>> building a better bay area. moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. >> you're watching getting answers live on abc 7, hula live and wherever you stream. we ask experts questions every day at 3:00 to get answers for you in real time. we'll dig into the governor's plan that is based on the texas abortion law. is he making a political statement or playing legal chess with the supreme court. also, we'll bringing on a college admissions expert to answer all of your questions as we reach that most stressful time of year to finalize and submit college applications. if you know a high school senior or a transfer applicant, make sure they're watching. we'll talk about the breaking

news impacting the entire state, an indoor mask mandate will be back in effect starting this wednesday through january 15 because of a spike in cases since thanksgiving. much more on that with the doctor in a moment. first, a serious winter storm is here. the weather is our top story, let's bring in spencer christian, how is it looking spencer? spencer: it's a stormy day and remains a stormy day. you can see where the most intense of storminess is right now we've got areas with waves of heavy downpours with little breaks in-between today. the entire bay area is wet, the heaviest activity is along the line that you can see reaching from fairfield southwest ward through the oakland area across the bay and other area, another wave of storms moving through the north bay right now. so we've got periods of heavy rain, what's left of this current storm, i shouldn't say what is left of it, our current

storm ranks three on the storm impact scale. that's a storm of strong intensity until 6:00 p.m., we expect more periods of heavy rain, strong gusty wind. storms could develop during this time period. after 6:00 p.m., it will be a significant storm but will downgrade to a level two storm, 6:00 p.m. this evening and 2:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, light to moderate showers, colder, less rain than right now and snow in the higher elevations mixing in with the rain. it's a stormy evening compute for sure. wind advisory remains in effect until 4:00 p.m. for almost of the bay area. wind gusts could reach 55 miles per hour crossing bridges will be very challenging with wind gusts like that, down trees and power lines are a possibility in these conditions. in the sierra, heavy snow is falling with this storm and continues to fall tonight and

tomorrow, until tomorrow evening at 10:00 p.m., this winter storm warning remains in effect for the sierra, we expect at elevations above 3,500 feet, three to five feet of heavy snow. in the higher peaks, six to eight feet of snow could fall in the sierra. emergency travel only will be allowed. back here in the bay area, our storm concerns today are very high for urban and road flooding, moderate concerns for small stream flooding, debris flow and mudslides, moderate concern for downed trees on power lines. a stormy evening before things start to settle down. kristen: and so dangerous, spencer, thanks so much, you'll have more for us on abc 7 eyewitness news at 4:00. breaking news, get your masks and don't put them away. california's health and human services secretary just announced major news, universal indoor mask wearing will be required across the state for

one month beginning this wednesday, the 15th and ending january 15. joining us right now to talk about this is our special correspondent, doctor, thanks for joining us. >> thank you and when i saw you flash that mask kristen, i tried to find one to match you, i couldn't find one on my table. >> increasing covid cases in making this declaration of the indoor mask coming become for at least one month. tell us, is the increase actually dramatic in the state of california? >> the increase, kristen, if you look at the actual number, what was cited, what i just saw is going from 9 per 100,000 to 14 out of 100,000. that is not a huge increase, we don't how widespread omicron could be and what the trajectory would be like and how many more people could be infected. the preliminary data is actually

reassuring, it's more contagious, so far it is not causing more interior disease. some of the lab studies are showing that our vaccines may be weaker against omnibus caron than delta. kristen: a lot of unknowns, i get it. that is part of what is driving this. is this really about us like here in the bay area or? really targeting the counties, right, that are not going to have a lot of universal mask wearing that don't have such rules that don't have high vaccination rates and higher case rates? >> kristen, it feels to some that certain counties are being punished for the actions of others. it's important that we approach this in two ways. we look at this as saying we're one unified state and country. it hasn't felt that way during the pandemic, that's how it's being approached. it's also important, a little bit more transparency about the decisions. when we see an announcement saying there is a masked mandate, i'm worried it is sending sixed signals, hey, the

vaccine doesn't work, the breakthrough case. hospitalizations and severe disease is what we're going after. those are actually increasing. those could be lagging two weeks after the rising positive cases. i think there needs to be a little bit more transparency into what went into the decision and why it's showing up in new york city and california. kristen: aren't doctors starting to say let's make toll decisions based on hospitalizations and not cases, right, and especially because many cases are mild, it seems like omicron is leading to more contagion but not necessarily more potency? >> absolutely. i wouldn't say starting, kristen, we have been saying that, you and i have talked about this for about a year now and you look at testing positive for sarscov2, it doesn't matter what variant it is. they're testing positive and that's transforming into covid-19. these lab studies that showed there is a drop in and body level, the real world data does

still show that the two-dose vaccine series is very good at preventing severe illness and death against the omicron variant and the three dose are holding up beautifully. the bottom line is even though this headline says mask mandates are coming into play, i hope there is more data. i hope there an off ramp point and people realize that the vaccines are incredibly effective. kristen: yes or no, does this surprise you? >> yes, this does surprise me. the headline coming out without the explanation does surprise me. i understand that we have fallen behind the other variant last summer, delta showed up and cancel all of your fall plans. i understand where this is coming from. i would have been less surprised if had there was more a tiered approach and explanation. i want to remind people, if you see a headline talking about an omicron death, don't be alarmed.

we are losing 1,000 americans every day to delta. it's the biggest threat right now. kristen: does this supersede county rules, it does, right? >> from what i understand it does. i think this is going to get tricky in terms of what the rules are going to look like but enreinforcement i saw the rules about 1,000 person super event, if you're unvaccinated, you have to show prove of a antigen or pcr test in a 72-hour window. that i totally agree with, i can't make an assessment about whether you're positive. in terms of flying back to california and getting tested in three to five days, is that on the honor system or enforced, i'm not really sure. it's important that we're sending a message and say we need to finally get on top of this so that we can be in a good place and hopefully these restrictions can be lifted on january 15. >> just to flare if i for our viewers, yes, it does supersede county rules, if you live in solano county which doesn't have an indoor mask mandate, you have

to wear it while grocery shopping or movie theaters or marin county, you would have to put them back on and in san francisco, of course, it was like dropped unless, in places where you can ascertain everybody is vaccinated. >> it's so phone confusing. kristen: it is. right now, december 15 through january 15, indoor mask mandate is back in california. doctor, based on this and based on what drove this, the fact that cases up 47% since thanksgiving, how should we adjust our holiday plans if at all? >> i don't think we need to really adjust our holiday plans as long as we're doing what we talked before. paying attention to where you're traveling, what vaccination rates and community spread looks like and having a very open conversation with people in your family and making sure that people around you are vaccinated and for whatever reason, if someone isn't, making sure that they are, they've gotten a test, that they're negative also. any event that you hold this holiday season could turn into a super spreader event to some degree. i think that's an important

thing that people should be paying attention to this holiday season. kristen: doctor, thank you so much for joining us talking about the breaking news saying that californians will once again wear masks indoors universally from december 15 to january 15. >> if it keeps schools and businesses open, keep the masks instead. kristen: thank you so much, doctor, see you again later, take care. coming up next, we'll get into the governor's plan to crack down on guns

kristen: welcome back. we are in the height of the stressful pressure-filled college application season, early decisions are coming out this week and next and the

students applying under regular decision have only about three weeks to get everything down. if you have a high school senior and have questions, we have the expert for you today. we have the dean of college voicing at the jewish community high school of the bay in san francisco, lauren cook, lauren, thanks for making the time. i know you have so many students needing your help about now, appreciate it. we're jumping into it. do signs point to record applications at college? >> it is possible. data is trickling out right now. we have gotten a couple of heads up and emails from early colleges that releases decisions last week that numbers seem to be up. i think it's too early to say that's a major trend, but i don't think they're going to be down this year, if anything, they might stay in kind of a plateaued range. kristen: so acceptance rates will remain pretty tough and that causes more stress. early decisions, of course, coming in right now, regular just around the corner, that's

when most people apply. look, for anyone who is not bound to a college after this early round, what should they be doing in the next three weeks that they have to find the right mix of colleges to apply to and to improve their chances, what can they do? lauren: yeah, if they have already applied to some places, it might be time to return to their application to see if there is any updating to be done to their activities, if something has happened this fall with winning an award or leadership position, some new research just to make sure that everything is up to date as possible, to be continuing to work on their senior grades, i think there is often this misconception or sort of wishful thinking amongst a lot of seniors, by the time you hit this year, you are sort of done with your schoolwork. every college is going to ask for a mid-year to kind of see what is happening with grades in senior year, and homework. if you are looking for a few colleges to add to your list, i

really like a search engine that is on the college board website called big future. there is a great guidebook called the guide to colleges, it's actually a book that is the size of a telephone book that describes colleges in a very sort of neutral third party way. it's not the sales job you might get from the colleges themselves and to talk to friends and family members and your college counselor if you have one. kristen: as i understand, 99% of colleges are test optional, if students have the choi, how should they decide to send in their test scores or not? lauren: excel lent question, there is a lot of dpat on college websites, on other resources online, i would always go and look to see what the average admitted student test score is from previous classes, as well as the range of kind of the middle 50%, so the kids that are somewhere between the 25th to 75th percentile of admitte am

students. if you fall within that range, i lean towards submitting it, there are students that don't have test scores within this moment. if you are falling to who they have admitted in the pennsylvania, it will give you an extra data point that some other student might not have, it would making sense not to submit it. i would, with a caveat, not look real closely at 2020 data, that is very skewed. so many students that couldn't test that year, especially from the state of california, go back to 2019, 2018 data and really try and make some decisions from there and talk to your college counselor if you have one who are great at trying to spitball what to do in these areas. kristen: most elite schools are looking for kids with a standout narrative. what questions should kids ask themselves when deciding what to highlight about themselves? lauren: yeah, if there is a major that you have indicated you're interested in and you

have done things sort of building your narrative towards your interest in that major, highlight those, internships, research, if you did a community college class, especially during the pandemic summer, i know a lot of students went into online classes at the local community college to still fill their time, to talk about those and how you built that story. then i also think colleges are really, i saw this especially last year, very aware of the current civil rights environment in the country and especially post-george floyd protests last summer, more questions were being asked last year on applications, i'm assuming that's holding true this year as well around identity, community, equity, they're really pushing students to reflect on those things and talk about how they might show up on a college campus as a roommate and a classmate and all of the rest and are they aware of all of these issues and able to talk about them and what they might contribute to the environment. kristen: we have to talk about

money. college is expensive. when should kids fly for financial aid, merit scholarships, wait until they are accepted or start now? lauren: no, start now. if anyone applied anywhere early action or decision, they likely already had financial aid deadlines to submit materials. for regular decision deadlines, they might have dates printed of february 1 or march 1 for the deadline for paperwork, but i would say the earlier you can get it in, the better, especially with public institutions and the fasa with a lot of institutions it's a first come first serve basis for financial aid, so the earlier and further along you can get in line, the better. and then in terms of merit aid, there is a lot of different resources to look at online. i would just caution students to try and find things to apply for that are going to be in larger amounts. applying for a bunch of $500

scholarships might be spinning your wheels a little bit in terms of the time. look for awards that are for more specific populations. there is a coca cola award, millions of kids can apply for that. if there is an award for kids in marin county for lacrosse players, for jewish students, for kids at my school, that's going to narrow the competition, right. so look for things that are sort of specific to populations that might relate to you. keep in mind, ■go ahead. kristen: so much, we can do a whole show. we're out of time for today. i'm going to end with the advice that you wanted to give, submit a couple days in advance, don't wait until the last day, the portal could crash, we saw it with u.c. this year. lauren, really appreciate your insight. lauren: thanks so much. kristen: take care. we'll look at governor newsom's we'll look at governor newsom's plan to crack when a truck hit my car, we'll look at governor newsom's plan to crack the insurance company wasn't fair. i didn't know what my case was worth.

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kristen: governor gavin newsom is taking the supreme court ruling on the strict abortion ban in texas and using that as a model for a nubile to crack down on guns in california. he is directing his staff to work with lawmakers and the attorney general that would let californians sue anyone who manufacturers, districts or sells an salt weapon or ghost gun here in california. joining us is jessica levinson, a professor a loyola law school and host of the passing judgment podcast. thank you so much for joining us, professor levinson. >> thank you for having me, sorry about the background. kristen: please explain to us what the governor is envisioning here that any californian like you or me, we can sue for damages up to $10,000 even if we're not personally harmed or related to anyone that is harmed by an assault weapon? >> exactly, the governor looked at the supreme court decision coming out of texas. the supreme court basically gave

a road map for states who want to pass laws that might be either unconstitutional or constitutionally questionable and said to states, ok, if you want to pass those laws, you can insulate them from judicial review and governor newsom read that, i don't agree with that, if we can now pass laws that will insulate us from judicial review which really means it will be very, very difficult for a federal court to stop these laws before they go into effect and/or to prevent those laws from continuing to be in effect, he said then i want to enshrine protection against assault weapons and these ghost gun permits. now, it is important to remember that these are actually part of our current penal code, but what would change to your question is that instead of the straighten forcing those laws, it would be a private individual, it could be you or her we don't know what

the amount would be, we don't know if it would be 10,000 like the texas abortion law, it will insulate states from federal judicial review. kristen: who has standing, the fact that anybody can sue is so potent and powerful compared to just the state having to enforce the law, but just saying, hey, anyone can sue. >> it's a great, great question, because by saying that it's going to be a private individual who can sue to enforce the law, then it's not clear who can be sued to try and stop the law. that's what's going on in texas. really all of the arguments in texas yesterday and the supreme court, excuse me, last week in the supreme court were about who can be sued to stop this law from going into effect or who can be sued to stop this law from continuing in effect. when you have a private individual, not the state, who is enforcing it, then it's not clear that there is any person that you can haul into federal

court to say, look, you need to stop enforcement of this law and that's why we say it's insulated from judicial review. it means that we don't know who to sue in federal court. kristen: and the impact in texas has already been that providers who are scared not knowing who can sue them or who they can go challenge, they've kind of stopped doing what they do and so i don't know if governor newsom is trying to achieve that here. what needs to happen, he needs to get a bill written, the legislature has to pass something, of course, there are court challenges. do you think the governor wants a challenge up to the supreme court to force the court to either strike down texas or stay consistent and then give california essentially this new way to try to get a handle on assault weapons? >> absolutely. so i think that for governor newsom if he wins in the supreme court, then he can say, look, i was first in the nation, i was the first person to take this road map that the supreme court

talked about in the texas case and to try and protect us against salt weapons and ghost gun kits. if he loses before the supreme court, i think it's still a political win because he can say, again, i was first in the nation, i tried to protect you and i was thwarted by a conservative supreme court, the most conservative court we have had in maybe a century. for governor newsom it's a win either way if it goes before the supreme court. kristen: but regardless whether it's a political win for him, do you see a flood states, red states or blue states just passing bills to invalidate any supreme court decision they don't like and if that flood gate is opened, is that a good or bad thing? >> so maybe. i think that other states depending on what happens in california, depending if they have the appetite for it could say, ok, we want to pass a law with respect to free speech, freedom of religion, these are all of the things we were

talking about when we talked about the texas case, if a court really wants to say we can't review these laws, it's not just going to be about abortion. now i tend to think, though, that once one of these laws gets to the supreme court, the court will say, we only meant that with respect to abortion, not respect to gun control and there are differences in those two, but i think this conservative court won't allow governor newsom's plan to stand and that could limit how many states want it try this tact. we don't know. kristen: on that note, we have

and thanks for joining us on this interactive show getting

answers, the big headline, statewide mask mandate for all indoor settings starting wednesday through january 15. much more tonight, a special edition of "world news tonight". authorities here on the ground have now confirmed, this is the deadliest tornado outbreak in more than a decade here in the u.s. tonight, they are still not giving up hope. rescuers digging through debris, looking for any signs of life. the devastation stretching for miles. authorities still reaching towns and communities destroyed. more than 80 americans killed in these tornadoes. many still missing tonight. deadly twisters hitting here in kentucky, arkansas, illinois, missouri and tennessee. at least eight dead at the mayfield candle factory. several others not accounted for. tonight, for the first time, we hear from a survivor trapped at the very bottom of that twisted steel, describing the screams,

the cries for