fire danger beginning with chief meteorologist paul hagan with more of the red flag warning that just went into effect. all? >> we will get wilson walker in east bay in a moment, we want to give you the details of what we expect is we head through tonight, the lightning threat is the main concern with the potential for thunderstorms to develop and roll through the north bay and east bay, where the greatest concern is between now and 11:00 tomorrow morning when the red flag warning expires. the greatest threat should move off to the east by 7:00, 8:00 in the morning, a 50% storm chance, that's a higher risk than we were talking about 24 hours ago, if those thunderstorms develop any cloud to ground lightning will not be balanced out by precipitation out of the storms. they won't be completely dry but not enough rain to put out any fires that could start plus the storms could produce gusty winds that would fan the flames. this is not an unusual set up for september and october, we have this heat dome to the east, with an approaching storm system that's funneling this

moisture towards the bay area and that's the source for these thunderstorms that are going to develop primarily late this evening and overnight. take a look at the high death doppler as things stand coming up in the full forecast. kpix 5 wilson walker is at mount hamilton with more on the lightning threat. wilson? >> reporter: here where the scu lightning complex fire burned through just over one year ago, you better believe the firefighters who patrol this area and the observatory here, they are all watching the weather tonight. >> we are at full staffing right now, we have a lot of resources on different incidents in the state of california. right now we are where we are able to be. >> reporter: hellfire santa clara unit still busy helping with the fires in the sierra, just as the threat of lightning returns to the bay area. >> this year our vegetation and weather patterns are unprecedented. it's like nothing we've seen before.

that makes for fighting fires, it makes it difficult for our resources on the ground. >> reporter: extra equipment is on standby at the morgan hill headquarters and other preparations are being made all the way across the hills of the east bay. where fire departments will have extra crews at the ready. >> equipment wise what we attempt to do is put together strike teams. that's a task force which is five, typically those engines will have 3 to 4 firefighters on. >> reporter: hellfire says it's working with noaa to track the weather and if lightning strike does hit exactly what happened, and often within several meters of where it landed, what's harder to know is whether or not that strike has sparked a fire. >> all we can do in our unit is be prepared, that's why we have a plan in place so we can be prepared and sent resources is appropriate. >> reporter: i mentioned the lake observatory down the road,

the drone for you so you can take a look, fire did burn to the structures firefighters valiantly saved everything appear, but, the observatory now serves another purpose we can show you the two cameras, the fire cameras that are now installed on the visitors center, at the observatory. they can point in different directions, you can see the dome of the observatory off of one of them. the observatory, a fire survivor now part of the fire watch here on mount hamilton. we hear this every time they come through, entirely unpredictable where these bolts are going to land. then figure out whether or not a fire is started, that can be difficult, you have to get people out on the ground to see what might've happened. here we go again, everybody standing by to see what happens. >> holding their breath. thank you. one more note, a flex alert is in effect right now, officials are asking everyone

to conserve energy until 9:00 tonight to keep the power grid from getting overwhelmed due to the heat. there was an extra police presence today at lafayette middle school where an effort suv ran over and killed a crossing guard and injured a student yesterday. kpix 5 reporter lynn ramirez at that school where the death has brought more attention to the dangers faced by crossing guards. >> reporter: the community has been coming here to stanley middle school in lafayette, some to leave flowers behind, others to write notes to the fallen crossing guard who by all accounts saved a life while giving up his own. flowers decorate the spot where life was lost, and notes in the growing memorial to volunteer crossing guard ashley diaz say he died a hero. >> this man saved another student life. no doubt about that.

>> reporter: he is a 45-year- old volunteedarnoon, witnesses say the suv was headed for a group of students. diaz reportedly pushed one child out of the suv's path but was dragged under the vehicle. he was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. another student was hospitalized and is recovering. gloria diaz is ashley's mother. >> i met one of the fathers in the hospital, he said your son save my daughter's life. and the car just knocked him over and dragged him under. >> this afternoon there was a heavy police presence in front of the school and several additional crossing guards were working, it can be a dangerous job. >> very dangerous. you are taking a chance but you love your children. >> reporter: as dean onto no, she was a cruel school crossing guard when she was run over by a drunk driver in 2012. she came to pay her respects to the victim and speak out in support of crossing guards. >> we need to make sure we protect our school areas, signs

need to be up, it's heartbreaking. i feel the crossing guards need to protect the children and keep predicting their self and fight for rules and regulations and rights. >> reporter: we did check with the middle school here as well as lafayette school district, both had no, reporting live in lafayette, . a live look at the white house where there is already pushback to president biden's new plan to battle the coronavirus pandemic. it includes a sweeping vaccine mandate for millions of americans. cbs reporter skyler henry has the new federal requirements that will affect 100 million americans. skyler? >> reporter: good evening to you, the president certainly doing his part to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus, part of that means working with the labor department to create a rule that requires all employers that have more than 100 employees either have a vaccination requirement or require weekly testing.

president biden's plan for tackling the covid pandemic is a six step approach focusing on public health schools and the economy. >> we have the tools to combat covid 19. and a distinct minority of americans supported by a distinct minority of elected officials are keeping us from turning the corner. >> reporter: the president signed an executive order requiring federal executive branch workers be vaccinated. or extend the same standards to employees of contractors that do business with the federal government. >> in the work failed to comply they will go through the standard hr process including counseling and face disciplinary action. >> reporter: the white house as the labor department is developing a rule that businesses with more than 100 employees require vaccination or weekly testing. the administration is calling on states to adopt vaccination requirements for employees that work at schools. >> we will protect vaccinated workers from a vaccinated coworkers. >> reporter: last week

positive for covid. the los angeles board is now the first in the nation to mandate the vaccine for students 12 and older. in order to attend in person instruction and activities. the move will likely face pushback. >> schools are known to be foundations and pillars of society. so it makes sense that we play a part in mitigating the public health crisis we are faced with today. >> already some republican governors are weighing in. >> reporter: that's right, another big thing happening right now, many republican governors are coming out now saying the federal government putting their handprint on private-sector mandates is not the right answer for trying to slow this pandemic spread altogether. we are seeing many house lawmakers come out to say that what the president is doing is unconstitutional. the chair of the rnc coming out to say that she plans on suing the biden administration to protect american liberties.

>> thank you. a lot of fallout here, we want to get more on the political implications of the presidents new vaccine mandate. >> we are joined by donna crane, political science professor, professor crane, thank you for joining us, this is a big announcement from the white house. why are they doing it now? >> i think they are doing it now for 3 or four different reasons. the delta variant of this pandemic is not subsiding. the numbers continue to be alarming. second, i think they were probably waiting for the fda to grant approval of official approval, final approval on one of the vaccines what happened last month. they were looking for some political cover from being big companies that are taking these actions to require vaccination or testing on their own, and it's possible they had something like this queued up and ready to go during august but august was spent mostly working on afghanistan.

>> of course there will be those who see this as the federal government overstepping authority. what exactly are the implications politically for the white house? >> one of the things we talk about in my classes is that the constitution is not super clear about the scope of executive authority. we fight about this all the time. from what i've read of this today, i think the politics of this are pretty good for the biden administration. he's playing offense and defense. on offense we are all tired of lockdowns. we are tired of wearing masks. we want to see action. he is placing himself squarely in the majority. and on defense, he's not so subtly pointing a finger at why we are all still in lockdowns. he is looking to deflect accusations that the administration is responsible for going on month 18 of the pandemic. >> okay. >> thank you. still ahead on kpix 5 streaming cbsn bay area, the

justice department sues texas over its new abortion law. the legal fight is far from over. >> los angeles school district just voted to require all students 12 and older to get vaccinated. to that policy come to the bay area? a medical expert ways in. the

california! all of our homes share power. but heat waves can stretch our supply to its limits. flex alerts remind us when to use less energy from 4-9pm. so we can all stay up and running. sign up today.

the biden administration is suing the state of texas over its recently approved abortion law. in the newsroom, the law is unconstitutional. >> the legal challenge comes after the u.s. supreme court declined to block a texas law criminalizing not just getting an abortion but anyone who assists somebody getting an abortion. the law bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and allows private citizens to sue anybody involved, authorizing damages of at least $10,000. attorney general merrick garland announced a lawsuit earlier today.

>> the obvious and expressly acknowledged intention of to p exercising their constitutional rights by thwarting judicial review, for as long as possible. >> the law was originally signed into law in may by the legal challenges delayed from taking effect until last week. of the justice department is seeking an immediate injunction to stop the law from being enforced. as the law takes effect, san francisco-based tech of many is paying to relocate its employees that need to leave texas to protect their reproductive rights. this includes men and women. >> having grown up in texas where my own rights were compromised by their various bans on sex and life, i felt for the women in our company, as well as the men who want to make sure that they can live without someone spying on them

constantly. >> this company says it is planning to do this in any other states that may pass similar laws. live? live pictures of san francisco where community leaders held a roundtable meeting today on how to battle hate crime. it included state attorney general san francisco mayor says the city has seen a recent uptick in violent crimes and it's a problem that must be addressed at its core. >> we want to send a clear message and attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. we will continue to stand in solidarity, and here in san francisco we will do everything we can to bring perpetrators of crimes of this nature to justice. >> today's roundtable was held in visitation valley not far from the playground where an elderly asian woman was brutally attacked in a hate crime two years ago.

she died earlier this year. three separate cisco companies have agreed to pay millions in criminal fines in a federal case involving fraud and bribery. the trash companies are all subsidiaries of ecology inc. the fbi says the group was involved in illegally using public funds for its own benefit. it's been more than $900,000 to bribe regulators, public contractors and a public official. to resolve the investigation they have agreed to play $36 million in penalties. the ceo issued this statement in response to the case saying, this resolution and the improvements we have agreed to will build on the substantial steps we have taken over the past year to strengthen our leadership team. >> the sf mta is dealing with a power outage for its cable cars this evening. the power outage was due to a smoking utility room, no one was hurt. the departments twitter had originally set a cable car was on fire but that was incorrect.

buses are replacing cable cars for the rest of the day. hour fire watch, new evacuations have been ordered in the dixie fire burning around the national forest. this is new video from the area, the new evacuation orders came in for areas north of highway 44, the blaze has burned close to 1 million acres. is 59% contained. remember this? one year ago today wildfire smoke around northern california blocked the sun from the bay area skies. people taking to social media to share their memories of that day last year. and certainly was a day none of us will ever forget. it was so eerie. >> unfortunately, that's gone but now we have another dangerous situation. >> we hope to not see a repeat of that and we won't see a repeat of the lightning barrage that we had last august. this is a different set up, that was the remnant moisture from a hurricane, tropical moisture, this is subtropical,

ady trng to hit the but it's ground, let's zoom in for a closer look, and those showers trying to fall now. most of the stuff in green is evaporating before it hits the ground, in yellow, that's where there's a chance of picking a passing sprinkles in a brief shower but so far haven't had reports from the automated sensors of anything more than a trace of rainfall. a few sprinkles here and there and no cloud to ground lightning at this point. we are waiting on that threat to arrive later in the evening, everything streaming from the south, radar coverage flickering on and off, another batch of moisture that will be sliding towards us, let's switch to future cast with more spotty showers likely mostly north of the golden gate as we had through the evening. that threat is going to shape up closer to midnight into the early hours of friday morning, as we see more activity developing. showers potentially growing into thunderstorms for the north bay and also along the diablo range.

those will move to the east, but it's this batch developing by midnight for the north bay will work its way slowly across the bay area through the rest of the night, the best case scenario we see showers, maybe passing sprinkles, a trace of rainfall or no cloud to ground lightning. as the upper-level storm system causing this gets closer and closer that will help to boost things and increase the lighting threat. you see some impressive returns in the radar simulation by early friday morning, that works its way farther and farther to the east bay by sunrise on friday, and then it's out of here by midmorning on the rest of the day is looking fine. the fire crews will be able to look out and see if anything has actually started, if there are cloud-ground lightning strikes. that goes through 11:00 friday morning the threat should be over by eight or 9:00, gusty winds out of those storms as they develop into full-fledged thunderstorms that would fan the flames, very dry fire fuels we measure this with something called energy release component which measures the contribution of vegetation whether it's

alive or dead to potential buyers and how fast they grow and toward the top of the scale near re the concern is we head through tonight or early tomorrow morning. right now a mix of clouds and sunshine, the cloud cover so far not developing into anything that is a thunderhead, to butcher a 61 degrees downtown, much warmer further inland, and close to 90 degrees inland in the east bay, temperatures tonight in the upper 50s to around 60 degrees, high temperatures tomorrow the system will bring in cooler air, the warm spots inland and east bay in the mid to upper 80s, upper 70s and low 80s for the north bay, mostly 60s and 70s around the bay and 60 degree high temperatures along the coast. a warm-up through the weekend and early next week, back into the mid-80s for san jose by sunday, monday, tuesday. a miniature ride on the temperature roller coaster as we go up and down, by the latter half of last week, for inland parts of the east bay sunday, monday, tuesday, nothing compared to where we were earlier this week.

the look of the radar we will continue tracking things minute by minute through the rest of the evening, coming up at 5:30. >> i was anxious for this part to ver. >> 9:00 a.m. tomorrow cannot roll around soon enough. >> thanks.

a mountain view police officer saved an infant's life earlier this week. >> 911 dispatch received a call, a baby boy choking outside of an in and out restaurant. a mountain view police officer happened to be writing a report in the parking lot across the street, when he received the call he immediately ran over to find the baby nonmoving, not breathing, he did perform cpr for several minutes as well as chest compressions to get the baby breathing again. other first responders arrived to help, we are told the baby boy was taken to the hospital and has since been back home in

his back with his family. san mateo county is getool they have a stroke. it's rolling out this new evidence te the new mobile unit is one of 20 across the u.s., and the first of its kind here in the bay area. on board will have a ct scan and medication to start treatment early. >> we are always looking for the newest technologies and what we can do for our patients and what we can offer our patients. we are looking at the newest technologies today. >> studies of soap show patients are 2 1/2 times more likely to have a positive outcome with these units. >> at 5:30, la school district voting to require all students 12 and older to get the covid shot. could that happen in the bay area? we will speak to a medical expert life. recall election just days away, republicans hoping to unseat governor newsom rallied to get california voters to the polls.

in san jose activists for the homeless are taking matters into their own hands. introducing weather shelters. >> these are not intended to be permanent homes for people. we are out here doing this because of the i may not be as pretty. i'm not a cable tv personality or an entertainer like larry. i'm the businessman, the only cpa running for gov ernor. california is a mismanaged mess. taxes, cost of living, water, wildfires, homelessness.

these aren't political issues; they're readily fixable management issues. career politicians? celebrities? i've solved problems all my life. let's fix this great state!

>> you're watching kpix 5 news at 5:30. right now streaming on cbsn bay area, more local news at

5:30 including the renegade effort to build more public housing. where activists are working under the radar. time is running out in the recall raise, how the candidates are sharpening their message with just days to go. our top story this evening, vaccinations will be required for california students at la unified. the nation's second-largest school district. the new mandate will affect all eligible students ages 12 and older. >> the landmark decision comes after a sudden surge of covid infections brought by the delta variant. joy benedict joining us live from los angeles with the latest. >> reporter: that's right, this is certainly a passionate issue, as are most when you are talking about schoolchildren, but nonetheless the los angeles unified school board voted almost unanimously with one person abstaining, to go ahead and say that vaccinations will be mandatory for all children

over the age of 12 in order to continue in person learning. >> reporter: a handful of protesters screamed to be heard as the los angeles unified school district debated whether to make vaccines mandatory for schoolchildren 12 and up. >> i believe it can be harmful for children. >> reporter: although many spoke out against it parent picking up their children from school today feel like a vaccine mandate is the right move. >> as a parent with vaccinated kids i'm really happy that my kids are as safe as they possibly can be. >> they should absolutely do it. we are ready for that, we need that. >> reporter: inside the boardroom, callers filed an express in concerns that the mandate is too soon since the vaccine for children doesn't have full approval by the fda yet. >> we know what's best for our children. our children could have negative reactions, i'm not going to let someone inject my 12-year-old daughter when she is in full development. >> reporter: board members already made up their minds. >> the science is clear.

vaccinations are an essential part of the multilayered protection against covid 19. >> reporter: the new policy requires that students 12 and up to receive their first dose of the vaccine by november 21st to continue in person learning. even earlier if the child participate in sports. >> yes. ms. garcia? >> reporter: although the measure passed, even parents who are in favor of vaccines hope the district doesn't use vaccinations as an excuse to stop mandatory weekly testing. >> as long as we have raked through infections weekly testing should continue. >> reporter: those against the policy vowed to keep fighting it. >> save our children! >> there are 600,000 schoolchildren in the city of los angeles and as each of them turns 12 throughout the school year they are supposed to get 30 days from their birthday to get the backs dose of the vaccine in order to continue