Transcripts For KNTV NBC 20240703

Pressuring state leaders to dump the utility. But how realistic is it . Plus, another Big Tech Company getting rid of office space in San Francisco. And its a high profile building. And why is the new apple commercial getting so much criticism . Artists and other creators not happy with apple. Good evening. This is nbc bay area news tonight. Im raj mathai. For weeks weve seen the various protests happening at college campuses. And now a breakthrough of sorts. A victory for propalestinian student protesters at sacramento state. They say the university has met their demands. This would be the First College in the country to do so. Sac state students have been camping out for about a week on campus, calling for the university to divest from companies that fund israel. This is one of the common demands from protesters across the country to divest from israel. In a statement, sac state says it has created a policy focused on investigating socially responsible investments, although says it has never had any direct investments in israel. The University Says it will also review its process of holding annually. We look forward to seeing in writing what the investigation process will look like so that we can ensure a comprehensive disclosure and review process, our administration paved the way. There should be no excuse for all the other campuses to not follow these students demands. The university is also updated its policy on policies. A line was added saying the school opposed all acts that violate human rights, but did not include any direct wording on the ongoing war in gaza. Another headline that were watching tonight, a bay area superintendent called to capitol hill to address accusations of antisemitism in her school district. Berkeley superintendent annika ford michelle was one of several educators testifying in front of congress. Todays hearing comes weeks after a group of parents filed a lawsuit against the district, saying it had become unsafe for jewish students. A federal civil rights complaint was also filed and is being investigated today. The superintendent was quick to fire back at republican criticism that berkeley unified and other districts allowed antisemitic ism to fester among students and faculty. We have teachers that are teaching hate to our kids and showing it, and our students are being are feeling fearful for this. Do they are they fired or do they just transfer to another school . It appears that theyre just moving to another place. In this case, here, yeah, i guess thats the question i have is what . How is this being resolved . If we have a concern or a complaint about antisemitism or any form of hate, we take it very seriously. We investigate and we take action pending the outcome of that investigation. When investigations show that an antisemitic event has occurred, we take action to teach correct and redirect our students. We do not publicly share our actions because student information is private and legally protected under federal and state law. As a result, some believe we do nothing. This is not true. Berkeley unified is also facing a new separate complaint of anti palestinian racism. The council on American Islamic relations, or cair, and the americanarab antidiscrimination committee, filed that federal complaint today. It alleges several instances of discrimination, harassment and intimidation against students since the october seventh attack on israel. Well, here they come. New details of the president ial visit. President biden and First Lady Jill Biden will arrive in the bay area tomorrow, and theyre arriving at separate airports and going to different events tomorrow, President Biden will land at Moffett Field in mountain view, and the first lady will touch down at sfo. The first lady will be speaking at an event in marin county tomorrow evening. After that, shes heading to southern california. Oregon and arizona. The president will make two fundraising stops on the peninsula on friday afternoon. First, President Biden will be at the Portola Valley home of billionaire venture capitalist vinod khosla. Then the president will head to palo alto at the home of former google and yahoo exec marissa mayer. Well, this is a big frustration for so many people in the bay area stemming from pg and e, the utility, the utility has nearly doubled our rates since 2019, nearly double for years. Local cities have tried to fire back. This time its richmond. The city wants to cut ties with pg and e motion passes with Council Member zepeda absent. This was last night. All eight city Council Members supported the measure, calling for the state to replace pg and e with the nonprofit richmond leaders, citing pg and es history of wildfires and rate hikes. Among other things. The city will send a letter to the governor and several other state leaders urging them to make the switch. Joining us tonight is Richmond City Council Member Gail Mclaughlin. Councilmember, thanks for being with us. This certainly sends a message. Who would provide power, though, if not pg and e. Yeah. So thank you for having me. Im absolutely this is something that were wanting to be proactive, on. And we know pg and e has failed in over and over again in the past. So the entity that would take over is golden state energy, which is a non not for profit, a statewide not not for profit, which is already established by sb 350. Its a skeletal framework, but we want it, you know, filled in. We want it staffed. We want it funded. We want more research done. So when pg and e fails again, that there is an entity in place to take over. And its really important to people in richmond, we have a low income community. We have chevron in our community. We have an overburdened community. We want to care about our our residents getting clean energy. And this is our way of preparing for that. Very interesting Council Member. Is this really viable though . Does it have a chance to move forward here and part ways with pg and e . San francisco and other cities have tried to do this . Yeah, well, this is a first step. Were pulling together a coalition. We had a wonderful presentation from the reclaim our power coalition, which is doing the organizing work of bringing cities and counties, labor unions, Community Based organizations together to put pressure on our State Government to be prepared with having this entity, golden state energy, ready to receive the energy needs and infrastructure when the time comes, because we know pge is based on profit and thats they put their shareholders, shareholders needs first. While we want the needs of the people put first, safety, reliability, affordability, health and climate issues come first for communities and not profits. This is certainly a bit of a david versus goliath here. San francisco, as you might know, offered to buy pg and e grid for in that city for 2 billion back in 2019. But pg and e did not bite. Have you all had any talks directly with pg and e. Well this will be i mean we have obviously worked with pg and e in the past. Weve had them come to our city to give updates on what theyre doing, because my constituents have had a lot of Power Outages and theres a lot of concerns about that. So we had them come and present their plan to us, but this on this plan, this plan of golden state energy, i think this letter will be our way of communicating with pg and e, and we hope we take they take it to heart and that they understand that we need to be prepared at this moment in time, in this climate crisis, with the flooding, with the wildfires, with all the problems that we have, sea level rise. We want to be prepared with energy that our people can access and not Power Outages and wildfires that weve seen from pg and e. Well, i certainly think a lot of people share with your frustration. We will continue to watch this story. Council member Gail Mclaughlin from richmond, thanks for your time. Have a good evening. Thank you so much, i appreciate it. We reached out to pg and e for comment. They sent u a statement saying that they do not support the idea of atatede public utility. The utility. Pg and e was on to say, a statewiypof ownership framework would not benefit our customers, taxpayers, local communities, and the state of californias econo. It also says that any state oca attempt to take over pg and e assets could lead to a variety of unwanted things, including costing taxpayers billions of dollars, putti liability on taxpayers for wildfires caused by equipment, and less safety oversight. This is the response from pg and e i recently sat down for an exclusive interview with the pg and e ceo patty poppy. She says pg and e plans to cut rates next year, so we pressed her on it, forecasting prices falling in 25 and again in 2026. So thats 25 is next year, 2026 is two years from now. That is exactly what were working on. So weve gone up 100 in the last five years. So in the next 3 to 5 years, will we go down 100, 20, 50 . Were working on forecasting what those reductions are going to be, but were going to drive those reductions. Is there at any point in your power you can say, im the ceo. I want to put a stop to this madness for everyone here and freeze our rates or roll it back substantially. What is my top priority is making sure our system is safe. Raj, i dont want people to forget what happened. And we have an obligation to have a system that is safe and resilient and that takes investment. Its a fascinating interview. Weve posted the extended 22 minute segment of this interview. You can watch it at nbcbayarea. Com or the nbc bay area app. Lets move on now. Another gut punch for San Francisco. Google continues to downsize its office space. This time its at a notable building, and it comes as vacancy rates are already at an all time high in the city. Google is letting go of about 300,000ft■ s inside one market plaza when the lease expires next year. This is one of the Largest Office buildings in San Francisco, and just a block away from the embarcadero and the ferry building. Nbc Investigative Reporter Hilda Gutierrez is with us here, this is a story that we continue to follow. You are on top of it, looking at all the data, this latest move by google, is it kind of emblematic, though, of what were seeing across San Francisco, these kind of big name companies, the Legacy Companies bailing out . Yeah. And as you just mentioned, were at an all time high at about 37 vacancy rate. That means 37 of Office Spaces in San Francisco are empty. Empty today. So this this is a bigger sign. And as we continue to see quarter to quarter, this rate continues to go up. So things are definitely going to look worse before they start looking better. All of our real estate experts, they continue to tell us this. Things are going to get worse before they get better. Sure. And we and this one, this one specifically about google leaving one market. This is a high profile building. So who comes in next . I dont think this one will stay empty that long. Will it. Yeah. This is whats considered a class a building. And it has very attractive amenities. It has great views, easy access to transportation and what experts are telling us is that ai companies, they make up 50 of those that are shopping for Office Spaces like these ones. Theres also companies that are looking to upgrade. And as these rental prices go down, they might be the ones taking advantage of this as well. Its a renters or buyers market in that situation. Is there a Silver Lining here . You talk about ai companies coming in, but whats the Silver Lining. Thats part of the Silver Lining that as demand goes down, these rents are going to go down. When it comes to this specific building, rent goes at about 100 per square foot right now, one of the most expensive buildings in San Francisco. But once those rent values drop, it will allow other renters to come in. Okay, there is some Silver Lining there. There is, but close to 40 vacancy right now in the city, all time high. And its been like that for years. Okay. Thank you hilda. Up next, apple facing some backlash over its newest ad. Heres the ad. Its all about the ipad and music. Also the top pick in the nhl draft is coming to san jose. Well tell you why. The warriors are thrilled about this as well. Youre watching nbc bay area nice to meet ya. My name is david. Ive been a pharmacist for 44 years. When i have customers come in and ask for something for memory, i recommend prevagen. Number one, because its safe and effective. Does not require a prescription. And ive been taking it quite a while myself and i know it works. And i love it when the customers come back in and tell me, david, that really works so good for me. Makes my day. Prevagen. At stores everywhere without a prescription. Ads, but this one for the new ultra thin ipad pro isnt sitting well for a whole lot of people. Sometimes when im down and all alone down here, it is. Ceo tim cook tweeted out this ad this morning. It didnt take long before criticism started pouring in on social media, especially from artists and marketers who were surprised that apple would literally crush objects used to create art. You dont have to lug around a paint can or, you know, a bunch of pencils or the piano or whatever. Like you can do all these things on the ipad. But the proper way to send that message is not by destroying all these tools. Interesting. Lets bring in our business and tech reporter scott budman. So we got a little taste there. Whats the commercial . According to the critics, insinuating here that were squashing out artists . Not really. What its insinuating is you can take all of these things , raj. These musical instruments, these tools, even computers are on that table and absolutely crush them because everything is inside your ipad. So i dont need a trombone or a drum set or a guitar. I can just make that music from the ipad. Right. Exactly. And i dont think apples intention here is to say, put down your musical instruments, put down your creativity, put down your paintbrush and your cameras. Just that, hey, the ipad can do all these things, but thats like saying music is simply something we download as opposed to going to see live. And i think a lot of artists were out there saying, hey, wait a minute, why are you crushing all of these things . As opposed to maybe what a lot of people did online by late this morning . I imagine, ironically, on apple tools was to reverse engineer the commercial. So out of the small ipad came all of these instruments and apps and tools. And thats how people dealt with it. Thats very creative. How much backlash are we talking about here . Is this kind of a one day thing or is this going to escalate . I dont think itll escalate, but i scrolled all day long through my feed. Raj and people were landing on this thing. Yeah and ive never seen that for a single commercial before. Maybe something during the super bowl. This i dont know how long this will last, but you know, apple is known for stirring things up and getting attention for its devices. Sure. Probably 100 Million People on twitter alone saw this thing, so in that way it worked. But a lot of people are talking about it in a hey, what is apple doing . Remember 1984 . That was the classic super bowl commercial, right where a Small Company went against the big establishment, and now that company is crushing musical instruments. So you know, its a different final question. Just as opposed to note here, any response from apple . Do they respond to this type of stuff . Sometimes they do , sometimes they dont. I did reach out to the company just to say, hey, were doing a story on this. Is there any feedback . And i did not get any. And its been a few hours and i wonder if theyre just letting this ride. This is the commercial, like it or not. And the products are out there. And i know people are going to like those products. And its, you know, lets be honest, its not saying put down your instruments, its trying to tell us in perhaps an awkward way, all of these things are within this one. Theyre available right here on something that im holding right now as well. There you go. Thank you scott. Heres the story. Catching our attention now. The decades long plan to bring bart to san jose. Its facing a new critic. The citys former mayor, tom mchenry, says the project is so far behind and so overbudget, it should be scrapped. Mayor mchenry was mayor back in 1983 to 1991, really popular in many communities. He says he once supported the bart project, but now doubts the vta can handle it. Instead, hed like to see the project completed with the bus system instead, a proposal the vta opposes. He also wants to see outside experts come in and review the progress. The other day, nassau came out and their latest mission to mars is going to cost 11 billion. I said to somebody with another billion, they could get the berryessa to insinuate that vta cannot build a project. If you look at most projects within this county, vta has built them on time and on budget. I mean, the first phase of the bart extension was built 100 million under budget, over 5 under budget. And back and forth they go, even though funding is still being sorted out, vta plans to break ground on the five mile underground tunneling in mid june. Well, this is fun. Sharks fans were jumping, literally jumping out of their seats when the team won the nhl lottery last night. This is all especially meaningful for the warriors head trainer, rick celebrini. Yep the warriors staffer. Hes a former professional canadian Soccer Player and the current director of Sports Medicine and performance for the warriors. Hes also the dad of 17 year old maclean celebrini, who was the sharks plan to draft with the number one overall pick. Maclean does have some ties to the sharks and to san jose. He spent a year playing for the junior sharks when his dad first got the job with the warriors, we were nervous and anxious and to see the sharks win it, win the lottery was was phenomenal. Were a very tight knit family and to have your son, so close to home would be would be phenomenal. How cool is that . Sharks fans and the rest of the hockey world will be waiting to hear maclean celebritys name called when the sharks make him the first pick during the nhl draft, which is june 28th. Lets take a look outside now, the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge and Marin Headlands from our sutro tower. Cam jeff is going to join us now as we talk about our mothers day weekend and the forecast really see mayor mahan there rolling up his sleeves. Business in the area say that when summer hits, this neighborhood gets too hot. So these new trees will eventually grow into a tree canopy that will both cool and beautify the area. That looks nice. Jeff ranieri is with us and talking about getting hot. It felt like summer today for a lot of our cities in the area, and it was just so enjoyable out there to finally get in on some of this warm weather and that curb appeal. Looking good out there in that neighborhood. We did push it up to 83 here in santa rosa, well above the average of 73. Also san jose right there at 81. Let me show you more about why. I do think well get into some hotter weather here as we roll into tomorrow. And its all about this area of High Pressure continuing to move that storm track to the north. So the second consecutive day of that pattern in place, those temperatures will heat up. We still have a little bit of wind to deal with from this system off towards the east, right now its contained to the morning and primarily over the north bay, 20 to 40 mile per hour gusts. But any kind of wind would be calming down as we roll through tomorrow evening. Were going to start it off with temperatures here in the 50s. Mostly sunny skies. And look at these highs. Yes, back up to 86. In napa 88, santa rosa, 84. In san jose 79, San Francisco 70, in half moon bay. Warmest day of the year. Coming our way so far here tomorrow. If youre traveling here from dallas to atlanta, we are looking at severe weather. So watch out for that, possibility of maybe even some tornadoes on the 7day forecast. Sunshine stays with us 88 on saturday, 83 on sunday. So its been a long time coming. I think everybodys ready for this. And all the moms got some beautiful weather on sunday and looking good. Thank you jeff. As we wrap up mario lopez just Getting Started with access hollywood. Well tonights access were going to start with a huge feud between hip hop stars drake and kendrick lamar. Theyve been going back and forth releasing diss tracks against each other. And at the center of their latest spat is Millie Bobby Brown of all people specifically, its what millie bobby said in an access interview thats now gone viral. Were going to break the whole thing down for you. Then its more of our exclusive with benny blanco. Yes hes dating selena gomez, but benny has also produced hits for some of the biggest names in music like rihanna, ariana grande, ed sheeran, and hes sharing a couple of stories about selena and katy perry that youre going to love. Add to that, were behind the scenes is taylors guy, travis kelce starts his acting career. Its all Just Moments Away on access hollywood. Back to you, mario. Well see you in a second. Thats going to do it for us here at 7 00. For everyone here at nbc bay area, inclu you can feel it when your dream becomes a pursuit. And with vitiligo, the pursuit for your pigment is no exception. Its time you had a proven choice to help restore whats yours. Opzelura is the first and only fdaapproved prescription treatment for nonsegmental vitiligo proven to help repigment skin over time. Restoring whats yours. Its possible with a steroidfree cream that you can apply yourself. Opzelura can lower your ability to fight infections including tb or hepatitis b or c. 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