You're listening to KF I am six forty wake Up Call with me Amy King
on demand on the iHeartRadio app KFI and kost HD two, Los Angeles,
Orange County. What do you want for Christmas? Little boy? My mind
had gone blank. Frantically I tried to remember what it was I wanted.
I was blowing it, blowing it came cant it? How about a nice
sir football? No? No, I'm fish writer in your covering. I
should you want to? I want you should your eye out? Kid?
Merry Christmas? How how how it's time? So your morning wake up call?
Here's Amy King. Ella, Oh there we are, there we are.
You should have seen us madly pushing buttons in both the air mixed studio
and also here in the news booth trying to go why do we not hear
each other? Okay, good morning, Kno, yeah, good morning.
Hey. This is your wake up call for Thursday, December twenty First,
I'm Amy King, good morning. What I was saying when you couldn't hear
me was I hope that they're going to continue to do a Christmas story marathon.
I think it's either on TNT or TBS or USA or something on Christmas
Day because my family, after we do the presence and we do breakfast,
we kind of just cycle in and out of the TV room and just kind
of watch that periodically and take naps and then get up and watch it more.
It's just it's a weird movie. Just to have on it is,
yeah, and you can kind of pick it up and then leave it and
then pick it up again because at this point I've probably you know, kind
of got it memorized. So anyway, hey, driving in today, it
was a little scary. I don't know how it was for you guys,
Anne and Kno, but it wasn't actually too bad. But there were a
couple of spots on the freeway where I was full on hydroplaning and just happened
to be next to a big rig, which was a little bit spooky.
But I hydroplaning is my least favorite because that's when you you're just like you
have no control. You can't break, you can't accelerate, you can't steer.
You just kind of hold onto the steering wheel and hope for the best
and take your foot off the guests. So anyway, as you're heading out
and about this morning, that is my word of warning to be careful,
to slow down. But the roads weren't horrible, but there were some spots
so and we've got more rain on the way. Here's what's ahead on wake
up call. Speaking of rain, heavy rain is expected today and tomorrow across
southern California, with flash flood warnings in effect and also wind advisories. The
heaviest of the rain is expected today, up to four inches of rain call
a fall could hit the La County area before the storm moves out. Even
more rain is expected in the foothills and coastal areas. The Colorado Supreme Court
justices who ruled former President Trump is not allowed on the state presidential ballot are
getting threats. Some are being docks, meaning their email addresses and phone numbers
are being posted online. The Colorado Supreme Court made its ruling Tuesday, saying
Trump is not eligible to be president again because he engaged in insurrection. California's
population has shrunk for a third straight year. CINSUS data shows the state had
the nation's fourth biggest drop in population since July twenty twenty, losing seventy five
thousand residents. The five counties hit the hardest include La Orange, Riverside,
San Bernardino, and Contra Costa County. At six oh five, it's handle
on the news. California could follow Colorado's lead when it comes to kicking former
President Trump off the twenty twenty four state ballot. Let's get started with some
of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty five where our newsroom. A
federal judge has temporarily blocked a California law that would have banned carrying guns in
most public places. The judge ruled yesterday the law violates the Second Amendment and
deprives people of their ability to defend themselves and their loved ones. The law
was set to take effect January first, and would have made it so people
can't carry in places like public parks and playgrounds, churches, banks, and
zoos. The guy accused of killing a four year old boy during a road
rage attack in Lancaster is facing a bunch of charges. Jilly County DA's offices.
It filed one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder against Byron
Burkhart. Burkhart's accused of pulling alongside a car Friday night on the Sierra Highway
and shooting eight rounds into the car, fatally hitting the boy in the back
seat. The boys' parents were in the front and were not injured. Sources
close to the case telling Burkhart had been on probation for carjacking and has a
lengthy rap sheet. He's also facing five counts of possession of a firearm by
a felon. He's in jail on five million dollars bail. Steve Gregory kaingaf
I News. The economic forecast for Southern California next year is expected to be
slow but steady thanks to federal interest rate cuts. A little bit of uncertainty
still is out there and so likely a little bit slower growth than we've seen
in twenty twenty three. So Cal Association of Government COO Darren Titsey says housing,
entertainment, and hospitality industries were all strong this year. Southern California has
continually had higher per capita GDP than the rest of the country. We're certainly
expecting that to continue. Plus tourism over the next several years. We look
to host a series of worldwide events. Titsy says the recession seemed likely at
this time last year, but now a recession appears unlikely. In twenty twenty
four, Corbin Carson kf I News Toyota is recalling a million cars in the
US because of a short circuit issue. The recall involves twenty twenty to twenty
twenty two Avalons, Cameras, Highlanders, rav Fours, Sanna's and Corollas plus
Lexus ES two fifties and RX two fifties. The car maker says a short
circuit in the vehicle centers could prevent airbags from deploying properly, increasing the risk
of an injury in a crash. Let's say good morning now to ABC's Giordana
Miller in Jerusalem, Jordana. After no real outward signs that talks were continuing,
Hamas's top leader went to Cairo yesterday. What came of the talks if
anything, that's right. Hamas is the leader of the political wing Ismo Honeya,
traveling yesterday to Cairo to meet with mediators there to discuss another possible hostage
deal, release slash ceasefire. But today we're hearing Hamas put their position on
the table and it is a very we could say, stubborn position that's really
a non starter for Israel, and that is that Hamas will not release any
of the one hundred and twenty nine hostages until the end of this war.
In other words, they are asking Israel to stop the war, not a
ceasefire for a week or two, but actually end the war before they will
discuss releasing the hostages that they so brutally kidnapped on October seventh, and stalemate
because Israel has said we're not stopping until the hostages are released, that's right.
Essentially, Israel has said again today that the war will continue until it
meets its goals, which is dismantling Hamas, returning the hostages and making sure
that the Gods Strip doesn't ever threaten Israel's South again. Certainly, Israel is
not going to stop this war. They are interested in pausing the war again
for up to even two weeks and even releasing some Palestinian criminals who have blood
on their hands, who've been sitting in Israeli jails for murdering Israeli civilians and
terror terror attacks. They would be on the release list, which is a
first that did not happen in the in the previous hostage release deal. But
Hamas again making this very you know, hardball position, which has left the
talks really to stalemate. We will continue, I think, to see the
back channel talks you know, for a new deal continue, and perhaps Hamas
will show some kind of flexibility in the next couple of weeks. We'll have
to wait and see. Okay, is Hamas still calling for a massive release
of Palestinian prisoners. We had heard that they were saying, okay, well,
we'll talk about turning over the ones that we have for like five thousand
Palestinians or some crazy number. Right. Well, they have on and off
talked about wanting an all for all deal all the Palestinians that are serving in
Israeli jails, about five thousand in exchange for all the Israeli hostages, the
innocent one hundred and twenty nine and that includes, by the way, eight
Americans. But Israel has consistently rejected the idea of an all for all deal,
you know, to begin with. You know, Israel is not going
to end the war because they feel like they have not met the objectives yet,
and it would just allow Hamas to basically, you know, reassess the
situation, rearm, rebuild, and renew its attacks on Israel, and Israel
is not willing to let out so many of the most serious criminals sitting in
its jails because it fears that could also lead to new terror attacks, you
know, not only in the West Bank, in the disputed West Bank,
but in you know, Israel proper. Yeah, And as the talks hit
a stalemate too, we're hearing that fighting has intensified in Gaza today. Well,
the fighting is intensifying in southern Gaza, that is certain. The fight
there has been at a very intense level now for a couple of weeks,
as Israeli soldiers engage face to face with Hamas terrace in you know, you
know, in urban warfare, really from building to building, Hamas is jumping
out of tunnels, shooting RPGs and grenades during grenades at soldiers and then disappearing.
They clearly have somewhat of an advantage, knowing the terrain better than the
Israeli soldiers. But it appears that in the northern part of the Gaza Strip,
Israel has almost cemented its complete control up there. There's fighting, only
really intense fighting in one neighborhood. The other Hamas strongholds have been pretty much
dismantled, and they've you know, destroyed tunnel and you know, hundreds of
tunnels in the north. But again, Han yunis that is the center of
fighting. That's where if Jaquesinoir, Hamas's top leader is still in Gaza Strip,
that's where he is. In the south, that's also where they believe
the hostages are being held. Okay, and do we have any idea like
how much of Hamas, like how much progress Israel has made with their mission
to get rid of Hamas. I mean, they're still pretty vocal and defiant
and fighting back. But do we have any inkling of that? Right,
that's a good question. So Israel says that it has killed about seven thousand
male combatant fighters Hamas militants, top leaders and you know, and that's about
that represents about a third of the of the death toll in the Gaza Strip.
Of course, civilians and women and children make up the other two thirds.
And Israel Hamas believes Israel believes Hamas has about twenty thousand to twenty five
thousand fighters. So you know, they haven't even hit you know, I
haven't even destroyed half the fighters. All right, Okay, Well, thank
you for the update. Let's hope that they get those talks back on and
get some hostages out of there. My goodness, thank you, Jordana.
Yeah, we'll talk to you again soon. Take cared. All right,
let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four
our news room. Police are still trying to track down a person who randomly
attacked a man in a wheelchair in Bellflower. Michael Olson says he was attacked
by a total stranger. I felt a sharp pain in my back and he
stumbled over in front of me, and then he turned around and said,
oh sorry, bro, and then after about a ten second pause, he
stabbed me in the stomach. La Kenny Sheriff's Deputy Michuel Maza says Olsen was
riding in his wheelchair on a sidewalk in broad daylight last month when he was
attacked. But the angels at this suspect poses to the rest of the community
is very high. So we know that this person at eight in the morning
is willing to commit this crime. He's willing to do anything else to anybody
else. Deputy Masa says the attack was caught on surveillance video, but the
attacker has not yet been identified. CHP investigators have recovered nearly a million dollars
worth of stuff stolen from stores around La County. Investigators served search warrants at
a warehouse in Paramount and a makeshift storefront and Wittier. Officer Luis Quintero says
the stolen makeup and other cosmetics were from several retailers CBS write Aid nine nine
Cents stores, Northstroms. The CHP is working to return those items. A
woman accused of owning both the store and warehouse was arrested earlier this week.
The CHP's Organized Retail Crime Task Force has made more than one thousand arrests this
year. Blake Trolli kaf I News, a Republican congressman from Texas's the border
patrols overwhelmed with a number of immigrants crossing the southern border. ABC News says
more than ten thousand were caught just on Tuesday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has
started flying illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities. ABC's Liz Naggi says he sent one
hundred and twenty to Chicago this week. Jbago City officials are scrambling to try
and find spacing shelters for those new arrivals, but many of those city shelters
are already maxed out. The governor of Texas City sent the charter flight because
Chicago started obstructing and targeting his state's busing mission. Texas has sent more than
eighty thousand migrants to sanctuary cities since last year. A federal court judge has
shot down California's ban on carrying guns in most public places, including parks,
playgrounds, banks, churches, and zoos. The federal court decision yesterday in
Santa Ana at least temporarily blocks the law from taking effect January first. Ag
Robante says the judge got it wrong and will appeal. The Senate has adjourned
for the year without a deal to fund the Ukrainian military and its war against
Russia. The Senate will reconvene on January eighth. During the break, Senate
and White House negotiators planned to hold virtual meetings on an emergency foreign aid package.
X is back online after a global outage. Thousands of users say their
feeds stopped updating shortly after midnight in the US, Canada, Britain and other
countries, and some others say that they couldn't even see the messages that had
already come through. The cause of the X outage not yet known. At
six oh five, it's handled on the news. When you get pulled over,
police officers are now going to be required to tell you why. It's
a new law. I'll tell you more about it right now. Let's say
good morning to ABC's crime and Terrorism analyst Brad Garrett. Brad, there are
a lot of Americans who are not happy about the Supreme Court or the Colorado
Supreme Court ruling to kick the former president off the ballot, but some have
taken that unhappiness to a whole new level. Well, there is no doubt
I mean threatening to kill or attempt to kill the Colorado State Supreme Court justices
launch a mass shooting at Yale University. You would ask, well, why
would they do that because one of the Supreme Court justices that voted for this
disqualification, the governor who appointed him, Bill Ritter, alma mater is Yale.
So I only bring that up maybe because think how many steps that's removed.
Yeah, it's kind of far reaching, Yeah, but it lets you
know how sort of unhinged people are out there. I mean, it's the
combination of all of these Anything that goes at President Trump in a negative way,
there's just a percentage of people that are going to react to that in
a very potentially violent way, or at least say violent things. And my
concern, obviously is those numbers are growing, they're not getting smaller. Yeah,
okay, so that they're getting death threats and I hear they're being docked.
Yes, that's correct. I mean, we had a version of that
against Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh here near me, where people showed up at his
house and started to do in appropriate There's a number of people arrested because they
published his address. Not that it's that difficult to find, but if you
give people an easy pathway, there's just going to be a percentage of people
who follow it. Yeah. So it's happening from both sides of the aisle
or the I don't know if you call it both sides of the aisle,
but from both sides, that the extreme elements of both sides. And it's
not just judges, oh no, of course not. I mean US Capitol
Police recently stated that in the last year, threats against Congress have actually doubled
and to your point, that's I'm sure I don't know how those breakdown Republican
the Democrat, but there's going to be a lot of each, I'll tell
you. And trying to work at the legitimacy of threats. I've done a
lot of those over the years, and they can be time consuming and as
you get more of them, you get further behind. It's going to be
you know, one maybe in the stack of those you're looking at that ends
up going live, and the question is do you get to it before the
person actually commits the act. I mean, that's sort of where we are.
It's nothing against law enforcement. You can only do what you can do,
but it's the numbers of threats and excuse me, are just overwhelming,
and that's my big concern. Okay, and Brad, because you're good at
doing this, and like you said, you try to get in people's heads
and try to figure out what is a legitimate threat and what's driving them,
What is driving people to these extremes. So you have to go to a
core group of people that believe in their hearts that President Trump is still the
president, that the election was stolen, despite the fact of so much information
to the contrary. They just don't want to believe it. And part of
that amy is the drive by President Trump and other politicians to delegitimize law enforcement
from the FBI down. And when you start to a road law enforcement in
a country that's founded on the rule of law, it's a really a dangerous
sort of slope to go down. And if you add to that, if
people think it's okay to say things that aren't true and save them in a
very inflammatory way, I think it gives some people a license to actually do
that. So you know, now everything I've just said is pretty difficult to
do much about because you know, there's the first amendmity of the right to
say things, even if they're hateful, not true, et cetera. And
you combine that with if all you listen to is inflammatory stuff that's not true,
that for some people then that becomes their reality. Right. And you
know, it used to be that we could disagree and it would be okay,
But now we don't disagree, we demonize, and it comes from we
do sides. Right. It's all about identity connection. You you start to
identify with an individual or a movement or whatever, and you don't you know,
you don't. There's no voice of reason anymore for you. And there's
a lot of different reasons why that occurs. But we've now gotten to a
place in this as the world is today where the volume is so turned up
on every one of these issues, and it comes and bombards you between you
know, AI figuring out what you want to hear, and then bombarding you
with you know, information with a slant or that's just an app out a
lie, and that's all you hear, and for some people that's all it
takes. Well, let's hope that those people are just blowing smoke, but
we will be watching. Thank you so much, Brad, appreciate your insight.
You're welcome. Take care, Amy, take care. Let's get back
to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour news room.
Forecasters say the storm moving through southern California appears to be weakening, but
the National Weather Service says it's expected to produce many hours of steady, moderate
to heavy rain through today. They say significant flooding is possible as the storm
works its way east. A flood watch is in effect across all counties until
late tonight. A flood watch is in effect through tomorrow evening. In Orange
County, the facade of a parking garage in Rolling Hills Estates is partially collapsed.
The facade was holding about sixty to eighty feet of dirt filled containers,
which also came crashing down yesterday at the promenade at the Peninsula Mall. La
County Fire officials say excessive water made the planters too darn heavy, causing the
facade to collapse under the weight. No one was hurt, and La County
public defenders among ten Americans jailed in Venezuela who were freed in a prisoner exchange.
He and five others arrived in Texas last night. I'm incredibly grateful to
my family, to my friends, to President Biden for getting me home,
for getting all of his own as Avan. Hernandez was arrested in March of
last year. He says there's no way to understand what it's like to be
in prison. Unjustly. All you think about when you're in prison is how
you didn't appreciate being free while you were free. As part of the deal,
the US agreed to release an ally of Venezuela's president, who was arrested
for alleged money laundering. In twenty twenty, one of the busiest travel days
of the year. Or on one of the busiest travel days of the year,
about forty workers at LAX held a protest at Terminal one demanding higher wages.
The group calling on La City Council to raise the starting wage from eighteen
to twenty five dollars an hour. A proposed city ordinance would raise wages for
about forty thousand airport, hotel and tourism workers in La to at least thirty
dollars an hour by twenty twenty eight. California's looking at following Colorado's lead and
removing former President Trump from the ballot. Lieutenant Governor Elenni Koulanakas says California is
obligated to determine if Trump is ineligible for the California ballot for the same reasons
described in the Colorado case. Today is the shortest day of the year.
The winter solstice happens at seven twenty seven tonight. That's when the Earth reaches
its maximum tilt away from the sun. Noah says, starting tomorrow, good
news. We gain about a minute of sunlight each day right up until the
Summer Solstice in June at six oh five, it's handle on the news.
We're apparently feeling pretty good about dropping a bunch of money on gifts this holiday
season. We'll tell you about that, and if five point fifty, we're
going to check in with Jim Ryan, because if you think COVID is over,
you got another think coming. This week, we went out and about
to Pasadena because we wanted to give you behind the scenes look at what goes
into putting together a Rose Parade float the Rose Parade. Of course, about
a week and a half away, we caught up with Heidi Hoff with AS
that's one of the companies responsible for making these floats come to life, and
we hear that Heidi's kind of the go to girl when you need answers and
really need to get anything done. So Heidi, let's take a look around.
We're starting in the seed area, the seeds and the dried material area,
because the dry material isn't just seeds. It is, as you can
see here, some straw flower, pretty, some white rice, some parsnip.
We want to take a look at this because we have cranberry here and
then we have old cranberry and the reason that we have so many different colors
and dimensions of material is because all of that goes on to a float and
it gives each character the dimension and the detail that's required to make these things
come alive. That's what it's going to say to make them come to life.
And it's something that you know, I've watched the parade for so many
years. I've gotten to see it a couple of times, but I'm always
astounded at how many different colors you're able to get. And if you look
around, you see how many bins are there. There's like fifty of them.
Yes, there's large walnuts over the small walnut shells over there. What's
that? This is our gold clover seed. We have brown lettuce. Who
knew there was brown lettuce, dark lettuce, light lettuce. Any kind of
lettuce you want, we probably have. And because they're all different colors.
So then we take all of those seeds and start assembling on the floats,
and that's kind of the base. So let's show you a couple more things
as we take our tour around the pavilion and see some of the floats that
are starting to come together. We've got a long way to go. But
it's so pretty. And one of the areas that you told me about just
a minute ago was the glue area. And apparently the glue area is a
big deal when it comes to putting together floats. And here it is the
glue station. This is the start of the glue station, and there's really
a process about the type of glue you use and the type of glue stick
you use to apply the glue. So people come here and they fill their
glue. Either you're going to use clear glue or white glue. Different products
require different type of glue. So when you're assigned decoration, you get educated
on your material and your glue and of course your glue stick. Over here,
I think this is always fun. Here are the rules of gluing.
It's very important, like look at leave a glue line, make sure that
you stack your beans in a row, and fill in all of the little
spaces. It's really I mean, it's really intricated, because the floats wouldn't
look so spectacular if it wasn't all planned out so well, a very choreographed
project. Okay, so let's take a look at couple of the floats that
you're working on. As has eleven floats that they're working, and we're just
going to focus in on a couple of them. One of my favorites is
the Kindness is Free Float, which is the Boys and Girls Club, right,
Boys and Girls Club of West End, Gabriel Valley. This year has
be kind is their motto, and that is a E. I. G.
Elephant. It is a ginormous elephant being so kind to a little tiny
mouse. But that little tiny mouse up front is really five feet tall.
That's crazy, and so you can you can see it's a big blue elephant.
And the big blue elephant is an interesting thing this year because, as
we have heard over the years, everything has to be plant based right correct,
It's all natural material. Cannadia mcdid colored. We use a version of
blue which is probably a combination of some blue status or blue iris that will
reflect and have it look as close to a blue as we can get.
And then this one over here, I love it's bees. I'm a big
bee fan. Yes, this is Union Station Homeless Services. Their theme this
year for their company is be the Solution and they're celebrating that with the Rose
Parade, and they have all these fun bees working there, behive and there's
a sign up front that says, home, sweet hive, I love this,
okay, And so you can see that as we walk around these floats.
There are some areas that already have some of the material on them,
but all the really beautiful stuff is coming in later. So when do the
flowers come and how long do you have to get those on the floats.
It's a great question. All of our fresh flooral material arrives on are about
the twenty eighth, and then we have to cut it, prep it and
vile everything, vile everything. Wait, what's that? That's where you put
every flower in a vial. Every single individually like material goes into a vial
and then those are all then taken out here and placed on this foam.
Okay, So the floats are then covered with this foam which is just soft
enough to let the vials go into. And that way you can probably put
those flowers in like on Thursday or Friday, and they'll still be beautiful when
it comes to you. So we do start the fresh floral material on floats
the twenty ninth, thirtieth, and the thirty first, but we have to
be all finished by noon on the thirty first because we have float judging,
ooh, most important things, lots of trophies. So all of this work
takes there's so many volunteers. There's like, is it eight nine hundred volunteers.
We have probably about we like, about two thousand volunteers a day.
You're estimated a little while to help finish the decorating for this, Okay,
So you have a lot of volunteers already, but you need more. We
love volunteer decorators. If you go to our website as Creative Backslash Volunteers,
you can sign up to volunteer December twenty sixth through the thirty first. Whenever
you're available, We would love to have you, like for a four hour
shift. Yes, four hours is good. Okay, So if you have
some time and you want to contribute to the Rose Parade because it's going to
be so spectacular this year, that's the way to do it. And what
again is the website aes Creative Backslash Volunteers. I am so thrilled, Heidi,
that we got to take a sneak peek behind this and see them like
in production and I cannot wait to see the finished product on New Year's Day.
Thank you so much Hyde. If you want to come decorright, you
just let me know. Yeah, I'll call you early. I am up
early. I might do that. We actually talked about coming back and doing
a little decorating next week once the fresh flowers are there. But definitely if
you get a chance, go check out my instagram at Amy K King and
then you can see what we were talking about. I think Heidi did such
a great job describing everything. But it's really fascinating to like see just even
the different colors of seeds, the different shades of them, and they all
come together and it's this big, intricate plan that makes these incredible floats that
we'll be seeing in about a week and a half. So and again,
if you want to, if you want to volunteer, they need them.
Okay, let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI
twenty four hour newsroom. The l Kenny Sheriff's Department says it's trying to find
some guys who may be pretending to be cops. Some people claim they were
pulled over by a newer model Ford Explorer with flashing red and blue lights.
Inside were two guys in masks and gloves holding black semi automatic guns. Behind
them was a white, older model Ford Panel van with two guys dressed the
same, also with guns. Official say all four approached the car, ransacked
it, and made off with a bunch of stuff. It happened December eighteenth,
just before eleven pm along the fourteen Freeway near the Augwa Dulci off ramp.
Steve Gregory King of Fine News a woman's body has been found at a
home that burned in Lancaster. Firefighters found smoke and fire coming from the garage
yesterday spent about an hour putting out the fire. Two charred vehicles were found
inside. There were reports the woman's body was in the trunk of one of
the cars. An eighty six year old man from Pacific Beach has donated his
two hundredth gallon of blood. Records show Bob Fisher has donated various blood products
over nine hundred thirty times since nineteen seventy six. Fisher donates triple platelets to
the San Diego Blood Bank every couple of weeks. He also donates for meta
research. His donation yesterday officially made him the top donor in San Diego.
Storm has triggered some flooding in Ventura and Oxnard. Officials briefly put out a
tornado warning for Ventura County. For the rest of southern California, we do
have flood watches in effect, also wind advisories. As his storm moves through,
we're expecting up to about four inches or more rain. A federal court
judge is shot down California's ban on carrying guns in most public places, including
parks, playgrounds, banks, churches, and zoos. The federal court decision
yesterday in Santa Ana at least temporarily blocks the law from taking effect January first,
ag rob Bonte says the judge got it wrong and thell appeal. X
is back online after a global outage. Thousands of users say their feeds stopped
updating shortly after midnight in the US, Canada, Britain and several other countries.
Also, X users were saying they couldn't even see messages that had already
come through before midnight. The cause of the outage is not yet known.
We're just minutes away from handle on the news this morning. Sirius is the
latest company to get called out for making it really hard to cancel its services.
We'll tell you about that right now, let's say good morning to ABC's
Jim Ryan. Jim, I thought we were done with COVID, but you
did as we head to Christmas. That's not the case. Nobody told COVID.
COVID is still out there and it's mutating, it's changing from where it
was before, and we expect that. Yeah, you're right, you're right,
But I think that it's something that people aren't thinking about at all.
I mean, if you go to the airport, you climb onto an airplane,
it's likely you won't see a lot of people with masks, although some
people are still masking up. I saw folks in a grocery store yesterday who
are still masking up. But it's a good idea, especially if you're not
feeling so great, to mask up, if only to protect the other people
around you. The newest variant is something called j N one amy it grew
up out of a previous variant, BA two point eighty six. That it
just continues to change and to evolve and to evadeive, you know, some
of the measures that we're putting in place. Luckily, the vaccine that was
built to combat BA two eighty six appears to be very effective against this new
one ja N one. On the downside, fewer people are getting vaccinated,
and this being the holiday season, a lot of people are traveling by air
and they're gathering around holiday tables, sometimes with older people who are susceptible to
serious consequences. And if you're traveling, like you said, it might not
be a bad idea to put on a mask. I mean, is it
just a crapshoot or can you really do anything to protect yourself besides the masking?
Well, you know, and if you're not feeling well, go ahead
and get tested. You can get free tests, you know, through the
mail postal service and bring it to you. I think they're offering what to
per person, to per household maybe, And so if you're not feeling well,
go ahead and take the test if you might have COVID. Even if
it isn't COVID, it might be the flu, or might be a cold,
It could be RSV something that is communicable anyway, but at least you'll
you'll have some idea of how to handle it. It's interesting to me amy
the way that they're figuring this all out. To somebody who's really smart figured
out that if they test the wastewater sample for a community, they can detect
COVID and draw a map of what that community looks like that community or that
county or state, and then draw up a national map based on that.
So this new variant appears to be a real problem in the northeast New York
State as seeing a real spike in this particular variant, But it's kind of
scattered around the country. Places like Montana, North Dakota, Utah, they
all have very high incidents based on wastewater sampling of COVID nineteen. California is
in the high range, but still, I mean, you go to states
over to Utah and you'll find that it's very high. And is this a
milder COVID because like we were talking about, as this thing mutates, it's
not nearly what it was during the pandemic. Is this also one that they're
saying it's COVID and it could be serios But the chances of you really becoming
very sick or lower, right, it's sort of like we've seen before.
And what's more, I mean, if you've had your vaccines or booster,
if you've had COVID at all, the CDC says, you are protected in
a very large way against serious consequences. Is it going to make you feel
gross and bad? Probably? I had it a couple of weeks ago and
ended up missing two days of work. That never happens for me, but
so yeah, just just keep an eye on it, be aware of it,
watch for symptoms, and if you have symptoms, kind of check yourself
and maybe stay away from crowds of people. Yep, and wash your hands.
Yes, take your vitamin D and your zinc. Yeah, all right,
make you really work. I swear by it. Okay, yep.
Jim Ryan, thank you so much for your time this morning. See Amy.
All right, stay healthy, you do. Let's get back to some
of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Fighting in
Gaza has intensified. Israeli forces say they're engaged in what they're calling close quarters
combat ABC's and as Deliquitera Aviv says communications are out in southern Gaza. There
have been a number of such blackouts, and oftentimes they happen right before the
IDF decides to move in with something big. The Israeli military says it's uncovered
a major Hamas command center in the heart of Gaza City. The announcement came
as Hamas's top leader arrived in Egypt for talks aimed at brokering a cease fire.
A senior Hamas official says there will be no negotiation on prisoners before the
stopping of the aggression. Justices in Colorado who ruled to keep former President Trump
off the state's primary ballot because of the Fourteenth Amendment's insurrection clause have been bombarded
with threats online. At Advanced Democracy says since the decision on Tuesday, they've
identified significant violent rhetoric, mostly in direct response to Trump's post about it.
On truth social some people talked about ways to kill Trump's enemies. Others shared
the judges emails, phone numbers, and addresses. A new law in California
is going to raise the minimum wage for fast food workers to twenty bucks an
hour. A law would only apply to restaurants with more than sixty locations in
the state. Economists say people should expect to see prices spike on menu items
as employers try to make up for the pay increase. Pay hikes could also
cause other businesses to raise their minimum wage in order to remain competitive. California
already has one of the highest minimum wages in the country at fifteen dollars and
fifty cents. The new law, approved by Governor Gavin Newsom, will go
into effect by April first of next year. Chris Adler KFI News. So
we talked a lot about a lot of serious stuff, COVID and the Israel
Hamas war and the threats to the Colorado Supreme Court justices. So we want
to close out Wake Up Call in a little bit lighter note now, as
you may or may not have heard, Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas
Is You is number one on the Billboard Hot one hundred again. It's kind
of a love hate thing for me. I love it, and then by
the end of the Christmas season, I hate it, And then when the
next one rolls around, I go, oh, I love this song.
But I want to be real with you, guys. Isn't this really a
better Christmas song than Mariah's version? This is something I found on Instagram.
Money a Lot for Christmas, Stash need the magnachee, money hamm and mash
for t R for the mone Is. Please he me up some dinner wood,
bring me out a stretchy call meg Mo, which girl a wonderful Christmas
food? Keeping it real on wake Up Call. All I want for Christmas
is food. This is KFI. I'm kost HD two Los Angeles, Orange
County, live from the KFI twenty four hour Newsroom. I'm Amy King.
This has been your wake up call, and if you missed any wake up
Call, you can listen anytime on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to
wake Up Call with me Amy King. You can always hear wake Up Call
five to six am Monday through Friday on KFI AM six forty and anytime on
demand on the iHeartRadio app.