable law enforcement to track offenders more
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effectively. vic lee, abc7 news. >> all right, vick, thank you. bay bridge commuters are stuck footing the bill for mistakes made by cal trans during construction of the new eastern span of the bridge. caltrans reportedly decided to scrap a drainage feature on the bridge leading to hundreds of rain water leaks that threaten to corrode the structure. the bill totals $1.4 million and counting. the project's chief engineer says plans are now in place to fix that problem. crews were back out today in san francisco's glen neighborhood to repair a pipe that sent thousands of gallons of water onto a city street yesterday. the area is mostly drying now but this is what it looked like yesterday. water came gushing out from the ground and flooded near pie san jose avenue. water got into the muni tracks and shut down the j church line for several hours. by its own research, san jose admits its streets are crumb pelling and among the worst in the bay area. it is the results of years of deferred maintenance due to
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tight budgets, but now the city is learning the price to repair city streets has doubled. abc7 news reporter david louie is live in san jose. david a city with a very big and very expensive problem. >> reporter: very much so, dan. the city auditor says the cost of repairing the city streets has doubled in the past five years and could double again to $1 billion in the next five years if something isn't done about them now. drivers say they already know it san jose streets are in the worst condition of any city in silicon valley. >> one time, i hit a bump, felt it was going to knock my bumper off or something like that. so, i think they definitely need to do something about fixing the roads. >> reporter: the roads are deteriorating blaster than they are getting if i canned. four out of ten streets in san jose got any maintenance at all in the past decade. it is estimated it will take $500 million to bring all votes up to good condition. that's the come pined budgets for the city's police and fire
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departments and for its libraries. we should be spending about $100 million a year to main taine our streets, given the age that they are at. and just the number of streets that we have. over 2,400 miles. >> reporter: budget constraint in recent years force a city to maintain only the most heavily used streets. drivers respect happy, nor will taxpayers. >> they wouldn't have to fix them if they were crumbling if they maintained them in the first place. what they are doing is they are not maintaining anything. they might just throw a patch over it, but that's not gonna last. >> reporter: the city council's transportation committee is starting to explore what to do and it by the include asking voters to raise taxes or to approve a bond measure to fix crumbling streets. council member ash kara chairs the transportation committee. >> figure out how we are going to prioritize our spending in the years to come and other avenues to get funding whether it be state or federal funds or folks lay bond measure, those are all items we are going to have to discuss.
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>> reporter: one troubling sign already, the state is projecting gas tax revenue next year will fall 20% as a result of greater fuel efficiency. cities use some of that money to help about road repairs. in san jose, david louie, abc7 news. get ready to pay more. >> 10%, 30% increase in menu prices. >> one bay area city is about to get hit. why some are cheering the move. that's coming up. plus the government versus sanford and what is fueling the state's historic drought. also ahead how the ftc is cracking down on online reviews. and don't get fooled. 7 on your side's michael finney has a warning about people posing as phony irs agents. and, what zucker persian gulf's pig speech that not everyone seemed to like. stay w
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in our house, we do just about everything online. and our old internet just wasn't cutting it. so i switched us from u-verse to xfinity. they have the fastest, most reliable internet. which is perfect for me, because i think everything should just work. works? works. works! works? works. works.
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effective today, the city of oakland has the highest minimum wage in california at $12.25 an hour. that makes for an interesting work environment in the east bay. workers here at the actual cafe on san pablo avenue now earn the new oakland wage, however, if you go in to berkeley on san pablo avenue, it is just $10 an hour. then, go a few blocks toward emeryville, it is only $9 an hour. abc7 news reporter lyanne melendez is live in oakland with a look at how this change is affecting -- >> reporter: that's right. don't count them out yet. you know berkeley will surpass oakland by the year 2016. in other words, next year. by then berkeley's minimum baseball will be up to $12.53.
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emeryville is considering increasing its minimum wage to $14.03. cab brill barns got a 35% pay hike. he was earning $9 an hour. now he makes $12.25. >> feels good you know, knowing you're getting a significant pay increase than previously. definitely feeling positive you know waking up a little less worried. >> reporter: it was what most people here wanted after 82% of voters in oakland approved the minimum wage increase. the small businesses are concerned about the impact of this hike. some had already warned clients that prices would go up in response to increasing costs. >> seeing small businesses adjusting their business bhod toll accommodate that quite a few restaurants are looking how they price their menus. >> reporter: mike murphy owns coal's coffee. first, against the dramatic increase but has since come around. >> especially the people that
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have probably have kids just got bhar rid, now they may not have two jobs. they can have one. >> reporter: for now, oakland's minimum wage is higher than san francisco's. wage there is will go up to $$12.25 an hour in may and then to $15 by july 2018. >> it will improve the quality of life everyone is getting paid more. they want to spend more invest more in their community. >> reporter: cities like emeryville and berkeley are expected to follow their lead. in oakland lyanne melendez abc7 news. a big buzz tonight among silicon valley investors as the nasdaq hits a milestone. it closed above 5,000 for only the third time with a gain of nearly 45 points. the last time the nasdaq reached this milestone informs march of 2000 with the dotcom boom and when, what zuckerberg was still in high school. more than 2500 companies make up the nasdaq, including facebook
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and dozens of silicon valley companies. facebook's mark zucker persian gulf actually gave the keynote speech at mobile world congress in barcelona today you some found it so poring, they fell asleep. zuckerberg was in barcelona to talk about internet.org facebook's effort to coordinate mobile carriers to bring the internet to the developing world. when the carrier partners started talking about the technical side of it take a look at what happened. lisa fleisher with "the wall street journal" tweeted this picture of people sleeping empty seats during zuckerberg's keynote. that is because many walked out. that's what you see here in this picture tweeted out by james cook with business insider. >> yeah. a what that bill in sacramento would prevent patients from getting surprise bills from their doctors. >> 7 on your side's mike withal finney has that story for us tonight. >> this is such a great idea. take a led off of 7 on your side. we deal with a lot of. this all the health care changes, this is a growing
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issue. you go to the hospital that's in your insurance network then suddenly, you get a huge bill for an out-of-network doctor. that happens when the hospital uses outside doctors for part of your treatment, like x-rays or blood work. pardon me. often, that work is done by a doctor you never met and you get a bill for their service. now, a proposed law would prevent those surprise bills. hospitals and insurance companies would have to work out a deal to pay for outside doctors. they could not charge patients any extra fees. the number one consumer complaint from the federal government is, once again, identity theft. the federal trade commission received more than 330,000 complaints of stolen identities last year. the number soars each time a database gets hacked. the feds also report an alarming rise in so-called imposter fraud. that's when thieves pose as someone else to get your money. the biggest scam involved con artists posing assism rs agents. we reported on this a great deal
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over the past year or some the ftc logged more than a quarter million complaints about imposter fraud just last year. is it legal to bay someone to post a glowing review of your company? the federal trade commission says not unless you come clean about it. the ftc says companies that pay for good reviews on sites like yelp must reveal that fact. otherwise, those reviews amount to false advertising. the ftc filed suit against a shipping company for using paid reviews in its promotions. the company never mentioned the payments. the first time the ftc sued on this issue but perhaps not the last. i think we are going to see a flurry of these lawsuits. >> thank you so much michael. stan ford researchers say we are to blame for creating the state's current drought but some federal scientists disagree with that the new study found global warming is creating dry and warm conditions in california contributing to a look of rain and snow.
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those stanford researchers expect those conditions to condition. but the scientists at the national oceanic and atmosphereic administration, noaa says humans are not to blame, it is a ridge of high pressure in the atmosphere, a natural weather pattern and questions the stanford researcher's methodology. what we do know, it is still bone dry. >> yeah. although we did get a little bit of rain. >> nice to see. drew is live for us outside. a little bit is right, drew. >> any little bit helps. we are talking about that high pressure, going to be building back in as we get into midweek this week and that means dry and warm weather moisture stretches down the coast, southern california. los angeles had some strong storms roll through. take a look at this picture.
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severe storms rolled through huntington beach, down to theusing the area in hail. in storm system will be going out in the next 12 hours or so. nice sunset on the way, going down at 6:04 p.m. much forecast calls for those showers ending this evening then we usher in a string of sunny days ahead and also mild to warm through the upcoming weekend. out there right now temperature-wise, comfort tab play cool, 58 in san francisco, 56 mountain view 60 fremont. right now cop cord coming in with a temperature of 60 degrees. satellite and radar, the story we are tracking, here comes that area of low pressure diving to the south, bringing those showers and thunderstorms into southern california. this moves out overnight tonight. and what replaces it is clearing skies. throughout the future weather forecast early tomorrow morning, see those clouds depart lots of sunshine on the way for your tuesday. and also a dry day.
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take a look at this. it has been a warm winter, a top warmest winter in 13 cities santa cruz, san jose, warmest winter on record. even downtown san francisco had its warmest winter on record and records go back to 1875. that's pretty monumental. take a look at the week ahead san jose specifically, average high this time of the year, 65 degrees. we are close to it tomorrow but then temperatures are off to the races. by thursday and friday in the low 70s, then over the weekend, into the mid and potentially upper 70s almost ten degrees above normal. overnight lows in the bay area, have a few clouds early on, then clearing skies, dropping to 46 in oakland, 42 san jose, cool in the north bay, 35 in napa dropping to 41 in fairfield. highs for your tuesday, lots of sunshine on the way temperatures rebounding into the 60s. 66 for oakland, 67, cop cord 65 san jose 62 san francisco.
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and getting up to 65 degrees in santa rosa. expect a lot of sunshine for a long time tomorrow. warming into thursday temperatures on the rise on friday. then kind of running out of things to say. saturday is mild to warm. we spring forward as daylight savings begins and that means 7:10 p.m. your sunset on sunday, coastal cooling for monday. even though long term dan and al mark not much in the way of wet weather. if you enjoyed the warmth and dry conditions next seven days, certainly yours. >> enjoy it, just need some rain. thanks so much. online dating. one of the biggest apps out there takes a swipe at generating revenue and one group of people is about to pay a whole lot more to use it. and selling your home is stressful enough you know that. new at 6:00 7 on your side's michael finney has the one thing you shouldn't do when you put yo
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save you fifteenifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. everybody knows that. well, did you know pinocchio was a bad motivational speaker? i look around this room and i see nothing but untapped potential. you have potential. you have...oh boy. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.
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a decision by the california supreme court is expected to make it easier to replace modest houses with mansions. justices ruled in favor of bay area software bhoegle mitchell caper. he has been trying to build a 10,000-square-2002 home in berkeley since 2010. the home includes a ten-car garage and sit on a steep hill. opponents say the house would increase the risk of land slides and require huge retaining balls. the supreme court says because a planned home is big doesn't mean it should need further environmental review. opponents may appeal. you may now want to think twice before swiping right on tinder. the popular dating app will limit how many times you can have at once -- likes you can have at once. it is part of the company's launch of its premium features. premium users won't have a limit on likes. rewind will allow users to go back and undo their last swipe. passport users can change location and browse potential matches in other cities.
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prices vary by age. sfwraens will be the center of the video game universe this week. the game developers conference got under way at moscone center. 24,000 people will be try thereto try out all sorts of futuristic games and also look back. this is a special display on honoring atari the company credited with starting the video game craze with this atari 2600 console. even game designers now say they can learn from what designers were doing 35 years ago. >> every game that came out was creating a genre of games very little you could do graphic-wise so the game play had to be the most important focus of when you were designing the games. >> it was created by the video game history museum located in frisco texas. the east bay women's conference marked the tenth anniversary with a soldñiñr outcrowd today. nearly 600 women attended the event at the marriott hotel in san ramon. i had the pleasure of emceeing
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once again debbie sterling next to me, founder and ceo of goldy blocks, an oakland toy company focused on inspiring girls tofá embrace engineering and building things. the conference helps women with strategic networking and attendees share industry resources with each other. the conference is presented by the chamber of commerce, visitor's bureau chevron and other sponsors. geena davis the keynote speaker. this is a very good day to read. >> that is funny. >> lots of joy at today's
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coming up on abc7 news at 6:00 animal control looks into a vicious pitbull attack on an east pay woman. the dog was her own pet. measuring california's snow
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pack from the sky. we are going to take you aboard the world's first airborne snow observatory. the educational startup that's using a popular video game to help inspire the inventors and game developers of tomorrow. >> those stories and more for you in half an hour on abc 7 news at 6:00. listen to this schools all over the bay area celebrated the birthday of dr. seuss with special readings of his cherished children's books today. >> in san francisco, a group of screen actors did members read and performed one of his most famous, "the cat in the hat." >> joining them was abc7 news weather anchor spencer christian, didn't mind flopping around to play the fish in the bowl. >> here is a sample of spencer's acting talent. >> the thing it is will hit do not like it not one little bit. >> oh, the stories spencer could tell. >> yeah. this is the 18th year the country has celebrated read across america. good job to everyone there.
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>> absolutely. all right. world news tonight with david muir. tonight, the deadly shooting caught on tape. five shots fired. was the man reaching for an officer's gun? authorities now pointing to the tape. you'll see the moment. the massive storm system from california to maine. 180 million americans about to get hit. will it ever end? ginger zee is here tonight. twitter takes action against isis, shutting down thousands of accounts amid threats to twitter. >> abc news. >> as our team tracks down jihadi john's family. brian ross investigates. and president clinton's official portrait. the artist who now says he painted monica lewinsky's dress right into it. and 50 years of "the sound of music." do you know what it may have been called? and who else may have played maria?

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