kristen: you are watching getting answers on abc7. we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area. we get answers for you. a new idea to fight global

warming that is cool. scientists at purdue university created a paint that can reduce the surface temperature on a roof and cool the building under it. a uc davis professor who studies clean energy technologies will join us, to explain what the implications are. you may have heard about a proposed 50 story residential tower in san francisco's outer sunset. some neighbors consider it a monstrosity. the san francisco standard learn to one of the developers has a checkered past full of red flags. what does it mean for the project? first, major health news. the fda approved the first birth control pill that can be sold over-the-counter with no prescription, and no age restrictions. joining us live to talk about this and other major medical health headlines, is dr. han. >> always a pleasure, kristen.

kristen: do you applaud this news? i understand american academy of pediatrics is one of the, but all seem happy. >> i plot it enthusiast -- applaud it is the ethically. it's a step forward for women's health, and the health of all americans. kristen: telus about -- tell us about it. >> eight has been around for 50 years -- it has been around for 50 years. until this point, it has been available by prescription. it's based out of a company with headquarters in ireland and dublin. the difference between this and most oral contraceptives that many people know about is that this is called a mini pill. it's progesterone only, whereas many birth control pills have estrogen as well as progesterone. that means that, there are fewer side effects, because it is mainly just one hormone. kristen: is it just as

effective? >> yes. it's just as effective. there's about a failure rate of 7%, which is much higher than other things that you can get over-the-counter, like using condoms, regular use, that is about 15% failure rate. other things like spermicide are lower. kristen: it has been proven safe? >> yes. it's been proven safe. the only question area people with a history of liver abnormalities, or liver failure, and those with a history of current or previous breast cancer. there are certain types of breast cancer that make it worst with progesterone. kristen: what is the practical impact of the fda allowing this to be sold over-the-counter? why is that important? >> it stems from the fact that there are about 2 million pregnancies every year in the

united states, and about half of these are unintended. they tend to cluster mainly in people who are vulnerable populations. really, it means that people likely don't have access to prenatal care. neither is the health of the unborn child, but also health of the mom, with complications around birth. the u.s. has one of the highest mortality rates, particularly in those countries that are developed. kristen: that is something that needs to be changed. do other countries allow for over-the-counter sales of the bill? >> yes. many people may be surprised. there are about 100 countries that have oral contraceptives over-the-counter. just, not in western europe, canada or the u.s., until now,

not australia or new zealand. kristen: i wonder if you think this is more important as a tool in the wake of the supreme court ruling of overturning roe v. wade, and the national guaranteed access to abortion? >> it could not have come at a more appropriate time. it gives people more options. again, prevention is going to be really better than having potentially dangerous back alley procedures, when so much of the countries at risk for not having this done abortion done in safe manner. kristen: i am wondering, who do you see this really helping, in terms of maybe if it has to be prescription, they won't go get it, but if it is over-the-counter, maybe they could? >> i think women who are in rural areas, women who don't have access to care. a lot of the population, who

experienced health disparities, i think younger individuals who would require a lot of permission and dialogue, this will all will impact these in a positive way. kristen: this is going to hit the store shelves possibly next year. i don't know about the pricing it. we will have more conversations. i want to talk about something else, the not so sweet news about a sweetener, we have been using for 40 years. aspartame. the world health organization is expected to declare a possible carcinogen as early as tomorrow. what did this -- prompted this? >> there are two studies that recently came out. one from france in humans, looking at 200,000 women, who were taking sweeteners, comparing them to sweeteners

were not taking them. they found that there was a slightly increased risk of breast cancer, other cancers overall. the second study was done in italy, which was in a study of rats and mice, which found rats in my -- rats and mice with large amounts of aspartame, had liar rates of -- had higher rates of leukemia and lymphoma. there are other studies, including one done by our own national institute of health, looking at 500,000 people, they found no such risk. again, very mixed data. the wealth of data does not suggest that there is any increased risk of cancer. kristen: at this point, how concerned are you? would you tell someone who drinks one can of diet coke a day, which uses aspartame to stop drinking it? >> the maximum is don't do anything in excess. people should not use diet

sodas, diet snapple, as a way to get healthy. but, it is estimated that you need to drink 36 cans of diet coke a day for it to have a risk. again don't expect drinking diet beverages are going to be a panacea or way to get healthy. in fact, there's some studies that suggest that they may be at increased risk of diabetes because people who drink diet beverages sometimes aren't as careful with eating healthy grains, vegetables, non processed foods. kristen: i understand what you're saying. sometimes i have a tendency of saying, i will have the diet coke, so make my fries extra-large. your defeating the whole purpose. thank you so much for clarifying that. i want to talk about this. a reminder that covid is out there. our friend, cf chair,

avoid covid for three years, and he finally caught it. he tried to shower while dehydrated. this happened. i will show you this video with his permission. he fell. he smashed his forehead and the back of his head, had to get stitches. look, i was in communication with him today, as bad as that looks,, he is hanging in there in good spirits. we hope to have them in next week. can you explain how being dehydrated makes it more likely for someone to fall? >> it probably stemmed from him getting covid. he got covid with symptoms, of the symptoms was a fever which leads to dehydration. if you take a hot shower, your blood vessels get bigger. then your blood pressure can drop. that is what happened. he got, what we call

hypertensive, or lightheaded, fell, hit his head on the surface. that led to hospitalization. so, it's a quick -- cautionary tale that covid is still around. we have 10 people hospitalized. it is not budged in the last few weeks. again, that is what it really teaches all of us. i emailed the doctor today. i sent him a bitmoji. i'm wishing him the best of health. kristen: we exchange emails too. he said i don't think we want to see want to be right now. speaking of this fall, what do predict? cases are low, but i understand moderna and pfizer, plan to rollout updated vaccines. what will be different with those of aided versions -- updated versions? >> yes. i think the cdc is simplifying

vaccines. somebody asked me, i throw away my vaccine card, is that ok. the answer is yes. because hopefully it will just be once a year with the flu shot. we got some more that the new vaccines for covid will be available in the third week of september. it is pfizer, but they're not, novavax, for those who cannot take mrna vaccines. they will be around the same time as the flu shot. it will be based on xbb most predominant strain of covid. because covid has not changed much from sub lineage the sub lineage, from the last year, even if something new comes up, we expect it will be a good vaccine. we are expecting cases will increase in the winter, together with flu and rsv. there will be and rsv vaccine for those over 60. kristen: stay healthy everyone. thank you so much. >> thanks so much.

kristen:, of next a new invention to cool the hot planet. a type of paint could be the ticket. why it works,

thrilling thing in the world. there's an abundance of reasons to get started. how far we take an idea is a question of willpower.

because progress... is a matter of character. julian: of paint color that has been declared the widest ever is in the news today. kristen: it is not decorators were excited it is climate advisors. this pain develop at purdue university, can reduce the temperature of buildings and keep them cooler as our planet experiences global warming. what are the potential uses and applications? joining us live is jeremy monday, u.c. davis professor, who studies clean energy to

ologies -- technologies. tell us about this pain and the team -- paint in the team behind it. >> the paint is one in it is a white. it can reflect light, it absor a lot of white. it does something that is very unique, it can help get rid of heat. i in addition to getting rid of the heat from the sun it can help the earth emit more heat as well. kristen: so, i understand it kicks it away, it's 90%, increases reflection, how does it do it, by becoming the widest possible white? >> there's two parts. one is the fact that it is super white. it will reflect a lot of the light. the other thing is, it allows whatever you put it on, to put out more heat as well. in addition to blocking the

light from the sun, it makes the earth actually put out more he too. a couple of things this will do, it can cool down your buildings, you don't have the as much electricity. the other thing i have been interested in, is how to make these paints or other material and put them around the world and cool down the entire planet. you can reduce the global warming effect. kristen: right. roofs for sure, cars and trucks, that would be helpful. what you are talking about, i mean, i am envisioning us painting the amazon forest in white, which is not what you want to do. explain what your vision is. >> i definitely would not want to put it anywhere where you have forests. but the idea is a starting off with things like building tops, roads, wherever you can have tenuous surface, you can put these white things down. it helps increase the amount of power and heat flowing away from the air. if you take the entire earth,

imagine covering 1% or 2% of it, imagine doing that, like a solar panel, you can actually offset the amount of heat we are generating, causing the temperatures to rise. you can actually rebalance the heat flows within our earth and sun system. that is what the problem is. we are absorbing this heat from the sun, the earth is trying to push out the heat. we are not pushing out enough heat. we are absorbing all this heat, trapping it in, and we are getting hotter and hotter. kristen: if we can find it, and cover 1% or 2% of this planet with this white paint, how much of the effects of climate change,, to degree credit counteract? -- one degree, to degree, can it counteract? >> it is not easy. it will be difficult to find enough places that you can put this. but if you could do that, you can stop the temperatures from

rising where they are right now. now, this would be a short-term solution. this is a desperate solution. we are in desperate times. things are heating up. this would be like the shortstop, where we say, ok we can stop the heating, but if we don't get to the root of the problem, which is, getting the carbon dioxide trapping the heat in, it will continue to war mike -- warm up again, but you can drop the co2 levels, and we can get to the status quo, where we have a stable temperature. kristen: we have to do the short-term and long-term. these are desperate times. going back, does it than air conditioners at cooling buildings? >> good question. this is something you will use in parallel. what you can do is, you can reduce your heating and cooling cost, depending on what kind of buildings you're looking at. you can reduce it by 40%. you can tune back your air

conditioner because your cooling yourself with these paints. inside, you would feel the same. it would be no different to you, then you spending more money on electricity. you should feel good because you're making less pollution as well. kristen: how close is it to being on the market, this paint? >> it is a good question. this would be more of a question for the purdue team. i heard estimates of, they have been in talks with companies, maybe a year or so from making it a product you can use, as paint. you need to worry about durability, lifetime, not getting dirt sticking to it. there's commercial aspect of the deal with. it's not something that is a long term pipedream. it's something that they can turn around pretty quickly. kristen: in terms of cost, you will direct me to the team, but since it is paint, it is not going to be astronomical, because it is paint? >> that's right. we've been looking into --

there's other types of plastics you can use. if you think about processes that people make, they are not terribly expensive. we think, if i say it is going to cost $1 trillion or $2 trillion to do 1%, coverage that sounds like a large number. but if you consider half a degree of warming will cost globally about $20 trillion, factor x more, that is a small investment, he wanted to do this . kristen: fascinating. professor monday at uc davis, thank you so much for coming to talk about this. >> pleasure. kristen: coming up, developer drummer, with the proposed -- drama with a proposed high-rise. our partner digs into the developers past. it is raising red

kristen: a proposal for massive 50 story skyscrapers for san francisco's outer sunset has

stirred up controversy. it's stirring up scandal. here's a look at where it will go. 2700 slope boulevard where the slope gden sits across from the zoo. the resident showsha the tower will look like. our media partner did some digging, as they explain, the man behind the idea has a history, as a con man? joining us is a senior order for the standard -- order for the standard. i mean, i want to ask you why this project is so controversial. let's show people the picture again. we all know the sunt has low buildings, maybe two, three stories. look at this. talk to us about what people are sayingndhinking about this. >> we put in our story that it sticks out like a 589 foot sore thumb. most buildings in the neighborhood are about two

stories high. the tallest building in the area is five stories high. this will be 10 times that, it will be 608 condos, 10 would be for affordable housing, hundred square-foot of retail space, 200 plus of our garage. it's almost a joke. it's a caricature of development, when we talk about building more density sunset. but, our store did not just touch on the fact that this project is controversial in size, it is controversial because of the person trying to build it. kristen: kenny talk to us about that. who is this person, what is that checkered past they have? >> it is a developer couple named john and raylin. john, what makes his involvement in the project dubious is, he went to prison for almost eight years. the reason was because he was involved in a ponzi scheme in the 1990's that built 700 less

people out of $20 million. they were pitching a property development in napa, sonoma counties. when he got busted, he actually was in the process of trying to create another billion-dollar development in india basin. it was going to create, three residential towers that would've been the tallest residential towers in all of california in the early 2000. when he was pitching this, everyone was like this kind of a crazy idea, he was already indicted. john ended up going to prison. he gets out, he actually has restitution that yes the pay his victims from the ponzi scheme. as of 2016, he had paid a little over $5,000 of the $17 million plus that he owed. kristen: he has not paid most of the money he owes in restitution. i don't know he gets the money to develop this. [laughter] >> that is a question. kristen: normally you would say this project is dead in the

water. people hate it. it looks like a joke. i know there have been since changes in state law that does not mean cities can stop whatever eyesore, they don't want to go up. explain to us what is happening. >> what happened was they put forth a project that was going to be around 12 to 13 stories. the planning department rejected it, saying it would not work. so, they came back and in may, roughly april, may, they proposed this monstrosity of a building by comparison. it's four separate towers on one podium or structure that allows it to avoid some of the rules that san francisco has. there've been a lot of state laws that encourage and accelerate the building of housing which we need, this one is kind of a bit sneaky in the way that it is trying to do it. and obviously, then there is the issue of why are they doing it?

how are they going to pay for it? is this a real idea? or are they trying to give a middle finger to the planning department? kristen: right. have you talked to any of the developers or any of the planning people or the supervisors? >> well, we talked to a lot of city officials. i personally went down to the home of the couple to speak with them. kristen: they invited you in 40? -- for tea? >> actually, no. i got there. a big escalade was parked out front. the woman came out, and i was like hey i'm trying to meet the people developing this project, are they home? the woman said they are not. i told her, this is who i am, i am writing a story. and she goes, actually i am the wife, but we're not going to talk to you. she went back inside. i was like ok. that was weird. kristen: i can't give you the time to talk about it now, we

are out of time. i want to have people read your article. they can do it either website, which is sfstandard.com. your hairline. or that thing where your knee just gives out for no reason. but... you can choose your doctor who will care for all the things you didn't choose. kaiser permanente for all that is you. so i'm mentally preparing for the power outage. oh, well we can help stop one because we're gonna reduce our energy use from 4-9pm. - what now? - i stepped on a plug. oh that's my bad... unplugging. when it comes to preventing outages, the power is ours.

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♪ yeah, ♪ ♪ so let's get it ♪ ♪ i'm feeling good vibes ♪ kristen: thank you so much for joining us. we hear every weekday at 3:00, answering questions from experts around the bay area. world tonight, damaging new storms as we come on the air, taking aim in the northeast at this hour. it comes after at least ten reported tornadoes near chicago. all part of the same system now racing its way into the northeast. and in areas already that have seen catastrophic flooding, several days in a row now