two very different visions for california. steve garvey, the leading republican, is too conservative for california. he voted for trump twice and supported republicans for years, including far right conservatives. adam schiff, the leading democrat, defended democracy against trump and the insurrectionists. he helped build affordable housing, lower drug costs, and bring good jobs back home. the choice is clear. i'm adam schiff, and i approve this message. it's right now, today, on getting answers, saving the journalism industry a bay area congressman introduces two bills hoping to give local news and democracy a fighting chance.

>> plus, if california's ban on plastic bags is working, then why is plastic waste on the rise? but first, regret is the word of the day for niners faithful. after a super bowl showdown that went into overtime time. you're watching, getting answers. i'm kristen sze. thanks for joining us. you know, close games are always the toughest to lose and most difficult to comprehend and accept. fans are asking what ifs and what now. after the niners 22, to 25 loss to the chiefs, a game in which the niners had led for most of the game and had many opportunities to close it out, joining us live now to look back and look forward is former san jose mercury news columnist mark purdy. no relation to the niners brock purdy not at all. bummer. but thanks so much for joining us. mark. good to have you. >> thanks. yeah, i pretend he's my cousin, but he's he's really not i mean, it should get you into the games or something, but, um, look, losses are always tough, but is it fair to say this one has every right to be extra hard to get over? oh,

yeah. i mean, when you get to the you don't you only get to the super bowl so many times and, and when you come this close and you can't come any closer than an overtime defeat, uh, this has to be the 40 niners have had other crushing, soul crushing playoff defeats, but i can't think of one, uh, as as soul crushing as this one. >> i know, i mean, not only did we take it to overtime, we led for a lot of it through the first half, right? we had chances and we had the two nfc championship losses in the seasons before, and it's so hard to get here. and, uh, okay, don't get me started. but look, there are the physical. >> you okay? are you all right? person are you going to be okay? >> uh, no. i need a little therapy, but. thanks. mark. um look, okay, there are the physical mistakes. like the missed extra point or a botched punt return, whatever. that set up a chiefs touchdown. but which decisions do you think were most consequential and devastating? >> oh, wow. well, i here's one that people haven't talked about. uh, 40 niners did not call a timeout on that last

kansas city drive when you could tell the defense was getting really, uh, sapped and tired. and i do wonder about that one. uh, but the one everyone will be talking about is, uh, the head coach kyle shanahan's decision in the overtime to, uh, risk leave the ball at the start of the overtime. instead of kick off, because, uh, don't ask me why the nfl is different rules in the playoffs about overtime than in regular season. that part makes no sense to me. but in the in the in the playoffs, unlike the regular season, each team is guaranteed one uh possession and uh, so the thought is that you would want to kick off and let the other team try to score first so that, you know, when you get the ball, you'll have you'll know exactly what you need to do. kyle shanahan made a different choice. uh, he decided that they would take the ball his thinking, as he explained it later, was that if they scored and then the chiefs scored or if the 40 niners didn't score and the chiefs didn't score either,

uh, that the 40 niners would have the third possession of overtime, which would become sudden death and that. so then they would be in control at that time. um i here i covered, uh, 32 super bowls. kristen and i covered the nfl for 40 years. and one thing i learned there are two things i learned about the super bowl for sure, is usually the team with the better quarterback or the best quarterback wins. i think that happened in this case, but, um, the other thing i learned is the coach knows more than than anybody else, including the writers of the fans, about his team. um, and so i don't want to give, uh, kyle shanahan a total pass on that decision. um, because tony la russa, the former a's manager, always said, uh, when people ask, was that a good decision? not well, did it work? if it worked, it was a good decision. if it didn't work, it was a bad decision. so this was a bad decision. >> that's how i feel about people saying, oh, good game. i'm like, a good game is one in which you win, right? uh, right, right, right. it was a bad

decision. >> what i'm saying. but i'm saying kyle shannon, like he knew the defense had been on the field a lot. he knew which guys on the defense might be hurt and weren't. he knew which guys you know. so he has a lot more data to process and make. mark i think he overthought it. he overthought it. >> i totally get your point. i really do, but okay, i have to ask you about this, right? some players, including justin yewcic, i think said after words they didn't know the new overtime rules. i mean, for them to not know. i mean, isn't that on the coach's uh- know, uh, because i guarantee you not every nfl player knows all the nfl rules. >> and for example, the offensive linemen don't know the rules about pass interference and so forth. it really wasn't, you know, the 40 niners players weren't the ones making the decisions that mattered in those overtime in the overtime, in terms of the rules. they weren't the ones deciding whether to kick off or not. uh, it was important that the coaches knew the rules and kyle shanahan did say he did know it. and then in fact, they talked about this last week about what would happen if they got to this point. um, i'm not so sure that the players, knowing the rules

would have made a difference. i mean, what what were they going to do? are they going to strangle kyle shannon and say, no, no, don't kick off that? >> hey, coach, we all voted and we decided to go the other way. >> no, mark, you're right. um, look, their job, their job was to play as hard as they could. >> i think most of them did. but mark. >> okay. so shanahan it's his third super bowl loss. second time for the niners losing to the chiefs. right. um and again i mentioned the two back to back nfc championship losses until this year. how do you think he bounces back from this. >> well he's a professional. he's paid a lot of money and this is his job i mean i tweeted out last night you know this the super bowl is a huge business product. that's really what it is. millions of dollars. and the players are getting paid richly. they're professionals. they have to deal with this win or lose. but it really is always striking to me how despite all that and you see the aftermath of the game last night, how much these guys cared and how much they they are crushed by it. i'm sure it'll take kyle shanahan and, uh, a few days to get over this,

but he's from a football family. his dad was an nfl coach who had losses like this and wins. um, you know, he'll he'll get through it, but, uh, it's got to be tough when you when you get this far. and i do feel for those guys. yeah. uh although if you have been in a nfl locker room after any game, but particularly after a game like this, and you see, you see them, uh, you know, covered in ice and everything they've been through, it's, um, it's tough, but let's talk about mark purdy. >> um, not mark purdy, not you. i'm not talking about you. let's talk about brock purdy. >> um, did his cousin brock. >> yeah. yeah, yeah. did he get that monkey off his back the whole. you're just a systems quarterback, you know? you're still missed. i mean, nobody was going to say he was mr. irrelevant, but did he over perform in silence? the critics. >> you think i think he had a very, very good game. i think he was the second best quarterback in the game, though. and you know that that's really what it comes down to. he he i think he did everything he could have done to win. i guess you could you know maybe he could have he

can't pull his, you know, something out of his, you know what his rear end to do something amazing the way mahomes can uh, but within the context of what he can do, i, i thought he had a very, very good game. and uh, i, i don't like people, you know, saying he's a system quarterback. he's not. he's more than that. but there's only one patrick mahomes and, uh, if you're going to compare him to that guy, you know, maybe, maybe brock purdy will get there one day. but, um, you know, he i think he did the loss isn't on him. if that's the question you're asking. but in terms of the perception of him and what people say, really, i think brock purdy, i never met the guy. i don't know, but i think he would say, you know, who cares? you got to go out, play the game. do your job. and i think he did that that fine yesterday. >> yeah. no doubt he really there were other there were other other people who you know this the super bowl game like this. >> any championship game exposed his a team's weaknesses okay. weaknesses. uh yesterday were

not brock purdy was not part of those weaknesses. >> no. >> you know is the rookies on the special teams, right. >> yeah. yeah. i don't want to point fingers, but yeah, they, you know, but i want to in the last minute that we have left, i want to talk about looking ahead. >> and you mentioned mahomes. uh, we talked about brock purdy's future as well. the 40 niners have been installed by the betting line, i guess, as the favorite to win the super bowl next year. but at the same time, you have kansas city talking, you know, £0.03 dynasty. so you tell me, how does it all shake out who's got the advantage? >> well, you know, the betting is based on who people want to bet on. and so people more people apparently want to bet on the 40 niners, which is great. um, you know, it's odd. uh, kristen, i'm working right now on a history book about the san francisco 40 niners. there's my plug. it's going to come out this summer, and it strikes me over the course of the 40 niners franchise history, there have been teams that just for some reason, stand in their way. all the time. in the 1940s, it was the cleveland browns. the 40 niners could not get past them.

in the early 1970s, the dallas cowboys, they couldn't get past them. finally, we had that stretch in the 80 where they did get past dallas. and now you've got this other team. it's funny how these teams keep coming in, blocking the way of the 40 niners over these decades. and now it seems the kansas city chiefs have their number, uh, principally because of the quarterback. not always. and so, uh, what kristen, what would you think if they played again tomorrow? who who would who do you i always say any given day for a football game, you know. >> yeah, sure. >> so but but patrick mahomes is still going to be the best quarterback as of now. >> now three years from now, he's older. maybe he's banged up. you never know. >> i think we'll have that conversation again in three years. mark purdy will put that on the table. we will all right. thanks so much. all right kristen, take it easy. all right i feel a little better after that conversation. all right. hope you do too. if you are someone you care about or someone you care about is having a hard time getting over the game, here's some advice, actually, from a sports psychologist doctor jonathan fader. have a reset mindset. you take a breath and focus on

what's next. there's always another season. second, regain cosmic perspective. think about how important is this loss in the context of your life. third, build community. there are a lot of people who feel the same way that you do. embrace them. and lastly, remember losing is what makes winning so sweet. coming up, journalism in crisis, especially on the local level. but one bay area lawmaker wants to do something about that, and we'll di

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for more information about side effects talk to your doctor. thanks, mom. be in your moment. ask your doctor about ibrance. a pfizer product. over 100 people. just the latest newsroom to make deep cuts in the face of declining revenue in the last two decades. joining us live now to talk about new

action. he and colleagues are taking to support local journalism. i'm east bay congressman mark desaulnier. congressman desaulnier, thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure. thanks for asking. as always. >> so what inspired you to take up legislation now aimed at supporting local journalism? >> well, this is the most recent. i've been inspired to do this for some time. i actually started this initiative when i first joined congress nine years ago, getting a group of republicans and democrats who are concerned about how much we're losing in local journalism . >> so you've introduced two pieces of legislation the saving local news act and the local news resolution. how would each one of those benefit? local news ? >> well, working with the media and local publishers, we've worked on this for a long time. these two and a third one. um, so this first one, working with them, it helps. it makes it easier for people to go in a nonprofit news so local digital newspapers, um, it's easier for

them to file with the irs under this bill for nonprofit makes. and these folks are people who don't have a lot of money to begin with. >> so is this getting nonprofit status? is that so that they can get donations and grants to offset the declining ad revenue, or is it tax benefits? >> yes. all of the above. okay. so it's making it easier for them to process through the irs to get started. right now there's no specific designation for this. this bill would allow it. um, another big bill. we've got that we've coauthored with other members is to give for the news media the same thing that congress gave for the film industry and the record recording industry years ago. but facebook, google, the tech companies have been very obstinate in lobbying against it. they have benefited from, uh, getting the revenue that used to go to local news outlets . >> oh, right. right um, i think that is already in the works. right. what's the status on

that? >> we've introduced these collectively, these, uh, these four, three bills. uh, first with david cicilline, uh, from rhode island, who is my partner in this initiative. he has since retired. uh, so now, uh, representative jayapal from washington is carrying that bill with me. and then these other two have a number of authors. >> all right. um, can you explain how local journalism got into this dire straits situation ? >> well, we went from print to digital. uh, there's a digital model that will work. uh, but unfortunately, the platforms are taking the revenue. uh, so it's just transformed, uh, the business model for particularly local publishing, both. both, uh, both from radio and tv, but in particular for what used to be print. so in the bay area, we went from over 1000 journalists, professional journalists in the bay area to now 150 nationally. it's similar or worse, uh, where

we went from 114,000 professional journalists to now, um, only a third of that. >> and congressman de sonia, let me just show a graphic to our viewers so they can see how we're becoming a news desert because of the loss of news outlets. it's really a pretty huge the number if you look at it. it's pretty stunning. the us has lost 2900 newspapers since 2005, 130 closings or mergers in the past year. newspaper circulation fell 13% in 2022. um, look, let me ask you, do you think this is somehow linked to the animosity, extreme partizanship and quite frankly, ignorance seen in political conversation today? >> oh, it's a big part. and the sophistication of how these, uh, our platforms based in the bay area are using what we've learned about neuroscience, neuroscience and delivering messages to people through technology in a way that print journalism didn't. i mean, it was always if you if it bleeds, it leads sort of mentality, but

nothing like we have now. and it's a lot of the problems we have, not just in in civic discourse, but across all kinds of, um, what used to be more civil but opinionated as well. so we're trying to restore that balance by creating a business model. and we wish that the these bay area companies would be enlightened enough to work with us because they've been the largest obstacle. >> i know it would be nice if they started paying for news content. right? i'm all for that. i mean, no bias here, but, um, but you know, obviously we kind of conceptually understand if there were a lot of mergers or billionaires buying up papers, consolidating, that's not good for democracy. uh, what about government, though? funding news outlets more, such as, you know, the npr model and more of that, is that what do you think about the pros and cons? >> well, we've got a constitutional there are boundaries here. james madison wanted, uh, the first amendment to talk about free speech. so the government has got a balance to do here. and that's, uh, that's complicated because of court decisions and the

constitution. so uh, that's what we're trying to do, is find that balance to get back to where we've been at our best, where people relied on trust and local news in particular. >> all right. i can see how these legislations begin to address some of the challenges being faced by local news. but what about the one of the biggest ones? i don't want to say the biggest, but and that is just consumer habits that are changing. people are saying, i'm just going to go on tiktok. it's free, you know, why would i subscribe to a newspaper? why would i still pay attention to read the whole article? what do you say to that? >> well, it's complicated, but this is the dumbing down of american democracy. it's the partizanship where people address very complicated issues through representative government in a way that's binary. you're either for on us or against us. and how people get information. the founders, benjamin franklin madison, understood this in their age and this new technology. and quite frankly, uh, people who are too

greedy are fueling this disinformation. and so this is a this is a complicated issue because because of constitutional issues and others , uh, but we're trying to address it as completely as we can because democracy won't work without an informed citizenry. >> harry. harry. all right. uh, congressman mark desaulnier, thank you so much for coming on. >> my pleasure. thanks for having me. very important. >> when we come back, disturbing new information on single use plastic bags and what was supposed to happen apparently hasn't. or is something different has happened. we'll feel the power of osteo bi-flex®. taken every day, it's clinically shown to improve joint comfort in 7 days, with significant improvement over time. ( ♪ )

you want to see who we are as americans? with significant improvement over time. i'm peter dixon and in kenya... we built a hospital that provides maternal care. as a marine... we fought against the taliban and their crimes against women. and in hillary clinton's state department... we took on gender-based violence in the congo. now extremists are banning abortion and contraception right here at home. so, i'm running for congress to help stop them. for your family... and mine. i approved this message

because this is who we are. state has actually increased by quite a bit. why? joining us live now to talk about this is cal perks state director jen engstrom. jen, thanks for showing up and being with us. what does your report show?

>> yeah. thank you so much for having me. so our report, plastic bag bans work shows that well-designed plastic bag bans are effective at reducing plastic litter in our communities. but unfortunately, the way californians bag law is set up is that it's no longer working as intended. the problem? >> explain that to us. right. because i understand there was something the law that allowed the retailers to ask manufacturers to make really thick, heavy plastic bags that can be reused many times over, they don't break because they're thick. but then the problem resulted from that. tell us. yeah >> so the problem is that the plastics industry has been working to circumvent the law's intent by mass producing these thicker plastic bags that they claim are exempt from the law because they technically meet the law's requirements for reusable bag, but they're not really being reused. they're not really designed to be reused,

and they're being thrown away just as much as the thinner ones. >> i know you're talking about. and i think one of our reporters actually tested it. i mean, they really are durable, and i get them and i know you can stuff a lot more into it now because it's so thick. um, so, so i do reuse mine. the few that i get. but you're saying most people don't, or they throw them out and they get new ones or. >> yeah. yes. so they look very similar to the thinner ones. they just are, they're thicker. and some people reuse them, but unfortunately not a lot of people. and we know that because plastic bag waste has actually increased in the last few years to an all time high. and so that's why we really want to go back and edit our bag ban law to make sure we're getting rid of those thick bags and pushing people to actually use reusable bags or bags that are genuinely recyclable, like paper bags. >> wow, that is ironic, unintended, and quite frankly, kind of sad. how how much more has that waste amount gone up by ? >> yeah. so the last report

found over 230,000 tons of plastic waste in just a year from plastic bags alone. so that is a lot of waste and a lot of it is ending up in our environment where it can break into small pieces, you know, end up harming our wildlife and even end up harming public health because it's being found in our drinking water. >> can you explain a little more about how it impacts our health? >> yeah. so in water, these plastics break into tiny pieces called microplastics that have been found in human bodies. they've been found in food. they've been found in drinking water. they're still doing studies on exactly what this impact is for our public health. but plastic is not meant to be eaten. so we're pretty concerned that it's definitely harmful for us to be consuming all of that plastic, which has compounds and other additives that we know are harmful for public health. >> look, can't isn't one solution, maybe possibly just to encourage more people with a campaign or whatever to reuse those bags. and, you know, use them for a long time before throwing them out. >> i mean, we could, but the

reality is there are other states that have shown how to do this. well, that's part of our report is well designed. plastic bag bans are effective. so in states like new york and vermont they have really strict requirements for what is considered a reusable bag. so the people are bringing, you know, tote bags and things that are genuinely intended to be reused over and over and over again. that's really what we want people to be doing, is to be reusing bags, but they need the bags that are actually intended to be reused. and so we want to just tighten up that definition so that we don't have any fees, you know, just plastic alternatives. >> just so i'm clear, plastic waste may have gone up since the ban was enacted, but the number of plastic bags purchased sold, if you will, that's gone down right. >> oh yeah. there's some studies that have shown that that's gone down. there are some that are questioned that. so even the coastal cleanup studies where they're just collecting plastic bags at beach cleanups or been pretty flat. so we know it's um,

it's definitely not working the way we want it to be. >> all right. i wonder where else do you think, in terms of either the law or regulations can be enacted that could help in terms of reducing plastic and helping our environment? yeah. >> well, there was actually a bill introduced just a couple of days ago that will specifically update our ban on plastic bags. so again, what it's going to do is tighten up that definition of a reusable bag so that people are bringing in, you know, purchasing and bringing in their tote bags over and over again. so we think that is going to be huge in helping us to finally get rid of, you know, these dreaded plastic bags we've just known for a long time that we don't need. they're wasteful and they end up harming our environment. so we're really excited about this legislation that was just introduced last week that will be considered in the legislature this year. all right. cal state director jen engstrom, thank you so much for coming on and sharing this with us. thank you so much for remember abc seven news is streaming 24 over seven. >> you can get the abc7 bay area

app and join us whenever you want, wherever you

two very different visions for california. steve garvey, the leading republican, is too conservative for california. he voted for trump twice and supported republicans for years, including far right conservatives. adam schiff, the leading democrat, defended democracy against trump and the insurrectionists. he helped build affordable housing, lower drug costs, and bring good jobs back home. the choice is clear. i'm adam schiff, and i approve this message.

experts from around the bay area . world news tonight with david muir is next, and i'll see you back here at four. tonight, what could be the biggest snowstorm in two years in new york city and parts of the northeast. hitting just hours from now. and just in tonight, the deadly shooting on the new york city subway right at rush hour. multiple people shot. first, the major winter storm hitting just hours from now. the winter storm warnings in new york city. heavy snow and