right now. >> a raging inferno, and firefighters may have no choice but to let it burn. this fire at one of the world's biggest battery storage plants now has health leaders in two counties telling people to keep their windows closed and stay away. good evening. thank you for joining us. >> i'm dan ashley and i'm ama daetz. we will have team coverage, including a live report from that fire in

monterey county in a moment. but first, the story rocking the world of east bay politics, a federal corruption investigation. and now former oakland mayor xiang tao is reportedly under indictment months after fbi agents raided her home, the bay area news group reports tao and her partner were indicted by a grand jury. >> her partner's attorney tells the bay area news group he plans to turn himself in tomorrow. >> it's not clear what cut we eo learn that tomorrow in a news conference with federal prosecutors. abc seven news reporter suzanne fawn spoke to an ex-staffer of tao's who is close to this investigation. >> two years ago, everyone said i was lying, and tonight everyone knows that i was telling the truth. >> neil webb, the former chief of staff for xiang tao, says this moment is a reset for the city of oakland. tao was elected was then recalled by voters last fall. now, tao has reportedly been indicted along with her partner andre jones. the news was first reported by the san francisco chronicle.

>> she has to deal with the consequences of her actions. >> the fbi raided tao's home last summer, along with several other locations, including properties belonging to the duong family. the family holds oakland's curbside recycling contract through their california waste solutions firm. that family has been the focus of a city probe into campaign contributions in front of cameras. days after the raid, former mayor tao denied any wrongdoing. >> and i want to be crystal clear i have done nothing wrong. i can tell you with confidence that this investigation is not about me. >> it's not clear what charges tao faces. we reached out to attorneys and investigators, but have not heard back. webb testified in front of a grand jury last month. >> i was informed that there was pay to play, you know, schemes going on, that there was corruptive behavior going on in that administration. >> thursday evening, abc7 news insider phil matier says the

federal indictment has profound implications. >> for a long time, it was the question was, was she involved or was she just in the room? was did something actually happen or is it a an associate of hers? is it her live in boyfriend? is it the other people? if this indictment comes out, then what we're basically saying is that, no, that she was directly involved in some way. the feds don't mess around. and if there's federal money involved, they are going to do an investigation. they have zero tolerance for public officials bartering or dealing on the side. >> webb says let this be a lesson to other elected leaders. >> serve the people in the way that you're supposed to, and honesty and transparency. and if you don't, you're going to get recalled and you might go to jail if you're doing illegal and corrupt stuff. >> suzanne phan. abc seven news. >> now stay with abc seven news tomorrow for the news conference. you can watch it live with us on abc seven news.com, the abc seven bay area

app, or wherever you stream abc seven. >> now back to that breaking news. the blazing fire at a battery storage plant in monterey county. just look at that fireball. it is burning intensely and it has been for about five hours now. this is at the moss landing power plant that's right along highway one in moss landing. you may recognize the twin smokestacks now. it's one of the largest battery storage facilities in the world, which means lots of lithium ion batteries to burn. we do have team coverage tracking the fire and the smoke triggering health warnings tonight. let's get first to abc seven news reporter lauren martinez, who is live in moss landing. lauren, firefighters have a long night ahead. it seems like they do. >> you know, the fire is still burning. you can slightly see the glow right behind me. i will tell you, earlier tonight it was much bigger. you could actually feel the heat from the flames from where we're standing here. unclear how long the fire will be burning for, but officials tell me they expect to be here

all night. >> this is a major incident. there's no no getting around that. and we're taking it very, very seriously. we have all the county resources deployed. >> hundreds of first responders are deployed in monterey county to help control a massive fire coming from a moss landing battery plant, officials said. the fire was first reported around three thursday afternoon. this is what it looked like around eight at night. >> we anticipate being here through the night at the incident command center. >> we spoke with nicholas pasquali, communications director for the county of monterey. >> our sheriff's office has three drones up surveying the extent of what the fire is doing. >> evacuation orders are in place for residents nearby. a plume of smoke could be seen from miles away. even santa cruz county public health officials are advising residents to stay indoors, keep windows and doors closed. we spoke with assembly member don addis. >> yes, there are toxins that make this different than your average fire. it's also can be very, very difficult to put

these fires out. and the sort of recommended standard right now is to let these batteries burn. >> there are two lithium ion battery energy storage facilities in moss landing, vistra and p-g-and-e's. addis said vistra is the one on fire, though the other facility has had a fire before as well. >> i'm incredibly upset and frustrated that there's another event at moss landing, you know, less than two and a half years after the first event. and i think we need to be thinking very critically about if lithium ion batteries are right for our local communities. >> and right now, 1500 people are under an evacuation order. we know that no injuries have been reported, and we just found out earlier tonight that a press conference will be held tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. at the

castroville library plaza. hopefully there will learn more information as to what caused this fire and anything else there. live at moss landing. lauren martinez, abc seven news. >> all right, lauren, thanks so much. you can only imagine what's going into the air from that fire. abc seven news meteorologist sandhya patel is keeping an eye on the fire and where the smoke is spreading. sandhya. >> yeah. dan, that smoke has been moving all the way up towards the santa cruz area. i do want to show you a live picture right now from that moss landing power plant fire. although it doesn't look that intense, it has been putting out a lot of smoke. this was from earlier tonight and you can see it. fortunately, the winds haven't been strong, but the wind direction transporting it from moss landing towards the santa cruz area. i've been getting reports from people there. right now it is 42 degrees, the relative humidity as high as 95%. winds are light out of the northeast, so there's been a little bit of a switch gusting to three miles an hour right now. as we take a look at the air quality from air. now

the official reporting station good to moderate, but i am looking at purple air and they are showing some sensors indicating unhealthy air quality in that region to poor. so be aware of it. keep your windows and doors closed and stay inside to avoid exposure, especially if you're particularly sensitive. the winds will remain light as you look at the hourly forecast going into tomorrow. the other thing i'm tracking the chill. it is getting cold 37 in napa at this hour. frost advisory going up from 1 to 9 a.m. tomorrow. temperatures down to the mid 30s. frost is expected and as we go, hour by hour, you can see that fog creeping back into the picture as well. it will be a cooler afternoon. i'll be back with a look at your weekend forecast coming up. >> all right, sandhya, thank you so much. new at 11. a famous cartoonist with bay area ties is under arrest in one of the state's first cases of alleged possession of ai generated child sex abuse material. darren bell is now in jail on $1 million

bail. the pulitzer prize winner's book, the talk, made multiple major book lists. he got his start at uc berkeley's daily californian and built a career around the comics candorville and rudy park. investigators in sacramento got a tip about bell uploading child sex abuse material, and found evidence that some of it was created by ai reporter roxanne elias. explains the new state law making that a crime. the arrest of a well-known cartoonist accused of possessing a child sex abuse material is highlighting the prevalence of its use, the rise of artificial intelligence and deepfake technology. >> uh- technology has made it possible and cheap and easy to create highly realistic pictures and videos of child sexual abuse material that can be virtually indistinguishable from from real children. >> it could include someone using the real face of a child on an ai body. this is why assembly member marc berman

authored ab 1831, in september. the new law, in effect at the beginning of this year, criminalizes the creation, distribution and possession of artificial intelligence generated child sexual abuse material. >> data also shows that people who view child sexual abuse material. it normalizes this this awful behavior for them, and it makes it more likely that they might act on that in real life. >> but the new law makes it very clear that this is illegal, and those creating it will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. the assembly member and a researcher with the stanford institute for human centered ai also believe the use of ai is not a victimless crime that is damaging to that child. >> it is an invasion of privacy. it is an infringement on their dignity. it may have reputational harms. the imagery may be out there for a long time. we're starting to see cases where kids are making these sorts of imagery of each other at school. >> brianna pfefferkorn says. in a lot of those cases, it

involves girls who are completely humiliated. and she says the most troubling thing is people can use an app to morph an image of a real person. >> first thing to do is for parents to think twice about whether they're putting images of their children's face up on their social media accounts or somewhere else that it's readily publicly accessible, as opposed to sharing it more in just in the group chat, just with grandma and grandpa. >> roxanne elias reporting. at least 27 people have now died in southern california. and those wildfires and more than dozens remain unaccounted for tonight. the palisades fire is now 27% contained. it's burned nearly 24,000 acres. meanwhile, the eaton fire. that one is up to 55% containment. so more progress today, burning more than 14,000 acres. some evacuation orders were lifted today. one man was just in disbelief at what he saw when he returned to his altadena neighborhood, his home, the only one left standing. >> why do i deserve? why do i

deserve this? i don't know, i don't think i deserve it, but god bless everybody else arrived. >> quite touched. as you can see, some homes were not as lucky. one that survived the palisades fire was split in half today by a landslide triggered by all of the water firefighters had to use to put out the flames. >> we have been following the temporary closures of two oakland fire stations as the city deals with the budget crisis. tonight, there was a virtual town hall meeting. hundreds of people logged on for an update on the situation and asked questions of city officials. the fire chief was the first speaker, and he addressed the possibility of more closures. >> we are hopeful. and we had we met just this morning with council member ramachandran and the mayor and the city administrator and staff to try and keep from having to go to phase two, which would be the closure of additional four

firehouses. >> the chief did say one of the closures delayed the response to a house fire in the oakland hills. >> coming up, bird flu on the rise. and it may mean some big changes for county fairs, a fight over the future of tiktok counting down to what may be its final days. >> could the social media app be saved? >> plus, a spacex launch fail with some unintended consequences falling debris, scrambling flights and a

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it is pushing the marine layer towards the bay area. it certainly is going to help those firefighters. the winds have backed off down in southern california. look at this really much lighter. five at browns canyon, six at malibu. this will help them to continue to gain ground on those fires there. the only bad thing is today's drought came out and it is showing more areas of southern california now under severe drought. 26% of california. so the drought in southern california has expanded and intensified here locally, we have basically abnormally

dry conditions in the eastern portion of our viewing area. a live view from our sutro tower camera. and it's a foggy one. overnight tonight. cold areas of morning frost tomorrow through the weekend. it's going to be cooler with fog giving way to sun and early to middle part of next week. it is going to be windy at times. what's going to happen tomorrow morning? watch out for the fog, even some mist and drizzle. it will pull back to the coastline in the afternoon, but then just hang around near the coast so you're not going to see a whole lot of sun at the beaches tomorrow. as a matter of fact, inland in bayside is where you'll find the sun. but cooler weather 30s and 40s out the door. you need a jacket. you might need that extra time for the commute down to 34 degrees in santa rosa and fairfield, 36 in livermore, san jose, 43 degrees tomorrow afternoon. temperatures in the 50s and 60s noticeably cooler and dropping closer to average compared to the last several days. here's what's going to happen as we get into the weekend. the marine influence continues to go on, but monday is when we start to see offshore

winds developing. once again. they get gusty. southern california could have some issues and then another round of winds coming our way on wednesday. and then one model wants to bring in the possibility of rain at the end of january. i do want to show you that first model. this is the european model. and you will notice by january 25th and 26th, it's showing some rain across the state. this is the gfs model and it's certainly wetter than the previous model. so just keep that in mind. accuweather seven day forecast. it's certainly encouraging to see that the cooler weather tomorrow, the chill, the fog in the morning and then the weekend the cooling continues. by martin luther king junior day, the winds start to turn offshore. it's a little milder and then temperatures will come up through the workweek above average once again with plenty of sun. dan, we'll be right back after the break. >> donate and help people impacted by the

>> the second weekend of february will be a big weekend for san francisco. two major events are expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city. the chinese new year parade will take place saturday, february 15th, and the nba all star game is the next day, sunday night, with related events happening all weekend, of course. police say they've been working on public safety plans for months, looking at what others do, what some of the best practices are for these types of events.

>> talking to the nba and their security specialists and just making sure that we hit everything that we need to hit properly. >> abc seven is a proud sponsor of the 2025 san francisco chinese new year parade. you can watch it live saturday, february 15th, starting at 6 p.m. right here on abc seven and wherever you stream abc (discouraged) so expensive. i mean, i'm helping my mom out, i don't have that kinda cash.

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in the towel on this season, despite comments earlier in the week with steph curry insisting if the dubs make a trade, it has to help now and in the future for the franchise. now steph had 31 points last night in minnesota. warriors built this 24 point lead. they almost blew it down the stretch again. they ended up winning by a point. and steph had a message for all of those on social media insisting a trade must be made. >> the 24 hour news cycle is hilarious at times. uh- the fact that we nobody's complacent here. nobody is okay with just being average. all the twitter fingers who's got deals that they that we need to make can kind of just shut up a little bit and let us figure this thing out. >> is he talking to me? uh- college hoops tonight. chris

gerlufsen and the dons at pepperdine. ryan beasley with the lob carlton lingard. junior with authority. two hand flush. dons by a dozen at the half. another look usf led by double digits most of the way from there on out. tyrone riley the fourth. woo look out below. malik thomas with the pass. dons win 8063. five and two in the wcc. and santa clara lost at lmu. the number 18. cal women at number 16. duke you're your new acc rivalry. only the bears second ever trip to cameron indoor. and this is one they're going to want to forget. poor shooting a horrendous 31 turnovers for cal in the game. duke scored 32 off those miscues, led by freshman toby fournier. these look like replays of the basket you just saw. but they're not. it's just cal couldn't stop her. same thing over and over. she had 23 off the bench. cal loses 7238. fewest points duke has ever given up in a ranked game to the ice. we go now. sharks fans showing up in columbus ohio. blue jackets already up one. nothing. sharks turn it over

deep in their own end and that is a problem. kent johnson shoots and scores two nothing columbus to the third period. macklin celebrini throwing it towards the net. good things usually happen tyler toffoli right place, right time. thank you very much. but it was the only goal for team teal. and the sharks fall by a score of four one. >> good seats. >> you're in the wrong seat, buddy. come on. >> oh, i must be in the front row. just a bit. >> outside, baseball legend bob uecker passed away at age 90. wasn't a great player, but he called brewers games for 50 years. then a career in movies and tv. he was the best. the brewers stadium in milwaukee is lit up in uc's honor tonight. sports on abc seven, sponsored

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