Camp. I am six forty. You're listening to wake Up Call on demand
on the iHeart Radio app. It's time for your morning wake up call.
Here's Jason Middleton. Good morning everyone, Monday, June nineteenth, juneteenth federal
holiday markets closed and have more on business and the market's a little bit later
this hour. This is your wake up call. My name is Jason Middleton.
Got a new dishwasher yesterday for Father's Day. Yeah you did, Yeah,
I did. And my wife installed it because that's that's her jam.
She does all that stuff. Nice, Okay, it's outstanding. It was
fantastic. I had to check it to make sure it was on. It
was so quiet. I'm not even joking. It was. They have an
indicator light so that you know that it's actually working, because otherwise you can't
hear it. Right. Yeah, No, they've gotten tremendously quiet over the
years. For sure. I have not had I've not had a new appliance
honestly in decades. I can't remember the last time I lived with a dishwasher.
Yeah. So I've been for you, man, I thank you.
I've been doing everything by hand. It's been. It's been that that's kind
of cathartic and like mesmerizing. You know, you do a little podcast listening
and get you get the dishes done and whatnot. Anyway, kitchen's my domain.
But she was very very lovingly put in a new dishwasher. Next up
is a fridge hopefully. Um. The US Open was this weekend as well.
Watched a little bit of that. We're gonna have more from the golf
pro at Wilshire Country Club later this hour to talk about that. Help us
unpack it. And uh boy, I bet, I bet. Golf fever
is just sweeping your cross la this week, So everybody's gonna be flooding tea
times everywhere you play golf, Tyler, I do. I dabble with golf.
Yeah, I actually shot some yesterday. Oh okay, cool, unimpressively,
but I still did it. Hey, hey, that's great. I
played twice a year. Okay, that's it. But tobably be on the
same wavelength of skill then okay. Cool. But I mean when we have
this guy home, we can ask for some pro tips or something. Yeah,
you'll take notes you want me to. Let's just roll on it and
then we'll revisit it later. Let's get a few headlights out before we get
into the show. Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln has been in China for high
level meetings and things are looking a little bit better. A meeting with President
Jijn Ping had not been confirmed before Blincoln arrived in Beijing, and now it's
confirmed and it's teeing up one possibly later this year in November, when Jijunping
is in San Francisco. Dozens of letters with suspicious white powder inside have spurred
and FBI investigations. The letters landed in Kansas late last week. Some GOP
congress people are saying that Republicans are being targeted. Everything so far, though,
is conjecture. It's pretty early in the investigation. It was a violent
weekend across the US. At least five people are dead and dozens injured in
several shootings. More than twenty people were shot, one fatally in a shooting
at a gathering near Chicago. Other shooting has claimed victims in Washington State,
Saint Louis, Southern California, Baltimore, in Pennsylvania, where a state trooper
was killed during an attack on state police bearings, and some war headlines and
some other news coming out of the KFI twenty four our newsroom, where we
always do lead local. The Speaker of the House has visited Orange County to
protest a visa waiver program that allowed three hundred and fifty thousand Chileans to enter
the US last year with no background checks. I have memories of shattered glass
and emptied drawers scattered everywhere. This woman spoke of the gathering that included multiple
Republican leaders about being part of the national spike of Chilean gangs burglar rising homes.
I feel like I'm living a nightmare. What if we had been home?
How Speaker Kevin McCarthy says, if the visa program's not fixed this week,
Congress will cut its funding. He recalled one story Friday about Chilean robbers
who actually did get arrested. Two days later, they get a call from
a police chief in Washington say, those are the people we were trying to
catch because they were robbing us too. They're already out and when they're just
provided a date to come back, do you think they show up? No,
Because of the criminal friendly laws makes Range County d a tot. Spitzer
says, some robbers wearing camouflage Gillie suits to sneak in home still get out
on zero bail. And guess what the Chileans we have filed on in our
prosecuting. We have one hundred percent no show at future appearances. Big shocker
at the Orange County DA's office, Corbin Carson, kf I News. Ukraine
made small advances in its counteroffensive amid heavy fighting along the front line in the
country south. That's according to British intelligence. Russia's defensive operations were relatively effective,
it also said, but a Russian appointed official acknowledge that Ukraine had recaptured
several villages so far in the counter offensive along the one thousand kilometer six hundred
and twenty mile front line, and fighting is very heavy there. We do
have ABC's Jim Ryan on the line with us. Good morning, Jim,
Hey Jason, Let's talk about this online shopping phenomenon known as friendly fraud.
I've not heard it turned that way. Why is it coming up now?
Yeah? I haven't either, But it's just really a matter of proportion.
More people since the endemic, It even before the pandemic, more people were
shopping online. You know, they've they've kind of trended away from the brick
and mortars and moved to doing their shopping through services that they can reach out
to other computers. So they order stuff, the stuff is delivered to them,
or sometimes it's not delivered to them. People are satisfied with what they
bought and what came delivered, or they weren't satisfied. But it's what happens
next that really has concern among merchants because a lot of customers decide that,
you know what, I'm just going to go ahead and contact my credit card
company instead of reaching out to the merchant. About seventy two percent of consumers
say that the bank chargeback is just an alternative to asking for a refund from
the merchant. Well, the merchant ends up paying anyway, right, I
mean, the chargeback goes back to that company. If you, for example,
order an item and it doesn't come for a week or so, and
you say, you know what, this thing's not coming at all. So
you contact your credit card company and say, hey, this item didn't get
delivered. To take the charge off my credit card. So they do,
and then the next day the item comes. Right do you contact the credit
card company and say, hey, it came, go ahead and reinstate the
charge. Probably not. Do you reach out to the merchant? Probably not
the merchant though, is you know it loses the sale and loses the merchandise.
Well, okay, I understand this phenomenon, and I'm going to assume
the best in humanity and say that it's an oversight on the consumer's part sometimes
most of the time. How do retailers combat this though? I mean,
it seems like it would be really easy to manipulate the system in favor of
the recipient. Well, and it is so a lot of retailers now they're
requiring signatures. So you order an item and they require a signature before it's
delivered to you. That way, you can't contact the credit card company and
say, hey, it never came. Merchant reaches out and says, yes,
it did come, and here's the proof right here. It's also VISA
is stepping up and also trying to step in and help the merchants in this
process as well, to ensure that people aren't ripping off the company's intentional like
sometimes it happens as an honest mistake. Other times, you know, the
consumer is unwitting as to what the what they're doing. They don't realize that
this is costing merchants a lot of money. So I think it's it's kind
of public education as well to let you know, if you are a customer
of a company and you like that company and you want them to stay in
business, you want to make sure that they're paid for the services or goods
that they render. It makes sense to me. And now in my personal
experience, I know that I've gotten something's delivered and I've said, hey,
this isn't really working, Um, how do I send it back because I
didn't get one of the autoprint labels that often come with those purchases or U
and the vendor said, you know what, just just keep it. Yeah,
you know, And is that another practice that maybe VISA would want to
look at, because that's if that's it's not okay, no, because you're
dealing with the merchant directly, and that's what merchants want. They want you
to deal with the seller, the retailer, the merchant one on one and
say and let's work this out between the two of us, you consumer,
me merchant, or the other way around, as opposed to going to the
credit card company. The credit card company just sees a charge thing it off
they charge it back to the company and they're done with it. Then you
know, the company can the merchant can challenge that, but then you're talking
about a long drawn out process there and more fees. So that's that's the
preference of any merchandise that you deal with them directly as opposed to going to
the credit card company. Yeah, you mentioned fees right there, So Visa
and other credit card companies. You know, there's there's a there's a bit
of vig on every transaction, and so I would imagine that chargebacks are gonna
maybe force all everybody's fees to go up for these well including the consumers and
fig I like that in nineteen forties Gangs com movie. But yeah, chargebacks,
according to a company that watches these things in a company called Chargebacks nine
one one says that that that process, so that practice, chargebacks are costing
e commerce one hundred and seventeen billion dollars this year alone. So that's in
lost merchandise, that's in lost sales, and that's in the fees that are
paid to the companies. It looks like I did a story over the weekend
on my other show, Online Sales and Inflation Online inflation is down when you
compare it to the CPI, the Consumer Price index, which is more,
you know, bigger, higher level, top of the funnel kind of stuff.
Online sales and inflation, I mean, inflation down, sales up.
Do we have an idea and can you can you recap that number, that
cumulative number you gave us a little bit earlier. Yeah, So one hundred
and seventeen billion, one hundred and seventeen point four seven billion dollars this year
alone. That's according again to chargebacks nine one, So you know, looking
through their lens, that's what they see happening out there. Friendly fraud constitutes
about eighty six percent of all charge box and it's it's called friendly fraud because
you know, richards don't want to make customers too mad by call and by
accusing them are fraud. But at the same time, some people are doing
this intentionally. Okay, Jim, thanks a lot for this. Thanks Jason,
didn't know about it. ABC's Jim Ryan right there talking with us about
friendly fraud aka chargebacks. Um I mentioned the prices though online prices online and
May twenty twenty three fell two point three percent year every year, so that's
the biggest decrease in inflation and in price increases since the pandemic started. And
it's the ninth straight month of year. Every year price decreases for online and
we get that from Adobe Analytics. Let's get back to some of the stories
coming out of the kf I twenty four hour news room. The Small Business
Administration says more than forty five businesses have applied for help following the fatal mass
shooting in Monterey Park. It's one of the only times the SBA's made special
natural disaster money available to businesses. Lawmakers pushed the SBA to offer low interest,
long term loans to businesses and nonprofits impacted following the attack that killed eleven.
The SBA says as of last week, it received forty seven applications at
a special service center in Monterey Park. So far, two loans have been
approved, totally five hundred ninety five three hundred dollars. The money can be
used for payroll, supplies and upgrades. Loan applications will be available through January
if next year. Steve Gregory taf I news. Firefighters in Riverside County are
planning a controlled burn to clear one hundred and ten acres of vegetation at Lakes
Skinner. The Fire Department says drift smoke may be visible from nearby communities,
but that it will disperse quickly and is not expected to be a health hazard.
States along the Gulf Coast hit by recent storms and tornadoes are preparing for
more severe weather. Thirty million Americans already under heat alerts from Texas to Mississippi,
with record heat possible in Dallas, New Orleans, and Houston. It
could feel like one hundred and twenty two degrees in some areas. ABC's rhiannon
Ally says more storms are also expected. The extreme heat and humidity have fueled
severe thunderstorms in North Texas, Oklahoma, the Lower Mississippi Valley, and parts
of the Deep South. Self described outsider Vivic Ramaswami is not lacking confidence as
he rolls out his run for presidents in twenty twenty four. The thirty seven
year old businessman said on Fox News yesterday he not only expects to win the
Republican primary and the presidential election, expects to win in a landslide. He
compared his poll numbers to where former President Trump's were in twenty fifteen. At
this time golfer Wyndham Clark is celebrating his first major championship. Clark finished a
top the leaderboard yesterday at LA country Club ten under par to win the US
Open, second PGA Tour victory for the twenty nine year old. His previous
best in a major was seventy fifth place, so this is a major upgrade
for him. We're going to have more on that later this hour with the
golf pro from Willshare Country Club to help us break that down. And The
Flash is the winner of the weekend box office race despite rather disappointing performance.
I saw the flick. It's rather disappointing flick two. The DC film made
fifty five million dollars this weekend, much lower than the expectations of seventy million
dollars. More on movies too. We're going to get ABC's political editor Steve
Roberts at the bottom of the hour. He's going to be with us to
recap the weekend news, slash yak shows and how the indictment of former President
Trump is playing. After a week in the news, Let's get some more
stories before we get to the business time. LA is offering a free summer
lunch program for kids at city parks. The LA Department of Recreation Parks will
serve lunches to kids ages one to eighteen at about one hundred different parks throughout
the city. The city's Bertha Calderon says the program was created to make sure
kids get at least one free meal when they're out of school. The lunches
indeed to be eaten at the park and its first come, first serve,
but they usually serve usually like eleven thirty to twelve. Calderon says lunches will
be served Monday through Friday through August fourth. Chris Adler ka FI News.
Secretary of State Antony Blinkett has met with Chinese President jij And Ping following a
two day visit to Beijing. Before the visit, Blincoln emphasized the importance of
diplomacy. Intense competition requires sustained diplomacy to ensure that competition does not beer into
confrontation or confidence. President ge said the two sides made progress and reached agreements
on some specific issues, but he did not elaborate. Disagreements between the two
countries range from Taiwan to human rights and Russia's war in Ukraine. Blincoln's visit
was originally scheduled for February, but you might remember that balloon that floated a
of the United States that kind of delayed things. A car company is adding
a completely useless feature, and it's not autonomous driving. Toyota engineers are working
on an electric car with a fake manual transmission. The engineers say it'll serve
no purpose and would just be for people who like shifting gears for fun,
you know, like children. Drivers will even be able to experience the shake
and buck feeling if they select the wrong gear. Engineers say the car's computer
will limit how far the shaking will go to avoid damage on the battery.
Toyota hasn't announced when the fake shifting electric car will be sold or how much
real money they'll charge for that feature. Mark Ronner KFI News, Well,
Mark touched on something I'm going to follow up with a Mercedes Ben's announcement they're
going to integrate chat GPT into the voice control system in the vehicles, and
the idea is that this is going to improve the existing voice assistance ability to
understand natural language and provide richer responses to commands. US owners and Mercedes vehicles
equipped with the Mbux infotainment system, which I believe originated on The Simpsons back
in the day, the word infotainment. Anyway, it's going to be available
to opt into a three month trial program by the app or by saying,
Hay, Mercedes, I want to join the beta program. If you're in
your car right now, I apologize. I will say that Mercedes could use
a lot of help when it gets When it comes to its voice control system,
not good. I'm hoping it'll help with a navigation system as well.
Also not great when you have to rely on your phone being plugged into using
Google instead of wanted built into your dashboard. Box Office Elemental Pixar's latest release
suffered the worst opening weekend in that studio's twenty eight year history. Despite favorable
reviews, that animated Flick brought in only thirty million dollars in ticket sales in
North America. Pixar's last release, Light Year, was also a flop,
and the results heat more pressure on Disney this year, and Pixar's beleaguered parent
company, Disney is also looking at trimming costs. So heads up in Emeryville,
up stories that I want to get to. As far as the Wall
Street situation goes now. Stocks fell a little bit on Friday, but for
the week, pretty strong gains across the board. Of course, the Federal
Reserve did pause its interest rate hike for the first time. Ten straight hikes
and now we get a pause. FED Chair J. Powell said skip during
a talk, and a nomenclature matters. Jargon matters because a skip implies a
finality. So a skip means that at least implies that July is going to
see another interest rate hike of probably a quarter of a point. But he
corrected himself, but it was too late. It was already out of his
mouth. The reason that you know that matters is because when J. Powell
said, well, we just did a skip, markets immediately dropped. Wall
Street reacts very quickly, and it's very emotional. And then he said,
well it's going to be I shouldn't stay skip, I should say pause.
That's a quote, and it looks like the likelihood of a July rate hike
of a quarter point or maybe even a half a point, although that's that's
less likely, but a point is just above fifty percent expected for next month.
And then you have to look at the credit card debt too. So
this is an update to a story we did last week on this because this
mountainous credit card debt is something that's going to have to be addressed at some
point. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, there are twelve
different Federal Reserve banks, the one in New York did this research and consumers
now owe a record of nine hundred and ninety billion dollars on their cards.
That's up seventeen percent from a year earlier. And when you're up seventeen percent
and the interest rate is north of seventeen percent, that number is definitely going
to increase over the next two to three quarters. The steadily rising feature did
take a little bit of a break when it comes to credit card debt,
but now it's getting back to one trillion dollars and that's causing a little bit
of a jittery zeitgeist on Wall Street and throughout the economy. Now this coming
week, Chair Jay Powell is going to be on Capitol Hill. I think
he has to do that twice a year. I think that's mandated. It
has to do that twice a year. So he's on Capital Hill to face
questions from the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. Regional banks
are not necessarily out of the woods from the rattling of that market we had
earlier this year, Silicon Valley banks, think at your bank first. Republic
investors are also going to be watching a momentum for highly shorted stocks as well
this week. I won't get into what shorting and all that stuff is.
It doesn't really matter, but there are some earnings reports this week that can
be indicative of where the economy is headed and what we feel like. And
so you gotta watch FedEx that comes out tomorrow, FedEx and Lazy Boys.
So FedEx obviously delivery if it comes in okay, that means online shopping is
still doing okay, etc. And then Lazy Boy that's discretionary spending usually and
so you kind of keep an eye on that to see how people are using
those credit cards. Maybe maybe a little bit too often. Just saying we
do have a volatility watch again this week too, and some investor conferences,
but that's really not too much, but I will have to add that.
Of course, we talked about the Mercedes thing, and I try to watch
what Elon Musk does every week because he moves market sometimes and headlines. He
was in Paris to talk about artificial intelligence with French President mat Kron. Macron
took when he took office five years ago, he built an entire park in
the northeastern part of Paris at just outside off the river, and he wanted
to become a tech hub, kind of Silicon Valley for the EU, for
the European Union, and so he's courting Elon Musk pretty hard. But here
in the States, Elon Musk has not been paying all of the bills for
Twitter, and so the office building in Boulder, Colorado has asked Twitter to
vacate the premises because they didn't pay their bills on time. So I haven't
seen that happen. Maybe ever, when it comes to this, granted,
commercial real estate is in a bit of a crater situation, but not paying
the bills with something that Elon telegraphed on Twitter and then followed through with it,
and the landlord said, thanks for the heads up. Now you're out
a couple of more. No, let's one more quick story here, because
the trial has started in Russia for the jailed opposition leader Alexey Nivalny. It's
being held at a maximum Security Prison about one hundred and fifty miles east of
Moscow, where Navalni is serving a nine year sentence for fraud and contempt of
court. He exposed official corruption, of course, and organized major anti Kremlin
protests before his arrest in January of twenty twenty one. He says, the
new charges, of course, are absurd, just choosing the right word there.
Former US Attorney General Bill Barr says former President Trump engages in reckless conduct
that puts his followers and the GOP agenda at risk. Not going to go
any farther into that one just now, because we have somebody on the line
who is much better at this than I am. More Severe weather is hitting
parts of the US to begin the week. Storms that devastated areas in Texas
and Oklahoma late last week moved into the lower Mississippi Valley and the central Gulf
Coast states yesterday. Hundreds of thousands of customers still without power this morning.
Wes Anderson's Asteroid City is notching the strongest limited release opening weekend in years.
The film made seven hundred and ninety thousand dollars over the weekend, estimated to
make eight hundred and ninety thousand whenever they count today's box office as well.
Coming up at five fifty, Trevor Rathoff will be on the line with us.
He's the golf pro at Wilshire Country Club. I'm guessing he has some
hot takes on the US Open that happened over the weekend at the LA Country
Club. I was rooting for Rory, but happy to see mister Clark winn.
Right now, we have ABC's political editor Steve Roberts on the line.
It's a Monday morning quarterbacking of the weekend news shows kind of as well as
a fresh look at the post indictment world for former President Trump. Welcome back
in Steve, Thank you Jason, and yes, look you may. You
quoted an important phrase that Bill Barr, the former attorney general, is Donald
Trump's hand picked attorney general, and he looked at the indictment, the thirty
seven count indictment, and described Trump's behaviors reckless. Now that is not a
legal term, you know, reckless is not a crime being reckless, but
it is a political crime. And that's one of the reasons why I think
the most important takeaway from this indictment is not Trump's legal vulnerability, it's his
political vulnerability. Because if there's one word that sums up the Trump's vulnerability,
it is reckless. Because that's why he lost in twenty twenty in many ways
after winning a twenty sixteen, because a certain number of voters like his policies,
voted for him before found his behavior, his temperament, his judgment Jason
reckless, or in the words of his Mark Esper. Mark Esper was Trump's
own defense secretary, and on TV yesterday he called Trump irresponsible again. Irresponsible,
like reckless is not a legal crime, but it's a political vulnerability.
And that's why I think the real problem for Trump is not that he's going
to be found guilty in a court of law, but that he's going to
be rejected by the voters. That's a much bigger fear and a much more
realistic. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I mean, when
you think about president of the United States, you don't want to think about
reckless and irresponsible in the same sentence or paragraph. So it seems like ten
days ago Steve bill Barr was thrown shade at President Trump or former president Trump,
and now it looks like he's rattling a cage it kind of seemed like
the rhetoric from at least Barr went up this weekend. Is that happening more
and more, well, very tentatively by Republicans because they know that Donald Trump's
hand, you know, stranglehold on the Republican primary voters is still pretty strong.
You know, you look at all the national polls average together fifty three
percent of Republicans right now favorite Trump's for the nomination, and his closest competitor,
round Des Angeles, is down at twenty. But that still means that
close to half of Republicans would like somebody else. But if you step away
from the primaries and look at the larger picture, you know, Governor Sanuno
is very popularly young Republican. Governor Hampshire has said over and over again he
looks at the numbers. It says Donald Trump cannot be Joe Biden. And
in fact, he says, if Trump's at the top of the ticket,
He's going to drag down Republicans who are running through the Senate, running for
governor in key states. And that's a growing a small small Jason, but
growing number of Republicans are willing to say this publicly. But the dominant feeling,
and the Republican Party is still getting in line behind Trump because he has
the ability, he's a very powerful figure, and he's so prone to violent
outbursts. No one wants to cross him. And that's still largely true.
But when Republicans look at the larger picture of what it would be like having
Trump at the top of the ticket, there's a growing sense of worry about
that. You look at it. NPR poll out this week, fifty six
percent of Americans said the Trump should drop out of the race cost of the
indictment, and that's fifty eight percent of independence. Those are the numbers that
keep Republicans up at night. Yeah, I would imagine. So let me
reintroduce you real quick. ABC's political editor Steve Roberts is on the line with
us this morning. Steve, if if the focus first of all, this
new new name is a political blue blood family name from and that I imagine
that might have some attraction eventually, depending on how long this conversation goes.
That goes to my next question, which is, if the focus is on
the GOP nomination right now, are the Dems getting a free ride to some
extent, Yes, but they will that free ride will not continue. And
we're talking about Trump's vulnerabilities, We're talking about phrases like reckless and irresponsible.
But there are Democrats who are equally worried about about Biden. It's no secret
here Jason's he keeps giving ammunition to his opponents who say he's losing his mental
faculties, that he's increasingly frail and feeble. Joe Biden is four months older
than me, Jason. I know what it's like to be eighty years old,
and I know that with that age comes a lot of disabilities and a
lot of distractions. And so for all the talk about Trump's recklessness and irresponsibility,
the flip side of that is talk about Biden's feebleness and frailty and growing
lack of comprehension. So the big guns on the Republican ranks have a lot
of ammunition to throw with Joe Biden in the same way that their Democrats have
a lot of ammunition to throw a Trump. Which means that if you look
at the national averages, both Trump and Biden, the two likely nominees,
are stuck in the low forties in terms of unfavorable ratings. Neither one of
them comes close to commanding a positive feeling among the majority of Americans, which
means as you head into this election, there are a lot of voters in
both parties unhappy with their choices, but they're going to wind up with two
guys, one who's almost eighty, one who's over eighty, with a lot
of drawbacks and a lot of negatives. Hasty, We appreciate your experience and
context here. Okay, you called yourself out on the age thing, but
just so you know, I can't. Hey, you know I was.
I was the Los Angeles correspondent to the New York Times in the early seventies.
So that tells you how long they're going around right on. Um,
Well, that's for another conversation another time. Let me ask you one quick
follow before I have to let you go. You probably saw Vivy Ramaswamy on
Fox News over the weekend. Do you have any hot takes on Vivy Ramaswamy.
He seems very confident in his abilities. Well, I think he's a
fresh voice and a fresh face, and it's it's it's striking that in Republican
ranks you have two candidates who have Indian ancestry. You also have Nicki Hanley,
the former governor of South Carolina. You have the only black Senator,
Tim Scott, a Republican black Senator, also running for president. And that's
good news for the Republican Party. You know that they they're branded often as
the party of White America, but those three candidates show that the Republican Party
has a growing appeal beyond their white base. Good take, Steve, always
good to talk to you. Maybe we'll talk again later this week, sure,
anytime. ABC's political editor Steve Roberts joining us this morning. Let's get
back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour news
room this morning. LA County and the acl you have agreed to settle a
lawsuit over in humane conditions and overcrowding at the Central Jail Downtown. The agreement
prevents the country the county from holding anyone at the inmate reception center for more
than twenty four hours and from chaining people to benches and other objects for more
than four hours. The county also has to provide clean and sanitary seals,
access to medical and mental health services to inmates, and increase staff. At
least five people have been killed and more than two dozen others injured in shootings
in multiple states over the Father's Day weekend. At least twenty three people were
shot, one fatally during a Juneteenth celebration in Willowbrook, Illinois, and a
seventeen year old boy was killed during a party in Saint Louis, Missouri.
Merit to Shara Jones appealed to parents for help. We must do everything we
can to keep guns out of the hands of our babies. Kyl Foreman with
the Grant County Sheriff's Office in Washington State, says two people there were killed
at a music festival. The shooter continued to shoot randomly into the crowd,
and the suspect was eventually taken end to custody. A state trooper was killed
in central Pennsylvania when a shooter attacked a state police barracks there. At least
four Palestinians have been killed in fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants in the
West Bank. A fifteen year old boy was among those killed when Israeli helicopter
gunships hit targets in the region. The Israeli military says troops took on a
massive exchange of fire during an arrest raid and shot back at Palestinian gunman.
Officials say palest Palestinian militants also set off a roadside bomb next to an Israeli
military vehicle. There's a new push making it easier than ever to get a
higher education. California Senator Alex Padilla hope to reinduce the Reintroduce the College for
All Act. The bill would allow working class students to attend community colleges,
trade schools, for year colleges, all for free. And in the time
it takes me to read this sentence, a new world record was set.
A twenty one year old California man is celebrating his tenth Guinness World Record.
Actually that was about a tenth of a second too long. Max Park solved
a Rubik's cube in the fastest time ever three point one three seconds. It
was a three by three Rubik's cube. I've seen the video. I was
going to talk about it last week and I just didn't know if it would
relate. But I just that's fascinating stuff. It's five fifty two on your
wake up Call. On the line is Wilshire Country Club golf pro Trevor Rathoff
Welcome back, Trevor, Good morning, Good morning. Okay, so I
watched a Saturday and Sunday at least a little bit. First think, the
sun came out this weekend. That was nice to see. And then on
Saturday the marine layer moved back in towards the end of the round. First
of all, thanks to the golfers for bringing some sunshine to southern California for
the first time in a while. Other than that, what really went down
yesterday? Yeah, I mean we saw a golf course that you know,
really bounced back and got the best of players yesterday. You know, Wyndham
Clark, not so familiar name outside of his first victory about a month ago,
was able to hold on and claim his first US Open title. Rory
McIlroy, who was in contention all day just you know, couldn't get it
done. He fought hard, and you know, at the end of the
day, golf a tough game and you're gonna have winners and losers, and
this week Windham Clark was our winner. Yeah, Wyndham Clark was. I
saw him walking up some fair ways Jack Nicholas style, like he was storming
some of those. He doesn't lack for confidence does he no? And he
know he mentioned that a lot that his mental game has been the biggest kind
of crutch and the thing that's been holding him back. But you know,
since he's gone to a new mental coach, he's really bounced back and been
a different player. So he said he was going to go into this weekend
playing cocky and still maintaining his aggressive play style, and it looks like it
paid off just grape for him. So when you say it the course kind
of fought back a little bit, what do you mean by that? Were
the fairways you know, narrowed or did they move the cup placement? Yeah?
So, I mean the biggest thing was the course ride out that sunshine,
the heat that we got, the course is gonna dry out, so
it's gonna play firmer and faster. The other thing we saw from the USGA
they put a lot more whole locations on some a little bit more severe slopes,
so you know, usually they kind of put him in some flat areas.
I know onund we had some pins that were in spots that were you
know, three to four percent graded slope, which is a lot when you're
trying to roll a put. So it's something you have to be a little
bit careful. You want to be below the hole, so placements everything,
and you know, if you get a little pin high or above it,
you know you're gonna have a slippery put coming back where you know you don't
make it. You look at another eight ten peacome back the other way.
So it creates a lot of pressure on these players to really put the ball
in a good position to be able to attack and be aggressive. Let's pull
back a little bit, get away from the play just for a second.
It's been eighty years or so since we had one of these opens in Los
Angeles. Is it gonna be another eighty years before we get another one?
No, So you know the next one, you know, oddly enough,
for the first time in the US Open history, Elle Country Club is actually
signed for two US Opens, not just one. So we'll actually see it
back here in twenty thirty nine, another fifteen years. I'm sure there's gonna
be a lot of changes between now and then, but something they can plan
for, you know, ahead of time, kind of learned from this first
one and make improvements to really make the fan experience better, the player experience
better. And now they have an idea of how the players can perform on
this course and kind of cater it to their liking this so they can have
that final score be what they wanted to be. So when you're watching on
television, and I guess I don't play very often so, but but when
when somebody but you hear, you hear the crowd go getting a hole?
Right? Come on? Is there anything else that we can say right there?
Are there anything that I'm missing that people are saying on the course.
It might be a little more fun and a little lest you know, thirty
five years old than getting the whole? I mean, it's definitely the most
common one. Another one you hear. You don't hear them telecasts as much,
but you know Howard Stern when we heard the Bob the booie, we
hear that a lot still on golf courses. Or you hear Ripper magoo,
you hear a little bit, you know, depends on the trendy, the
trend of the crowd that's walking through there getting the whole? I mean,
that was good when you hear them out there. But hey, as long
as they're keeping it appropriate for you know, all the families to attend.
I'm happy, hey have you know, get the crowd into it, get
people yelling. I think it's, you know, just a great environment,
create some you know, great energy for not just the players, but everyone
else around them. All Right, this question might be about golf, but
I think it could be applied broadly. It's more of a philosophical thing.
We saw yesterday eighteenth Green Royal mac Rory McIlroy got a lot closer on that
forty one foot put than any of us would unless you're a pro. But
what happens when you miss a shot that is like supposed to be an easy
shot and give me a six footer, let's say, five or six footer?
M how do you shake that off and get moving again as a golfer?
And then I think that's why it can spill over into other things.
When you stub your toe. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's
it's probably one of the toughest things in golf. You know, So we're
watching on TV, it looks a lot closer than it really is. Then
when you're there, you're you look and you're like, wow, these guys
make all these puts that I miss every day. You know, that's what
makes these guys so great is that they're able to have a short term memory
when it comes to bad shots. They can miss a short put, you
know, hit a bad shot, maybe not recover from you know, a
chip shot or getting up and down, but they're able to bounce back on
that next toll or that next shot and really kind of capitalize and put it
behind them. So what they do best better than anyone outside of their short
games is they don't compound their errors like your everyday golfer. So mentally,
you know, their strength and fortitude is just incredible that they can, you
know, just be far and beyond above everyone else and just you know,
like I said, take advantage of the moment, put the bad shots behind
them, move forward, and just try and keep playing better on you know,
each each and every shot moving forward. Trevor, thanks again for the
time this morning. I personally, I am playing a golf one of my
two times a year. I'm playing it a famous course called De Bells in
Griffith. Part of you hear to that one, it's a part three ebody.
Hey, thanks for your time, have a great week. Hope you
have a great round later this week. Thank you very much, thank you
for having me. I appreciate it. Wilshire Country Club golf pro Trevor Ralfoff.
Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty
four hour newsroom before we get to handle on the news. Four people are
recovering from injuries caused by a suspected drunk driver during a chase that ended in
a crash in South Pasadena. The HP says officers were trying to stop a
driver on the North One ten early yesterday, but he sped up. The
guy rear ended two other cars where the freeway ends at Glenarm. The CHP
says the man was not wearing a seatbelt and was killed in the crash.
A hit and run driver who allegedly killed a woman while doing street stunts in
Long Beach has been arrested. The guy walked into Long Beach police headquarters over
the weekend and gave himself up. The fatal crash happened Friday night. The
driver was doing donuts at Willow Street and Caspian Avenue when he hit an oncoming
car, causing that driver to lose control and smash into a tree. The
woman was ejected. Celebrations are being held across the country do you commemorate Juneteenth,
which marks the end of slavery in the US. It was designated a
federal holiday in twenty twenty one. Festivities here in southern California include festivals in
Lymert Park, Hollywood, and Elsa Gundo, which include food, music,
arts and crafts, and cultural exhibitions. There's also a parade in Inglewood and
a concert at the Greek Theater this afternoon, and I believe Vice President Kamala
Harris is expected at that Greek later today. Officials in India sa a sweltering
heatwave is killed about one hundred and seventy people in two of the country's most
populous states in recent days. Hospitals have been overwhelmed, and routine power outages
add to these challenges. Northern regions of India are known for sweltering heat during
the summer months, but the Indian Meteorological Department says temperatures have been consistently above
normal. Heighs have been one hundred and ten or above. We lead local
live from the KFI twenty four our newsroom. 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 KIM six forty weekdays from five to six
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