You're listening to Wake Up Call on Demand from kf I AM six forty kf
I hand KOST HD two, Los Angeles, Orange County. It's time for
your morning wake up call. Here's Jason Middleton. Good morning everybody. Yes,
Wednesday, July nineteen, You made it. You made it to Wednesday.
Got a big show today, got a lot of news, a lot
of cool interviews too. Before we get into hand along the news at six
o'clock, of course, we're gonna talk about the soldier who crossed in North
Korea. We also have Wired Wednesday with Richard Murrow and well we have Jane
Wells as well, and some Tupac Shakur developments. And before we get going,
though we were coming, we're talking about our first jobs ever. And
I realized that my first job ever was delivering morning newspapers. So I was
about thirteen, maybe fourteen years old, and I was getting up at three
am to go to work. And here I am, seventy eight years later,
still getting up three am to go to work, talking to the our
engineer, Steve Kono, and mister Kono his first job was a bad boy
as beats mined by a Ton shout out to the Illan Empire. Suci six
ers for that one. Right on, Thank you, Cono. All right,
let's get into a couple of headlines before we get into the KFI newsroom
headlines. The mother of a US soldier who crossed into North Korea says she
shocked and just wants her son to come home. Meta is rolling out a
free AI to rival chat GPT for both consumers and businesses. We'll talk with
Bitch Dumurro about that. Las Vegas police say they executed a search warrant Monday
in the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. Now, let's start with some of
those stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. The LAPD says
it will continue to predict protected illegal immigrants from answering questions about their status.
The department's Special Order forty prohibits officers from asking about a person's background, country
of origin, or immigration status. Assistant Chief Alebrato told the Police Commission yesterday
there are some exceptions line crime, gang crime, weapons violation, narcotics,
trafficking, human trafficking, child pornography. Lebrata says the department still does not
cooperate with officials for deportation orders. He says in twenty twenty two, federal
agents made seven hundred and eighty three requests to hold an illegal immigrant for deportation,
but honored none of them. Steve Gregory can if I knows. Top
Republicans on Capitol Hill are standing by former President Trump, who could be facing
another federal indictment. Trump announced yesterday he got a letter saying he was the
target of adj investigation into efforts to overturn the twenty twenty election. Trump criticized
the investigation while at a campaign event in Iowa. If you say something about
an election, they want to put you in jail for the rest of your
life. It's a disgrace. He also called it election interference. Police are
trying to find a man they say tried to rape three women in LA and
East LA on the same day. At least one of the women, twenty
one year old Sergio Garcia's accused of attacking, is a sixty seven year old
who was gardening. The Woman's son in law, Gilbert Corio, says Garcia
through the woman to the ground Saturday and punched her in the face several times.
He tried to proceed to sexually assault her, at which point the neighbor's
catto windowville was happening. They came out, they intervened, and at that
point the individual pretty much ran away in his bike. The woman suffered a
concussion and broken nose. Her eyes were left swollen shut in East La Blake
Trolley k if I News. An ozone advisory for much of the South Coast
air Basin and Coachella Valley has been extended because of the heat. It was
supposed to expire last night, but it is now in effect through eight pm
Saturday. The AQMD says over the past few days, air quality index levels
have reached unhealthy in most inland areas and very unhealthy in some localized areas.
Because of the prolonged heat wave, high interest rates and gunshy lenders have led
to a spike in the number of home loan application rejections. The rejection rate
jumped to just under twenty two percent, so one out of every five from
June of twenty twenty two to June of twenty twenty three. The latest Federal
Reserve survey says that's the highest level in five years. Overall credit applications are
down to their lowest level since October twenty twenty, and the FED says the
number of auto loans being turned down is also up from nine point one to
fourteen point two percent. The FED survey showed not only were home loans and
car loans being rejected at higher rates, a record number of applicants expected to
be turned down. Amy King, KFI News and a couple of short minutes.
The first topic on wake Up Call is going to be the unfolding and
rather strange story from North Korea and the soldier who apparently crossed the DMZ by
choice. But first from the Southern California Toyota Dealers Traffic Center. Let's go
places, and let's check the ninety one in Anaheim westbound at Tusted. You've
got to crash off to the shoulder. Watch for slowing as you approach Corona.
The fifteen northbound between Hidden Valley Parkway and Second Street or works on blocking
the two right lanes. And as you make your way through Compton this morning.
This in ten south on at Laundre, you've got a crash blocking the
left lane. Traffic slow there as you approach as well, Kay, fine,
the sky helps get you there faster I'm Dave Joseph all R. Right
now. A US Army private who had just finished a stint in a South
Korean detention facility crossed the border in North Korea quote without authorization end quote,
and is now in custody in that country. Traffic's over. ABC's Matt Seiler
is on the line with us to help unpack this developing and somewhat odd story.
Good morning, sir, Hey, good morning, Thanks so much for
having me. Absolutely Okay. His name is Travis King. He's twenty three.
What else do we know this morning? So he served as a scout
in the cavalry scout in the Army. He's a junior enlisted soldier. So
he had gotten into some kind of trouble out in town. It sounds like
yet an altercation with locals. That's what led him to do that stint,
which turned out to be forty five days in a South Korean detention facility.
So he did his time. He was released to a US base who was
there for about a week under observation, at which point he was escorted to
the airport. From there he was supposed to fly and end up in Fort
Bliss, Texas, where he was most likely going to be administratively separated,
which means the army was probably going to kick him out of the service basically,
but that didn't happen. Of course, his handlers, his escort took
him as far as the customs or security checkpoint at the airport sent him through.
He didn't get on that plane. He at some point got out of
the airport, ended up on a tour of the DMZ and from there deliberately,
as you said, the military is very clear about this, he deliberately,
willfully crossed that line into North Korea, where they believe he's still under
custody. Matt, I'm confused. The pressure point here seems to be the
transfer at the airport, right an opportunity for him to find some kind of
We don't have any information about that. Is it customary to just drop off
a soldier who has to go back to Fort Bliss and just say okay,
good luck and get on the plane. So in this case, it wasn't
as if it's a prisoner transport, in which you know, you would have
an escort all the way to the gate, if not on the flight.
So he had served his time in South Korea, so in some sense,
he was kind of a free man, even though what waited him in Texas
was most likely a discharge of some sort. So it makes sense to a
degree, you know, and the escort doesn't have tickets. They take him
as far as they can into the airport and then it's on him to get
on that flight. And from officials, I've talked two here around the building
at the Pentagon, they said, you know, there was no indication that
a flight risk or anything like that. And you know, no one would
anticipate a young American serviceman would put it this way. We've heard harrowing tales
of people escaping from North Korea, but escaping into North Korea is another thing
entirely now that that is quite odd and unexpected. But that's what he did.
Apparently found his way onto a tour, jumped across that line. Yeah,
okay, let's talk about that. We're speaking with ABC's Matt Siler about
the North Korean soldier or the soldier who defected or without authorization, crossed the
DMZ into North Korea. His second choice was to from the tour that he
was on at the time. Do we know any details about that situation?
Right? So there are some eyewitnesses, you know, unconfirmed reports that we've
heard from people on the ground that you know, they witnessed him run across.
There might have been some attempt from from guards on the South Korean side
to maybe halt him and didn't get to him in time. That's not totally
clear. But he was taken into custody by the North Koreans on the other
side of that line. Now what happens next to him, you know,
that's hard to say. There's some precedent. We had the instance in twenty
sixteen of an American being held in North Korea, that being Auto warm Beer,
whom was released about a year later in twenty seventeen in a vegetative state
and brought back to the United States, which he soon died after that.
So some rather dark precedent. I you know, you can't imagine what would
what would be in someone's head to make this decision, Right, was when
was the last affection by a US soldier or I'm using the defection were just
as a not as a value judgment. I'm just saying that like the last
time a US soldier liberated themselves into North Korea? Right, If I'm not
mistaken, off the top of my head, I believe there's not a case
of that since the nineteen sixties, and then whether there were a few a
cluster of them in the nineteen sixties, and I believe only one of them
made it back to the United States and then was core marshaled upon arrival.
So it's an odd occurrence. Now the US has a couple of options to
exercise in terms of getting them back that the US doesn't have open diplomatic relations
with North Korea, of course, but Sweden does, and in the past
the US has been able to use Sweden as an intermediary to secure some limited
consular services for people inside North Korea. So there's some chance of doing that.
But the State Department sort of signaled yesterday that you know, at this
point they have no reason to believe that Private King wants to come back,
and so the Biden administration might temper their efforts based on that. Right,
Matt, One last question, and the reason I was being careful with the
word defection because that has a certain connotation to it, and I have to
be very careful around that because it depends on how North Korea treats this,
right. I mean, if they treat it like a defection, it could
go one way. If they treat it like a diplomatic opportunity, it could
go a different way. Right, is that how the State Department might see
it, well, defection it might have more to do with the motivation of
the person. Assessing the motivation why that person left and how they're treated after
that is a different matter with North Korea. I mean, another big point
here though, is that this whole story is overshadowed which would have been the
big story of the day, which is that for the first time in over
forty years, the US had just sent a nuclear capable submarine support in South
Korea, which is meant to be a big sign of hey, we have
your back, would take security in the region seriously and also a signal to
deter North Korea from aggression in the region. And then whence in this same
period we have this story breaking, right with a US service member, an
active duty service member willingly crossing into North Korea, and then North Korea shortly
after that sub's arrival also launching to sure arrange ballistic missiles into the Sea of
Japan. So it's just been a kind of a frenetic wild twenty four or
so hours on the peninsula. A couple of really strong story threads to follow.
Thanks for your time and expertise around this. Matt Tyler and he's sign
ABC's Matt Siler. They're joining us talking about the soldier who split and left
a tour across the DMZ at Panmun John and went into North Korea. A
lot to follow there. Let's get back to some of those stories coming out
of the KFI twenty far our newsroom before we go to break. A billboard
in San Pedro has been taken down after years of complaints to the city Councilman
Tim mccoscar says the sign was blocking a pedestrian bridge and was used as a
hideout for people up to no good drug sales, malicious damage to the public
property, which is the bridge, and the bridge is constantly behind the sign.
Only behind the sign was constantly filled with graffiti and drug paraphernalia. Mccoscars
as, the company that owned the billboard, was supposed to take it down
when their lease was up last year, but they waited months before removing it.
This week, two people were hurt while working to take down the billboard.
The crane being used collapsed yesterday, causing the workers to fall about twenty
feet. The extent of their injuries was not immediately known. San Clementi has
hired private security in response to complaints about the homeless and rowdy teens who attacked
three marines, loitering, sleeping on the beach, illegal activities, drugs,
and such Sant Clementi councilman Rick Lefler says the city had wanted to wait to
hire more deputies, but when the marines were attacked over Memorial Day weekend,
certainly a major embarrassing issue. Four unarmed guards started this week at seventy thousand
dollars per month for six months to keep order and help with the homeless.
Refer to these people to resources, whether it be drug rehabilitation, possible housing
sources, even colin a relative and saying hey, do you know your uncle
is down here and could use some help. In Orange County, Corbin Carson
kf I News, Sixteen people in Michigan have been charged with felony election crimes.
Attorney General Dana Nessel says the people charged knowingly tried to circumvent the will
of Michigan voters after the twenty twenty presidential election by signing documents attesting to being
duly elected and qualified presidential electors. After signing these fraudulent electoral documents, some
of the false electors attempted to enter the state capital and deliver their fabricated electoral
votes to the Senate floor, but were turned away. She says the charges
are not political. A first jan first generation iPhone has sold at auction for
more than one hundred and ninety thousand dollars. It's sold for about five hundred
bucks when it was first available back in two thousand and seven. It had
every bit of four gigabytes in it and was discontinued two months after it was
released. An eight gigabyte model sold for over sixty three thousand dollars in February.
Right now, we have Rich Dumurou. He's KTLA's tech reporter. Of
course, he's also host of Rich on Tech right here on KFI. Saturday's
eliminate them to two pm. Good warning, Rich, always a pleasure.
Hey, good morning to Jason. Let's jump into the meta AI thing because
that's kind of a that might be a transitional thing that's larger than we might
have first thought. Yeah, this is pretty big. So Meta has announced
that they have a new AI system called Lama two. They used to have
one called Lama while they've been called Lama one, it was just Lama AI.
But Lama two is of course much more advanced. But here's the thing.
It is open source, which means anyone can jump in and look under
the hood and see what makes this AI tick. And they're giving it away
for free, which means that startups, companies, pretty much anyone can tap
into this and use it to build whatever they want, which is huge compared
to closed systems from Google and from open Ai, which you can play with
and use, but if you want to use it in your commercial apps,
you're gonna have to pay up, Okay, So this kind of solidifies Microsoft
right is a benchmark for AI given its relationship with chat GPT. Yeah,
which is kind of interesting because Microsoft is really really embracing this. They have
a partnership where Microsoft developers can easily access this new Lama two. But it's
interesting because Microsoft is also a big investor in open Ai, which are the
makers of chat GBT, so now they're kind of playing with both maybe hedge
in their bets and it's an interesting move by Microsoft, because why would you
choose open AI system versus this new meta system when you get one for free
and not the other. Now, I'm sure they each have their own pros
and cons, but the reality is if you're a startup and you're sitting there
saying, let me, let me start with this one and then maybe we'll
see what we can do. There is one distinction, Jason, which is
kind of interesting that to use this for free, your company cannot have more
than seven hundred million active users, and so that means that it will keep
things like Twitter out for free. They they would have to pay right app
too, right because Snap is over seven hundred million monthly. You know,
I don't know if they have that many yet. I you know, I
should know this because I just did a story with them and they were talking
about their monthlies. But it may be that. I think. I think
the larger question I should have asked is there's no such thing as a free
lunch. These things are free right now, but they're not going to stay
free, right I mean, there's no way. Well, uh, you
know, we've seen a history on the web of open source and free products.
What we typically see is a level of free and then all of a
sudden they'll start building little things on top that's like a value add So if
you've ever gone to like a website to build like a personal website, yeah,
you can get a free version. But if you want this, this,
and that, well guess what you're gonna pay. It's called the freemium
model. And I think that's what Facebook is doing here. Okay, great,
and one more quick question about this and we'll move to Gmail, Apple,
Spotify, Rise, and a couple of others don't let their employees use
chat GPT. Will that situation be different? Do you think with this since
it's open source? You know what? Maybe just because they can control better
control. I think what these companies want to do is they want to come
up with their own systems that they can control what goes in, what goes
out. And I think that's the big name of the game there. And
it's also early. You know that if you put something into one of these
systems, it sort of goes into the hopper I call it, you know,
like your information, whatever you put in is now part of that learning
curve for that you know that AI. So that's why companies like Microsoft and
all these other companies don't want their sorry, Microsoft, Apple, don't want
their employees using it because they may put some proprietary information in there that someone
else can then access. Right on. Okay, thank you for that.
M Yesterday afternoon, I was logging into my Gmail and I got, hey,
do you want to do safer browsing? And I didn't. I didn't
click on it because I knew I was going to talk to you today.
What's the deal with the security that they're trying to enhance. Yeah, a
lot of people have questions about this because it did pop up on Gmail.
This has been a feature that is has been available on Chrome for a long
time, and so now they're rolling it out to Gmail. And what it
does is it allows Google to check your links in real time and the contents
of your email against the database of other emails and other links to make sure
that there's no malware, there's no phishing. So it's additional protection. Now,
if you don't say yes, they check your information against a database that's
about thirty minutes old. So if you say yes, they're going to check
against the database that's in real time. And Jason, the real time aspect
is let's say a spammer sends out, you know, ten thousand email spam
messages in you know, all of a sudden, right, and a lot
of people start reporting on that, Hey, report spam, report spam.
Well after like the one hundredth person reports it in a minute, let's say
Google's little systems say, oh, we got new spam. Here's what it
looks like, here's where it comes from. And so if you're on this
enhanced safe browsing, immediately when they check that email in your box, they'll
say, oh, we already know that this is bad. But if you're
on the regular, if you don't turn this on, it'll be updated,
but in a half an hour, so it's more real time with Google.
And of course the downside to all of this is that you do have to
share a bit more information with Google because they're using your data to crowdsource these
safety warnings, right. That seems to be the sop with Google, doesn't
it. So yeah, pretty much, that's okay. But I mean it's
it's a free service, so it's it's a known transaction. You're getting a
lot of value for that as long as you're willing to trade some of your
personal data. So yeah, and I think that I think in general it's
it's Google. I've met with the team that actually came up with this,
and I believe me, they are very, very good and this has saved
a lot of people from a lot of bad stuff. So it's probably worth
it to turn it on. If you're a little bit advanced, a little
bit tech savvy, then maybe you could just leave it off. But I
think for the average person, it's probably a good thing to have that big
red warning when you open an email that says, warning, do not click
the links in this has been identified as spam. Yeah, very cool.
Okay, at the break, I'm going to turn this on, but I
wanted to talk with you first. AI head shots. Now, these are
not selfies necessarily, and I've seen your website. I mean, you know
it's it's your head shots are elegant, all right? Now? Can AI
help mine look elegant? Oh, Jason, I'm not kidding. You gotta
do this today. I'm this is this is incredible. So this is an
app called Remedy, and it's a it's an app that you upload about twelve
selfies. And we've seen all the AI generated stuff, right, like,
we know about that yeah, but this one helps you create a head shot
and so you upload twelve selfies. I did it yesterday. It is quite
incredible. It takes about fifteen to twenty minutes for them to generate your head
shot, but it is really really good. Um. I did it with
myself and it I think the pictures looked pretty good. And then I had
my photographer here at KTLA. I said, hey, Luise, you want
to you want a new head shot? He said sure, and I'm not
kidding. Twenty minutes later, the guy's never looked better. I mean,
it's incredible like these, and you can choose the pose you want too,
so you can have you know, in a suit. I mean, it's
really really good that the trick is Jason. You have to sign up for
a three day trial. After that, if you don't cancel, it's ten
dollars a week. So the name of the game of this app is really
to get people to forget to cancel. So don't forget to cancel exactly,
right, Yeah, would you set a calendar reminder to opt out after about
forty eight seventy two hours? Right, So, well, I'll take it
even a step further. My trick is you just cancel immediately before you even
use the app. So sign up for the free trial, go into your
settings and cancel, and you still have access for the next three days,
So so that way you don't forget. You were super cool with the first
results you got back after fifteen minutes or twenty minutes of processing. Oh my
gosh, I'm not kidding. And the pictures that I submitted were just all
random selfies that I had taken before, and I mean, it's really quite
impressive. And the thing is, Jason, if it's this good right now,
this is a free app, and we are just at the beginning of
all this AI stuff. Imagine in a year where this will be and it's
just getting to the point where you really almost can't believe what you see online
because of this stuff. Amazing stuff. Rich always a pleasure and when I
anchor on Saturdays, the time just flies because I'm on the same time you
are. You're on from Saturdays from eleven am to two pm. He's KTLA
tech reporter Rich de Murrow. He's host of Rich on Tech. Like I
said, Saturdays on K five. You can follow Rich on Instagram at rich
on Tech, and his website is Rich on tech dot TV. See I
got that, Bill didn't get that yesterday. It's dot TV. Yes,
thanks Rich always a pleasure. Thanks, thanks, Jason, appreciate it.
See you Saturday. All right, man, we haven't heard that in a
minute. That intro music was for a reason. Jane Wells is on the
line this good morning. You're not going to believe. First of all,
this Taco Tuesday thing is hilarious that that was that had to right America apparently
right now. But I had a dream right before I woke up that I
was filling in on KFI and they were coming from back from break and it
all went to hell, and I was supposed to talk about Spiro Agnew and
I didn't remember anything else, and I was trying to remember nattering nabobs and
my computer went dead. And I swear, Jason, as I was talking
to you about that, my computer went dead. So I foretold, Wow,
I know whoa No really, I mean, because we don't want Spiro
Agnew back either, Okay, Jane, So let's just stop conjuring in your
dreams, please. Okay, let's move over, let's move over, let's
get let's get to it. I'm so sorry that's Okay, cool, I
just want talk about Netflix earnings because this is something I do follow as a
thread. I want to get your take on it. Netflix reports earnings today.
It's expected to be a banger, right it is. Even though we've
got these tremendous strikes going on in Hollywood and everyone is afraid of running out
of content. Netflix is supposed to have an incredible quarter because it ended its
password sharing and it's starting to gain some traction with its cheaper subscription if you're
willing to have ads. And Netflix is not as dependent on US studios.
It has a global operation think squid Game, so it can get more content
from places that are not under this SAG and WGA contract if necessary. So
Netflix is expected to have it have added maybe almost two million subscribers on the
quarter. A year ago they lost a million, and Jason, this is
the story about Netflix. Every few years, people write it off as well,
this is it for Netflix. You know you got Disney Plus, or
they're starting to lose subscribers or what. This happens. This has been happening
every twenty years. Every so often it's like, oh that's the end,
and no. Netflix always comes back. The stock is up about fifty percent
year to date, and we'll see what the actual earnings are after this.
But people a year ago were saying analysts were starting to say, well,
that's it, the good the glory days for Netflix are over, and now
they're saying no. And a big reason is because they ended passwords sharing.
Yeah, you're right, and they've insulated themselves because of production in India and
in South Asia. So I mean in Korea specifically, yes, but well,
a lot of traction for that. That's interesting. I did see that
Read Hastings, CEO at Netflix. He was listed on the SAG list at
two hundred million dollars annual salary, which was a pressure point for their negotiations.
I'm not following the Tour de France very much, but I know it's
on our talk point. Oh no, did you have something on Netflix?
I'll stay here. I was just gonna say all these CEOs, you know,
Bob Iger was on CNBC talking about how the actors don't understand the reality
we live in. This is after he just got in a two year extension
for I don't know what is it, fifty four million dollars from Disney and
fran Drescher said you know, maybe they out of lock them in a room.
So it's difficult for these CEOs to complain that actors don't understand the reality
when you know they're all up in Sun Valley. Yeah, fair enough,
that's very true. Now, I did want to pivot over to Tour de
France if I could with you before we have to let you go because I'm
not following it. But apparently it's been awesome. So I've been doing a
little bit of research and it looks fantastic. There's also some tech involved as
Well's what should we be following with Tour de France this year? Well,
it is one of the most exciting Tour de Frances in a long time.
And what I did I did a story for my substack Jane Wels dot substack
dot com or who are these young American writers coming out of the shadow of
Lance Armstrong. You know, Lance lost about seventy five million dollars in sponsorships
when he finally admitted to all the cheating he'd done for the years and years
and years. So I wanted to know our American cyclist back, what's the
situation with cheating? How much money can you make? I talked to one
of the youngest writers in this year's tour, Kevin Verm Marky. He's from
California, started out mountain bike riding, like so many of these young American
riders do. They get over to a road bike and they love it.
He says basically that the technology has improved so much with nutrition and training.
Guys are training at altitude above six thousand feet and the bikes that the cheating
from Lance's day is really no longer necessary. And he says that he has
to provide a location twice a day and a window of time when he'll be
there, but the doping people can show up anytime to test him, and
they have done so about ten times over the last year without not even related
to her race, So it was interesting to me. He says. Maybe
some guys are still in the gray area, but he has never seen it.
He thinks is the most anti doping sport ever. Now. He respects
what Lance did because he says it was a dirty era and he still won
seven tours in a row. But it is amazing watching these guys and they
don't make that much money if you're new. I mean, some of the
top guys can make six figures. But if you're just a brand new rookie,
the minimum contract is fifty thousand dollars a year. Now, this is
for a world tour club. That's not a lot. So they're all living
over in Spain, eating ramen or whatever they have to eat to train all
the time. They cannot usually get outside sponsors because the team already has sponsors.
So the rank and file guys of these elite, elite elite groups are
not making a ton of money. Well, and it's also one hundred and
twenty degrees in Spain right now with everyone who's train before the Tour de France.
Yeah, and I'm looking at the headlines and honestly, I can't even
his name is Jonas, and I'm not going to be able without a pronouncer
to do his last name. But he's He's Vanagar. Thank you. Fire
on that one. Let's move to some consumer economy real quick, because this
is also something that's in my swing zone. But I want to hear your
take. Twenty two percent of loans in the US rejected in the last month.
Okay, why it's interesting, And I think part of it is that
a lot of banks that would be doing this lending are a little skittish after
we've had the bank failures earlier this year, and fewer people are applying for
loans, so you have this the highest rejection rate in five years, twenty
two percent, with fewer people applying. Most of the people being rejected have
credit scores of six eighty year under. But it's really across the board,
and it's across all kinds of loans. I mean, we're talking auto loans,
credit card applications. Refis in particular being rejected at thirty one percent,
which tells you what the banks think are going to happen with how housing prices.
But it's very very interesting. This is according to the Federal Reserve that
this is happening as fewer people even are applying and banks this is where banks
make their money is in lending. So I'm not quite sure all the reasons
why, but that's a big number, one out of five, more than
one out of five loans being turned down. Yeah, I agree, the
credit crunch is here. The free money era is definitely over. In the
Fed is aggressively addressing this. For sure. You met your substack a second
ago. Where else can people find you on the webs? Well, I'm
on threads now with all you know, thirty three people following me there,
so it's all at Jane Wells everywhere across the social media landscape. And can
I just tell you there's too many social media channels now and I'm I'm honestly,
Jason, I'm getting bored and I'm interacting with them less and less all
the time. Wow, welcome, I you know what, I am one
of the followers, I will say, but I too, am not very
engaged, and I hope that the bosses aren't listening terribly because they like us
to be on the socials as much as we can. Jane. Always a
pleasure. Great to have you back and we'll talk again soon. Thank you.
Take care. Las Vegas police say they executed a search warrant Monday in
the murder of rapper or the killing and shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur. Shakur
was shot and killed twenty six years ago. And on the line with this
is ABC's Alex Stone to discuss this. Welcome back, Alex. Hey,
Jason, how are you doing. I'm good, I'm good. Thanks you.
Now. I guess there's not a lot of details coming out of the
LVPD on this. Can you give us caught up? Yeah, so overnight
we did learn a lot more from a source in the investigation. So,
first of all, I think there was a lot of shock even among law
enforcement nationwide that this thirty year old, nearly thirty year old murder cold case,
all of a sudden, you know, all the folklore around it,
all the conspiracy theories about Tupac and is he alive, was he really murdered,
who was involved, and it wasn't connected to the Biggie Smalls murder in
LA. A lot of people believe it was, you know, all of
that. Then all of a sudden, boom, it comes back to life.
Now we understand that this is connected to a guy who took part in
a Netflix documentary, wrote a book Compton Street Legend in twenty nineteen, did
a BT interview in a documentary claiming that he is the only living eyewitness to
what truly went down. The other eyewitness would be Shook Night. He's in
prison for the murder the hit and run in LA a couple of years ago,
and Choke Knight has said from the beginning that his job is not to
solve murders, that they don't pay him to do that, and that he's
not going to help police out on that. So the belief being that this
may be a guy who was in the car with the killer, was in
the killers car. We obtained overnight audio of the swat team moving in in
Las Vegas late Monday night sounded like this. They went in with a full
swat team, even though this guy is quite a bit older now and not
quite the young rapper that he was thirty years ago. But they went in
with armored vehicles. The full swat team ordered to everybody in the home to
come out. We know that prosecutors and LVMPD they believe that they've got enough
to move forward now. They went in looking we're told for computers articles about
Tupac, about his death that will now be presented to a grand jury in
Las Vegas. No charging decisions have been made. They're going to decide on
that. The thinking there is among police in Las Vegas, we're told from
inside the case, is that the shooter died a long time ago. About
two years after the murder of Tupac, there was another drive by shooting in
Las Vegas. They think that was the death of the murder this is going
to be it appears, and we'll see where it goes. But accessory to
a crime something like that, not the actual murder, but that'll be up
to a grand jury if they go anywhere with it, and what the charges
would be. But just the fact that this is still an open investigation and
still moving that was a shock of it. And by the way, Jason,
we talked to LAPD yesterday. They tell us there's no movement in the
Biggie Smalls murder, so it's not like this is sparking anything and that they
said, no, nothing new there. Well, Alex, you've given us
a pretty good three sixty about this. I guess my only follow up question
would have to be this being such a high profile case, is LVPD known
to be a little more forthcoming with these things. Do you have anything on
the schedule today as far as updates or any kind of press conferences. No,
they typically are pretty a tight lipped. They are not going to hold
any briefings on this, at least that there are none that are planned.
We're likely not going to find that much more. Everything is sealed and this
nobody's been arrested, so the grand jury is beginning it's work. This could
now go on for quite a while that they are, they're going to present
what they found. Once they get their case together, it'll go that grand
jury. The grand jury will do its work in whatever amount of time it
will work. Then a charging decision will be made based on what the grand
jury says. So this could go now many months, it could be six
months, it could be a year from now where we say, you know,
oh my gosh, that there are charges filed in the Tupac murder,
or maybe it'll go nowhere, maybe we'll never hear another thing about it.
If the jury says no, they don't want to do it, so likely
it's not going to be anything immediate. LVMPD says that they don't plan on
saying or doing anything at this point. You know, the information we're getting
or from folks inside the investigation and publicly they're they're not saying a whole lot.
All right, Well, Alex, thank you so much for this very
informative and conclusive so far. It's been a minute since you and I shared
some mere It's good to hear your boys. Yeah, it's good to talk
to you. Thanks Jason, bye, Alex. We lead Local Live from
the kf I twenty four our news room. I'm Jason Middleton. This has
been your wake up Call. You've been listening to wake up call? You
know you can always listen live on kf I Am six forty weekdays from five
to six am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app