the news starts right now. >> a new development in the menendez brothers case. just in the past hour, the los angeles

county district attorney weighing in on their case. his message for judge considering the brothers appeal for freedom. good afternoon. i'm kristen z l a s new district attorney nathan hochman has made it clear ever since taking office that he would thoroughly review the murder case. he says the menendez brothers shouldn't be treated differently because of their fame. abc news reporter jacqueline lee has the latest from los angeles. >> the major decision today in the case of lyle and erik menendez. >> we have put in the hard work to understand the menendez case. >> today, the d.a. closing one path that could have seen the brothers released. the da discounting new evidence of sexual abuse by their father coming to light. >> sexual abuse in this situation. while it may have been a motivation for eric and lyle to do what they did does not constitute self-defense. >> those allegations at the heart of the brothers claim they killed their parents in self-defense. >> we conclude in our informal

response that the court should deny the current habeas petition by the menendez brothers. >> eric and lyle were found guilty in the brutal killing of their parents, jose and kitty, in their $5 million beverly hills home in 1996. they have served 35 years of their life sentence. >> this is done, this is done. >> their case gaining renewed interest on social media after streaming documentaries and shows depicted their stories. the brothers recently calling into the two angry men podcast, sharing they were brutalized behind bars for the last 35 years. >> i was picked on, bullied violently, uh- and it was traumatic and it was continual. >> one other path to freedom for the brothers is clemency from california governor gavin newsom. jacqueline lee, abc news, los angeles. >> an alleged member of a berkeley cult like group appeared in a solano county courtroom this morning. he received legal representation and will be back in court in march. 22 year old maximilian

snyder is accused of killing his 82 year old vallejo landlord, curtis linde, on january 17th. police believe the motive was to keep linde from testifying about two of his former tenants, tied to a group called the lions, who attacked and nearly killed him two years earlier. they have also been linked to several deaths spanning three states. last sunday, police in maryland arrested an apparent leader. 34 year-old jack lasota from berkeley, and two others. a uc berkeley professor says cults are now inside homes nationwide online. >> we talk about cults. we're really talking about forms of belief that disrupt our social equilibrium. but there's no legal definition for cults. >> lasota and the two others are being held in maryland on gun and trespassing charges. and here's a closer look at the group over the years. it was in 2016, while living in the bay area, that jack lasota started writing under the online persona zs. in august 2022, the u.s.

coast guard responded to a report that lasota had fallen out of a boat on san francisco bay, but no body was found. lasota was declared dead at the time. then that november that vallejo landlord tried to evict lasota and other positions. two days before the deadline, the landlord was attacked with a sword. then fast forward to this january. that's when the landlord was killed. also in january, the u.s. border patrol officer was killed in vermont. that incident is what led the fbi to start connecting the dots in their cross-country investigation. developing news in southern california los angeles mayor karen bass has fired the city's fire chief. bass says the removal of chief christine crowley is effective immediately. bass says 1000 firefighters could have been on duty the morning that the l.a. fires broke out last month, but that they were sent home on the chief's watch. the mayor is under heavy criticism herself for having been on an overseas trip while her city was burning, but she's now saying that before fires erupted, chief crowley

failed to warn her about the risk of a firestorm. what a contrast. it is a beautiful day here in the bay area with a pleasant spring-like weekend in store. here's abc seven meteorologist drew tuma with the accuweather forecast. >> we have a fantastic friday on the way. it's mostly sunny. temperatures in the 60s and 70s just great out there today. over the weekend feels like spring. we'll have temperatures above average and then even into next week we're finding warmer conditions. middle part of next week looks quite warm. more than 10 to 15 degrees above average. so today it's partly cloudy out there. we'll keep those numbers in the 60s and in the 70s. your ocean water temperature is 53 degrees. if you're headed to the coast. we will have really calm conditions there overnight. tonight we will find partly cloudy skies. overnight lows generally in the 40s, will likely see some patchy cloud cover around the bay shoreline. sunrise here tomorrow is at 651 in the morning. looking at future tracker temperatures. by saturday we see those 70s more

so inland and in the south bay 73 in san jose is going to feel very nice tomorrow sunday. we still keep it mild out there. those temperatures even into monday and tuesday. we see those numbers in the mid 70s. by wednesday. i think it's foreseeable that some areas, especially in the south bay, the inland east bay, we could have some numbers closing in on 80 degrees. so just know the next 7 to 8 days we'll keep it dry, will keep it mild, high pressure in control. we have no concerns when it comes to any adverse weather. here is the accuweather seven day forecast. we'll keep it mild today. now over the weekend we continue to warm up just a bit. we'll get temperatures into the 70s away from the coast into early next week. high pressure really moves in here. so by tuesday those temperatures continue to climb about ten degrees above average. we're highlighting wednesday because not only is it the warmest day on the seven day forecast 70 along the coast, that's going to feel nice. some areas, not only in the upper 70s, but could see some areas flirt close to 80 degrees even

by thursday. we'll keep it mild on the seven day forecast. >> happening now. the topic of school closures is back on the table in the north bay. santa rosa city schools is holding a special board meeting to try to hash out a closure plan. wednesday night's meeting went on for hours, with a contentious debate over the possible closure of a high school. ultimately, the board did not reach a final decision. we know for sure three elementary schools are closing our bella brook hill and seal lane. the district is dealing with a $20 million shortfall. today's meeting is going to decide the fate of several middle schools and a high school. the district says its goal is to avoid extensive layoffs. with just two days away now from this weekend's black joy parade in oakland. we'll be live streaming the parade on our abc7 platforms on our midday show, abc7 news anchor julianne glover, who is going to co-host the parade, was joined by abc seven news parade co-host reporter zach fuentes and community co-host taylor crenshaw. >> this is like a merging of my

two worlds because taylor, we've done this for the last couple of years. zach, we've done oakland pride before. i get both of you same place, same time. going to be amazing. taylor, you are like the vet here. you've been doing this for so many years. the weather is going to be perfect this weekend, drew tells me. what are you most looking forward to this year? >> oh, i am looking forward to all the celebration of black culture. the black joy parade does a really good job at getting the overview feel of how it feels to be black and to celebrate blackness, but also dives into those niche areas. so we're going to have a dance battle where people win $2,000. we got a gospel choir in the house, okay, we're going to have sororities, fraternities. it's just all of these beautiful aspects of black culture put together, and i cannot wait in the food and the food. >> right. we got black vines there too. we got all types of winemakers and vintners. zach, first time hosting it with us. but you've been there before. what are you most looking forward to for a black joy

parade and festival? >> well, really just everything, taylor said. i echo that entirely. last year i was walking up and down along the parade route reporting from there, so i really got to be with the people there and seeing the different groups represented that were on the floats and coming through the parade, but the people on the sidelines too. so i'm really just excited to see who all is going to come out because it's just so many diverse people, different groups represented. but what struck me so much last year, too, was just the amount of young people coming out and having the pride, you know, so many of those young people, their grandparents, great grandparents, you know, not that long ago, you could have never thought of having a parade like this when this community was coming together. it was for things that were not so positive. so to come together for a time of joy like this, and it is such a good time, everyone. i'm looking forward to that. most of all for sure. and then sitting alongside you guys, of course. >> it's going to be so much fun. and like you both said, it's such a beautiful event. everyone's smiling because everyone is having the time of their lives, even two years ago. remember when it was cold? it was raining, it was pouring. but

people, they didn't care. it was such a great time. >> julian. we stuck that out like soldiers. and the streets were still packed with thousands of people. and it rained up until maybe the headliner. so now that we're going to have perfect, beautiful weather, you can only imagine the 33, excuse me, the 30,000 people that are going to be in the streets celebrating and having a good time. listen, you do not want to miss. this is an event that you got to mark in your calendar. you're busy. >> so it is in the calendar, right? the black joy parade, oakland abc seven is proudly live streaming the parade for the third year in a row. you can watch it sunday. it starts at 12:30 p.m. wherever you stream abc seven news. still ahead on abc seven news at three. earth may be in the path of an asteroid in 2032, but the odds for impact keep shifting. up next, we'll talk to the project lead for planetary defense at the lawrence livermore national

why are four? that's the asteroid that may or may not hit earth in the year 2032. you might have seen bets placed on it, jokes made about it as the odds for impact keep shifting. why is that? and how are scientists preparing for all eventualities? joining us live now to talk about it is katherine kumamoto, project lead for planetary defense at the lawrence livermore national laboratory. katherine, thanks for your time. >> hi, kristen. i'm glad to be here. >> that is a cool name for your group. how does your group defend the planet? through science, right. >> through science. so my team primarily does computational work. so using complicated,

detailed multiphysics simulations to understand the potential hazards associated with an impacting asteroid or comet uh- like a tsunami, if the asteroid hit the ocean or the blast wave associated with an asteroid exploding in the atmosphere. we also do simulations of ways that we could stop the asteroid from impacting the earth at all, stopping it while it's still in space by either deflecting it or disrupting and fragmenting it into very small pieces. >> i definitely want to explore those scenarios in depth with you, but can i just get to a question that everybody's asking? people are looking at, you know, when it was first discovered, they said it was like under 2% chance that it could hit us. and then it went up to like 3.2%. and then everybody was freaking out. and just in the last couple of days, it went back down to 1.5%, i think. why? >> yeah. we're in fact down all the way below 1% today. >> oh, good. >> so it's great news. uh. so we can think of the kind of uncertainty in the asteroid's

future location at some point in time, as this kind of long stripe of possible locations where it could be. and this is we have this uncertainty because we haven't perfectly nailed down that asteroid's orbit yet. every single observation we get will improve our estimations of the orbit of the asteroid, and therefore improve our predictions of its future location. >> i see. >> now we get. >> okay. >> so we get a non-zero impact probability when that stripe crosses earth. and initially. >> when is that though like what you know, right now we still have a long ways off till 2032. at what point will you guys be able to say close to 100%? yep. it's not. or yep, it's going to hit us. >> so we'll get observations of the asteroid for the next month or two. and in that time, the asteroid could very easily drop to 0% chance of impacting the earth. it's all depends on how that stripe of uncertainty shrinks. if it shrinks away from the earth, then we'll have we'll be able to get that 0% impact probability. if it shrinks from

kind of the other side, then there may still be a non-zero chance until we can see the asteroid again in 2028. >> okay, so its path is a little uncertain to you, but what about its size or what it's made of? do you know those things? >> so telescopic observations of this asteroid suggest it's made up of rocks, as opposed to, say, metal or ice. and this is because it has this kind of characteristic spectrum in those telescopes. okay. in terms of the size. yeah. we have to make an assumption based on okay, we think it's made of rocks. and so there's a certain shininess that we would expect from those rocks, how much light that asteroid is going to reflect. and that's still a range. and that's what gives us our size range for 2020, for year four of about 40 to 90m, as was reported by the international asteroid warning network. >> okay. so that's the best estimate right now. if it were to hit, what could happen? i mean, we saw in the leonardo dicaprio movie don't look up. okay. that was obviously a

planet killer, but i know it. >> was a much. >> bigger one. right. okay. but it doesn't have to be. so you mentioned a couple of things off the top. what are the potential scenarios? >> so especially if the asteroid is on the smaller end of that size range and it's likely to be. then the scenario we're looking at is something more like the asteroid exploding in the atmosphere. and so then we there's still a blast wave associated with that we saw in the 2013 chelyabinsk incident that that asteroid was about 20 meter asteroid. it exploded in the atmosphere and blew in a lot of windows. and so people got injured from broken glass, but nobody was killed for as as the asteroids get larger in size, the hazards do increase as well. >> as you watch it and gather more information. right. what i'm sure no doubt you're already thinking ahead to what interception methods we could maybe, maybe take. i do think it was, what, two years ago when nasa did an asteroid redirection test, right? >> that's correct. the double asteroid redirection test. and

so we can use technology like we used for dart to potentially move or entirely disrupt this asteroid into small pieces that would no longer threaten the earth. and we look at all of these different options, and they're a function of the asteroid size, a function of the asteroid makeup. and as we learn more about why r4, we would really be able to nail down which of those methods would be best applied to keep that asteroid from potentially hurting anybody. >> okay, that's great to know that there are things we can do to affect the outcome. so, you know, all this talk, i mean, people are so excited and maybe anxious, but they're talking about this asteroid. how do you feel about it as a scientist? and i wonder if you're changing anything that you do or how you live your life because of this slim possibility? >> so asteroids this size actually pass in the kind of earth-moon system pretty often a couple times a year. and so this is this was very exciting in terms of the potential risk. we

paid a lot of attention. it definitely affected our day to day jobs quite a bit. as we were carefully watching this asteroid right along with everybody else. but these kinds of observations might become more frequent as we get better and better tools. and so we get better at spotting these asteroids early on. and neo surveyor is going to launch by 2027. and that is a telescope that's specifically aimed at finding these asteroids out in space. that could be potential risks to earth. >> well, in this world of uncertainty and seemingly so many risks, this does make me feel a little better after our conversation. catherine kumamoto with the lawrence livermore national lab project lead for planetary defense. thank you so much. >> thank you so much. >> have a great weekend. >> you too. >> coming up next, frustrated by their property tax bill, a couple develops a new ai tool that may be able to save you thousands of dollars as well. we'll talk to our partner, the san

with the way that pg&e handled the wildfires. yeah. yeah. i totally, totally understand. we're adding a ton of sensors. as soon as something comes in contact with the power line, it'll turn off so that there's not a risk that it's gonna fall to the ground and start a fire. okay. and i want you to be able to feel the improvements. we've been able to reduce wildfire risk from our equipment by over 90%. that's something i want to believe. [skateboard sounds]

way too high of a value, costing you thousands of dollars extra in property taxes each year. our media partner, the san francisco standard, has found a new ai tool built by a couple who was outraged by their own property tax bill. and it just may save you money, too. joining us live now is san francisco standards business editor kevin truong, who has a story to share with us. hey, kevin. >> hi. thank you for having me. >> yeah. so this ai tool. interesting. it's called comp finder, right? but before we talk about that, let's start with this couple who created it. what's their story? >> so the couple that created this tool are named oliver and danielle wang. and like a lot of folks, they purchased a home during the height of the crazy housing market that we saw over the last couple of years. they purchased a condo in a downtown uh- in soma at the lumina building. and you know, that segment, particularly of the

residential market, has really was really been hit hard by value, by home value decreases due to things like interest rate increases, as well as some of the challenges that the city as a whole is having. so when they got a letter showing that their home was assessed by the city at nearly $1.7 million. they they pretty much balked. and then they had the skills and the tools as engineers to come up with a solution. and now they're sharing it with the rest of the world. >> got it. just real quickly. you know, it was assessed at 1.7. what was it really market value wise? and what's the difference in the property tax. >> right. so it was assessed at around nearly 1.7. the real market value based off of some of the comparison sales that are around the property. 1.3 something like that. and we're talking about a property tax decrease of a couple of thousand dollars, $3,000. and that's not a small thing, especially when we're talking annually. >> yeah. no no that's a big

thing. okay. so they said we want that $3,000. so they went to work. so now tell us about this tool that they built. comp finder. >> right. so they used ai to basically scrape a lot of the other comparable sales, which is exactly how the city prices their own assessments or when they're trying to figure out the new values of these. but the problem is when you go through what's called an assessment appeals process, where you try to fight the value given by the city. there's a lot of these really baroque and bureaucratic and complicated rules that exist. and what they were able to do with this ai is essentially remove some of that complication. so you put in what year you're being taxed for, you put in the year of the property, you you put in how many bedrooms it has. and you can actually type in with natural language. i have a swimming pool, i have a parking spot, i have this sort of view and it will find exactly the correct comparables that you can use to help lower your assessed value in the eyes of the city and then by extension,

your property taxes. >> right then presented to the assessor. right. if you didn't have this tool right. let's say you were just a normal person. like, would you just have to look up listings one by one and see, is this close to my house in terms of what it's got? condo? >> exactly. yeah. so this tool i should specify is only limited, at least in the current moment, to condos in san francisco and san jose. but i talked to one of the wing's neighbors, and she spent hours and hours looking at zillow, not really able to make heads or tails of what exactly is the right properties to choose. and so it takes a really, really long time. and the problem is these there's a lag in terms of the appeals process itself. so you're trying to find often sales a year or more before the current time. so that adds to a lot of difficulty too. and their ai tool basically is able to narrow that band and, and find the homes that work for, for the comparables that

the city will also accept. >> got it. i assume there are other success stories. i don't know how many people have used this tool so far. >> yeah, we're into the dozens, and ever since the story came out, danielle texted me earlier today saying they've gotten a lot of more traffic. and, you know, the interesting thing about this is, you know, they don't necessarily want to turn this into a business. they just want to make enough money to essentially cover the cost of compute that that these ai. ai calls or ai technology creates. so they want to essentially make this as a service because they were really frustrated and confused by the process. they had the technical skills to help themselves and help others. >> so is it not free then? it sounds like there's a bit of a fee. >> yeah, so there's a $20 fee to use the tool. but when you think about it, 20 compared to a few thousand dollars or even the $60 application fee, if you can find that actually the city might win in their assessment appeals.

that's still a bargain. >> all right. kevin truong, this is very interesting comp finder. if people want to learn more, it's on your website sf standard.com. thank you. >> thank you. >> get your popcorn ready. bay area movie theaters are rolling out the red carpet ahead of the oscars. how you can participate in a special movie event leading

vehicles on the market will be on display in the south bay. the annual silicon valley auto show starts today and will run through the weekend. the santa clara convention center has been transformed into a showroom for the latest cars, trucks, crossovers and more. organizers expect plenty of interest in

hybrid models as well. all of it with no pressure to buy, the silicon valley auto show once again runs through sunday. the oscars are about one week away, and bay area movie theaters are getting in on the action leading up to the big award show. cinemark plans to bring back its movie week at 20 locations here in the bay area. the theaters will screen all ten films nominated for best picture, including wicked and aurora. movie week kicks off on monday. and a reminder abc seven is your home for the oscars this year. it's on sunday, march 2nd, and for the first time, the show will stream live on hulu as well. disney is the parent company of hulu and abc seven. thanks for joining us. world news tonight with david muir starts now. i'll see you >> david: tonight, several breaking stories as we come on the air. you'll see it. ceo murder speck luigi mangione. you could hear supporters cheering and what his