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When We Publish Three 2019 Special Sections Featuring New Home Communities on NEW HOMES Beyond the Bay Dont miss the next Life Beyond the Bay Sandy Lek at (925) 847-2135 or [email protected] Beyond the Bay 14 th September 25 & 27 Readership will include The Mercury News, East Bay Times, Marin Independent Journal, and our 27 Weeklies. When We Publish The Fall 2020 Special Section Featuring New Home Communities on The Next Beyond the Bay WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2020 111 24/7 COVERAGE: MERCURYNEWS.COM $2.00 ★ The newspaper of Silicon Valley Sports: Flores nominated as Hall of Fame finalist. C1 Nation: Democrats hold night 2 of convention. A3 Business: Postal Service halts changes over election concerns. C7 Local: Golden State Killer sentencing hearings begin. B1 Volume 170, issue 61 Business ....................C7 Classified .................. B8 Comics/TV ............. B10 Lottery ...................... A2 Legals ........................ B9 Obituaries ................. B7 Puzzles ........ B2, C5, C6 Weather .................. B12 INDEX NEWS ON YOUR PHONE Download the Mercury News mobile app for iPhone or Android. 6 40493 00001 1 Subscribe: MercuryNews.com ©2020 By Lisa M. Krieger [email protected] The wonder of a vaccine is its power to fend off the CO- VID-19 virus. But a new class of antibody drugs could do that, too, and more quickly. While vaccines take days or weeks to work, the new drugs could help within hours. Armed with a growing un- derstanding of human im- munity, Bay Area researchers are producing these potential treatments based on antibod- ies, the tiny Y-shaped mole- cules proven to protect against infection and illness. “Basically, this is nature’s preferred system of medi- cine,” said immunologist Ja- cob Glanville, whose South San Francisco-based startup Distributed Bio uses comput- ers and engineering to make lab-grown antibodies. Tuesday, UC San Francisco scientists unveiled their own antibody-inspired product, dubbed “AeroNabs,” which STOPPING COVID-19 A race to turn antibodies into a solution Llamas among animals studied to help create lab-produced medicines NOAH BERGER — UC SAN FRANCISCO UC San Francisco’s Peter Walter, leſt, and Aashish Manglik, right, have been working to create a COVID-19antibodies spray. ANTIBODIES » PAGE 5 By Evan Webeck and Emily DeRuy Staff writers Dozens of fires have exploded across the Bay Area and Napa’s wine country, scorching thousands of acres, forcing evacuations and sending residents an uncomfortable reminder that fire sea- son in California is well under way. Persistent hot weather and windy conditions Tuesday were complicating efforts to get the infernos — some ig- nited by rare weekend lightning storms — under control and sending unhealthy smoke wafting across the East Bay, which is expected to spread north and south today. A Spare the Air Alert is again in effect across the Bay Area. As of Tuesday afternoon, there was zero containment on any of the region’s EVACUATIONS Hot, windy weather propels lightning-induced infernos By Paul Rogers and Rick Hurd Staff writers A new round of rolling electrical blackouts for up to 2 million homes and businesses were averted for the third day Tuesday as an extreme heat wave that has scorched the Bay Area and much of California with triple-digit tem- peratures for the past four days contin- ued, straining the state’s power grid. The California Independent System Operator, which runs the state power grid, declared a Stage 2 emergency about 2:20 p.m. Tuesday, saying that out- ages were “likely” unless residents and companies immediately began conserv- ing electricity. By 7 p.m. no blackouts had occurred and ISO credited power created by wind as well as conservation with helping keep the lights on in the Bay Area, and just before 8 p.m., the ISO announced outages had been averted. Rolling blackouts that state power of- ficials had expected Monday and again Tuesday were avoided by huge conser- vation efforts and are urgently needed again during this week’s heatwave to keep the lights on, grid operators said. Steve Berberich, president of the ISO, POWER GRID Outages averted but still ‘likely’ Blackouts can be expected if conservation not enough By Mark Mazzetti and Nicholas Fandos New York Times WASHINGTON » A sprawling report re- leased Tuesday by a Republican-con- trolled Senate panel that spent three years investigating Russia’s 2016 elec- tion interference laid out an extensive web of contacts between Trump cam- paign advisers and Russian government officials and other Russians, including some with ties to the country’s intelli- gence services. The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, totaling nearly 1,000 pages, provided a bipartisan Senate imprima- tur for an extraordinary set of facts: The Russian government undertook an ex- tensive campaign to try to sabotage the 2016 U.S. election to help Donald Trump become president, and some members of Trump’s circle of advisers were open 2016 TRUMP CAMPAIGN Report finds advisers met with Kremlin Senate committee says Russia tried to sabotage U.S. election Full report on WEATHER H: 85-93 L: 60-61 B12 RUSSIA » PAGE 3 Zero containment for major blazes; Spare the Air Alert in effect across Bay Area Kenny Wainright stays behind to watch Cal Fire save his family’s Nichelini Family Winery, the oldest in the region, as the Hennessey Fire burns east of Rutherford on Tuesday. The winery’s 130-year-old tasting room was spared. PHOTOS BY KARL MONDON — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Cal Fire crew prepares to battle the Hennessey Fire on Highway 128east of Rutherford on Tuesday. FIRES » PAGE 5 HEAT » PAGE 5
