KMF I AM six forty. You're listening to wake Up Call on demand on
the i Heeart radio app. It's time for your morning wake up call.
Here's Jason Middleton. Good morning and everybody. Yeah, Tuesday, July twenty
fifth, this is your wake up call. Trying to think of an intro,
right, and the only thing I could come up with was a knock
knock joke. So knock knock, who's there? Not the I R S.
They are no longer allowed to just surprise you and show up at your
place of business or your house as of today. I'm getting a firm headshake.
Okay, Yeah, that was funny, Jason, Yeah, thanks,
thanks Tyler. It's hot, so, you know, at the very top,
their promotion guy says, untangled the mess. Well, we've been untangling
chords for all of our fans as we moved there from studio to studio here
at the office today. So it's hot outside, hot inside. So if
things get a little bit squirrely right off the top, apparently it's probably a
little bit because of that. Let's get into some headlines. Got a heck
of a show coming up. Caught myself the White House, says President Biden.
Was never in business with his son Hunter. That's what Press Secretary Caryn
Jean Pierre told reporters yesterday. Her statement was in response to allegations claiming a
Ukrainian energy executive paid millions in bribes to Biden and his son during the president's
time in the Obama administration. We have ABC's Karen Travers with us later in
the show. This will be one of our points of discussion. The Biden
administration is suing Texas over a floating border wall. The Justice Department whiled the
lawsuit yesterday in the Federal District Court in Austin, after a deadline it had
given Texas to remove the barrier had passed. The system of buoys, which
is floating in the Rio Grande near the town of Eagle Pass, has the
support of the Border Patrol Union, and as mentioned, IRS agents will no
longer show up at people's homes and businesses unannounced. The agency announced this yesterday.
It's ending that practice and will now send letters to schedule meetings. So
the IRS has to get on your calendar in order to look at your books.
Let's start with some of the other stories coming out of the KFI twenty
four hour news room. A man from Chino Hills has been arrested on suspicion
of being a fake firefighter. Investigators with the sam Bernadino County Sheriff's Department say
Andrew Dubor pulled over a driver on July ninth in a vehicle with lights and
a siren, and when Dubor approached the vehicle, he was wearing a duty
belt with a gun, handcuffs and pepper spray. Dbor had an ID card
that said santem warn't they fire Department, which doesn't exist. Investigators say they
suspect Dubor has pulled over other drivers in La Orange and Riverside Counties, and
when they searched Dubor's home, they say they found more guns, ballistic vests,
uniforms, and badges. Steve Gregory KOFY News. A supervising probation officer
has been charged with assaulting a miner at Camp Kilpatrick in Malibu. Probation Oversight
Commissioner Frankie Carrillo says abuses at juvenile detention centers date back decades and he applauded
DA George Gascon for taking action. It is a responsibility that affects us all,
and it obviously takes a team effort. Video shows the po used excessive
force with four other deputies to restrain the boy in twenty twenty. Gascon said
yesterday their jobs to rehabilitate and care for the kids in the centers, not
subject them to further harm. The NFL has suspended the defensive end for the
Denver Broncos indefinitely for betting on league games during the twenty twenty two season.
Ioma Nope is part of a growing list of players suspended for gambling on games
or in NFL locker rooms. The Broncos say the team will continue to provide
members with education resources and support to ensure they comply with the NFL's gambling policy.
Public health officials have found what some call a powerful new weapon to combat
rising sexually transmitted infections. They say the common antibiotic doxycycline can successfully work as
a morning after pill to prevent infections like syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia.
Some researchers argue it could make the antibiotics less effected if used too frequently.
The CDC says it plans to issue guidelines for using the treatment this summer.
President Biden is expected to sign a proclamation establishing a national monument for a black
teenager kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in Mississippi in nineteen fifty five. Till's
best friend and younger cousin, Reverend Wheeler Parker Junior, will introduce President Biden
at the White House before mister Biden signs the proclamation establishing the Emmett Till and
Maybe Till Mobli National Monument. ABC's Andy Field says fourteen year old Emmett Till
was killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The murder helped propel the
civil rights movement. The monument will be located across three sites in Illinois and
Mississippi and will be federally protected. Right now, on Wake Up Called,
ABC's Tom Rivers is on the line with IS to talk about, well,
be some saber rattling. North Korea fired two short range ballistic missiles into its
eastern Sea. South Korea's military said this this morning, adding to a recent
streak of weapons testing. It is apparently in protest of the US sending major
naval assets to the area and major naval assets. Good morning, Tom,
Good morning. Yeah, it's kind of ramping up by kind of my account.
A couple of weeks ago, we had over one hundred missile tests by
North Korea so far this year, and given the tests over the past week,
could probably I'm guessing about one hundred and six something in that neighborhood.
But yes, you know, the US wants to show some muscle. The
administration does, so last week they sent the USS Kentucky, a nuclear armed
submarine, first time that's been in those waters in about forty years. And
then we had the arrival of the nuclear powered USS Annapolis. So yes,
we you know, we get the predicted response from North Korea, we fire
off some ore missiles. He's two latest ones went into the sea about two
hundred and fifty miles away, didn't hit anything, but of course these things
can go errant. Yeah, and if they go to the if they hit
you know, South Korean territory, that would be the spark that lights the
tinder and then this thing could really really take off. But we are where
we are looking at the map. The Pacific Ocean is pretty big, so
two hundred and fifty miles is not a huge distance from the shore. Is
there anything out there at all or Has there ever been any kind of mishap
or accident when it comes to these launches there, Actually there hasn't. I
think some debris a few years ago may have come in intact with the shore
of Japan. But really it's been you know, fingers crossed. Uh,
this stuff has been has been Okay, but you're right. I mean,
it's it's it's it's the needle in the haystack. But yes, potentially you
could hit a hit a vessel out there, but the odds would be against
that. But yeah, it's it's something that goes on and on and why
the US administration is doing this knowing the predictive result would be more le tests
without any next chapter. You know, oh this opens the chapter to negotiations.
Are No. Uh, it just looks like if I kick you in
the shin and you shout out, oh that hurts. Hmmm. That's kind
of what I expected, And that's kind of where we're getting from Young Yang
right now, right, you kick him in the shin and then they launch
a missile apparently, Yeah, exactly how is South Korea's patience with these tests?
I mean, is there is there a standard response politically speaking? Or
is this escalating a little bit. It's been the government has been escalating a
little bit, saying, look, we know where we've got some strong arms
here if you really want to play hardball. But to the average citizen,
they you know, we're talking about correspondent down there a couple of years ago
and she said, look, we kind of are just used to this and
we you know, it's not that we're ignoring it, but we carry on
with our lives as per usual. How many tests has she been through?
Probably thousands over the years, and uh, you know, they know that
the stuff happens, they through it and they get on with their lives the
next day. Now, Tom, this doesn't seem to be linked in any
way to the rather sensational story of the soldier who ran across the DMZ last
week, Right, it doesn't seem to be that they're kind of running parallel.
But good news out of that after a week. We found out yesterday
and you would have heard this at the deputy chief at the US command on
the border said that finally they've opened up communications channels with Pyongyang, want to
make sure that this private king is okay, and possibly trying to open the
door to maybe getting them back in South Korea. But past example show that
that doesn't happen very very quickly. North Korea moves very very slowly on these
things. So you know, eventually, hopefully he will be getting out,
but probably not tomorrow. Okay, tom let's put your analytical head on here
for the last question, and that is foreign policy, military policy. Anything
that rings China has a focus. There's been a pivot for the US military
for Asia and South Asia. Are these assets moving into and staying in the
region part of a larger escalation or is this pretty much the pinnacle of that
escalation. Yeah. If you read John Pilger's stories articles or see his documentary,
you have to go back about thirty years start counting how many US bases
are in Asia right now surrounding China. You get up into the hundreds.
Um, that is sort of by design. So when you know China says,
look, uh, this is our backyard in the South China Sea,
and you know, we might send it. We might send a vessel through
there, just saying look, this is these our international waters. We can
we can do this. You know, the response from China is pretty angered.
And look at relations right now with the US sanctions on China, et
cetera, et cetera. We've now had three trips to China. We had
b Lincoln and we had yelling, and um, who else did we have?
We had one more over there, right, We did have a third
one year right, One of the Blinkolns was delayed, I think, and
then they got kicked back a few months after then we are John Kerry.
Yeah, but again the same result. Um, well, yeah, we
would like better relations, but we don't have it right now, go away,
Yeah, okay. ABC's Tom Rivers thinks, as always for your time
and expertise, much appreciated. Take care. ABC's Tom Rivers always a pleasure
to have him on. He's got such good context. Let's get back to
some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty fire in his room.
A woman in Alabama who claimed she was kidnapped earlier this month when she stopped
to help a child on a highway has admitted she made the whole thing up.
Police Chief Nick Durseys says Carly Russell's attorney provided a statement yesterday where Russell
acknowledges it was a hoax and asks for forgiveness and prayers. We still don't
know what happened to those forty nine hours where she was. Did she have
any help? We have no idea, says The department is still investigating and
criminal charges are still possible. A cheesy smuggling operation has been curdled. Customs
and Border Protection officers have pulled over a pickup truck from Mexico crossing the Presidio
Port of entry in Texas. The twenty two year old driver told border officials
earlier this month he was transporting cheese to the US. Officers took a closer
look at the four big cheese wheels with an X ray machine and things didn't
look right, so they cut the cheese and discovered almost eighteen pounds of cocaine
in seven parcels concealed in the wheels. The driver's a US citizen. He
was detained and turned over to Homeland Security. Amy King KFI News. A
former pastor in Pennsylvania has been charged with murdering an eight year old girl in
nineteen seventy five. State Trooper Eugene Tray says the man, who's now eighty
three, confessed when confronted with new evidence, including a witness's allegations that he
groped her and tried to kidnap another girl. He was relieved. I would
say it was like a waite was lifted off the shoulders. Officials say the
witness was best friends with the pastor's daughters at the time, and had written
about her suspicions in her diary decades ago. Protests continue to cross Israel after
the parliament approved a divisive law that would curtail this Preme Court's powers to nullify
unreasonable government decisions. Yarev Levine, the country's justice minister, called it the
first step in correcting the judicial system. Opposition lawmakers boycotted the vote. Doctors
across Israel went on strike on Thursday on Tuesday this today, in protest against
the law. Israel's biggest public sector union is also considering a strike Beetlejuice Joe.
The strike in Hollywood is not the only thing setting back production on Beetle
Juice too. Officials in Vermont say they're investigating the thefts of two large props
from that were set a couple of weeks ago. A large lamp post topped
with a pumpkin was first taken by someone driving a pickup truck, then three
days later, a nearly two hundred pound sculpture was taken from the set at
a cemetery. Warner brother says it hopes to release the film by September twenty
twenty four. There's a new California law they help kids see their parents behind
bars. Governor Newsom signed the Keep Family's Close Bill. It does just what
the name implies, placing prisoners and facilities closest to their child's home. The
California Highway Patrol is showing off its biggest drug bust ever. In Merced County.
Officers found seven hundred and thirty five thousand fentonel laced pills inside a small
suv. The traffic stop on the five also uncovered one hundred and thirty three
pounds of meth and thirty seven pounds of cocaine. It's all estimated to be
worth more than ten million dollars. And there's a delay in changing the Twitter
sign at the company's California headquarters. But depend on this when we're gonna come
right back to it. A contractor managed to remove some letters yesterday, hours
after owner Elon Musk changed the name to X, but then San Francisco police
showed up and stopped the work. The building's management says it was not notified
and now the city is looking into whether a permit is needed to modify the
sign. Only the blue bird logo and the letters er remain on the side
of the building. Super good look, super great look for South of Market
this morning in San Francisco. What would you call that? I guess you
would call it like blue birder, a blue bird, just like Burder.
I think if they should have just changed it to. At five thirty ish,
ABC's Jim Ryan is going to join us. The fearless Texan reporter is
going to take on the talk story of the week, that's Barbie and how
to capitalize on Barbie Mania. We'll see how Gim takes to this story.
I think I'm intrigued. I know right now, let's start with a Federal
Reserve. So today is day one of a two day meeting from the Federal
Reserve. We're likely going to get a rate hike of point two five percent,
at least that's what most polls show among economists and investors. It's better
than a two thirds percent two thirds chance tomorrow that we're going to get that
rate hike. So I pulled a little bit of sound from FED chair J.
Powell. Now I cleaned it up. But remember when you're the chairman
of the US Federal Reserve, one of your skills is to not be excitable.
The median projection has real GDP growth at one point zero percent this year
and one point one percent next year, well below the median estimate of the
longer run normal growth rate. The labor market remains very tight. Over the
past three months, payroll job gains averaged a robust two hundred and eighty three
thousand jobs per month. The unemployment rate moved up but remained low in May
at three point seven percent. There are some signs that supply and demand in
the labor market are coming into better balance. The labor force participation rate has
moved up in recent months, particularly for individuals aged twenty five to fifty four
years. So basically there's still a gen X probably when it comes to finding
work. But these clips are pulled from about three weeks ago, because before
the Fed goes into a rate hike meeting, they have to go quiet,
and so these are after the June meeting when they held off on rates.
So what he's describing there is labor department is starting to even out. Wage
growth is cooling off a little bit, which is which is all kind of
good if you're the FED, because that helps cool off inflation, which is
also coming down. So this aggressive rate hike schedule that the FED has been
on for the past sixteen months is actually starting to work. We're below four
percent. Having said that, Jay Powell yesterday, not yesterday. Jay Powell
recently said that there's no way we get to two percent inflation this year or
next year, which is what the FED is supposed to statutorially look at.
Getting to full employment is one of them, and two percent unemployment is the
other one. Inflation remains well above our longer run two percent goal. Over
the twelve months ending in April, total PC prices rose four point four percent.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core PC prices rose four point
seven percent. In May, the twelve months change in the consumer price Index
came in at four percent, and the change in the core CPO was five
point three percent. Inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year.
Nonetheless, inflation pressures continue to run high, and the process of getting inflation
back down to two percent has a long way to go. Okay, So
it really comes down to recession, right, That's what everybody wants to know.
Are we going to have a recession? If we are, how long
will it last? When will it begin? We kind of thought we would
get this recession last year. It still gets pushed out and pushed out for
a few reasons. Top reason really is consumer spending has remained very very strong.
Now. Our accumulated credit card debt is north of a trillion dollars right
now for US consumers, So that might have to start cooling off eventually because
we're just going to run out a monthly budget to throw at our credit card
bills every month. So on my weekend show called Macro, we have a
couple of different economists. Now we have a one poll that shows there's a
twenty percent chance of a recession coming by before the end of this year.
Another poll that was from Bloomberg. Another poll shows fifty percent chance of recession
according to a pole of economists bank rate dot Com. Nominal wage growth has
shown signs of easing and job vacancies have declined so far this year. While
the jobs to workers gap has declined, labor demand still substantially exceeds the supply
of available workers. FOMC participants expect supply and demand conditions in the labor market
to come into better balance over time, easing upward pressures on inflation. The
meeting and unemployment rate projection in the SEP rises to four point one percent at
the end of this year and four point five percent at the end of next
year. I know it's a little bit of math on the radio. So
tomorrow we're probably going to get a point two five percent interest rate hike from
the FED. All eyes are going to be on forward guidance. However,
the next meeting is in September, and we're expecting to get another rate hike
then. But if FED Chair J. Powell comes out and says, hey,
things are getting a little bit better and closer to supply demand in the
job market, we may be able to skip that September one and maybe start
rolling back rates early next year. Now, let's turn a quick attention to
Twitter X and this week in elon musk Okay, let's start with X.
First of all, it's a type face. There are two type face companies
that own that letter, Monotype and Unicode. Both of them say they are
not going to proceed with any branding issues that may may have with Elon Musk
and X. Now we have the signings permit that we led this segment with,
so we'll see how long Birder stays up on the side of that brick
wall and south of market. And there's an EDM musician from India who goes
by X who thinks that this is going to impact their franchise and their musical
endeavors. So there might be a lawsuit coming out of there that might be
a bit of a you know, just notice me kind of pr dig.
But here's where the real trouble comes in for Elon Musks, and that's the
trademarks. So X is owned actually as a trademark by two different companies that
you may have heard of. One is called Microsoft you might have heard of
the Xbox, and the other one is Meta. Now metas comes in because
Meta about fourteen years ago trademarked X for a communications platform that specifically includes an
audio feature almost identical to what used to be known as Twitter Spaces is.
We don't know what it's going to be called moving forward. But so when
you have Meta, very deep pockets and obviously a pretty high profile beef with
Elon Musk coming out of Mark Zuckerberg and Meta. So you have that trademark
fight, and then of course you have Microsoft. Now Microsoft's trademarks go back
to two thousand and three and they just re upped him last year, so
that the trademark fight is much much bigger than the branding fight, the popular
culture kind of fighting that's going to come around this. It's interesting to see
that Elon Musk is deciding to do this now. I mean it's I am
become Elon destroyer of brands apparently. So we'll see if new CEO at X,
Lindy Acarino can navigate out of this. Let's get one more tech story
from a creepy tech bro. Sam Altman. Open Aiy's boss has launched world
Coin. The cryptocurrency project offers people digital coins in exchange for a scan of
their eyeballs, creating a digital passport that verifies that they are human. Such
passports are designed to help to counter fraud facilitated by the rise of generative AI.
Open AI specifically, world Coin saw twenty five million dollars of trading volume
yesterday, according to Binance. That's a cryptocurrency exchange. The blistering heatwave that's
been hitting the Southwest for weeks and this morning in this studio is expanding toward
the middle of the country. It's likely to bring temperatures toward one hundred degrees
to several Midwest states this week and the east coast Europe. Next, President
Biden will be designating a new national monument to honor Emmett Till and his mother,
Mamie Till Mobley, the fourteen year old black child from Chicago was kidnapped,
beaten, and brutally murdered in Mississippi by white supremacists in nineteen fifty five.
Talks will resume today between UPS and Teamsters in hopes of agreeing on a
new contract. The current agreement expires on July thirty first, and the union
is already set to strike. News is brought to you by American Vision Windows.
Coming up at five fifty ABC's Karen Traverse. She's the White House correspondent
and the news briefing at the White House yesterday generated little Hunter Biden ancillary news.
We're also going to talk about why they were there. The expanded access
to mental healthcare in the United States, right now on Wake Up Call,
ABC's Jim Ryan is here to help us unpack a macroeconomic and marketing story for
the week, Barbie Mania. Welcome in, Jim. Hey, Jason,
by the way, don't unpack it. Leave it in the box. Leave
it in the box, and we'll keep its value. We're talking about Barbie
because the one fifty five million dollars that that movie, the Barbie Movie,
scored in its first weekend, it's helping to drive up the value of collectible
barbies, and there never really was the debt market for that. They've also,
you know, they've always been popular, and there's always been this kind
of underground economy of people buying, selling, trading barbies. And so it
is a thing. It's only being highlighted and lighted now Jason, by this
movie. Yeah, and rightfully. So you're right though, I'm Barbie collecting
is decades old for sure. This seems to have a really long tail on
it though, I mean, are we producing new barbies? Are we just
looking at the aftermarket? Well, you know, the ones with the most
value, of course, are the ones that are rare, that are in
good condition, that are old. The number one year in nineteen fifty nine.
Barbie number one prices started out at about oh gosh, you know,
ten thousand dollars for a good one that now has risen to fifteen or twenty
thanks to this movie. There's one in mint condition online on eBay for about
twenty five thousand dollars. Not bad for a doll that sold for three bucks
brand new. Yeah, no kidding right, um now no kind of pulling
back a little bit and somewhat more seriously marketing wise, this is huge for
MATEL because it kind of pulls them out of an economic ditch in a lot
of ways they're Originally I believe it was the Sony studio that was going to
make the Barbie movie, but they were going to make fun of Barbie.
It was gonna be very tongue in cheek, and then Mattel pulled that back.
Do you have you getten any any other management direction from how happy they
are with how Barbie turned out? Well, I think yeah, Mattel to
make Whore of Barbie is very happy about how this is all happening, and
turning it from this sort of fun summertime movie maybe for kids targeted mainly at
kids and taking on this bigger subject of female empowerment. But yeah, Mattel
has to like it if they You look at the results yesterday, Mattel closed
up. It's stock closed up one point eight four percent. That's a big
game for that company. Yeah. I I was just looking at the stock
price for this month, and it's been it's been. It was like just
under seventeen dollars at the beginning of this month and now it's well above twenty
one and a half. That's a pretty good bump up. Look, I
was, I'm just looking at Mattel right now, corporate dot Mattel dot com.
They have about one hundred brands, and I know the CEO is looking
at other movie opportunities to create franchises. They're looking at a Marvel Universe kind
of approach, right, Yeah, you know, taking that franchise, the
movie franchise, and capitalizing on it as much as they can. And sure
you have to expect that the toy company is loving that, seeing that the
moviemakers are willing to take on that risk. And in the meantime, you've
got folks sitting at home and digging through their attic or the garage. That
big box out there and saying if maybe they've got something the rate. The
first year that barbie was produced, three hundred and fifty thousand of them were
made. Last year, sixty million Barbies were produced. Wow. So yeah,
you can see that there was a market for them really early early on.
Yeah, no, kid, Well, I'm looking at some of the
other brands too, I mean Hot Wheels, there's one I know that's been
mentioned. I think Rockham Sock'em Robots was mentioned. I think Vin Diesel is
actually attached to that project. Um, Betsy, Wetsy, we'll just leave
that one there. We don't need to we don't need to go into that.
But but like Toy Story Pixars, a Toy Story is one of is
one of the brands that Mattel manages as well. So, um, there's
there's a lot more coming down the pike on this. Well. I think
it all plays on people's nostalgia, right. They reminisce about being a child
sitting cross legged on the floor playing with their Hot Wheels set with that cool
orange track and making a loop and getting anyway. Yeah, there is that
nostalgia. Since I think Jim yesterday we were talking about Razor Wire right Rio,
Grand River Um, you're a veteran news reporter. Is today kind of
a little bit of a respite for you? Yeah? Actually it is.
It's all those some stations. I asked about both things, and they want
to know about the lawsuit and and yeah it's important stuff, but sure it's
it's nice to kind of have a break from the mayhem occasionally, right jee,
right on, Jim Oh, pleasure to speak with you. Thank you
for your time. Take care. I didn't ask him about that because the
Rio Grande, because we're gonna have Karen Travers on here and a little bit
later in the show we're gonna talk about it there too. Let's get back
to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom.
The co conspirator in Mark Ridley Thomas's corruption case has been sentenced to three years
probation. Marilyn Flynn has also been ordered to eighteen months of in home confinement
and a fine of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Flynn pleaded guilty last
September for bribing MRT. She was the dean of USC's School of Social Work
and admitted to using the university as a conduit for a one hundred thousand dollars
payment from Ridley Thomas's campaign account to the school. In exchange, Flynn funneled
cash into a nonprofit led by Ridley Thomas's son, who had abruptly quit the
State Assembly under suspicious circumstances. Steve Gregory King of Fine News. The San
Bernardino County Sheriff's Department says it has arrested a man who was pretending to be
a firefighter and pulled people over using illegal lights and sirens mounted on his personal
vehicle. Investigators say on July ninth, Andrew Dubour hold over a driver in
Chino Hills. As he approached the car, Dubor was wearing a duty belt
with pepper spray, handcuffs and a gun. Debor had an ID card that
said santemert A Fire Department, which does not exist. Investigators say they believe
Dubor has been pulling over people in La Orange and Riverside Counties. Chick fil
A is looking to hire more than a hundred people to join its staff at
a new location opening in Huntington Beach. The restaurant is opening later this summer.
The store's owner says he's looking to hire part time and full time employees,
including cooks, cashiers, and managers. The company says it offers a
four oh one K plan, health insurance, tuition assistance, and scholarship opportunities.
The chain is holding hiring events through August eighth. LA County supervisors are
considering a proposal to offer free phone calls for jail inmates no later than December
first. The motion says easing inmate phone access to family and friends as a
factor in reducing rates of recidivism and has been shown to reduce misconduct in jails
by lowering anxiety and tension. New research published in the journal JAMMA has found
people who exercise throughout the week and those who exercise only on weekends experience similar
reductions in risk of heart attack and other health issues. The study, published
last week, analyzed more than one hundred thousand people over the course of a
week. You found both active regular patterns of exercise and weekend patterns were associated
with reductions in heart failure and stroke. And The Rock has stepped up to
support his fellow actors during the SAG After as strike, the SAG Foundation reached
out to over two thousand of its highest paid members, and says Duane Johnson
responded with a seven figure donation to give financial assistance to thousands of actors.
It's the largest single donation the foundation has ever received. Another California drug bust
is keeping six hundred and twenty pounds of pot from hitting the streets. Police
in the Stanislaus County city of Turlock seized more than sixteen hundred marijuana plants from
a home yesterday. Actor and comedian Pete Davidson will avoid jail time and a
county Davidson, whose arraignment was scheduled for Thursday, will be allowed to enter
into an eighteen month diversion program instead. A California man is making history as
the oldest person to climb Yosemite's half Dome. The ninety three year old accomplished
the feat with his son and granddaughter, Calling it a great thrill, he
says when they finally got to the top, he cried. He does admit
though he didn't realize just how steep it really was. Now we have on
the line with us for Wake Up Call and our last segment, ABC's White
House correspondent Karen Travers. Karen joins us at least a couple times a week
to keep us up to date on what's happening on Capitol Hill, DC and
in the sixteen hundred Pennsylvania. Karen, welcome back, Thanks for having me.
How about we start with what do you want to start with? Emmett
till Memorial. I think that's on the calendar for today. Yeah. The
President today signing a proclamation establishing the Emmett Hill and Maybe Till move Me National
Monument in two states, Illinois and Mississippi. To say, Marshall soays that
this monument will protect places that tell the story of his too short life,
killed the just age fourteen, and his racially motivated murder, the acquittal of
his murderers, and the activism of his mother, who brought attention to this
case and other racial injustices and sparked the civil rights movement. And I guess
our other point we could talk about this morning is access to mental healthcare.
That's a new initiative out of the White House, right. Yeah, this
is significant. It's kind of living up to a promise the President made in
the State of the Union to try and expand mental healthcare access and give it
to more Americans, make it easier for people to get it. Today they're
going to announce if they're going to try book services as they do for physical
health services, improving on a and this rule is going to try to enforce
compliance for insurers with a two thousand and eight law already. This law requires
equality between the way insurers cover mental and that it was passed to ensure that
they were treated equally, that insurers couldn't make you pay more for a visit
to a mental health provider than your physical healthcare provider. But as the White
House said yesterday, insurers are invading the mandate of that law. So they're
looking for ways to crack down on violations of it by creating more reporting standards
for the insurance companies and to try and get more health professionals mental health professionals
to offer in network care and try to reduce some of the red tape so
more people can actually buy upfront for mental health coverage. Thank you for that,
Karen. We have a little trouble in the line, but I think
we could get one more Q and A with you real quick. And that
was a Hunter Biden came up in yesterday's press briefing. Can you get us
up cont up to date on that. Please, I'd have to pull up
my notes from yesterday's briefing, but I think the standard answer usually from the
White Houses that they do not comment on anything related to Hunter Biden, and
that's been pretty consistent from the White House. Very cool. ABC's Karen Travers,
thank you so much for joining us this week. And President by is
going to the deliver remarks on expanding access to mental healthcare later. Today's also
scheduled to sign that historic proclamation establishing the Emmett Till and maybe Till Mobli National
Monument. And it's in two states, Illinois and in Mississippi. Let's get
back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newser
and former President Obama's personal chef has drowned near the family's home on Martha's Vineyard.
ABC's Lion Omoyez says the man was paddle boarding Sunday when he went underwater
and never resurfaced. Divers recovered the body of a missing paddle boarder Monday about
one hundred feet from shore on Martha's Vineyard, and he was later identified as
forty five year old Tafari Campbell, who was a Sioux chef during the Obama
administration. The former president was not in Martha's vineyard when Campbell drowned. They
say he was a beloved part of their family who made everybody's lives a little
brighter. China has removed and replaced its outspoken foreign minister, who's been out
of sight for almost a month. Twin Gong was last seen in public June
twenty fifth, when he met visiting diplomats in Beijing. The Foreign Ministry has
given no information about what happened to him. A former White House drug policy
advisor says marijuana legalization across the US has been linked to a rise in mental
health issues. Doctor Kevin Sibbett says pot is the most misunderstood drug in the
country. You know, it's just people, a lot of people pretending to
care about civil rights and social justice when they really just want to smoke weed.
They want to legitimize their own lifestyle. And the reality is we're paying
a huge, huge price for this. Sibbett says suicide rates have increased because
of the drugs legalization. He says today's pot is genetically bred to be stronger
than it's ever been, and can Quinn tuple the risk of psychosis and schizophrenia.
A woman and her parents have been arrested in Japan for allegedly beheading a
man at a motel in the northern city of Sapporo. The headless man was
found three weeks ago. The family was arrested on suspicion of conspiring in the
beheading and relocating the man's severed head. Police say they found it at the
parents home. A woman in Alabama who had a uterus transplant has delivered a
healthy boy. It's the first time that's happened outside a clinical trial. ABC's
Rhiannon Ali says the woman named Mallory was a teen when she learned she was
born without a uterus. Mallory and her husband Nick, decided to participate in
a program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. First, Mallory went through
a uterus transplant, followed nine months later by an embryo transplant. The baby
was born in May. Mom says she never doubted the transplant would work.
A boy's site has been restored by eye drops, very special eye drops loaded
with a topical gene therapy. Antonio Carba Hall has been legally blind for most
of his fourteen years. The boy from Miami has a rare genetic condition that
causes blisters all over his body and in his eyes. His skin improved when
he got into a clinical trial to test the world's first topical gene therapy,
but there wasn't anything for eyes, so drug maker Crystal Bio made him eye
drops and they worked. Medical experts say this opens the door to similar therapies
that could potentially treat millions of people with other eye diseases. Any King KFI
News a few more national stories before we get into handle on the news.
Talks will resume today between UPS and teamsters and hopes of agreeing on a new
contract. The current agreement expires July thirty. First, the union is ready
to strike. Several large companies that utilize UPS have notified customers this week that
there may be shipping delays. UPS officials say they're focused on reaching that agreement,
and this blistering heatwave that's been hitting the Southwest for weeks is now moving
into the middle of the country. It's likely to bring temperatures toward one hundred
degrees to several Midwest states this week, while the East coast could see its
hottest weather of the summer. Tens of millions of Americans remain underheat alerts.
Meantime, Phoenix's streak of days above one hundred and ten degrees was extended to
twenty five yesterday. High temperatures remain in the forecast in states like carried here
in California, Vada, Texas, and Florida. A man is being sentenced
to four years in prison for his role in the January sixth riot at the
Capitol. Peter Stager repeatedly beat a police officer with a flagpole as the officer
was being dragged down the capital steps. In a video taken that day,
Stager said death is the remedy for every single one of those capital law enforcement
officers. This week, a judge sentenced him to more than four years in
prison after Stager said he took full responsibility for his actions. And Miami Dade
Police Director Freddie Ramirez is in stable condition after he shot himself in the head
on a Florida highway. That's according to authorities who said Sunday's incident happened after
an argument with his wife. Tampa police were called to the domestic dispute at
a hotel where Ramirez was attending a conference. He remains hospitalized after having surgery
Monday yesterday, and is expected to survive. We lead local live from the
KFI twenty four hour in his 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 k f I Am six forty weekdays from five
to six am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.