Going to quote the city here, at a time of great unrest and deep reflection by our country, we recognize the pain and oppression that Christopher Columbus represents to many. The removal of the controversial statue of Christopher Columbus began at 3 00 a. M. By crews from the department of rec and park. It was then driven to an undisclosed location and placed in storage. The mayor and the San FranciscoArts Commission made that decision because they said it doesnt align to San Franciscos values or our commitment to racial justice. Christopher columbus is a deeply polarizing figure in our history and a deep symbol of pain, oppression, particularly for many Indigenous People in our communities. Reporter the city also took action after this flier began circulating online, encouraging people to remove the statue themselves at a demonstration scheduled for tomorrow. The statue was vandalized three times last week. To ensure the safety of organizers and really to spare them of having to do that labor, you know, we took it upon ourselves to make the decision to take it down. Reporter abc 7 news was here yesterday and took one of the last videos of the statue. The pedestal now sits empty. The reality is it may not be a bad idea to keep things upthat reminding us of the past. We should really learn from what we have done from the past. Reporter many people have made their way up the hill to see it for themselves. I was up here on a run running the steps and i was on the phone with my best friend. My reaction was oh, my god, they took the statue down, word for word is what i said. I immediately took a photo and sent it to everyone that i know. Reporter and the mayor and supervisor aaron peskin said we have to honor all heritages here in San Francisco, all communities, especially of course the italianamerican community, but they both said that we have to do it by picking symbols that unify us. Im live in San Francisco, lyanne melendez, abc 7 news. So columbus is gone. Any idea what will go in its place . Reporter well, i asked that and that hasnt been determined. Its too soon. But i can tell you this, larry, that both the rec and park and the San FranciscoArts Commission will lead that effort, but they told me this afternoon it will take the participation, the input of the public. All right, thank you. Lyanne melendez reporting at coit tower. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says four portraits of former house speakers who served in the confederacy are being removed from the u. S. Capitol. She originally asked for them to be removed tomorrow. They were taken down today. The speaker said theres no room in the halls of congress for memorializing men who embodied bigotry and racism of the confederacy. A Major New Development from governor newsom. He is ordering all californians to wear a Face Covering in most indoor and outdoor settings when distancing is not possible. Most bay area counties already require wearing a mask in public. There are exceptions for children ages 2 and under and for eating and drinking at a restaurant. Newsom says part of getting people back to work is wearing a Face Covering. Its unclear how the order would be enforced. Heres a look at whats reopening tomorrow. Alameda catching up opening up Outdoor Dining and indoor retail. San mateo county will allow nail salons, tattoo parlors and other personal Care Services to open up. Solano county also allowing nail salons and tattoo parlors to open. Half moon bay open for business. The city says visitors can safely enjoy hotels, restaurants, shops and outside recreation. Most beach parking lots and bathrooms are back open, but the city does say businesses can open on their own schedule, so not everybody will be open in that case. Santa clara county resuming jury service and trials this week. Everybody must wear a Face Covering. Avoid shaking hands and maintain a social distance of at least six feet. There will be tape and other markings on the floors to help that. The court says fewer jurors will be directed to report on any given day. Contra costa county is cutting jobs and scaling back hours in its Public Library system. Economists say it could be the start of a flood of local government cutbacks sprouting from the covid19 crisis. Aaron thomas reports from walnut creek. Reporter having to drop off and pick up books outside the Contra Costa Library is a visible sign. Covid19 effect, but its what you cant see thats going to hurt. We will be reducing at some locations because our City Partners have been struggling with the effects of the economic downturn because of covid19, and they have had to make some really hard decisions. Reporter more than 30 Library Workers will be laid off and hours will be cut back at about half the 26 branches. Its just one department of county government, but it may be the canary in the coal mine. Kim reuben is an economist with the brookings institution. We know that revenues are down for cities and states, and spending demands are up. Reporter she said cities saw a steep drop in revenues from income and sales taxes. She warns that libraries are lowhanging fruit and more and deeper cuts may be on the way. We might see cuts for fire and police, though again, there might be other calls for cuts for police. But also well see a lot of cuts to the social safety net. Reporter she says local governments often look to the state for help, but in this recession, the state is looking to a dysfunctional washington for federal aid. And with that much uncertainty, there are tough choices ahead. Theyre going to need to assume that revenues arent coming back, especially those tourism dollars, and figure out how they can budget accordingly. Reporter county supervisors are considering something that may be difficult to swallow in tough financial times, a potential sales tax increase. They have commissioned a survey to see how voters feel about the idea. In walnut creek, eric thomas, abc 7 news. Our region is the center of biotech research. A small number of labs have been making synthetic elements of the covid19 virus to allow researchers to develop treatments and vaccines. Abc 7 News Reporter david louie takes us inside a lab in newark. Reporter if youre a scientist or researcher, this is probably where you turn to get a sample of the covid19 virus. This is a biotech lab that took the genetic code first provided by chinese scientists to produce synthetic versions of proteins and genes so scientists and researchers could begin to work on vaccines and therapeutic drugs. We dont need to ship the whole virus around, so it makes it a lot faster, a lot safer and a lot more efficient. Reporter in just five days, the 100 software engineers, organic kem cychemists and mole biologists took these vials for bits and pieces of the virus for research. As covid19 emerged in the u. S. , corrections were made. We could just overlay the chinese data on the seattle data and so on and get a very good understanding of what the accuracy and the sequences were. Reporter the earliest benefit led to the development of diagnostic kits for antibody and nasal swab testing. The genes are used to perform potentially billions of tests to determine how covid19 reacts to different kinds of antibodies. Its a repetitive process aided by Artificial Intelligence and robotics. Using that same underlying logic and algorithms, we can use that to build antibodies, we can build diagnostics and build all these things using the exact same logic. Reporter depend for the synthetic virus components has the lab operating seven days a week and up to 20 hours a day to fill orders. In newark, david louie, abc 7 news. New developments today as the Supreme Court blocked the Trump Administration from ending the deferred action for Childhood Arrivals Program, better known as daca. It allows young people brought to the United States illegally as children to stay in the u. S. And work without being deported. This was a 54 ruling written by chief Justice John Roberts emphasizing that the administration failed to provide an adequate reason to justify ending the program. Chris nguyen with reaction. Reporter in santa clara county, a collective sigh of relief from the dreamers among us. Daca does not define me, i define myself. My community defines me. Our power, our strength defines us. Reporter county officials applauded the Supreme Courts decision to uphold the deferred action of Childhood Arrivals Program which was originally introduced through an executive order by former president barack obama. Our dreamers won. Our families won. Our county won. But the fight is not over. Reporter daca currently protects 700,000 young immigrants across the country from being deported. We are very pleased with the Supreme Courts decision, but the most important thing here is that our dreamers have this momentary respite. Reporter in trying to end the program, President Trump has said that creating or maintaining it was beyond the legal power of any president. One thing that i love hearing about the people around me and the people who are also Daca Recipients is the phrase meaning moving forward. Reporter the court, however, did say the administration could try again to provide adequate reasons for shutting down daca. John dennis, a chairman of the San Francisco gop was concerned about todays decision, saying Congress Needs to decide whether or not to grant dreamers a path to citizenship. It doesnt really get to resolve the issue in the end, so now weve opened the door for donald trump and any future president to claim powers that before now didnt exist. Reporter despite that, leaders in santa clara county, which sued in 2017 to challenge the Trump Administrations appeal of daca are looking ahead. These dreamers, now able to step out of the shadows once more. Today i stand before you proud, undocumented and unafraid. Reporter in san jose, chris nguyen, abc 7 news. Cougar captured. An animal found roaming the streets caught by authorities today. Well tell you whats next. Open for business. Pier 39 reopens. The changes you can expect. Almost showing. Movie theaters getting ready to reopen. What it could look like. Im spencer christian. We had a bit of a heat spike inland today and its going to be rather slow to recede in inland areas. Ill have the a managing type 2 diabetes . Youre on it. Exercising often and eating healthy . Yup, on it there too. You may think youre doing all you can to manage type 2 diabetes and heart disease. But could your medication do more to lower your heart risk . Jardiance can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death for adults who also have known heart disease. So, it could help save your life from a heart attack or stroke. And it lowers a1c. Jardiance can cause serious side effects including dehydration, genital yeast or urinary tract infections, and sudden kidney problems. Ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may be fatal. A rare, but lifethreatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. Stop taking jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this bacterial infection, ketoacidosis, or an allergic reaction and dont take it if youre on dialysis or have severe kidney problems. Taking jardiance with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Lower a1c and lower risk of a fatal heart attack . On it with jardiance. Ask your doctor about jardiance. You can still order all your favorites. Because right now, dennys is offering free delivery. Just go to dennys. Com for free delivery right to your door. See you at dennys. Com. Firefighters battled a sixacre grass fire south of san jose this afternoon located just off of highway 101 south of bailey avenue. That fire burned near some highpower transmission lines but there were no reports of any damage. Cal fire was busy with another blaze in the north bay. This fire burned in Sonoma County this afternoon, burning about two acres on stony point road west of highway 101. You can see all the smoke from that fire. This image given to us by cal fire. The number of people filing firsttime jobless claims continues to grow. The Labor Department said about 1. 5 million laidoff workers applied for Unemployment Benefits last week, evens as the economy increasingly reopens. The latest figure brings the total number of claims filed since march to 45. 5 million. Construction activity is rebounding after a sharp downturn during the pandemic. A new survey of major u. S. Markets by Construction Industry trade group shows activity has returned to precoronavirus levels in 34 states. Dallas had the biggest gain. San francisco was down 8 as of may 31st, but thats an improvement. It had been down as much as 53 in early april. Time for consumer news now. 7 on your sides Michael Finney here with todays headlines. Hi, michael. Hey, you guys. There is some good news tonight for those trying to hang on to their homes. Homeowners keep their homes. Fannie mae and freddie mac are extending their moratorium on foreclosures and evictions until at least august 31st. There is good news for buyers and those refinancing. The average rate on a 30year mortgage is now at its lowest since freddie mac began keeping track back in 1971. Last week the average rate dropped to 3. 13 . Amtrak is cutting back service on most of its Long Distance routes. Low ridership is being blamed. The routes will drop from one per day to three times per week. The cuts are set to begin on october 1st and last at least through the summer of 2021. Among the routes being cut is the california zephyr, the one that runs from San Francisco to chicago. Lyft has announced its commitment t reao reach 100 electric vehicles by 2030. In a blog post today, the Ridesharing Company said this is a collaboration with the Environmental Defense fund. The funds president says as we work to repair the economy postpandemic, there is an opportunity to rebuild better and more ecofriendly. Lyft says it will work to help drivers switch to electric cars with some incentives and financing. Well see how far they actually go. Larry, kristen. All right, thank you, michael. Changes may be coming to cream of wheat. Today b g foods issued a statement saying its initiated a review of its packaging of that product. The breakfast food features the image of a black cook, believed to be based on chicago chef frank white who died back in the 1930s. Yesterday aunt jemima was the first food brand to announce a logo change. Uncle bens and mrs. Butterworths followed suit. The Mountain Lion stalking the streets of San Francisco for days was captured this morning and is being returned to the wild on the peninsula. The department of fish and wildlife sent us this photo of the 68pound Mountain Lion being evaluated at the oakland zoo. It was spotted several times this week, including just outside our kgo studios. It was captured early this morning in mission bay. It took two animal control officers, a fish and wildlife officer and two nets. Some unbelievable video of that Mountain Lion roaming around the street. Some popular lake tahoe area destinations are getting ready to reopen. Heavenly Mountain Resort and north star california resort announcing today theyll be open for select activities in early july. Heavenly says it will reopen hiking trails, chair lifts and gondolas, and its ridge rider mountain coaster on july 3rd. North star plans to reopen its golf course on july 15th, which leads us into weather this weekend and fathers day. Happy early fathers day. You got a treat for everybody, spencer . I think so. I think the weekend holds a treat for us. Summer starts on saturday and that is followed by fathers day on sunday. It looks like the weather will be nice both days. Its certainly nice and summery right now. Sunny skies and warm to hot conditions across much of the bay area. A little bit breezy. You can see here the surface wind generally 13 to 18 Miles Per Hour so nothing extreme in terms of wind but the warmup has continued the last couple of days. Were now 5 to 10 degrees warmer in many locations than we were at this time yesterday. Yesterday was even warmer than the day before. So lets take a look at some current readings. 74 degrees in San Francisco right now, oakland 81, low 90s in mountain view, san jose and gilroy. 76 at pacifica, which is pretty warm for coastal temperatures. On we go to santa rosa, where it is 91 right now. Petaluma 94. 85 in napa and mid to upper 90s in concord and livermore. Well see cooling coastal fog returning overnight along the coast and pushing along the bay. Heat will hold on inland tomorrow, but a little bit less warm than it was today. And summer begins saturday afternoon at 2 43 pacific daylight time. Heres a look at the overnight conditions. Youll see the fog developing and expanding along the coastline and moving slightly out over the bay and pushing into a couple of inland spots up in the north bay. It will linger th