freeway, which resulted in the closure of the richmo richmond-san rafael bridge and kept traffic gridlocked for hours. i'm kristen sze. >> i'm cheryl jennings. they have continued to try to get the man to surrender peacefully, and he has barricaded himself with a woman inside so they are treating this as a hostage situation. terry mcsweeney has more. >> 24 hours and counting in the hostage standoff. the gunman is holed up in the second floor room on the front of the hotel. as he mentioned, he has a woman with him. that's his girlfriend. police consider her a hostage. 580 has reopened, thanks to the quick thinking of a san rafael police officer and a big piece of metal. 80 police officers and sheriff deputies are outside and inside the hotel. and have been since shortly after the hostage standoff began at 10:30 yesterday morning. that's when the man whose name police are not releasing to the public fired a shot from the second floor hotel room when the police came to arrest him. >> it was fired in the

direction of 580. we can't confirm where it landed. >> concerned that the next shot might hit someone in a vehicle on the freeway, the c.h.p. closed a 1.3 mile stretch of 580 to lead to a massive day-long traffic tie-up. this morning, the gunman's view of the outside world is blocked by an 8-by-10 sheet of metal. one-inch thick. suspended from a crane. bulletproof protection for the public. it went up just after midnight, at which time the road was reopened. >> an officer came up with the idea of paying a steel plate, company in san rafael came out with a crane and steel-plate and suspended like a shade. >> police had been looking for the suspect since sunday when he allegedly stabbed a san rafael growingry store worker after being cught shoplifting and allegedly drove away in a stolen car. police found him at the hotel yesterday morning, the gunshot, the freeway closure and on and off negotiations. police defend the decision to shut down the freeway. >> the ultimate goal is

resolve this peacefully and not have any injuries at all. that's ultimately what we want. so we will take the time we need to accomplish that. >> large number of swat teams are out here as you can see, san francisco p.d. has the swat team out here. swat teams from across marin county and sonoma county as well and a short time ago, the forces were joined by a swat team from the f.b.i. live in san rafael, terry mcsweeney, abc7 news. >> all right. thanks a lot. right now, the coast guard and several search and rescue teams are looking for a treasure island man who vanished in the bay. 52-year-old michael butler was reported missing last night at 6:15. two men were with butler when it tipped over. butler told his friends he wanted to swim back to the canoe for some of his things and he never returned. people on shore said they saw a man fitting his description swimming toward angel iland. they've found no sign of the canoe or butler. >> they're suing the owners

of a panda extres restaurant in san jose. according to the media partner the mercury news, it accuses the manager of disciplining latino employees more harshly and frequentenly than the asian counterparts and claim that managers made latino workers clean toilets and perform other work while asian employees stood around and watched. the stood accuses panda express of violating the civil rights act prohibiting discrimination based on race or ethnicity. a spokesman says they don't comment on pending litigation. new wave of panic on wall street as we return to the global selloff we saw last week. the dow plunged over 500 points in early trading before inching up a bit. right now it's down 405 points. back over the 11,000 mark, but not by much. investors had plenty to worry about. amy hollyfield has more. amy? >> reporter: when the dow tanked today there was a loud grown on the trading floor in san francisco. we went over there to check out the reaction and get some advice.

one thing is for sure. traders are quite the optimists. >> stocks are on sale today. >> that is one way of looking at the massive selloff on wall street today. but it's tough to ignore the growing concerns that we are headed for a double-dip recession. the bad news came from several directions. new labor report showed unemployment claims rose above 400,000 again last week after a drop the week before. a key report on housing came in. worse than expected. another showed a slowdown in u.s. manufacturering. and then morgan stanley tossed a grenade in the mix. >> the morgan started out -- morning started out morgan stanley saying we are dangerously close to recession in the united states and in europe. that got people hitting the sell key. >> todd, the director of the san francisco floor of the new york stock exchange, says if we are headed in a recession, he thinks it will be short-lived. he bases this prediction on past double dips and his experience of reading

reports and understanding the market. >> the last one we experienced was '80/'82. the first in 1980 was short, eight months. the second one in 1982 was over a year. we have switched it this time. we had the long one first and now we have a short one second. >> president obama is expected to announce a plan after labor day to create new jobs and lower taxes for the middle class. today, he and his family are leaving for a vacation. stock market experts say it will probably be slow for the next few weeks. they don't expect a huge turn-around. so instead, they say look at this as a time to sit tight, or do some shopping. >> in the long-term, three years from now, this will have been a buying opportunity. but are we at the bottom right now? no. that is what everybody doesn't know. where do we stop this halt, where does the market downturn stop? nobody knows that. >> of course, no one knows for sure, but an indication

of what we should be facing. he is waiting until november before he buys the stock. it looks like the patience could be the key. he wanted to remind investors it's not over yet because september and october are typically the market's worst month. it's back to you. >> thanks a lot. state attorney general kamala harris will file several lawsuits against call center organizations and are accused to run a nationwide scam to dupe desperate homeowners to join thousands for focus lawsuits against the country largest bank. the suit says they lured borrowers in a scheme that falsely promised a cut of future settlements. the justice department is investigating whether credit rating giant standard & poor's improperly rated dozens of mortgages in the years leading up to the financial crisis. according to the "new york times," they are looking for incidents when the analyst want to give lower rating on mortgage bonds but were overruled by the s&p managers. lower rating could have made

the mortgages less attractive to buyers. if the government finds evidence, enough evidence to support the case, it could undercut the s&p claim that analysts act independently for business concerns. officials say the investigation began before s&p 500 recently cut the u.s. triple-a credit rating this month to double-a plus. that downgrade triggered huge selloff on wall street earlier in month. >> meanwhile, there are new signs that the housing crisis is not improving. the national association of realers said the -- realtors sate the number of people who previously brought occupied homes dropped in july for the third time in four months. sell fell 3.5% last month. analysts say falling home prices kept many people from selling their houses. and taking new jobs in growing areas. they say the same economic fears to keep the homeowners from selling are leading to reduction in consumer spending. vice president joe biden is in china for talks that will focus largely op u.s. economic woes. biden spent almost an hour

talking with his chinese counterpart in beijing. the vice president said the two leaders need to discuss jobs, growth and the direction of both country's economies. the main goal here is for the u.s. to show china that it is still safe to invest in u.s. treasury bonds. >> it's very good i think for the biden party to reassure the chinese that it's still safe for china to pocket huge reserve in the u.s. treasury bonds, that will not be an expensive quantitative easing along the lines. >> biden will also visit part of china that were devastated by massive earthquake in 2008. this was vice president's biden first visit to china since taking that office. still ahead, you can get the temperature with your direction. the new feature that just showed up on google maps. >> but first, the harsh message that president obama is sending syria's president today.

president obama is calling on syrian president to resign. the brutal response to protesters said he was unfit. president says he is imprezzing and slaughtering and torturing his own people. new sa announced today. syrian government assets in the u.s. have been frozen and americans are prohibited from making new investment

in the country. this morning hillary clinton spoke about this. >> the transition to democracy has begun. >> they are accused of firing on unarmed protesters and say 2,000 civilians have been killed since unrest began in mid-march. the united nations and u.s. allies in europe and middle east are also pressuring him to step down. >> new oil sheen has been spotted in the gulf of mexico. but british petroleum says it's not responsible. b.p. adds it's far from the site of the well that blew out last year and spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil before being capped. another sheen spotted yesterday is set to be from the heavy rain washing oil in the water from drilling platform. no report yet of where it's coming from. >> clouds finally clearing. i saw mike tweeted good news out of sfo. >> flight delays are over.

sun is coming out. it will be a decent day as far as the summer standards go. cooling trend is on the way. i'll show how long they will drop and how far they go to. >> all right. thank you. every library in santa clara county is about to close for 24 hours. find out why that is being called good news by many of the south bay. >> plus, how twitter can help you beat the stock market. >> and a big blue breakthrough. the computer chip that thinks more like a human than a computer.

>> mountain based google has added a weather layer. example of a google map with the weather layer and it shows conditions over the front street. it displays weather around the world. it's parter ins to produce the layer. they developed cloud layer information for google earth. you just tested. >> we are looking at this. you can get the currently condition, hourly and ten-day. it doesn't explain the why. that's why we have mike. >> what is happening now. >> got to go deeper here. what will happen in the next seven days.

hopefully. look outside and show what is going on. 11:17 on thursday morning. see the clouds hanging around. as we look around from mount mount this morning -- mount tamalpais this morning. any other perspective? yeah. the clear air moving through the bay as we look from emeryville to san francisco. the temperatures responding to the sunshine. look at half moon bay, 65 degrees with all the fog. we have mid-to-upper 50s around monterey bay with cloud cover there. sunshine, slow in salinas. 62 hanging out in gilroy with 70 degrees. we will see a lot of sunshine. mild temperatures around the bay and inland. cloudy at the coast. tonight, things will change a little bit. mostly cloudy. drizzle will move in for tomorrow morning commute. lock in a cooler air mass.

even in the afternoon hours. as we head through the weekend. but by next week, it's warmer, seasonal temperatures. will move back in the forecast. as far as what is happening today, compared to 24 hours ago, we have warmer weather in fremont, san jose and oakland. the same in san francisco and santa rosa. about a degree cooler in concord. now compared to average, we are starting to slip a little bit away from that. places like livermore will definitely be near average if not above. but like oakland, three degrees cooler with san jose, napa, san francisco. five degrees cooler than average. redwood city is six. sunset at 7:59 tonight. start in the east bay valley. warmest weather here. we have mid-to-upper 80s through the san ramon valley. heading to pittsburg once you get to antioch and brentwood we could touch 90. east bay. low to mid-70s. fremont at 78. breezy around rich monday and berkeley. down in south bay, the upper 70s to mid-80s. campbell around 81 degrees. on the peninsula, we have the mid-to-upper 70s for you with the upper 50s to 60

along the coast. downtown, south san francisco and saucelito mid-60s. warm, upper 70s to low 80s. then you get around vallejo, 67 at saucelito. mid-to-upper 60s at the beaches. you can see what the cloud cover does at monterey bay. 70 in watsonville. that sunshine is gilroy up to 85 degrees. as far as the coliseum goes. we have the blue jays in town. increasing clouds tonight after the 7:05 first pitch. 64 warming up to 57 degreeing. now we will have more drizzle alon the coast, the peninsula and possibly the east bay hills tomorrow morning. see how it will lock in the cooler weather. it's four to six degrees cooler than today. clouds are less prev leapt sunday, monday, tuesday. that's why we have warmer weather in the afternoon. >> thank you, mike. >> you bet. we have developing news right now in concord. police activity has prompted the closure of the eastbound state highway 4 off-ramp to southbound port chicago highway. shut down is the port chicago highway from arnold

industrial way to panoramic drive. details about the police activity. they are not being released to us. police are not saying when they will reopen the roads. we'll have more for you on abc7news.com. stocks tumbling again today a new analysis suggests a surprising way to beat the market. using of all things twitter. u.k. based hedge fund has been making investments in the past month using the mood on twitter. the fund has a formula that counts emotional words like alert, happy and vital. together, they reflect how calm public sentiment is used to predict daily moves on the dow. the fund's accuracy is nearly 88%. beating other hedge funds and the overall market. well, ibm says it is closer than ever to building a computer chip that works and thinks like the human brain. today, big blue announced it's produced two ground-breaking prototype chips with input from 100 researchers and 4 $41

million from the federal defensed a vanced research project agency. the ibm new chip is made up of tiny processors that mimic the human brain neural network and could allow computers to make decisions. learn in a way far more similar to humans. they may even be able to rewire themselves to learn things that are not part of the original programming. if you need a book from the santa clara county library, get it before tuesday. the library is shutting down all the branchs on tuesday the 23rd. to perform maintenance and upgrades on the computers. officials say the software upgrade will make it easier for the public to use the library online. and allow future updates to be done remotely without having to shut the whole system down. library officials chose the august date because it's one of the slower times of the year. still ahead -- are you looking for something to do for the weekend? >> always, right? >> don sanchez has "what's

today at 3:00 on 7 five, are women with large engagement rings being discriminated against in job interviews? and then new laws are forcing changes in dish washing detergent? we check it out for you. and growing number of children living in poverty and how it affects the health and well-being. we have that and more later today at 4:00 and 5:00. time to think about what you want to do for the weekend. go to the ballet, circus and

the muppets are in town. >> something for everybody. >> don sanchez has "what's hot." >> going where no muppet has gone before. art and soul in downtown oakland is dazzling array of talent. more than 150 artisans and a huge family fun zone. >> the comedy with a thoughtful look at marriage. >> they are celebrating a summer program with a student show case on friday in the palace of fine arts. 141st edition of greatest show on earth. at the h.p. pavilion. the accordion festival is

music non-stop. ♪ ♪ >> to the 1920s, part of hot club s.f. is a jazz festival in palo alto. ♪ >> zucchini ice cream and zucchini pizza at the zucchini festival. remember no pants ride? they're part of the san francisco improve festival in eureka theater. don sanchez, abc7 news. >> too much fun and the weather is perfect for anything you want to do. >> i think so. if you go to the coast you have clouds. you might want to wait to wash the car until next week. when the drizzle is over. >> good advice. >> that's it for now. ♪ [ ukulele strumming ] ♪ [ folksy whistling ]

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