>> building a better bay area. moving forward, finding solutions, this is abc7 news. >> you are watching getting answers live on abc7. we are asking experts your questions every day to get answers for you in real time. today the omicron surge highlighted the inequities and extra risks facing the poor. a reporter with the san francisco standard will be joining us to show why tenants of chinatown's single occupancy hotels are begging for help. a bay area high school girl's buzzer beater from beyond half-court is gaining national attention. a basketball star, look at this shot. boom! she will be joining us live from the court where it happened. but first, rethinking the

workplace. the pandemic changed the way many of us approach our jobs and life. a southern california congressman once to enable a new normal for workers. the representative from riverside introduced the 32 hour workweek act and joins us now to talk about it. thank you for your time. a lot of people heard about this, got very excited. but your bill does not actually mandate that the workweek be 32 hours instead of 40. can you explain it? >> i think it incentivizes it significantly, but you are correct, my bill does not mandate that workers only work 32 hours, just like they are not mandated to only work 40 hours currently. my bill amends the fair labor standards act so that workers can start earning overtime pay. they would have a right to overtime pay after 32 hours

worth of work instead of the current 40 hours worth of work. >> would this apply to hourly workers, not salary workers? >> mainly hourly workers. salary workers are not counted in this calculation, although salary workers up to a certain income threshold are entitled to overcome -- to overtime pay. >> would the 32 hours have to be over four days? >> my bill does not stipulate that. that would be up to negotiation with collective bargaining in certain states, just like california does say if you work over eight hours a day you could overtime pay, but not everywhere has that worked out so that the total number of hours which equals 40 now -- my intent is that we would have eight hour

workdays. we would not have in the 12 hour days. my bill does not -- >> get into that level of specificity. what were you seeing that made you feel like this bill was necessary now? >> what i was seeing was a tremendous number of americans wanting work hour coming out of this pandemic. americans have seen 900,000 of their fellow americans die of covid, and more fellow americans getting sick, and the stress on our essential workers, on just regular workers, having to endure this pandemic with this added burden, some of our countrymen have experienced flexibility and they like it.

they like working from home, they like the flexibility that came with the pandemic, but others suffered the extra stress. they are looking for a new normal. frequently, new employment, they are asking employers for greater work flexibility. i think they are looking for a four day work week. >> there are a lot of tech companies in the bay area that have gone that way. they do report very good productivity. certainly the workers are happier. change is hard for a lot of people. have we always had a five-day workweek or 40 hour workweek, or is that a relatively modern structure? >> if you think of 1935, almost 100 years ago, as the time in which we actually codified into law the five-day workweek, we

said 40 hours a week would be the point at which you woodard overtime pay. -- you would earn overtime pay. the idea was eight hours a day, one third of your day, so one third of work, one third to sleep and one third to do what you will was the mantra of the day. we have not always had the 40 hour workweek. it was quite common before 1935 for people to work away in excess of 40 hours a week. richard nixon, a republican in the early 1950's, campaign for the vice presidency. he thought that the 32 hour workweek would become an eventuality. this idea has been with us before. now the time has come for us

make it happen. >> which countries already have a four day work week or less? >> many european nations already have a less than 40 hour workweek. france has -- i'm not exactly sure at what point the french workforce can earn overtime pay, but in europe they work less per week. it is customary for european workers to actually take vacation time. americans are among the hardest working workers of the advanced economies. we know that iceland has tried experiments with reducing their workweek. it does not appear that productivity has suffered. we have seen experiments occur in japan with microsoft. just recently panasonic announced that it was going to move to a 32 hour workweek,

along with kickstarter. many of your silicon valley tech companies are moving toward a 32 hour workweek. it is the tech workers and highly skilled programmers and software developers that are driving this conversation. they are going to have a huge impact on the cultural conversation, making this a cultural norm. my bill would extend conversation to all classifications of workers. >> what do you say to employers who say i am already worried about a staffing shortage, this cannot possibly benefit me, or make it more expensive for me to do business or i'll have to reduce the number of jobs. do you worry about that? rep. takano: i think this very situation of a workforce shortage, of this being an

employee market, is already causing this conversation to be very much a real conversation for employers right now. i was reading an account earlier today about the restaurant industry being particularly impacted. and a shorter work week is already being contemplated by employers in the restaurant and hospitality sector. it's very much on the table, along with increased benefits and the other array of benefits an employer could offer. i would say say say say benefit taken off the table by putting it into statute would label the playing field for everybody. all employers would be compliant. it would not be a point of competition anymore. >> i know your progressive colleagues endorsed it, but do

you think it has a real shot of passing or are you just happy to have the conversation? rep. takano: i am heartened that the nearly 100 members of the progressive caucus have gotten behind this bill. the aflcio and other unions have gotten behind this bill. we are already seeing private sector actors, about 5% of the private workforce is on a reduced workweek. as we are seeing the restaurant industry having serious conversations about the need to expand their incentives to keep employees, i think what will make the difference is an outcry from the american public and for people to call representatives and say this is what they want. with public sentiment, this is very much possible. >> congressman mark takano,

appreciate the conversation. rep. takano: thank you. >> coming up next, there is an alarming spark in omicron cases within san francisco's chinatown community. part of the reason is where some of the residents are living. we are talking live with a san francisco standard

>> welcome back. abc7 is excited about our partnership with the brand-new san francisco standard. part of building a better bay area is working with those who have the same mission as us here at abc7. the standard's reporting on the city does just that. today they are sharing alarming statistics from san francisco's single room occupancy hotels. those residents suffered

disproportionately in this pandemic. there has been a major spike in omicron cases within these small housing units. joining us to talk about this issue is a standard reporter who covers issues important to the asian-american community. nice to have you back. >> thank you for having me. >> almost lunar new year. sadly at this time celebration urc and within the chinatown community, especially those living in single room occupancy hotels a bit infection problem with omicron. tell people who don't understand how those apartments work and what makes that environment dangerous. >> we published this important story this week. sro means single room occupancy. it is a certain type of housing, and in san francisco chinatown and the mission district. generally there are eight to 10 units per floor.

they will all have their own room, but they share the bathroom together, the whole floor, and sometimes the entire building will share one kitchen. it is considered a high-risk situation during the pandemic because all the tenants share the facilities under this highly contagious virus. during the omicron surge the sro housing tenants are being hit hard especially. so yes, according to the city's data, from november to december, this one month period, it is less than 40 cases in the sro housing. from december to january, this one month period, the covid cases in sro housing is over 600. that is over a 1000% increase, which is a concerning trend. >> in your article, you talk about the chen family.

they had a positive case and they wanted to isolate and quarantine and get the rest of the family testing negative away from them. what kind of challenges did they encounter from the city? han: i get to interview this family. the daughter was tested positive after the new year's holiday. they don't have the financial capacity to afford hotel rooms to quarantine, so they turned to the city for help, but the city did not provide quarantine rooms. she has to live with her mom and younger sister back in the sro, a tiny small room, only 80 square feet. her mom also developed symptoms and tested positive. two of them tested positive, the city still refused to provide quarantine hotels. kristen: did the city promise to add to its safety net?

han: the department of public health responded to me, saying they recognize the special needs of the sro housing tenants, but for now the resources are limited, so they are prioritizing the quarantine rooms for those living with medically vulnerable people, which means if you are tested positive and living with medically vulnerable people, then you are qualified to have the rooms. but for sro tenants, sometimes in the same room they maybe don't have medically vulnerable people living with them, but the same floor, there are seniors living with them. they might be medically vulnerable. it is complicated if the sro tenants are qualified yet. at the board of supervisors meeting, they discussed this, but i don't know if they updated their quarantine policies yet.

kristen: i hope you continue to follow up. this is impactful work. thank you, han li, for sharing that. you can check out han li's report on this. we have links to the san francisco standard's stories on abc7news.com. coming up next, you are going to love this. she shoots, she scores, and the crowd goes wild. a bay area basketball star from high school lands on espn after an amazing buzzer beater. she

are going to love this. basketball fans love a good buzzer beater. whenteen court shot that los hat shot that looks nearly impossible, he would be impressed himself with a shot a bay area high school girl made last week that landed her on espn sports center. >> time running down in the

quarter. got to have something here. oh yeah! >> oh wow. >> from beyond half-court. the launch. nothing but net. kristen: crazy, right? that was on january 19. and the player who made that shot was the hillsdalelsdalelsde junior guard. she is there along with her assistant coach and teammates. congratulations. are you still in shock? >> i'm still so in shock. i had no idea the shot would take me to where i am right now. kristen: it was stunning, because it was way farther than half-court. it was like three quarters. >> yeah, three quarters. kristen: do you practice that? >> i definitely do not. [laughter] kristen: have you ever made a

shot from that far away before? >> i have not. that was the first half-court shot i have ever made. kristen: that is crazy. i see you two back there. when he saw that shot go in, how did you react? what did you think? >> standing rightn she took that moments we have had. kristen: here it is again. i want to know what you guys were thinking. where you like, what, how? you kidding me? >> i grabbed her and started yelling. [laughter] kristen: how did the video end up on espn? come closer. >> her grandfather film on it, so he cut out a small portion of the shot. i was watching espn one night

and watched it go in. the shot was as good or better as the shot that i saw. i just submitted it. kristen: oh yeah. they were so happy to have that. makena, i think it is every high school athlete's dream to be featured on sport center's top 10. what has happened in your life since then? makena: i have gotten so much recognition for that shot. everywhere someone is telling me, makena, that was so cool. m teachers -- my teachers, even students i never talked to before notice me in the hall. it is cool to have everyone recognize me. kristen: are collegesaching out? i know you are still a junior. makena: i had a couple coaches talk to me after the shot. kristen: after this appearance, they will be flooding your email. this was a big moment, but your whole season and school year have been amazing. i am going to embarrass you a

bit, 4.0 gpa. you are athlete of the week. your team is 15-1, 5-0 in league play. i will let john embarrass you a bit. how much has makena contributed to this team's success? >> i think every player that we have contributes in equal amounts, but she has to play point guard, so she has to control the tempo, the flow of the game and make sure everybody else gets their shots as well. it is a lot on her shoulders. in other words, she is like a coach on the team. that is what i appreciate the most. it makes my job easier. kristen: do you feel like you have more pressure on your shoulders now after you made that shot, or is it kind of like, nah, i'm good? makena: i definitely feel like i

i feel like i h up to everything that has happened. kristen: you guys won that game by the way. you won that game easily. who is your favorite basketball player? makena: my favorite basketball player is different -- is definitely stephen curry. kristen: what do you love about his game? makena: i just love his ability to recognize the defense. his shooting range is amazing. i love watching him play. kristen: hopefully you will get to meet him someday. have you met him ever? makena: i haven't. kristen: i'm sure he would love to congratulate you in person one of these days. can you tell me how long and hard does makena practice? >> i've been playing with makena since grade school in another league. i have gone a long way with her from just elementary and middle school up to varsity basketball

in high school, so i have seen all the work she has put in. it has been incredible to see. >> she is one of the hardest working athletes i know. i am grateful to share the court with her every day. kristen: i am doing this just to embarrass you, you know that. i'm kidding. [laughter] i know you feel the same about your teammates. that shot seemed like one in a million, but would you like to see if lightning could strike again? want to try it? makena: we can try. i don't know if it will. kristen: nobody expects it. why not? you ready? makena: alright. kristen: everybody, hold our breaths. it hit the backboard. it was so close. you have to do it one more time. try one more time. comeo n, -- come on, steph curry

is not 100% even. [laughter] that was still. hey, beautiful. that was wonderful. we are so proud of you. what is next for you? you have been on espn and are coming back down to earth. what is next? makena: right now i really just want to help my team hopefully win league and go undefeated. i am definitely looking to play college basketball. that is my long-term goal as well. kristen: dusty who is watching us on facebook live says, does she plan on getting drafted by the women's basketball league? makena: if the opportunity presents itself, i would definitely consider it. kristen: how tall are you? makena: 5'4". kristen: i love when petite girls are giant on the court. congratulations to you, all of

you. an. amazing moment -- an amazing moment. best of luck to you for the rest of the season. thank you, makena. makena: thank you. kristen: that warms my

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thanks so much for joining us on this interactive show, getting answers today. today we talked about the possibility of a four-day workweek with the california congressman mark takano, proposing that in a bill, that anything over the 32nd hour would become overtime. we talked about the situation in chinatown's sro's and due to the cramped quarters, that has

caused a lot of covid infections. we end the show with this shot. tonight, several breaking stories as we come on the air. the massive nor'easter bearing down, the bridge collapse in pittsburgh, and russia and ukraine and what president biden said minutes ago about senting u.s. troops. first, the blizzard warnings. multiple major cities, philadelphia, new york city, boston, all bracing. 80 million expecting whiteout conditions, heavy snow, wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour. up to two feet of snow expect in the boston. new york city to hartford could get up to a foot of snow. those hurricane force winds possible. rob marciano will take us through the timing and potential snow totals. also tonight, that major bridge collapse i