tv ABC7 News Getting Answers ABC August 2, 2023 3:00pm-3:31pm PDT
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>> building a better bay answers on abc seven. every week we talked to experts about issues important to the bay area. today, could a breast cancer detection device, in a bra? m.i.t. researchers join us with an invention that could be key to early detection. happy 150th birthday to the iconic san francisco cable car. we look at its history with the
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president of market street railway. former president trump is getting ready for his court appearance tomorrow to answer to four criminal charges related to the deadly capital insurrection and his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. today san francisco congresswoman nancy pelosi, whose office was ransacked on january 6, spoke out on trump's fourth indictment. rhett pelosi -- rep. pelosi: every person is innocent until proven guilty, but the facts are our country was assaulted, not only physically, on january 6. it is beyond description that would happen in our country, but everything that led up to it to prevent the peaceful transfer of government in our country. kristen: joining us live to talk about the investigation and its impact, uc college of law san
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francisco professor jonathan able. tell us what will happen tomorrow when trump has to be in court. what can we expect? >> tomorrow is going to be the arraignment and it's a routine procedure, but important. everyone who has been accused of a crime has the opportunity to hear the charges in front of them. he will probably plead not guilty. he may be there in person, it may be there remotely. if there are going to be bail conditions, that will be worked out tomorrow. judging by what happened last time, he may very well plead guilty and there won't be any bail requirement. kristen: we will see what happens tomorrow. when do you think a trial may take place? obviously he has been indicted for other things, falsifying business records and mishandling classified information.
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could this result in three separate trials? prof. able: it would have to. you can't join them together. many cases are resolved short of a trial through a plea agreement negotiations or the dismissal of charges, but it doesn't seem like he is going to offer any plea. if there is a trial, scheduling would have to be worked out, hopefully before the election. i think the special prosecutor said he wanted a quick trial as well, so i guess sometime next year. kristen: trump says this is all political, but the indictment lays out a mountain of evidence, including 21 lies about the election that fueled the insurrection. what were some of those lies? prof. abel: first of all, i agree with nancy pelosi, he is innocent until proven guilty. the indictment lays out damming detail but it is just the prosecution's side. the point of the trial is to give jurors a chance to hear the
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facts and judge the credibility of the witnesses. if you did what is alleged here, he is accused of knowing you lost the election and pursuing various schemes to interfere with the certification of the boat. the ultimate goal would be to -- be for him to become president when joe biden was actually elected. the schemes are well documented by this point. there are claims about the voting machines, the vote tallies that don't add up. these are all false claims. false claims about the number of votes exceeding the number of voters. there are, as you mentioned, almost two dozen of these lies, but they are all the same live, according to the prosecution, that he knew he lost and nonetheless he persisted. kristen: the indictment repeatedly mentioned six co-conspirators.
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the indictment doesn't name them but we think we know a few, including rudy giuliani and sidney powell. what is there alleged possible role and why haven't they been named or charged at this time? what does that suggest? prof. abel: in a conspiracy, what a conspiracy is agreement among two or more people to carry out a crime or series of crimes. this indictment says trump and six so far unnamed people were part of this agreement to lie about the election results and get him instated as president, even though he lost. those six people, i think we know who they are, but they have not been named or charged yet. they could be charged at any point and indictments can be updated as the case goes along. some speculation is by not naming and not charging them
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now, there is still an opportunity for them to cooperate and turn against trump. kristen: obviously former vice president pence is running for president, along with trump. could he be called as a witness should this go to trial and how would that impact things? prof. abel: yes. as you read the indictment, i encourage everyone to read this, only 45 pages long and it is not technical. a highschooler could read this. you see facts about private conversations that donald trump and mike pence had. the facts have to have come from mike pence. if this case goes to trial, then mike pence would be a witness and would have to testify. kristen: let me ask you, it depends on when the trial is done, whether he is convicted on some or none of these, but if he is convicted of something before
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election day, could he remain on the ballot and still be elected president? is there anything in the constitution that would disqualify a criminal conviction , someone with a criminal conviction? prof. abel: if he is convicted, he can still run and still be elected. the constitution doesn't prevent someone with a felony conviction from being elected president. kristen: you just have to be 35 years old and a natural born u.s. citizen, that's it? prof. abel: there are other qualifications, including being impeached -- fully impeached -- would affected, i believe. the constitution is pretty spare in qualifications for being president. it relies on the voters to decide whether someone who has been convicted of a felony, and this particular felony, whether that person should be president. kristen: is there any talk of changing bad in the constitution to add additional disqualifying
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factors to someone seeking the presidency? prof. abel: i have not heard any serious talk about that and it takes a lot to amend the constitution. i would turn the question around. is that really necessary? if someone who is convicted in a public trial can still get elected, that's the responsibility of the voters to make sure that can still happen -- make sure that can't happen. kristen: that would say something about where we are. are these indictments a turning point for the u.s., a course correction in a period most would agree seems polarized? there are people who would regard institutions and norms right now. prof. abel: i keep waiting for the turning point and keep thinking i have seen it, then nothing changes. i think that fundamentally a large portion of the population really admires former president trump and does not believe what is alleged in this indictment
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and i suspect would not even believe if you were convicted. i'm not sure what would turn the country. there has to be a broad political consensus that eventually helps the country correct itself. i don't think one prosecution, even three or four, could do it. kristen: his narrative is certainly that he is being unjustly targeted and prosecuted. this whole thing can actually help him politically. what are t a prosecution and trial, given that reality? prof. abel: the prosecutor is in a difficult position because the prosecutor clearly believes crimes were committed. prosecutors have ethical duties to make sure they are not just trying to win, they are trying to achieve just ends. if there are facts that undermine the prosecutor's case, the prosecutor needs to disclose
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those. that's one level of challenge. the other level is donald trump is right now the leading republican candidate, so how do you prosecute someone you believe has broke the law without seeming to disenfranchise a large portion of the country that might otherwise vote for him? kristen: that is a conundrum for sure. what are some of the legal issues that come out of this that will be examined you think for a long time in law schools? prof. abel: it's a fascinating case because conspiracies are interesting. what the law does is hold a group of people responsible together, so a conspirator is responsible for the actions of other people working for that same purpose. one of the things here is perhaps some of the conspirators knew that they were lying and that they had lost the election and some of them didn't.
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i suspect donald trump will make some kind of argument, i think i saw it already, that he relied on legal advice, i believe he is going to say. he might try to say he didn't know any of this was false. that will be one important issue. what did donald trump know, what did the other people working with him know? the other question is, what does the first amendment protect when they lie? there are pretty broad protections for allies. you can lie and that's not a crime. where it becomes a crime is when you in facilitating a larger criminal enterprise. that's what the prosecutor has to try to explain to a jury of 12 regular people. kristen: jonathan abel appreciate your insight.
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kristen: forget push-up bras, how about tumor diagnosing bras? m.i.t. researchers have designed a wearable ultrasound device to detect breast tumors in their early stages. joining us to share with us this amazing new technology, associate professor in mit's media lab. thank you for coming on the show. >> thank you for inviting me. kristen: tell us about this new device. >> this new device is a
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noninvasive technology which can take the shape of any curvilinear part of your bra, your breast tissue, and can do up to 12 centimeters depth information and image the entire soft tissue with a single shot. this device can be part of your personal bra and literally while you are drinking your coffee, you can take the entire image of your breast tissue within seconds. this is particularly important because early detection can increase the survival rate up to 98%. based on our calculations globally this technology has the potential to save millions of women's lives per year. kristen: that is amazing. what inspired you to work on this? >> this work is inspired by my late a, who passed away because of breast cancer at 49 despite
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the fact she had regular breast screening. by the time she was diagnosed, it was too late and her survival rate was only 20%. she could only survive six months after the diagnosis. by her bedside on her last i was lucky to be with her. literally we were drawing an electronic bra which could allow women to visualize their breasts at home without needing an operator or any jail in between. my aunt seemed so comforted by this idea. it was a dream on a piece of paper but right now it is real in my hands. we have the ability to touch a save many women's lives around the world. kristen: it looks like it can sit on top of a sports bra or clothing? you do not have to be nude like you would doing a mammogram? >> we use special techniques
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where we fabricate and develop devices which are very miniaturized and flexible so it can be part of any curvilinear parts of your body, like breast, bladder, kidney. this device is such tiny, like a piece of coin, and this coin can be incorporated with a nature inspired honeycomb structure, which can be literally attached on top of your bra and come on top of your breast. this technology is an ultrasound technology so through flexible cables we can create a sound wave and travel your soft tissue. whenever it sees an obstacle, it reflects back, like a tumor or cyst, and can be captured with this technology and sent to your iphone and you can create a black-and-white ultrasound image
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within seconds. kristen: is this something you as a layman would interpret yourself, or send it to your doctor? >> currently we tried on multiple women as human trials and worked with doctors helping us assess the technology results and making a meaning out of it, but we can easily identify the coordinations and depth information off any anomaly in your breast tissue. right now you are trying to capture much more data. we will be doing trials on hundreds of women to get fda approval. with this big data we are also planning to include ai and machine learning algorithms in the system so this technology can estimate whether your tumor is malignant or benign, whether your tumor is going to be progressed or not, or even under your medication this technology will be able to tell you the efficacy of the drugs you intake.
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this is a powerful technology and we are hoping to translate it to the real market and make it available to anyone in need. kristen: the portability of it is fascinating to me. let's say you were on a prolonged trip, your. doctor is not with you. like you said, if you don't go to mammograms that often, tumors can develop during that time. are you looking at having it be for specific women, maybe ones who are more prone to breast tumors? >> our first target is high risk women who already have a family history or a system or tumor in their breast tissue, but eventually might be helpful for anyone who would like to monitor their breast. to clarify, we are not going to erase the need of mammography that we are going to decrease the need. by regular screening we offer, we will be able to assess if
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there is something wrong or a question mark in the image. then you will be going to the mammography to avoid any additional radiation coming to your body. we are not changing the journey of the patient's but we are allowing patients a noninvasive, portable, homemade system for early breast cancer detection and diagnosis. kristen: amazing. thank you so much for sharing this with us. really appreciate it. >> take care, bye. kristen: it's one of the unique threads in san francisco that makes it a standout. we are talking about the cable cars, first introduced on this day in 1873. ahead, the president and ceo of market street
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francisco experience, cable cars. san francisco is the only city in the world where people can ride a manually operated cable car. the ride began 150 years ago today. joining us is rick, president and ceo of market street railway, and not rfid preservation partner of the san francisco railway, to talk to us about the cable car's brown history. >> >> it was a big celebration at powell and market this morning. speaker pelosi came, mayor breed, aaron peskin, we had a great group of people who were extolling the history of the cable cars and how important they are to the city and our economy. kristen: we today's event. i think there were some costumed folks dressed like 150 years ago. how and who invented the cable
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car? rick: a scottish immigrant named andrew halliday, and his business was making cable wire rope that he sold up in the motherlode, and he used buckets of ore to haul from the mines t the mills. if i turned that upside down, we could hook up a card to it and go up hills that were too steep for horses. that's how it started. kristen: genius. how did it become a staple for the cities tour transportation network? rick: cable cars were high-tech. not only did we invent television in a half-century before that the cable car, which was a high-tech innovation in urban transportation, because horses
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were expensive to keep. the cable car could do all of that up steep hills. even though it was expensive to put in, it made money. other cities, not only here, in paris, london, even oakland, put in cable cars of their own. then the streetcar got invente later. the cable car was like being a blackberry, then the iphone. kristen: i held onto my blackberry for so long. larry: then the iphone came along. rick: that's what happened to the cable car, they were relegated to the for so long and by 1957 only san francisco had cable cars. kristen: i can see why it was
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more minimized when we considered the practicality. let's consider the efforts to bring them back. rick: i am a fourth-generation san franciscan. my first job in radio was in fairmont. i used to take the cable car to and from work. we want to see the cable cars operate efficiently so that there is room for locals as well as tourists. i can tell you the california street line which crosses the powell line on the hill is this year, thanks to jeff tomlin and sfmta, offering an all day pass for five dollars. you can take your family, ride all day on the california line, not wait in the long lines that powell has, and get off at chinatown. we think it's a great way for
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people from the bay area to rediscover san francisco, go into shops in chinatown and ride the cable car all day for just five bucks. rick: you go to the muni app on your phone and go or go to write to the california street line and buy the all day fast directly from the conductor. kristen: rick laubscher, president and ceo of market street railway, thank you for coming on and sharing your love of the cable car and celebrating with us. get our live newscast, breaking news, weather, and more with our streaming tv app thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor
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is for adults with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole. ibrance may cause low white blood cell counts that may lead to serious infections. ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs. both of these can lead to death. tell your doctor if you have new or worsening chest pain, cough, or trouble breathing. before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are or plan to become pregnant, or are breastfeeding. for more information about side effects talk to your doctor. be in your moment. ask your doctor about ibrance.
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kristen: thanks for joining us. tonight, the scare at the capitol ahead of donald trump's arraignment. the alarming call today triggering a massive police response. there had been reports of an active shooter. people rushed out of the building with hands in the air. workers fleeing. all part of heightened security tonight going into tomorrow, when former president trump will be arraigned in washington. charged with four criminal counts in his alleged effort to overturn the election that the special counsel says trump knew he lost. what to expect tomorrow, what americans will see as trump shows up at that courthouse. aaron katersky and pierre thomas with late reporting tonight. in pittsburgh, the deadly synagogue mass
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