Transcripts For KGO ABC7 News 500PM 20160126

About all you can do. Reporter from pacifica, wayne freedman, abc 7 news. 1 billion. That is the new estimate for the damage caused from two devastating wildfires last year. A billion bucks. The states Insurance Department says the valley fire in lake county, alone, totaled more than 700 million in losses. That makes it the third costliest fire in state history. The butte fire cost an estimated 300 million in reported losses. The man accused of killing a coworker in san jose told abc 7 news today from jail that he did not do it. Friends and family of the victim have been searching reservoirs and other areas in the south bay suggested by police. Theyre hoping to find kyle myrick alive, even though investigators have told them they have evidence hes been murdered. Abc 7 News Reporter david louie spoke with the suspect today and myricks family as well. David, you join us live from the San Jose Police headquarters. Reporter well, kristen, the police in san jose say they think they have a murder case although they dont have a body. The victims family says they still hope to find their son alive, they even have a search party out looking for him this afternoon. And the suspect arrested by police says he had nothing to do with it. These were steve lebos first comments about his arrest early saturday morning. Good morning. Reporter San Jose Police arrested him after the disappearance of kyle myrick at a motorcycle shop on camden avenue. Evidence there points at myrick being murdered. I had nothing to do with kyles death. This whole thing has just been a nightmare. Reporter in a 45minute jailhouse interview, lebo painted himself a victim. Accusing coworkers of putting him in a druginduced state. They were putting drugs in the coffee. I think that they were putting it in intentionally so that they could discredit me and pin a murder on me essentially. Reporter myrick meant missing friday afternoon. When lebo left work, he claims he got into his sierra truck and drove to santa cruz arriving home after midnight, thats when Police Arrested him. I drove around for hours essentially smoking cigarettes and driving the car because i was hopped up on drugs. Reporter volunteers have been searching for myrick near lexington and Stevens Creek reservoirs and along the Mountain View shoreline. We showed the jailhouse interview to myricks mother and stepfather. I think hes a liar. Evidence says otherwise. Just think hes trying to save his skin. Reporter he says emphatically hes not a murderer. In san jose, david louie, abc 7 news. The San Francisco Police Officers association is calling a day of remembrance for mario woods completely inappropriate. Six San Francisco supervisors are supporting a resolution for an annual day named after woods who was shot and killed by police last month. The Police Officers association calls his death a tragedy but notes days of remembrance typically honor Public Service or sacrifice like Martin Luther king day, memorial day or veterans day. We are hearing tonight from San Francisco mayor ed lee about a Corruption Case against former city officials. They include a city commissioner and two others seen here. Theyre accused of accepting bribes in exchange for political access. Abc 7 News Reporter Carolyn Tyler is live at city hall with more on the story. Carolyn . Reporter well, this began with a federal investigation into now indicted chinatown gangster and his connections to city hall. Lets be clear, mayor ed lee has not been charged with any wrongdoing. Some of his associates have. And the investigation continues. Is there another shoe to drop that involves you . I dont believe there would be. Reporter San Francisco mayor ed lee says theres to place in City Government for corruption. This after District Attorney george gasgon on friday announced felony bribery and Money Laundering charges against three people who raised money for lees 2011 campaign. When government is for sale, we all suffer. Reporter former human rights commissioner and staffer jones are accused of accepting 20,000 from an undercover fbi agent and Money Laundering. Former School Board Member Keith Jackson is accused of bribery and grand theft. I would say theres an air of pay to play politics. Reporter Supervisor John Avalos ran against ed lee for mayor in 2011 and tells us he took responsibility after a financial audit of his campaign. And believes the mayor should apologize in this alleged corruption scheme. Because hes the one who is at the top of the pyramid. Do you bear some responsibility to say were doing this on your behalf . According to these charges . Carolyn, you know, it could happen on anybodys open campaign. Reporter the mayor says he ran a clean campaign. There were individuals who took advantage of that by bribing others. Not only did we not know about it, we have reporter the d. A. Says the investigation is ongoing. There could be other charges. In San Francisco, Carolyn Tyler, abc 7 news. A federal judge in San Francisco heard new arguments today in a lawsuit against the Napa Valley Wine Train. As abc 7 news reported, a group of mostly africanamerican women is suing for discrimination. The women were kicked off the wine train in august for being too loud. They say they were humiliated. Some say they even lost their jobs and have had a tough time finding work since they went public with their complaints. You know whats happening. People then go back and they google you. So then what comes up . This whole wine train action continues to come up. So its continuing to follow me. The women are suing for 11 million. The Napa Valley Wine Train has apologized for the incident and held sensitivity training for its workers. A judge will decide if the lawsuit will be allowed to go forward. A big shakeup at twitter. Heads of engineering, media product, and huge resources are leaving the San Francisco company. Some positions are already filled. In a tweet, Ceo Jack Dorsey says all four are taking well deserved timeout. Im personally grateful to each of them to everything theyve contributed to twitter. Wall street isnt buying dorsey. The stock traded down to just over 17 today, well below its ipo price of there a 26 a share 2013. Its worth noting twitter has one giant thing going for it, 3. 5 billion in cash. Twitter executives say theyre going on a retreat starting tomorrow to discuss the future of the company. Dan, twitter was not the only one. Other tech stocks were battered as well on a rough day on wall street. Netflix shares fell 1. 5 to just over 99. Apple tumbled nearly 2 to 99. 44. And Facebook Stock fell as well closing just above 97. Apple will report earnings tomorrow. Facebook will do so on wednesday. Analysts hope good news from either could provide the kick start the market desperately needs in the new year. All right. Moving to other matters, two base jumpers who leaped from an iconic bridge in big surr over the weekend are presumed drowned. The man and woman jumped from the bridge toward the Pacific Ocean on saturday. Officials believe they may have been overcome with high winds and violent waves when they landed on the water. Authorities identified the woman jumper as Mary Catherine connell, ventura resident. The male jumper was from finland. Their bodies have not been found. The monterey sheriff says his helmet has been recovered along with a go pro camera. Began work today toward a new lease extension with the raiders. The group held a closeddoor meeting to try toe co come up wa plan to present to the team. The raiders lease expires next month. One oakland city official is expressing how tough its going to be to build a new stadium in oakland. Today councilman guyo said the nfl must build new raiders stadium, if you ask the council to put a doghouse together, we couldnt. Well, what is being called super bowl city may be causing some supersized headaches. Coming up here, were going to check in with an evening commute snarled by the first weekday of big game closures. Plus, cashing in. Bay area homeowners hoping for big bucks from all the folks who want to see the super bowl firsthand. Super bowl 50, 13 days away. We have our nba super bowl tonight. Spurs and warriors. Of course, well have a preview coming up. Im abc news meteorologist grow old with me let us share what we see just you and i grow old with me let us share what we see and oh the best it could be just you and i santa rosa, berkeley, san jose, and augll the bay area. This is abc 7 news. All right. Super bowl, super headaches. Youre looking live from sky 7 hd at rush hour traffic along battery street in downtown San Francisco. More cars are squeezing on to battery and other streets around the financial district because the southbound embarcadero is now closed to build super bowl city. All right. Lets take you down to street level and our live 360 camera which is pretty cool. Kind of inching along on california street. As you can see, all of these streets around this area are kind of a mess. Let me spin it around. You can see whats going on here. Backed up pretty much in and around that entire area where theyre Building Super bowl city, again, on california street. Now were moving again. Excellent. Still slow, though. And its going to continue to be that slow. We can show you now drivers hoping to get onto the bay bridge eventually as we look at the live shot of the skyway. As you can tell, its slow as well. Its normally slow this time of day in both directions but its exacerbated by the extra traffic moving so slowly in and around the financial district of San Francisco. And let me take you back one last time to street level. Youre looking live at the embarcadero and broadway, thats where southbound drivers must turn off embarcadero because of the super bowl street closures. As you can see, the Ferry Building up ahead on your left, its just really stop and go. Best bet, avoid it altogether if you can. Dan, those pictures really tell the story. Thanks. Some commuters are avoiding the gridlock by taking the ferry. We were over the larkspur ferry this morning, boats operated at capacity. Theyve added trips to the existing schedule to getter accommodate the crowds. And lets give you a larger look at the traffic impact in San Francisco right now. This is our drivetime traffic. You can see all that orange, that means slow. Red, that means really slow. Bumper to bumper. 20 Miles Per Hour is the part thats actually faster going east heading to oakland. If youre coming into San Francisco, or trying to get out, that is especially challenging part. Red, the south embarcadero area of course. The detours for super bowl city will be in place for up to three weeks. If you want a better look at the map and closures, head to abc7news. Com or download the abc 7 news app free in your phones app store. Just not going to be easy the next couple of weeks to get around. Now that we know which teams are in the super bowl, air bnb hosts are hoping fans will start booking homes rooms or homes with them. Lyanne melendez takes a look at the numbers. Burlingame. Reporter theres a lot of supply out here, dan, rooms, homes, couches, yes, couches. Those renting out spaces are hoping to soon hear from broncos and panthers fans. Angela of san mateo wants super bowl fans to know she is the hostess with the mostess. She regularly rents out her home or rooms on the air b b website. Id prefer to rent my whole house, that way me and my family could get away during this whole week. Reporter if she cant rent out her entire home, shell do what she always does, allow people to stay in her extra room but at a higher price than usual. It usually goes for about 120 or so, and i was just being competitive with hotels. Hotels are actually charging way more than that. Reporter for super bowl weekend, shes now charging 600 a night for that one room. Her home, 2,500 a night. Here are the latest numbers from air b b. There are currently 6,000 listings in the region. The median listing in san jose is 360 a night but rentals are going for less than that. The average is 220. Bruce bennett of San Francisco has yet to rent out his spare room for under 200 a night. He hopes things will pick up this week. Now, you know, people will start to see a huge rise in those inquiries. I know that some of my fellow hosts that i know online have already received bookings for super bowl. Reporter compared to last years super bowl in arizona, demand for super bowl 50 is roughly three times greater. Lets hope they come. In san mateo county, lyanne melendez, abc 7 news. Warriors superstar steph curry. No argument there. The reigning mvp tweeted his support for his Hometown Team throughout yesterdays game including this one after his panthers beat the arizona cardinals. Abc 7 sports anchor mike shumann is live, where theyre getting ready for the big game against the san antonio spurs. Hi, shu. Reporter dan, i tell you what, steph is getting ready for the spurs but showing his panther pride loud and clear. He says hes definitely 100 going to the game. Yesterday in practice, he was wearing his panthers jersey while shooting around. He said he and his good friend, cam newton, have been talking about this possibility all season and now that its happening, steph is not only the biggest panthers fan, hes also the proudest. Thats big for the city, for cam, for the team. To be representing charlotte out here two weeks from now. We talked about it last summer, this is what the goal was. I think the whole process of staying focused on the team and winning and all that, hes going to get rewarded i think pretty heavily. Going to the super bowl. Reporter another bay area connection on the panthers is head coach ron rivera, he went to monterey Seaside High School and played college ball at cal. He was a threesport star down there. He was a rookie linebacker on the super bowl winning 1985 Chicago Bears and was named panthers head coach in 2011. Rivera looking forward to some parts of the trip home, but not others. The hard part is tickets. They are going to be at a premium. But its nice. I mean, ill be able to at some point get to see my mom and dad which i think will be really neat and my brothers. Its going to be a heck of an opportunity and more so than anything else, its an opportunity for this organization. Reporter all right. Plenty of bay area connections, of course, well be talking about those in the next two weeks. Coming up at 6 00, were going to talk about this nba super bowl between the spurs and the warriors. Reporting live at over call, mike shumann, abc 7 news. What a fun game its going to. Lets talk about the weather. Nice start to the week. Andy, its very dry out there. Do you like what you see behind me . Yes. The next several days youre going to see more of this, mix of sun and clouds. Much needed rain will be coming back into the picture. Check out live doppler 7 hd and talk about when we might have an opportunity for seeing wet weather. People still want to see the rain. We need the rain. Right now its just tracking some clouds. Heres a look at the temperatures. In the 50s for everyone. If youre stepping outside, you definitely will need to grab a jacket. From our emeryville camera, were seeing the high clouds mixing in with the sun. Fog develops overnight tonight. Milder day through thursday. Our next chance of rain is on friday. Heres a look at whats ahead. Tonight, well still see the clouds youre looking at right now at 7 00, but overnight we see the fog redeveloping not just in the north bay valleys but some from the Central Valley spilling to the delta area. Typical this time of year with the offshore flow. The wintertime fog will be with us for the morning commute. Notice by around 11 00 a. M. It burns off and we see filtered sunshine as high clouds come in. A lot like this. Beautiful view from our east bay hills camera. 12 hour day planner, foggy tomorrow morning. By noon the fog burns off. Well be seeing partly cloudy skies. Temperatures in the 50s for 4 00 p. M. 60s. Well head toward 7 00 p. M. Temperatures will drop in the mid 50s. We have been tracking the storms on our storm impact scale. 1 is light, 5 is severe. All winter long weve been doing it. The next opportunity for rain is friday and saturday on our storm impact scale. This is a light storm. Its a 1. If one of the computer models is right, were looking at a third to three quarters of an inch of rain for most areas with gusty winds developing on saturday and sunday. Take a look at our rain timeline. Thursday night, its still well to our north. As we head toward friday mornings commute, first wave mainly in the north bay. And then really it stays there friday night. We have to wait until saturday when that second wave sinks southward. Very light rain expected. Right on through saturday evening. And maybe into early sunday morning before it winds down. Computer models are not completely in agreement with this. Well pinpoint it for you as we get closer. One thing we know for sure, tomorrow morning youre going to wake up to fog in some areas and your morning commute might be a little difficult as you drive to work or take the kids off to school, so just factor that in. Temperatures low to upper 40s. Starting out on the crisp side. Then for the afternoon, we will have mild readings, 62 rosa and napa. Livermore, 61. About kno a look at the accuweather sevenday forecast. Notice those temperatures inching up. By wednesday were in the mid 60s for our warmest spots. Thursday above average. Near 70 degrees inland. And around the bay. But by friday, we have a chance of rain in the north bay. On our storm impact scale, thats a 1. That same system will spread rain, it looks like on saturday. Also a 1 carryi inin ining over sunday. Temperatures will fall this weekend. Dont get too used to the mild weather. Well be dropping down to the 50s. In the sierra, pretty good snow. Well keep you posted. Chris and dan . Thanks, sandhya, very much. A north bay man is rescued after getting stuck deep under ground. And at 5 30 on world news with david muir. The death toll from the historic blizzard. Mother and child digging in their car as their husband was digging out. 13,000 flight cancelations tonight coast to coast. And the urgent manhunt in california, three fugitives considered armed and dangerous escaping. A lot to get to right here after abc 7 news. David, thanks a lot. The super bowl aerial show about to begin. New at 6 00, how one oakland a man and his dog are both safe tonight after being rescued from a hole in sonoma county. Youre looking at pictures posted on facebook by geyserville firefighters. First the dog fell into the shaft on saturday night then the man. Oh, no. Climbed into the hole. Yep. Using his own ladder and he got stuck, too. Firefighters and sheriffs deputies used a rope to pull both of them back above ground. So they are safe now. Legislators along the california coast are calling on Governor Brown to declare the crab season a disaster. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle want the governor to declare a fishery disaster because of the delayed crab season. They say crabbers are experiencing devastating losses that cannot be recouped. The multimillion dollar crab season was put on hold when tests found unsafe levels of acid in the crustacean. The napa estate of late actor Robin Williams has sold. The property went on sale for 18. 1 million cash. Williams build the home in the early 2000s in napas mountains. The property was originally listed in 2012 for 35 million. Didnt sell at that price. The new buyers are two french wine makers. This evening some welldeserved accolades for a team of Fremont Middle School students headed to this Years National science bowl finals. The group from Hopkins Junior High School won the regional competition over the weekend. The principal of the school sent us this photo of the team. A very happy team. Theyll represent hopkins in the National Science bowl in d. C. Late april. The competition challenges middle and high School Students with complex technical problems. National finalists will win 1,000 for their schools science department. Fantastic. Good for them. Its silver and shiny and worth a lot of money. Coming im ama daetz in the abc 7 newsroom. Coming up new at 6 00, the investigation into the apparent murder of kyle myrick of san jose. A News Conference with his family and police gets under way in moments. Well have a full report at 6 00. Also, its elon musks idea but well introduce you to the uc merced students coming up with a prototype for a hyperloop system. Gearing up for the super bowl. Meet the people hoping to be the ones to drive all the dignitaries around town. All coming up in half an hour on abc 7 news at 6 00. They can borrow my car for a price. Thanks, ama. If you want to take a look at the trophies crafted for super bowl 50, see them at tiffany in San Francisco. Really nice. Abc 7 news was at the post street store near union street when these replicas went on display. Commemorative silver football to mark the event. The nfc and afc championship trophies are set up side by side as you can see whand one of the Championship Rings from the San Francisco 49ers victory is also on display. Bay Area Companies are getting to cash in on all those high rollers coming in for super bowl 50. They can rent your car or dans, go to enterprise rent a car at San Franciscos union store which has begun getting calls for exotic car collections. Drivers can rent a ferrari, lamborghini to get to the game in style. Typically this is a spontaneous purchase, may have a reservation for a fullsized car then they realize, oh, for a few dollars more i can take the porsche. The cars are not for those on a budget. No, not at all. A few dollars more, right . Yeah. The fees can go up to 2,000 a day. Although they do offer this Exotic Car Service i suppose if you got a ton of money and youre spending 5,000 for your ticket you might as well get a fancy car. Its a special once in a lifetime event, right . I dont think my mommy suv is going to cut it. No one is going to rent that. World news tonight tonight, the blizzard of 2016. The Ripple Effect coasttocoast. 30 people killed, a mother and child in their car as her husband was digging out. Tonight, rooftops caving in. Thousands of flights cancelled. Is there now another Storm Brewing . The countdown is on. Seven days to iowa. Our Political Team out in full force tonight. Donald trump, and his comments about shooting people on fifth avenue. Making a point about his popularity. And former mayor michael bloomberg, considering a run. Hillary clinton responding. And the urgent manhunt. Three fugitives considered armed and dangerous, escaping. The midair scare. The American Airlines flight hitting severe turbulence, multiple injuries. And breaking now, the warning in the west, going door