hello and welcome to kqed "newsroom." tonight, the trump factor in california politics. and the legislative countdown is on in sacramento. plus the struggle to find enough teachers as students get ready to head back to school. how two bay area middle school sisters won a global competition with an innovative app aimed at eliminating waste. first this week jurors in san francisco found utility giant pg & e guilty of six criminal charges for its role in a deadly explosion six years ago in san bruno. the jury found that pg & e obstructed the federal investigation into the explosion of one much its pipelines. the blast killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.

the utility faces a fine of $3 million. an amount some consider too small to prevent such disasters from happening again. joining me now is george avalos, business reporter for the san jose mercury news. nice to have you here. >> thank you. >> pg & e faced 12 criminal charges. it was found guilty of six. aside from obstructing an investigation charge, what were some of the other charges they were found guilty of? >> they were found guilty of a variety of violations of the pipeline safety act. these primarily included things such as their preparation, assessing threats and things like that, prioritizing threats, determining how to deal with dangers in the pipelines. the acquittals primarily related to -- there were six counts in which they were acquitted. primarily related to record keeping issues. >> initially, federal prosecutors were seeking nearly

$600 million in fines. then early this month, in a surprise move, they dropped that request to $6 million. now with this latest verdict, the maximum penalty is $3 million. why did prosecutors slash their request? >> the u.s. attorney's office never officially stated why it did that. it was silent on the matter publically. however, there are some court sources, people who have actually talked to the u.s. attorney brian stretch who stated that rulings by the judge, the trial judge in the case, felton henderson, put the prosecution in a bit of a box as far as how they could introduce the evidence. so the prosecution evidently thought that it was going to be too cumbersome and too difficult to proceed with the alternative fines act which would have brought the $562 million fine

you were referencing. it would have required almost a complete forensic investigation into their profits, how they use their revenue and money and so forth. >> prosecutors decided if they went for a smaller amount in fines, they could at least try to ensure a guilty verdict, which is what they thought. what has been the response of the verdicts from san bruno city officials and people in the affected neighborhood? >> it has been mixed to this extent. everybody is happy that pg & e was convicted and has on its corporate seal the record that they were -- that they are a convicted felon. of course, people are disappointed in the very small fine, which is something like 0.3%. >> of their profits from last year. >> right. but they think the important thing is is that they were found guilty. but they also say in the same

breath that no amount of money, no size -- it doesn't matter how large the fine was, it could never replace the eight people lost and countless people who were traumatized by the explosion. >> moving forward, what has the company been doing to improve pipeline safety? are we any safer now than six years ago? >> there are some critics who say you could have another san bruno again. not enough has been done. the company has spent nearly $3 billion doing a variety of things, replacing old pipelines, automating valves, shutoff valves. they built a gas control center. they have taken a number of steps. but there is a suspicion lurking out there that it's not enough and that pg & e needs independent supervision. >> speaking of supervision, this gets to the issue of the state public utilities commission, which is charged with overseeing the utilities like pg & e.

the explosion led to the disclosure of close ties between top officials at pg & e and the state puc. just today an assembly man announced his promotional to increase accountability and oversight at the puc. this is in addition to two other bills aimed at reforming the agency. is it enough to restore public trust in the puc? >> well, the puc in the view of many critics has a long way to go. some people have used the analogy that pg & e was a juvenile delinquent student. but the puc was like a lazy teacher, uninterested in really remedying the fault of the student. so there are a lot of people that think some of the major next steps are to really reign in the puc and make them focus on things such as related to power regulation. >> that's the point of the package of reform bills now

pending in the state legislature. george with the san jose mercury news, thank you. >> thank you. >> it's august which means lawmakers in sacramento are rushing to finish their work before the end of the month. hundreds of bills need to be decided including measures that tackle the housing shortage and climate change. first fallout from the presidential election. joining me is marissa, lagos. we have seen some declare for donald trump. >> you know, the state of the republican party in california isn't as robust as in some of the other states where there's been a lot of attention. i think we saw that at the republican convention with how fee elected officials went there to support trump. in the past week, we have seen in sacramento, the sheriff is

running and he had earlier endorsed trump. now he's not sure he will vote for him. we have them calling out a representative in the valley saying if you do not repudiate trump, we cannot support you. denim hit back but didn't really say that he was on board with a lot of what trump is saying. it's definitely i think a hard place for republicans. i don't think they want to be in a position where people associate them with donald trump when voters go to the ballot in november. >> they called it a litmus test, whether you support trump or not. >> they supported denim in the past. they're not saying they are supporting his opponent. this is between a rock and a hard place. a lot of the issues that trump has made more controversial statements around immigration, those are huge problems for the republican party, especially in california. it's not a great place to be. there's already been such a challenge getting republicans

elected in the golden state. >> let's talk about state politics as well. high profile proposals are falling by the way side with just three weeks left in the legislative session -- a little less than three weeks. governor brown's housing plan. what would it do and why is it in trouble? >> h >> this is interesting. the governor is trying to make it easier to develop housing or for developers to by -- what opponents will say doing an end run around local controls that limited development in cities like san francisco and other coastal areas. the governor want dozen s to do saying if you have 20% affordable, you can bypass local rules that kind of trip up the developments. that is controversial. it's taking away control from local cities and counties. he tried to sweeten the pot by saying if the legislature passes this, i will give $400 million towards low income housing. so far we are not seeing the buy-in he needs. >> what happens now?

san jose senator jim bell has something pending. >> that's right. he has a 300 -- $3 billion bond measure. this was to fund mostly low income housing development. it was supposed to be pegged to next year's ballot. just this week we saw amendments that made it able to go to the assembly floor. it wouldn't be on the ballot until 2018. >> another big topic for governor brown, one of his li a legacy issues, the climate. >> in 2006 we passed a climate change bill in california which has led to the state's cap in trade program and some very ambitious goals to cut emission levels. those goals will expire in 2020 or there are some questions over whether they will. there's questions over whether the legislature was able to pass cap and trade without a two-thirds vote. at the heart of the debate is

whether california should expand and extend these goals. supporters want to pass legislation. but there's a lot of pushback by moderate democrats. republicans have never been on board. businesses are always wary of this. we are seeing that the legislation that would sort of extend these goals to 2030 is going to come up for a vote potentially. it made it out of appropriations where a lot of bill goes to die. it's not clear kind of what the final vote will be or really even if that legislation is -- will have that cap and trade component in it. >> but not everything is on a tightrope. it has been a productive legislative session. there are a number of things that passed. >> yeah. the reason we're talking about these hard issues is that a lot of difficult things were tackled earlier in the year, things that a year ago we didn't think would be -- would happen in sacramento. they passed the minimum wage to $15 an hour. they passed a package of gun control bills.

they raised the smoking age to 21. there was a right to die legislation for the terminally ill. this huge win for the governor which was the extension and reauthorization of a tax that helps pay for healthcare for the pool. that require republican support and they got it. >> a lot has happened in this legislative session. you have followed it. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> it's back to school time. across california, districts are scrambling to fill teaching jobs. experts say california is facing an emerging teacher shortage. they say increased demand for k through 12 teachers comes at a time when enrollment in teacher education programs has dropped more than 70% over the last decade. joining us to discuss the impact are patrick shields, executive director of the learning policy institute, professor lisa sim many son from the department of special education at san jose state university. welcome to you both.

patrick, which school subjects are seeing the most severe shortages? >> as would typically happen, it's math and science. especially special education. right now, we have about 8,000 teachers who are unprepared in california's classrooms. they are teaching but haven't gotten their proper credential. in areas like special education, a full 50% of the new hires have not yet fully prepared to be special education teachers. >> that's astounding. why is this happening? wasn't there funding in the new budget? >> that's what happened. in the great recession, 2008, 2009, state revenues just dropped. school districts' revenues dropped. what they did was to stop hiring new teachers. in response to there not being jobs, young people stopped going into the profession. there was a drop of 70% in the number of new teachers in the state. as the economy has recovered,

school districts' budgets have been increasing. they're trying to fill the positions. we're at an inflection point where the demand increased but supply is not keeping up. >> you had referred to the issue with special education teachers. the acute shortage there. professor simpson, why is it so hard to get special education teachers? >> well, the special education teachers have a slightly different role than general education teachers. they need a little bit more expertise. they work in the classroom a little bit differently. they are working with children that have very diverse learning needs. so not everyone thinks about going into special education. we hear a lot about people choosing to be teachers, but there's not always that awareness of special education teachers as well. this is another group of students that also need support and that you can become a teacher of. part of it is an awareness issue. >> the group of students s s is

increasing. >> increased number of students with autism, increased numbers with adhd. the population of students with disabilities or special needs is not going up. it's continuing to go up. couple that with, as patrick was saying, the number of teachers, people going into the profession going down, now we're seeing a much wider disparity, a gap in the people that are prepared to go into that. >> currently, how many special education teachers are there versus general education teachers? what is the attrition rate for special education teachers? >> so the numbers in general, i don't know how many are special education. >> 28,000, somewhere in that order. >> across the state. >> right. >> an enormous attrition rate. >> attrition rate, particularly in the bay area, we're having a

lot of need for special education teachers. our teachers are finding it difficult to live in this area because of the cost of living. once they do complete their training, they may only work a year or two and then decide to move out. i'm not sure that that's particularly different than general education teachers, because they also experience those same difficulties with trying to find housing and maintain a living and support a family. >> but i had read that the attrition rate for special education teachers is 50% in five years. much lower for general education teachers. >> it is lower for general education teachers. i think the main story here besides the economic -- why do teachers leave? they leave for economic reasons. they can't afford to live. also they want to be able to succeed. they want to be able do well with their students. special education, as lisa points out, you have students with different problems.

kids come with many differences. teachers need to be trained very well in order to succeed. not all teachers are getting that preparation before they are moving into the classroom. >> what is the solution here, patrick? i know that there's a san francisco residency program you are involved in. >> yes. there's -- the solution, of course, is multi-folded. one is compensation and making sure people are getting paid. as lisa knows, a number of the districts in the bay area, including san francisco, have signing bonuses for teachers. san francisco faced a shortage of 100 teachers a couple weeks ago. residency programs are ones in which teachers are paid to get prepared. they spent a first year of their preparation in a classroom with an expert teacher learning as they go. this helps to diversify the work for force. it brings in people

school and working with professionals, people in the school works, know the kids and help to train them. lisa started approval of the program. >> we're also doing at san jose state. in addition to trying to recruit some of our undergraduates into the program, we recognize that's only part of the issue. that we need to go outside of that traditional thinking and looking at who else might make a great special education teacher and so we have partnered with one of our local school districts to work with the educators. we provide training over the course of a year for a small group of para-educators and try

to talk to them and prepare them to come into the credential program. looking at it a bit more maybe stable population, because there are members in the community in which they work. >> you mean instructional aides? >> instructional aides. >> i want to talk about financial incentives. there are school districts offering financial incentives to attract special education teachers in san francisco, for example, they are offering $4,000, santa clara unified, $5,000, franklin-mckinley school district is offering $9,000. does this strategy work? what about districts that can't afford those incentives? >> that's exactly it. you bring up a good point. it's not just special education. what we found in the past when we had shortages is that there's areas like special education and math and sciences, but also that poor kids in general, high minority schools, high poverty schools, have the most difficulty attracting.

so just like special ed kids, it's the kids who need it the most, in the high poverty areas, who are most likely to get a teacher who is unprepared. it's a real challenge. it shouldn't have to be solved district by district. it needs to be solved state wide. >> we will have to leave it there. so much more to discuss but we're out of time unfortunately. professor lisa simpson and also patrick shields. thank you to you both. >> you are welcome. >> thank you. >> i would say every girl in middle school and junior high should know how to solve a problem using technology. >> that's the idea and drive behind a global girls only technology competition based here in the bay area. the annual technovation challenge asked them to create an app. two sisters beat out hundreds of teens from around the globe for their app called locate donate. sisters jennifer and allison join me now.

along with the senior director modzi buseen. welcome to you all. congratulations on winning. thrilled for you. jennifer, what does your app do? can you give us a demonstration? >> our app connects people that have items to donate with donation centers that need the items. first of all, they need to select from a list of categories which types of items they would like to donate. for example, you click clothing. they have to put in their location. i'm going to put in the zip code 94065. then our app searches our database to find nearby donation centers. it displayed results. savers is 3.7 miles away. then the user can click on that and they can see it on a map. they can go to the website and call them and see the business hours so they can visit it. >> easy and convenient. allison, how did you come up with this idea? >> the first step for the idea was identifying a problem in our community.

we saw at our house we were wasting a lot of food. we thought maybe an idea that would help you keep track of your food and maybe suggest places to donate it if you need you couldn't use it in time. then we interviewed our friends and their families. they said that they would maybe use it just because they were friends but they wouldn't actually -- they didn't think it would be very helpful to them. so we thought that maybe just the donations idea was the best of everything in that app idea. >> you did market research? >> yeah. >> i think it's a great idea. the technovation pitch competition is for girls only. what are you hoping to achieve through that. >> the basic ideas of the program is it's a technology entrepreneurship program for girls. as jennifer and allison said, they go through the process of launching a mobile app. the larger objective is to develop that sense of sel

self-efficacy that they can solve it, they can work with mentors. it's developing larger life and professional skills. you work together in a team. it has an element of the social value of what you do. it's basically creating leaders in their own communities to solve the community problems using technology. >> are you also striving to teach them entrepreneurship skills as well? >> yes. exactly. the component -- there are two xh components. one is the app that they develop. the second piece is they do market research. and just like how they would make money. it's like -- it's a startup. you have to make money. the other component is also not just entrepreneurship but the social enterprise piece as well. >> jennifer and allison, you won $10,000 in feed money. what are you doing with that money. >> we're going to start

advertising our app to get more users. once we have a larger user base, we will want to expand to other cities. we want to add new york and chicago and los angeles. right now we only have centers in the bay area. adding other cities and getting the word out. >> you are home schooled. do you study computer science at home? >> yeah. we do. i think we both started around the age of 9 with python. so we started just learning out of a book with our mom helping us. then i took some online classes, too. then just learning how to use app inventor. >> when you entered the contest, did you feel confident you would win this thing? >> no. we had no idea that we would be here. it was really exciting. >> that's wonderful. how many competitors were there this year? from how many countries? >> so in all, we have 10,000 competitors from 78 countries. this year we had 800 girls for the middle school and high school combined.

>> the diversity gap is a big issue in tech, as you know, where most employees are still white and male. what role does technovation play? >> in two ways. by reaching out the girls and developing their confidence. you can create a mobile app, but you use that. you are creators of technology as well. they think about careers in tech. but the other thing is all these teens are mentored by professionals. a lot of them we try to get more and more women mentors. the idea is these mentors are already in tech. they are in the pipeline. but then working with these groups of girls, the fact they make the girls and inspire the next generation. we hope to keep inspiring women who are in technology and also build the pipeline by inspiring these girls and giving them the confidence they can solve any problem. >> jennifer, what did you do this summer? >> an internship at a research

lab at uc santa cruz. >> you are 15. >> it was cool. >> good for you. allison, what did do you? >> basically the first part of the summer was all preparing for technovation. making last details with the app. after that, the world pitch was over. i went to a three week long sleepaway camp in engineering. >> your app is available on andro android. are you working on developing for other systems as well? >> yeah. we just partnered with a company and they volunteered to help us to develop our app for ios. hopefully in the next few weeks. >> we are grateful for them to help us out. it's cool. >> that's exciting. are you working on any other apps? this is taking up a lot of your time? >> we are working on this right now since we are busy over the summer. hopefully, we will want to help

build other apps. >> what do you gals want to be when you grow up? >> hopefully, something in the tech industry. i'm not sure what. entrepreneurship is something that i objenterests me. >> something along the lines of that. i have no specific idea. somebody in technology or math and science. >> such a pleasure to talk to you both and you are so inspirational. thank you for hosting this competition and spotting great young local talent. thank you to jennifer and allison and modzi. >> thank you. >> great to be here. >> that does it for tonight. thanks so much for watching. for all of kqed's news coverage, go to kqednews.org. university,

welcome to this edition of equal time. i'm your host, journalism school director, bob rucker. how would you like to be in a cage getting attacked, while people cheer? >> he got elbowed and got cut. it was on the eyebrow and then on side of forehead, down. i moved it and i see like his freaking skull, i was like whoa. >> this is what it feels like in mixed martial arts. we'll explore the phenomenon on this edition of equal time. [ music ] mixed martial arts have grown more and more popular in recent years. the sport enables fighters