Future, this is abc7 news. And we begin with the Justice Department going after google. The government says the milpitas company is breaking the law by using market power to block rivals. Their antitrust lawsuit marks the most aggressive legal challenge in the tech sector in decades. Good evening. Thank you for joining us. The lawsuit is being filed by the department of justice and 11 republican attorneys general. The government says google has 80 of the Search Market and is doing so, in doing so is stifling the competition. This is the most highprofile case the u. S. Has brought against a tech Company Since the 1990s and it hinges on an old law. The sherman antitrust act of 1890. More from chris win. Todays filing of a landmark antitrust case against google could be the start of more action to come against some of the key players in silicon valley. This is whone of the first rl examples that we have of the government trying to actually do something about the tech industry. Reporter googles dominance in Online Search and advertising has been under the microscope for years with critics calling for the company to be broken up. C Senate Editor at large ian sher says they control 90 of web searches across the world. The concern the government has is that googles power is so big that it is almost impossible for competitors to be able to really grow and compete. Reporter the federal case alleges that the tech giant used billions of dollars collected from its search advertising revenues to pay phone manufacturers and other companies such as apple to ensure that google is the default Search Engine on their browsers. Google believes the lawsuit is deeply flawed, saying, quote, people use google because they choose to, not because theyre forced to or because they cant find alternatives. This lawsuit would do nothing to help consumers. To the contrary, it would artificially prop up lowerquality search alternatives, raise phone prices and make it harder for people to get the Search Services they want to use. The company has a website outlining its approach to competition with more information on how people can change the settings on their devices. The antitrust laws here in the United States are supposed to be to improve the welfare wee consumers. Reporter professor polleden at the Santa Clara University school of law says the government might have a hard time making its case. In fact, our antitrust laws were originally written in the 1890s and centered around alcohol, tobacco and other commodities at the time. They have to find ways to establish how the American Public is being harmed by googles activities, and not just the competitors that have the ear of the government in complaining. Reporter the Search Engine is free for consumers who have the ultimate say in whether or not they want to use it. Professor ahmed. You have to find that sweetspot where you can protect the data at the same time you are not slowing down the innovation, which is the spirit of silicon valley. Reporter analysts say the lawsuit will be wrapped up in litigation for years to come. In the south bay, chris nguyen, a abc7 news. Developing news. A California Appeals Court judge ruled san quentin prison must reduce its population by 50 . 1,000 inmates need to be released or transferred to provide measures to protect against covid19. The ruling comes from a lawsuit by a prisoner who was one of the more than 2,000 inmates to contract the disease. The Appeals Court judge says the California Department of corrections and rehabilitation must revise the expedited release programs to include inmates over age 60 who have served 25 years of their sentence and are eligible for parole. You may see more people eating inside restaurants in San Francisco. The county became the only one to move into the least restricted yellow covid19 safety tier. Starting november 3rd they can expand to 50 capacity. Bars went be required to serve food. Offices can reopen at capacity. State Health Officials explained the reason behind the looser rules. San francisco county, a large california county, very visible, lots of, you know, different types of communities and neighborhoods did today reach the yellow tier. They were benefitted by the Health Equity metric. That equity metric focuses on zip codes that have been disproportionately impacted by covid, including black latino and Pacific Islander communities. The goal is to ensure the Positivity Rate doesnt lag behind the overall county rate. Napa county will move into the orange or moderate tier tomorrow as the number of new covid19 cases decreased there. Mostly this impacts indoor capacities. But as abc7 News ReporterWayne Freedman explains, there is a business that finally gets to open its doors after months of being closed. Reporter at the napa bowl this is what moving from red to orange sounds like. I love to hear this sound again. Reporter dan cannot talk about his place without bringing up decades of familyowned history after seven months of an enforced covid closure tomorrow the place finally reopens. Today a runthrough. These are all my people and the crew. Reporter the custodian and guy friday. He was happy to be here. Its great. I am rusty. Reporter when napa goes from red to orange top the Bowling Alley may allow 25 capacity. 25 is better than no percent. Reporter it means the bar attracting customers again and same at the restaurant for alex soto. Great use. Reporter in napa not only the Bowling Alley may open. Now wineries may open their indoor tasting rooms. In downtown napa adam housley has been serving customers outside. Beginning tomorrow they may come in. But i think the rules dont make sense. They are not consistent. Why cant i reopen but maybe some other business cannot . Reporter as napa goes orange, restaurants may expand Indoor Service to 50 , but in practical terms sean otoole at torque questions how much of a difference it will make. 50 , he says, is still not sustainable. At this point in time 2020 i dont know what is right. Reporter now in an Orange County they will have to settle for better. In napa, Wayne Freedman, abc7 news. The state of california opened the door today to allow the 49ers to welcome fans back into levi stadium and reopen theme parks. But that door was quickly slammed by Santa Clara County officials. No question this is dangerous. This is the worst thing in the world to be doing at a time period when california is beginning to see some light. This amounts to another step backwards. The countys decision came after the 49ers issued a statement praising the guidance by the state adding that they were ready to work with Health Officials to create a plan towards bringing fans back. Well, that will not happen now. Pg e is warning of another possible round of Fire Prevention power shut office this week. 50,000 customers in 19 counties, seven in the bay area, could lose electricity tomorrow night. Alameda, contra costa, napa, santa clara, sonoma and salerno could see outages. Leslie brinkley is live in Contra Costa County with the impact of the shutoffs. Reporter yeah, its like always. When we go theinto these pspss, its a maybe when it would happen. Pg e says the little good twist on this is that last week they had to shut off 21,000 customers. This week it would only be, they think, around 7,000. 3,000 napa pg e customers could face having their power cut off starting wednesday evening. 470 Alameda County customers are on the list. Nearly all of them in the livermore area near the altamont pass, including this business and manufacturing park. Here we have the mightiest state in the union and we cant seem to keep the power on. Reporter perhaps there is some irony in that the cutoff could include a company that manufacturers sprinkler systems. No way for them to work from home. They are going to miss a day of employment. So thats money taken out of the economy. When you are talking about this whole area, this is all of the business complex. Reporter north of here in the Morgan Territory area up through the mount diablo foothills another 563 customers will likely lose power. Contra costa fire officials are on high alert. The National Weather service is telling us starting tomorrow night arent 10 00 p. M. We are going to go into red flag, true red flag weather here, and the fire danger will be extremely high then. It puts us into planning mode to make sure we have all the right resources available. We may bring on kra crews, extra fire engines. We may staff up our crew 12 fire control workers. Reporter pg e is also staffing up. We have opened up our Emergency Operations center should we need to call a pspss and we have started insidefying customers of that potential. Reporter again, people are getting notified they may have their power turned off. If it were to be turned off, it would be pg e says between midnight wednesday night and maybe 4 00 in the morning on thursday. They may have to be without power all day thursday. Im leslie brinkley, abc7 news. Thank you. The fire that engulfed a diving boat killing 34 people last year, the results of a yearlong investigation are next. Plus, making sure your vote counts. The tension and the turnout this year is reaching record im voting yes on prop 19. Nineteen limits taxes on seniors. It limits property tax on people like me. Nineteen limits taxes on wildfire victims. It says so right here. If 19 passes, seniors can move closer to family or medical care. I looked at moving but i cant afford the taxes. Will you help californias most vulnerable . Vote yes on prop 19. A year ago 34 people including several from the bay area were killed by a fire on a dive both airngered off the Southern California coast. Today the National Transportation safety board said it was unable to determine the cause, but that a lack of oversight by the boat owner led to the deadly blaze. There were clear and, frankly, heartbreaking opportunities to break the chain of circumstances which culminated in this catastrophe. 33 passengers and one crew member were sleeping in the bunk room of the conception when a fire broke out in the Early Morning hours. A crew member sleeping in the upper deck saw the fire but couldnt get below deck because of the flames. He and four other crew members jumped into the water after trying to save the people who were trapped. The ntsb says the crew could have saved lives if there had been a roving patrol as required. Staff believes that the absence of the required roving patrol on the conception delayed detection and allowed for the growth of the fire, precluded firefighting and evacuation efforts and directly led to the high number of fatalities. Reporter the ntsb said the boat was too damaged to determine what caused the fire but they found the back of the salon area where passengers plugged in phones and other devices with lithiumion batteries. No one anticipated that this tragedy could happen in the way that it did, and, sadly, we have learned otherwise. Now, according to recent Court Documents criminal charges against the ships captain are imminent. Families of 32 victims have filed claims against the boat opener, truth aquatics. The company filed a claim to shield them from damages under a maritime law that limits liability for owners. We are, believe it or not, two weeks away from election day. Here in california we are seeing record early voting. So far more than 4 Million People in the state have returned their ballots. Bay area counties are seeing record numbers as well. Elizabeth kreutz is in Santa Clara County with why voters are getting their ballots in so early. Reporter boxes and boxes and boxes of ballots. We have over 218,000 that have already voted. Reporter that number is huge. Its three times the number of ballots they had received at this point in 2016. Across the state there is also record turnout with more than 4 million ballots already returned. People are excited. They want to turn out. They want to vote. Reporter talk about excited. Outside of office we met robin, a voter from campbell. I voted yes Everybody Needs to get out here and do this. Reporter she says her enthusiasm is one reason she voted early, but its not the only one. Whats happening with the voting polls, with the post office, i didnt want to take any chance. Reporter like robin, voter after voter today had the same concern. I wanted to make certain there was no issues with regard to it possibly getting lost in the mail. Make sure it was at the Central Location so it would be counted. Reporter once you drop off your ballot you can track it to make sure it ends up here. You can to that at wheres my ballot. Com. Once in the hands of the county it gets sorted and counted. So how do you keep these ballots secure . At the end of the night this gate locks and they connect and its secured and cameras are on this area. This is where the ballots are. Reporter despite some voting anxieties, the numbers are clear. People are turning out. For 21yearold leilani, its her first time doing so for a president ial election. It feels good. Its kinda scary because there is a lot on the lane rigine rig reporter liz kreutz, abc7 news. You can track your vote by going to california dot ballot. Net voter to see where your ballot is and if your vote has been counted. On the subject of being nervous this black bear was captured on video expressing himself from a tree in Yosemite National park. Partial Officials Say arent sure what prompted this unscheduled a cappella concert. The bear seems healthy. One said it sounded like an anxiety call. She said bears do climb trees when they sense any kind of danger. But we hope and think its okay. Well, red flag warnings are being expanded. Abc7 news meteorologist sandy batelle wi but i cant say i expected this. Because it was easy. To fight these fires, we need funding plain and simple. For this crisis, and for the next one. Prop 15 closes tax loopholes so rich corporations pay their fair share of taxes. So firefighters like me, have what we need to do the job, and to do it right. The big corporations want to keep their tax loopholes. Its what they do. Well, i do what i do. If yould like to help, join me and vote yes on prop 15. San francisco is addressing one of the leading causes of vehicle crashes in the city. The Municipal Transportation Agency has installed traffic calming measures at seven intersection. This includes guide bumps, painted safety zones and delineators. Last year almost 40 of crashes in San Francisco involved a left turning vehicle. Some relief this evening for many in the northbound. Cal fire says the glass wildfire is now 100 contained. It started 24 days ago and erupted into more than 67,000 acres very quickly. In napa, sonoma and lake counties. Those counties remain threatened with a fire weather watch in effect through wednesday morning. Specific details and specific areas about this. Yeah, we have multiple warnings to pass along to you. Lets start with the winds right now. Mt. Hood gusting to 18 miles an hour. Not that strong. Now, overnight we did see Mount Saint Helena see gusty winds up to 44 miles an hour. North bay hills under a red flag warning to 8 00 p. M. Tomorrow, gusts up to 40 possible, a combination of low humidity and dry fuels means any fires that develop are going to quickly spread. That red flag warning expands to the east bay hills, the east bay valleys. The Santa Cruz Mountains and the San Francisco peninsula coast, too. That goes into effect 10 00 p. M. Tomorrow runs to 8 00 a. M. Friday except for the Santa Cruz Mountains and peninsula coast begins thursday. The fire danger will be elevated with that event. Winds are expected to be stronger than that. Fire weather watch, 10 00 p. M. Wednesday until 8 00 a. M. Friday for lake and solano counties. The fire danger is running high. Temperatures right now anywhere from the mid50s to the low 90s. It warmed up today. The hottest spots in the low 90s except fairfield upper 90s. On the coast low 60s. Here is why the coast didnt heat up. A nice view of the fog coming through the golden gate. Doesnt that look amazing here is another Vantage Point from the emeryville camera. The fire danger remains high all week. Periods of dry gusty winds some lower elevations as well a cooler pattern thursday through sunday. A little bit of fog on the coastline tomorrow morning. Thats where you will find it. Temperatures in the low 50s to the low 60s and then in the afternoon we are expecting a warm day inland, 87 in concord, 89 degrees in livermore, 85 in napa, 84 san jose, 78 oakland, 73 San Francisco, 81 san rafael, 81 santa rosa, 67 in half moon bay. A look at the accuweather sevenday forecast. This is critical because we are facing that critical fire weather conditions. There will be two more rounds of gusty winds. The next ro