You're listening to KFI AM six forty wake Up Call with me Amy King on
demand on the iHeartRadio app k f I at kost HD two, Los Angeles,
Orange County. How about a pod call your host, Amy Kay.
It's five o'clock. What is today? It's Wednesday, June twenty sixth.
I'm a couple of days off because I had the last couple of days off.
This is your wake up call. I'm Amy King. Thanks for getting
your day started with us today. Here's what's ahead on wake up Call.
The Guardina Police Department has made its largest single seizure of illegal fireworks in recent
California history. Police found more than seventy five tons of fireworks in a commercial
warehouse on Vermont of Vermont Avenue on Friday. It had an estimated street value
of seven to ten million dollars. They're going to be talking more about it
in a news conference a little later on this morning. Food for Less workers
have reached a tentative contract agreement with the grocery store chain, averting a potential
strike. The union, representing the thousands of workers in southern California, say
the deal includes substantial wage increases for all workers more guaranteed hours and other contract
improvements. Wiki Leak's founder, Julian Assange has returned to his homeland on a
chartered jet hours after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing hundreds of thousands of US
military secrets. Assage pleaded guilty yesterday in the US territory the Northern Mariana Islands
and was sentenced to times served. We're going to be talking folding phones and
free sales service with KTLA tech reporter Rich Demiro. That's coming up in about
twenty minutes. Always fun to talk to Rich. Amy's on it another edition
of what I'm on today? Is it streaming? Is it movies? We're
streaming today, and we're going to take a look at the brat pack forty
years later and then later this hour. So excited about this. We're going
to be talking with NASA astronaut and Space Force Guardian Colonel Nick Haig. If
you have been listening to Wake Up Call, you know we've talked to him
a couple of times. He's getting ready to go up to the International Space
Station. And let's see, we're in the end of June. We think
it's sometime in August that they're going to be going up, and so really
excited to hear about his training and what's in store. And also he's going
to probably have a very unique perspective for us, because you know, those
the astronauts that took a ride up with the star Liner are kind of stuck
in space right now as they continue to look at some issues they're having with
the Boeing star Liner, and I'm guessing that Nick is going to have some
interesting thoughts on that. You know, he on his first mission they had
to abort it, and he told us about that one time, and I
remember going, why would you ever go back up in space after having like
an epic fail? But he's an asked or not, that's what he does.
And then he went up again and he has spent time on the space
station. So super excited to talk to him about that. Let's get started
with some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom.
The homeless man arrested for allegedly assaulting a teenage girl and two women in Santa
Monica is also a registered sex offender. The man's accused of going on a
rampage Monday, first attacking the seventeen year old girl. This woman, who's
also homeless, tells KTLA she heard the girl scream and jumped into help.
Pure instinct ran over told the dude to get off of her. He basically
just ignored my existence till I got physical with him. I pushed him off
of her, She says, that's when the guy started attacking her. He's
also accused of trying to drown another woman in the ocean. The guy was
arrested for attempted murder, elder abuse, and assault. The La City Council
has formerly called for an investigation into an incident involving Burbank police. City Council
President Paul Grekoryan got the rest of the council to support his effort to have
the city attorney, the DA's office, and the state Attorney General look into
why two burbank officers dropped off an injured homeless man in front of Grekoryan's North
Hollywood Field office. It happened on June sixth and was caught on surveillance video.
The burbank officer said the man was causing a scene at a hospital in
that city. They offered him a ride and he requested to be dropped off
at the spot. Krekorian doesn't buy it. He says neighboring cities drop homeless
people in LA where services are funded in downtown La. Michael Monks KFI News.
Most adults say they plan to watch or listen to tomorrow night's presidential debate,
and according to a new ap Nork Center for Public Affairs Research poll,
most think the stakes are high for both President Biden and former President Trump.
The poll also shows both candidates are broadly unpopular. You can hear the whole
CNN presidential debate tomorrow night at six o'clock. It's going to be on CNN,
of course, and simulcast right here on KFI. You know, I
was off for a couple of days this week and want to say thanks to
Heather Brooker for filling in and doing an amazing job on wake up call.
Appreciate that I was off because it was time for my not annual, but
for my check up. It was time for a colonoscopy. And the reason
that I'm on the three year plan I get to have them every three years
is because four years ago, it was actually four years ago Sunday that we
removed a cancerous tumor from my colon my large intense intestine, so it was
just taking a little journey back. It was in March of twenty twenty,
right when the lockdown started, so we were all at home and kind of
freaking out about COVID and scared and all of that, and I started getting
sick, like I would get these cramping episodes in my stomach for like twelve
hours, and then after that I would throw up for twelve hours. It
was really fun, and of course we had no idea what it was,
and so we're trying to get to doctors and it's in the middle of the
COVID and everybody shut down. And it took about three months to figure out
what was going on. We were trying to kind of rule out things and
was it pancreatitis, was it diverticulitis? Was it a food allergy? For
a while I thought it was a food allergy because of some foods I would
eat would sort of trigger these weird attacks. And finally I had a colonoscopy
in June of twenty twenty, twenty twenty, yeah, twenty twenty, and
my lovely gastroenterologist came back after we had the colonoscopy and says, oh,
we found something we need to get rid of that. And so that kind
of completed the journey because I said, can we have surgery tomorrow when I
met with a surgeon, and he said, no, you can't do it
tomorrow, but let's do it next week. And we got it done very
quickly. And the good news is that now that I have almost a footless
of my large intestine, I am cancer free. And the colonoscopy yesterday and
a cat scan last month confirmed all that. So I'm thrilled to be here
telling you about this, even though nobody wants to talk about getting a colonoscopy
because they're no fun, but I will tell you they're no big deal and
they literally saved your can save your life like they did with mine. Colon
cancer is the number two cancer that kills people right now, and it's also
starting in people younger. So it used to be that they said, hey,
get your colonoscopy for the first time to get kind of a baseline at
fifty and if you're all clear, then you go for ten years. Now
they're saying do it at forty five because it's showing up earlier and Unlike a
lot of cancers that you can't treat and you can't be cured of, this
one you can. And it's as easy as a test. And I will
also tell you that I didn't get my initial screening when I was supposed to.
So I'll just say, listen to your doctor and when they say,
you know what, you should get this test done. Go get the test
done. Because I waited, and if I would have done it when I
was supposed to do it, they would have caught it. It would have
been a polyp, they would have removed it, and it would have been
fine, and it probably would have never had an issue, except that I
would have been on their like five year plan to get colonoscopies. However,
I waited, and so I had this nasty little thing riding around with me.
I asked the doctor, I said, how long has that been there?
And they said it's probably been there for ten years because it's when it
shows up it's colon cancer. It's very slow growing. And I said,
how how long has it been bad? And he said it turned bad or
turned cancerous about eighteen months prior to the diagnosis. So if I would have
again taken care of it when I should have. It wouldn't have turned bad
and I wouldn't have had to go through the surgery and the sickness and the
six months of chemotherapy. I'm glad I did. I'm thrilled that I did.
But you know, if you can avoid it, and again, this
is a treatable, preventable form of cancer and can literally save your life.
So this is a plea to you to go and get your colonoscopy if you're
putting it off because you don't think it's fun, because it's not that fun.
But I tell you, it's not a big deal and it's not that
bad, and it can literally save your life. So if you need to
a cautionary tale, use me as that cautionary tale. And like I said,
I'm thrilled to report to you that four years later, at this point,
I am cancer free and super super excited. And my gynecologist, different
guy, my on collogist, said to me last time we did blood work
and he said to you, to me, and you're basically cured. And
he hadn't said those words before, so they're big words. So anyway,
please go get your colonoscopy, and now let's get back to some of the
stories coming out at the KMFI twenty four hour newsroom. I don't want to
belavor it, but I do want to remind you it's very very important.
Here's something very important for Wikileak's founder, Julian Maasong. He's returned to Australia
hours after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing US military secrets. He entered the
plea in Stai Pond, which is in the Northern Mariana Islands as the US
territory. It was a part of a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that allowed
him to go free. ABC's Patrick Reveal says Assanne had been in confinement in
one form or another for fourteen years, spent five years obviously in Belmarsh Prison
here. He spent before that seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy and even before
that some time under house arrests in the UK trying to avoid the sexual assault
charges that were eventually dropped. In Sweden, Assange had been fighting extradition to
the US, where he initially faced espionage charges and up to one hundred and
seventy five years in prison. Film and TV crew union members in Hollywood have
reached a tentative contract deal with the major studios. They'd been negotiating for months,
and the agreement was reached before the current contract expires. The tentative deal
includes updates on pay, pension and health, health benefits, job security,
subcontracting, streaming, residuals, and artificial intelligence. The deal does need to
be approved by members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Some people
in Coasta, Mesa are not happy about plans to develop a massive apartment complex
in the city. That complex would offer more than one thousand units, with
one hundred and six designated for those with low income. Scott Smith says he's
lived in the city for decades and asked the city council to first consider the
public before moving forward with a major development. I urge you to do the
right thing and have the citizen's Coast to Mesa vote on this project and determine
whether they want this project in our city. The plans were approved in twenty
twenty one, pending voter approval, but after Measure K was passed a year
later, that vote was no longer needed. Construction is expected to start next
year. Chris Adler kf I News that's Justin. Timberlake performing his Forget Tomorrow
World Tour at Madison Square Garden last night. It was his first time back
in New York since he was arrested for alleged drunk driving on Long Island last
week. Fans shouted we forgive you and everybody makes mistakes during the show.
Timberlake was arrested last week in Sag Harbor for allegedly failing to stop at a
stop sign and also crossing his lane. He claims he only had one martini.
The Dodgers are in Chicago to take on the White Sox tonight. First
pitch goes out at five to ten. You can listen to every play of
every Dodgers game on AM five seventy LA Sports Live from the Galpin Motors Broadcast
Booth. You can also stream all games in HD on the iHeartRadio app Keyword.
AM five seventy LA Sports. Eleven LA City firefighters been hurt in an
explosion at a homeless camp in the San Fernando Valley. The explosion Monday afternoon
happened after a grass fire broke out near the Supulvita Basin. One of the
firefighters' ears was severed and had to be reattached so as burns to his face.
A grenade was apparently found near the side of the fire. Californians want
term limits for a district attorneys, county supervisors, and sheriffs. A UC
Berkeley poll out shows eighty percent of voters across party lines want to see a
two term limit for das and supervisors, and three out of four say term
limits should be put on sheriffs too. The La City councils expected to vote
on whether to designate the former home of Marilyn Monroe in Brentwood as an historic
Cultural monument. The vote was delayed a couple of weeks ago to give the
city more time to talk with the owners of the property who got to permit
and want to tear it down. Let's say good morning now to the host
of Rich on Tech on KFI. It's KTLA's tech reporter, Rich Demro.
Good morning, Rich, Hey, good morning to you. Amy. Okay,
Foldable phones there's a fever for them. Well, I think companies are
trying to make a fever. I mean, look, I've used them.
I've used almost all of them actually that have been available here and in the
US, and they're great. But the problem is they've been big, they've
been bulky, and no company so far has nailed the form factor. What's
that? What's the form factor? Well, the form factor is like,
you know, how it feels in your hand, like it's just like your
phone is easy, it's simple to manipulate. But with this, you've got
one screen on the outside, which has typically been either too small or too
big, and then you've got one screen on the inside, which is nice
and big. It's like having a tablet in your pocket at all times.
But the problem is the outside screen has not been big enough and the inside
screen is just unwieldy. So these companies need to figure out how to make
these phones thinner, lighter, and easier to fit in your pocket. And
I think that's what we're seeing here. We're seeing a big war between Samsung
and Google right now. So yesterday Samsung announced that their Galaxy Unpacked event would
be held in Paris, France on July tenth. This is when we're expecting
to see the newest Galaxy Z series of phones. Those are the foldables,
a Z fold and the Z Flip, plus their new smart ring, which
is have you heard of the ORR ring? No Okay, so these smart
rings are kind of like the new thing. A lot of people like them.
You wear a ring and it tracks all of your metrics like your sleep
and your fitness and you know you're breathing and all that good stuff. Wait
wait, wait, like a like a smart watch but a ring instead.
Exactly those yet, Yeah, and I've tested a bunch. They're really cool.
They'll drive you nutty because when you don't sleep well, it tells you
and you're like, ah, now it literally scores your day, like it
says your day is going to be a seventy four and you're like, oh
no, like what. So that's why I stopped wearing that thing. But
with that said, Samsung's event will be happening in July. And then a
couple hours later, right after Samsung announced their event in July to unveil their
foldables, Google announced, Hey, we're going to have an event in August.
Wait what They never have an event in August, always in May and
in October. And so now what I'm reading between the leaves here is that
they are doing this earlier because a lot of people are going to be wondering,
do I get the pixel fold the new one or do I get the
Samsung Fold. And so now we're going to see on August thirteenth, new
pixels from Google, new smart watches from Google. And the reality is then
we have Apple in September. So if you're buying a smartphone, don't do
anything until at least September, because then you'll have all the information you need
to make an informed decision. Okay, And I would think Rich, I
mean, thankfully we have someone like you to talk to, because part of
the problem too is you can't compare and contrast them. It's not like you
can go and play with them side by side. Well maybe you can at
the store, but as you're gathering information, like how do you know which
one is better for you? It's kind of a crapshoot when you buy it.
Yeah, you got to call the rich On Tech radio show on Saturday
mornings on KFI. I mean literally, I'm not. I mean, I'm
joking, But the reality is, you know that's what people do. They
call me and they say, look, Rich, I've narrowed it down to
these two phones, like what's the deal, Like what's the better one to
get? Because they all have these little nuances to them, like Obviously,
Apple's in a league of its own. They have their own thing going.
So if you want Apple and you love Apple, you got to go with
that. But you know, when it comes to the Google Pixels and the
Samsungs of the world, you know, there are some pros and cons,
and you're right when you go to the store. Even let's be honest,
ninety nine percent of those like displays are broken or they're non working phones,
and so it is really tough to kind of you know, you hold this
thing that's that's you know, zip tied to a display for like one second
You're like, all right, sure, I'll spend a thousand bucks on that.
M Yeah, okay, So rich on tech on Kfi is going to
help you make that right decision. So here's another question for you about the
foldable phones, because I, like you said, they're trying to make them
catch on. They've been around for a few years. But do they now
when they fold out, are they completely lee flat like a regular like an
iPhone surface? Are they flat? Well? Now, see that's what Samsung.
That was Samsung's big innovation last year. They made it completely flat,
which was incredible. Pixel the fold last year was not completely flat, which
drove me nuts. So this year, you know, like I said,
hopefully we'll see the flatness getting better, but we'll also see the form factor,
like this thing will fit in your pocket a little bit easier, It'll
be lighter, the screens will be bigger. By the way, I am
going to Paris for this event, in for Saanfong, my first time ever
going to Paris, and so I'm very excited. Hey, why are they
doing it in Paris? Do we know? Well, Samsung, I mean,
look, they said it's because let's see, let me see what they
said exactly. They said, it's cultural significance and trend setting status. But
reality is Samsung is the sponsor of the Olympics this year in Paris, and
so I think that's probably why. I think that makes better sense. Okay,
so we're talking about cell phones and you're doing a segment today on KTLA
talking about a news sell you a plan that's free calling, free texting,
and free messaging. Well yeah, and data, yeah, free essential essential
data. That's the real you know, catch share. So this is a
company called text Now. You may have downloaded their app in the past.
Previously they did a bunch of like you know, you would download the app,
they would give you a phone number that's virtual and you can use that
to call people and to text people over Wi Fi. So it was like
a freeway to call and text, get a second number, or whatever you
wanted to do. Well, now they're taking it up a notch. You
can pay them five dollars. They will send you a SIM card that you
pop into your phone, and then you will have cellular service from them.
So you still get the free calling, you still get the free texting,
but now when you're out and about, you can get essential data for free
to use your email, your maps, and your ride sharing. So theoretically,
for free, zero dollars a month, you could make phone calls on
the go. You can text your friends, you can check your email,
you can check Google Maps, you can call a ride share. You couldn't
do anything else unless you find Wi Fi. So a lot of people just
use this, or I guess their hope is a lot of people use this
and just find free Wi Fi. I've been testing it. It works.
It's a little annoying sometimes when you're like, oh, I just want to
like check something else and I can't, But you know, you find that
free Wi Fi hotspot. You're good to go. You can also pay them
a little bit extra, either ninety nine cents to forty dollars a month to
get some extra data there. But kind of an interesting plan. What's the
hitch? Advertising? The whole thing is advertising supported, So when you're using
the app, when you get a phone call, when you're texting, there's
all ads on the screen. So if you don't mind that, you know,
hey, free zero dollars and I mean it's really not a bad deal.
The guy started his company in twenty ten. It's been doing this for
a long time. This is a brand new plan they're offering, but they've
been doing the free calling and texting for a long time. Now, Okay,
wow, that sounds pretty amazing. It's saved me one hundred and something
dollars a month. You can find that Wi Fi. Yeah, there's another
hitch. Okay, So I want to hear about you being on a billboard
in New York City. Yes, real quick, I was in New York
City in Times Square. There's a big billboard that said you can be here.
I said, what You download an app, you upload a picture,
you pay forty dollars and for fifteen seconds, your photo or video or whatever
you upload it appears on this billboard. And it was incredible. It was
so cool. You can put a social media handle on there. You can't
put anything else. You can't put like a QR code, but you know
they approve it. Obviously a human approves what you're putting up there, but
what a cool idea. The company is TSX Entertainment. You download the app
and if you ever go to Times Square in New York City, do it.
It's like the best souvenir I've ever gotten. It's on my Instagram at
rich on Tech if you want to check out the video of us going,
oh my gosh, we're on a billboard. That is so fun. And
is it on one of the ones that's on the side of a building or
a free standing one you don't have some of them are built into the buildings.
Yeah, it's on the side of a building. It's huge. It
is one of the most prominent billboards in Times Square. It's brand new,
so it's like extremely crystal clear eighteen don't quote me on that. I think
it's like eighteen thousand square feet or something insane. It's it's huge and it's
really cool. I mean, now I can say I've been on a billboard.
Hi paidboard. Yes, I can write that off forty bucks? Okay?
And where can they see it? On your Instagram at rich on tech
Perfect. You can also listen to rich on Tech here on KFI Saturdays from
eleven to two. It's KTLA's tech reporter. You can also follow him as
you mentioned on Instagram. His website is richon tech dot TV. Welcome home
and thank you so much. I'm going to go look at your picture on
the billboard. That's so fun. Thanks Amy, have a great day.
They're going to make a killing on that. Yeah, kill I agree,
I agree. Put him everywhere exactly. A man in Pomona has been shot
and killed by police. It happened just before midnight at the intersection of Hamilton
Boulevard and Center Street. Police have not yet said what led up to the
shooting, but say a gun was recovered at the scene. The man died
at the hospital. A marine at Camp Pendleton who asked a thirteen year old
girl for sexual images has been since to more than seventeen years in federal prison.
The guy was arrested on base in October when the girl's father reported the
messages to police. The Marine pleaded guilty yesterday to attempted online enticement of a
minor and was immediately sentenced. Gen Z is in debt, according to an
analysis by lending Tree. The report shows that across one hundred of the largest
metro areas in the US, a median ninety seven percent of gen Zer's have
debt. Many owre more than sixteen thousand dollars in non mortgage debt. The
report shows they're actually more likely to have credit card debt than any other type,
including student loans, and gen z Ers in Oxnard are most likely to
find themselves in debt compared to other metro areas. Governor Newsom claims California's way
of life is at risk. During his pre recorded State of the State address
released online yesterday, Newsom said abortion, LGBTQ plus rights, and other things
are in the crosshairs of extreme politicians. He went on to say Republicans are
the biggest obstacle to addressing problems at the border. Part of the gag order
against former President Trump in his New York hush money case has been lifted ahead
of tomorrow Night's first presidential debate. Judge Wan Marshan says Trump can comment about
jurors, witnesses, and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. Some restrictions will stay in
place until Trump is sentenced. On July eleventh, San Diego's mayor is headed
to China to visit the pandas that are soon going to be coming to the
San Diego Zoo. Mayor Todd Gloria will take part in the farewell ceremonies today
in Beijing. He's also traveling to the panda base. Sounds like a Air
Force base or something. Gloria heads home Sunday. There's no official timeline for
the panda's arrival. Speaking of US Air Force baces Space Force baces, We're
going to be talking to Colonel Nick Haig in about ten minutes, maybe fifteen
minutes, but a little bit later this hour, and he's going to give
us an update on his preparations for his launch into space. He's going to
spend six months on the International Space Station. Again. It's Colonel Nickay who
is a Space Force guardian and also NASA astronaut, looking forward to that right
now. Ooops, give me a couple of days off and I can't sound
fire my own Soundersamiami's on Itami's on it? What am I on? I'm
on entertainment, on streaming shows, TV shows, movies, sometimes books.
There's so much out there to offer. How do you know what to watch
and what to invest your time in? And tell you you can get you
can get sucked in like I do. I've got a couple of shows kind
of waiting in the wings that I don't even know if I'm going to tell
you about him, because I was like, this one sucked and I spent
like ten hours watching it. So anyway, this one did not suck.
It's Brats. It's on par'm Video and just was released a week or two
ago, and it's a look back at the Brat Pack and why the Brat
Pack wasn't a great thing. Like the rat Pack was a cool thing,
but for the Brat Pack, it was a negative and negatively impacted all those
actors and actresses who were part of it. Now you know them, Emilio
Estevez, Molly Ringwald to me, Moore, Ali Sheety, Leah Thompson,
she was kind of adjacent to it. Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, John
Cryer, Timothy Hutton apparently was part of that and of course Andrew McCarthy and
if you remember all those movies saying Almost Fire and all of those movies,
like they were the it group, and it was the first time that Hollywood
had really focused on younger actors and really highlighting their lives. And they went
and did a few and said, oh, hey, these can make blockbusters.
But being designated as the brat Pack, this show talks about how that
tapped into all of their doubts and fears about who they were and whether they
were good actors or whether they were just part of like a Hollywood trend.
And Andrew McCarthy wants to address it. So he calls up a bunch of
people that he literally, at least according to this documentary, had not spoken
to for thirty years. So it's like, hey, to me, Moore,
it's Andrew McCarthy. I know we haven't talked for thirty years, but
let's get together. And so he calls them. Some of them talk to
them, some of them don't. They were all in their early twenties when
the Brat Pack came to be. Now they're in their mid fifties, and
so taking a look into the documentary, it's fun to see their homes where
they are now kind of sad too. One of my takeaways from this whole
thing was the men are allowed to age, the women aren't. And you
can tell almost all of them have had some pretty substantial work done. And
I'll let you watch it and see what it is. But it just kind
of makes me mad because Emilio Festive, he's put on a few pounds,
he's got some wrinkles, Andrew McCarthy saying, Andrew McCarthy looks great, but
he's you know, he's aged, and they and Hollywood allows you to age.
For the women, it's not necessarily the same thing. So one of
the things you find out right away is that nobody wanted to be part of
the brat Pack. They all wanted to be actors. And so that article
that came out, I believe it a Variety magazine that named them the brat
Pack, portrays them as not being serious about their work, that they weren't
talented actors, and it was like just a big illusion. It was all
part of Hollywood. Like I said, it was the hype over the genre
and not really that the people could actually act. A few of them have
had some successes, a lot of them haven't. There is a moment where
where Andrew McCarthy orders a burger and the person inside the food truck says,
hey, what are you filming And he says, well, I'm filming about
the Brat Pack. And she says, well, you know that sounds kind
of familiar. I mean, that's got to be hard to go from a
superstar to just kind of obscurity, but I think it happens for a lot
of actors' careers, so you know, you think about it made me think
about the actors who started out young and they're still acting. You know,
that's not it's not a given just because you're famous at one point that you're
going to be famous for forever. And I think that one of the most
interesting interesting things is during the documentary, Andrew McCarthy goes and talks to the
guy who wrote the article, the one that created the moniker the Brat Pack.
And I'll tell you I hated this guy and he's not likable, but
you got to watch it because it's super super interesting. Like his perspective behind
what happened is really interesting, and you can't blame him because he came up
with this catchphrase that for a writer, like everybody wants to do that.
You know, I invented that, and he invented the Brat pack and it's
stuck and anyway, it's I thought it was a really good watch. It's
like an hour and a half. It again is on Prime video, and
it's fun to take a look back and see who's having success, who's having
not, who's not having success, what they look like now, what their
lives are like. And I think it's a fun look back. So I
recommend Brats on Prime video. Now let's get back to some of the stories
coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. The Guardina Police Department says
officers have seized more than seventy five tons of illegal fireworks and official announcements coming
later this morning. The fireworks were discovered on Friday inside a warehouse and have
an estimated street value of between seven and ten million dollars. Two men and
a woman have been arrested. The Shark Lab at cal State Long Beach may
have to shut down because it's running out of money. The lab received a
state grant in twenty eighteen with enough funding for five years, but the lab
was able to stretch it to six. Lab director doctor Chris Lo says his
team studies white shark behavior along the coast to help keep people safe. Funny
ends in September, and if we don't find more, we're gonna stirp,
calling all our equipment out of the water, and I have to let all
my staff go. Lo says it costs about nine hundred thousand each year to
keep the program going because the lab researches sharks throughout the state. He says
California's current budget has no room to keep the lab open. Chris Adler KFI
News. The espionage trial of American journalist Evan Gershkevich has started in Russia.
The media were briefly shown Evan Gershkovich in the court in Ya Katsarinburg, the
city about one thousand miles from Moscow, where he's been brought for what is
being widely condemned as a show trial. He was in a glass cage and
his head shaved. ABC's Patrick Reval says Grishkovitch has been in detention for more
than a year. The US and the Wall Street Journal have condemned the charges
as fabricated. The Department of Homeland Security says arrests for illegal border crossings have
dropped more than forty percent in the three weeks since President Biden's executive action on
asylum. The orders set up a rule to turn away migrants claiming asylum between
ports of entry when daily arrests are above twenty five hundred. California Republicans say
Governor Newsom chose the coward's way out in pre recording his State of the State
address. The speech, released online yesterday marked the fourth time Newsom has not
delivered his address to lawmakers at the state capitol. Republican leader James Gallagher says
Newsom has no respect for the state capitol. Under the California constitution, Newsom's
not doing anything wrong. He's only required to give a written State of the
State letter to the legislature. President Biden's going to announce veterans convicted of crimes
by the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity will be pardoned.
It'll be for anyone convicted between nineteen fifty one and twenty thirteen. It could
impact thousands. Consumer confidence has dipped just a bit. The Conference Board's Consumer
Confidence index slipped nearly a point from May to June due to increasing uncertainty about
the future. The survey showed fewer people are planning to buy homes and cars
in the next six months, but more are planning to vacation. We're just
minutes away from handle on the news this morning, fourteen years later, Wiki
Leak's founder, Julian Assange is a free man. Bill's going to tell you
all about that. But right now, let's say good morning too. Space
Force guardian and NASA astronaut our friend Colonel Nick Hay, Good morning, Colonel
Haig, Good morning Amy. How are you doing great? And excited to
talk to you today because you've got to be getting excited. Colonel HAIGU is
going to go to the International Space Station for six months and you're about two
months ish from liftoff. Yep, we're within two months. So yes,
the excitement is definitely building. And are you any closer to I know that
you kind of keep things under wraps as far as when the launch is going
to happen and stuff, and there's always kind of last minute scheduling and stuff.
But do we have any kind of narrowing in of when your launch date
is? Yeah, so you know right now we're targeting sometime and toward the
end the last half of August. You know, it's not a state secret
that really it has to do with all the different things that are happening on
this thing. I think everybody's tracking right now that we've got a test mission
going on and they've got to finish that mission, and then we also have
cargo vehicles that have to go up there, and so all of this traffic
has to be synchronized, and so we're just waiting our turn, although it
gets harder and harder to wait patiently. Okay, And you mentioned some of
the things going on at the International Space Station. I wanted to talk to
you about that. We know that the Boeing star Liner took a couple of
astronauts up and they were supposed to be up on the space station for a
week because it was Boeing's first crude mission there, and it was delayed,
and then it was delayed again, and now it's been delayed until next month
for their return from the space station. And I thought that you might have
kind of an interesting perspective on that, being an astronaut yourself. I mean,
when something like that happens, I know, you can't get into their
minds, but in your mind, like what goes on when they go,
hey, by the way, we're not sure your ride is safe. Yeah,
every mission we do is essentially a test mission, and this one more
than most because this is the first time we've put crew inside the star Liner
capsule and symptoms to the station. So you're learning a lot and the teams
have discovered some things and they're working through some analysis to try to figure out,
Okay, so how is the vehicle responding? And based off what we've
learned, are we comfortable continuing to proceed with the mission? And so that's
a normal process of any test mission, and that's really a normal process of
any of our space flight missions, because there's the plan you start with when
you're getting ready to launch, and then there's actually what happens. And there
are examples throughout the history of the space program that just proves that point that
space is a difficult business and we manage a lot of really complex technical things,
and sometimes our predictions don't really match reality, and we adjust and figure
out how to be successful. Okay, So as you're doing your training,
it sounds like you're saying you're not just exclusively focused on your mission, but
you have to be learning all the time about the other things that are affecting
other astronauts. Yeah, it's all connected, and we work it's a small
office. There's only about four dozen US astronauts, and so we know each
other. We talk with each other about how everybody's training is going, how
their jobs are doing, how their families are doing, and so at the
tight knit group, and so you're aware of all those other things. And
then you know, when it comes to doing your job, you don't just
do your job in a vacuum. It depends on all those other different teams
and different pieces of equipment and programs that come together at the station. And
so, yeah, it's all connected. And you know there're one change in
one program sends a ripple effect through the rest of the programs and that's just
the nature of the business. Okay, And tell us then, Colonel Haig,
as you get closer to your mission, what kind of training are you
doing now at two months out? Yes, yeah, so it's a lot
of the last of type of things. So for almost a year and a
half to two years I've been focused on training to get ready to go to
the space station. Some of that's focused on getting to the space station,
and that's why I'm here in Los Angeles this week is training at SpaceX,
and then some of it's focused on working and living on the space station.
And we have these whole training programs that are stretched out over this year and
a half and we do things three, four or five times. Now we're
finally getting to the last time of all of these things, and so each
one of those moments is it just kind of sends chills down my neck said,
Hey, this is the last time. The next time I'm going to
do this, I'm going to be in space. Yeah, it's exciting.
It's spacewalk training, it's robotics training to be able to use the robotic arm
on the International Space Station. Here this week, we're doing some very integrated
simulations where we're going to simulate launching to the space station and returning from the
space station on the Dragon capsule, and that it's the full team. So
it's pretty exciting because everybody comes together and it's a mission control that's in Hawthorne
here in Los Angeles for SpaceX, but it's also the mission control team in
Houston and then US and the capsule and all working together to practice what we
do when things don't go to plan, because ninety five percent of the stuff
we practice are things to what do we do when something doesn't happen? And
so these simulations have lots of failures in them, and we figure out how
to face the failure, fix it, and continue the mission. Yeah,
it reminds me of I believe it was Apollo thirteen with Tom Hanks and there
something goes wrong on their mission to the moon, and all of a sudden
they're like, uh, oh, we're screwed, basically, and here's what
we have. Okay, now let's figure out how to fix this so we
can get these guys home. I mean, it's just got to be amazing
the contingencies that you guys have to have in place, and then also planning
for the unexpected. Yeah, it is. It's it's just a true privilege
to be part of this program and and that team, that gigantic team of
people, and the energy and the investment and the the just the sheer intellect
of that group to be able to face those problems figure them out. And
you know, that's that's what gives me the confidence to you know, to
strap onto a rocket and launch into space. It's because I know I've got
that team supporting me, and we're going to tackle whatever gets thrown our way.
Cool. Okay, So you were talking about spacewalk training. What does
spacewalk training on Earth look like. It's a mix because really the only place
that you can do it is in space. Uh So, we do lots
of pieces of it. Some of that is virtual reality based, so we
we put on a v our headset and we practice doing a spacewalk virtually.
A part that a lot of people know about is our neutral Buoyancy Laboratory,
so Big Pool, Gigantic Pool, where we have a life sized mockup of
the space station underwater under about forty feet of water, and we get in
an actual spacewalk spacesuit and go under the water and practice where we can float
and it stimulates pretty close what it's like to float around on the outside of
the space station. And then we go through all the procedures that we would
plan to do on orbit and practice them and then practice what happens when those
procedures don't work. But I got to tell you that the underwater training is
as close as you can get on Earth. To what it's like up there.
The first time I went out to hatch on a spacewalk on the space
station, it was nighttime. I opened the hatch, started crawling around on
the outside of the space station, and my prevailing thought was, Man,
this feels just like I'm in the neutral buoyantcy laboratory and I was looking the
only thing that was missing was the bubbles coming up from the safety divers that
are on scuba gear around us. Yeah. Okay, So that brings me
to something. We had asked our listeners if they wanted to ask an aster
not something, and here was my favorite question. So you're doing the space
walk, you're out there outside the space station, you turn away from it
so you can't see it, and you're looking at Earth. One what's that
feeling? And two? How big does it look like? Does the planet
take up your entire field of vision or is it just part of it?
So had this had this really unique chance. I was on the front of
the space station. We were putting on one of the docking ports that we
use for our commercial crew vehicles to dock, and we were installing it,
and so I had, you know, a split second to catch my breath,
and you know, it seemed like three or four minutes. I think
it was only about ten seconds, but I did it. I kind of
turned away from the station and I looked out in front of the of the
station towards the Earth with kind of the background, and you know, it's
bright enough up there during the day that you don't see a whole lot of
stars. The sky's pretty black, but the Earth fills about half your view.
And at that point, you're trained so much in the suit, in
the spacesuit that it kind of starts to feel like clothes and it just kind
of melts away. So it was this feeling of I'm outside working in space,
just just riding on top of the spacecraft and it's hurtling and just seeing
Earth kind of drift below. And it's a moment like that where you start
to realize just the you know, it goes back to all those people that
make it possible, because that moment is possible because of the throngs of people
that are part of those teams on the ground helping us, helping us do
it. It's not just two people outside the space station. It's it's all
of the people at NASA that are that are supporting the station, uh,
you know, the space Walk, the station itself, it's all of the
Space Force guardians that are around the globe that are that are watching out for
us and making sure that you know we're safe while we're up there, and
and helping us getting to and from there. And so it's that one ten
second moment that just makes you feel like you're part of something so enormous.
You're part of something that only humanity could do, and you are one of
the few of humanity who get to take part in that. So I'm so
excited for you, and I know we're coming down to crunch time. You're
going to lift off in a couple of months. I hope we get to
talk to you again. I want to talk more about the Space Force and
what it does, and of course kind of the final steps as you get
ready for your launch again, if we can make it happen, I would
love to talk to you again. Colonel Haig. Thank you so much for
your for your information today, and we're getting excited for you. No,
thank you, Hey, Samy, I really appreciate the opportunity to share.
You know, I am one of the few that gets to go up there.
I wish I could take everybody with me in short of that being able
to share that experience, and so I'll definitely take you up on the offer
and chat with you another time before I get right to launch. Awesome.
Thank you so much again. This is Space Force Guardian NASA Astronaut Colonel Nick
Haig. Thank you so much for taking the time today. Thanks Amie,
so fun and with that, our time with wake Up Call is over.
This is KFI and KOST HD two Los Angeles, Orange County. We lead
local live from the KFI twenty four hour newsroom for producer and and technical producer
Kno and traffic special specialist Nick. I'm Amy King. This has been your
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