You're listening to Wake Up Call on demand from kf I AM six forty kf
hand KOST HD two, Los Angeles, Orange County. It's time for your
morning wake up Call. Here's Jason Middleton. Good morning everybody, Thanks for
joining us. It is wake Up Call. It's July the twentieth. It's
Thursday, and we have a winner. They're talking about it all week.
Finally got a winner where we get to the lottery thing though. This morning,
let's look at the scores BEFA Women's World Cup. Australia looks like they're
gonna beat the Republic of Ireland one nil. New Zealand already one today.
The United States team plays tomorrow at six o'clock Pacific time six pm Pacific tomorrow.
The award for the winning team this year is the players get a hundred
and ten million dollars to split among them. The minimum is thirty thousand per
that's about a five x increase over the last time. So some equity happening
on that side of FIFA. It's got a few headlines. Then we'll get
into the rest of this morning show. A single winning ticket in the billion
dollar Powerball lottery sold in downtown La yesterday. In November, a powerball ticket
worth more than two billion dollars was sold to the gas station in Altadena,
Go La County. If you didn't win the jackpot, don't throw that ticket
away, though, because more than thirty people did match at least five numbers
to win at least a million dollars. Record heat in Phoenix continues. The
low never dipped below ninety seven degrees overnight, and the high in Phoenix hit
one hundred and nineteen. Highs have been at least one hundred and ten since
the end of June. The wife of the suspected Long Island at New York
serial killer is filing for divorce. Let's start with some of the other stories
coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. US officials say North Korea
has not responded to attempts to discuss the American soldier who ran across the heavily
armed border from South Korea. Private Travis King was being returned to Fort Bliss,
Texas this week after finishing a prison sentence for assault when he crossed into
North Korea. The country has no diplomatic ties to the US. Ups drivers
have rallied in LA ahead of a possible strike over pay and ac in delivery
trucks. Team STAIRS, representing about three hundred and forty thousand members, are
demanding pay increases for part time workers and increases in the number of full time
positions. The Anderson Economic Groups Patrick Anderson says striking drivers would lose about one
point one billion in wages. The biggest number over four billion dollars losses to
businesses and consumers that rely on UPS. The union gathered yesterday, saying many
workers are living at the poverty line. UPS says it will continue talks next
week before contracts expire at the end of the month. Chris Adler KFI News.
A federal appeals court has reversed a ruling the grant four LAPD officers immunity
in a wrongful death lawsuit. The pseudolledges the officers used excessive force on an
unarmed burglar who had already surrendered. Court papers obtained yesterday show the officers repeatedly
shocked the man with a taser in twenty twenty and held him down until he
had a heart attack and died. A four legged firefighter has become the newest
member of the LA County Fire Department. Her name is Julia and she's half
Golden Retriever and half Labrador. She just had a birthday on July seventh,
so she's two years old now. Julia is part of the arson unit and
especially trained as an accelerant sniffing canine. Captain Casey Flanders is Julia's handblo.
She comes home with me every off duty day. She's great with the kids,
great with the family. The other thing about these dogs is they're part
of that sporting group. They have the hunting drive that excelerant dogs need to
have, Flanders says. He and Julia are called out to a scene after
it's been safe to enter, and Julia quickly goes to work checking for anything
that might have contributed to the cause of a fire. It's everything spanning the
spectrum of knightable liquids from light, medium to heavy discs, gasoline. We're
talking about diesel, kerosene, lamp oil, lighter fluid, nail polished removal.
Girl. That's a good girl. Good girl. The cost of training,
acquiring, and maintaining Julio was covered by a grant from State Farm Insurance,
and if this experiment works, the department may add another dog or even
two. Steve Gregory, King of five News, in a couple of minutes.
The first topic on wake Up Call is ABC's Karen Travers joining us to
discuss border and biden Omics, and maybe some student loan repayments. But first
from the Southern California Toyota Dealers Traffic Center, Let's go places. Let's check
the five. This is in Downey on the five northbound, right before Paramount
Boulevard. We have cleanup proofs from an earlier crash. You're taking up the
two bright lanes. Your drive is stacking up right around Florence Avenue and in
Boil Heights. This is all the five northbound at Seventh Street. We have
a crash and emerges the crews blocking the off ramp right there. Your drive
is bunching up as you approach. And Glenn Helen This is on the fifteenth
southbound before Glen Helen Park. We have a crash there taking up the two
left lanes. Your drive is stop and go from ken Wood. K if
I in the sky hopes get you there faster. From Brian Vance. Before
we talk to ABC's Karen Travers, Let's get back to some of the stories
coming out of the KFY twenty four hour newsroom. A girl's basketball coach in
Orange County is facing one hundred and fifty years in prison for sexually molesting players
seventeen years old. Orange County DA spokeswoman Kimberly Ed says, in all,
six girls testified against Carlos Francisco Warez, he would have players run around the
basketball jim topless. He would french kiss these young girls, who had never
been kissed before. The girls testified this week, Warres told them such acts
would make them better players. He gave an eleven year old girl an envelop
full of cash after sexually assaulting her in a parking lot, knowing that her
family needed the money. Sentencing is set for next month in Orange County.
Corbin Carson, k if I News. Right now, ABC's Karen Travers is
on the line with us. She's the White House correspondent for ABC. Good
morning, Karen, A, good morning. Let's start with biden Omics because
later this hour we're going to have an interview about junk fees. I know
that the Bidenomics is the new nomenclature coming out of the administration. Any updates
are yeah, yeah, So Yesterday, the President was talking about his economic
agenda, saying that his policy is his strategy or working. He pointed to
easing inflation and strong jobs numbers. He was meeting with his competition counsel and
he's highlighted the work that they're doing to help consumers get greater transparency on things
like apartment rentals. That was the focus yesterday, but also on buying plane
tickets, hotel rooms, concert tickets, or even signing up for short term
healthcare plans. Yesterday, they were talking about how when you go onto zulo
dot com or apartments dot com, if you can go on there now and
get a better sense of what your final price tag is going to be,
whether it's security deposits, one time rental fees, things like that in addition
to the monthly cost of an apartment. And the President, in his blunt
way, said folks are tired of being played for suckers. He said,
it's all about basic fairness, and these are all these kind of you know,
small announcements that they say add up to big things for consumers. Again,
doesn't necessarily bring down the cost of it, but it does give you
more transparency, so you know what you're paying for right from the start.
Yeah, that does help. He he is branded as the middle class President,
so it makes sense that this would be part of his political campaign as
well. Right, So, yeah, this is going to be a message
theme that we hear a lot about over the next year. Plus bidynomics.
It feels like he is a little hesitant to use it sometimes, but his
team certainly is. And he's going to be up in Philadelphia today again pushing
this, talking about clean energy and union jobs. He's going to be at
what they call a steel cutting ceremony for the Acadias, the vessel that's going
to be sent offshore to help build offshore wind farms, which the White House
says will then support hundreds of new union jobs. So again, bidonomics for
day two this week for the President. Right on, and we're alliterative today,
let's go from bidonomics to the border. Seems like there's been some more
news coming out this week, especially on the Rio Grande. Yeah, Mexico
is very upset about these floating barrels and razor wire that Texas has put into
the river under the guidance of Governor Greg Abbott. They say that this violates
several international water treaties and they want them removed immediately. It's a lot of
questions. Yesterday the briefing about this reaction to this request by Mexico and Parne
Jumpierre was referring to the Justice Department for the specifics on the authority about the
barriers being removed on any legal action. She said, the Justice Department is
looking into this, but in terms of the actual situation there and what was
done. Parne condemned Governor Abbott, saying that this was an inhumane and atrocious
move. I guess our final b in the last minute we have with you
would bionomics, we on the border, Let's go to borrowers. Any movement
on the student loan front. Yeah, so obviously, you know, the
big thing will be in the fall when the repayment process begins for those people
who have been on pause for three plus years because of the pandemic. The
repayments for federal borrowers starts up again. But the Winehouse had put in place
this twelve months on ramp transition, where if you do miss a payment,
you are not going to default on your loans. They're trying to give people
a little bit of a grace period, But there were Democratic senators who reached
out to some of the providers saying they're worried that these loan providers are not
prepared for this restart, that because they have not been dealing with the processing
over the last three months, three years, this is going to be a
really big tax on their systems. They said they have been layoffs at these
companies, they've been shifts of borrowers, like getting bounced from one company to
another, and that they don't have a good handle on what is coming in
the fall. I asked the White Hearts yesterday if they share those concerns,
and Kareem wouldn't say, but said that the the Department of Education is in
contact with the blown providers to provide whatever help they can to make this a
smooge transition. Thanks a lot, Karen, We went all the way around
the infield this morning. Appreciated absolutely thanks ABC's White House correspondent Karen Travers.
There. Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI
twenty four hour newsroom. Let's go back to we having a winner. Someone
in California has won the one billion dollar powerball jackpot. The ticket was sold
in downtown La at Las Palmata's mini market. The numbers drawn last night ready
ten, eleven, thirteen, twenty four and that important powerball number was twenty
four. A man in Auckland, New Zealand, has killed two people in
a shooting before the first game of the FIFA Women's World Cup tournament. The
man was then killed in a shootout with police. An officer was hurt in
the shooting. New Zealand's Prime Minister said the tournament would go on as planned.
The opening match is between New Zealand and Norway, and New Zealand has
already won that one. A tornado has damaged a Fiser pharmaceutical plant in North
Carolina. The company says they were serious injuries yesterday, but medicine was damaged.
Police in Alabama say there's some mystery surrounding the disappearance of a woman who
says she was kidnapped and held captive for almost two days. Police Chief Nick
Durses says the woman had searched for things online like do you have to pay
for an amber alert? And movies about abductions. I do think it's highly,
highly unusual to the day that someone gets kidnapped that several seven hours or
eight hours before that, that they're searching the internet, googling the movie taken.
He says investigators have been unable to verify most of the woman's statement,
including claims she tried to rescue a toddler walking on the side of the highway
before being taken by a man with orange hair. Santa Anna is building what
could be a first edition outdoor library in Jerome Park, complete with self serve
kiosk. You can check out a book a movie using your library card.
Santa and A Library services director Brian Sternberg says there will be an area for
reading, joining programs, and free WiFi. People want spaces, people want
places to go on weekends. People want community destinations, and things are expensive
these days. The city's investing forty six million dollars in grant funding to also
buy a new bookmobile, build a new library inside a community center, and
upgrade its two branch libraries with the latest tech. And they're all free.
In Santa Anna. Corbin Carson k FI news a pilot program in California will
provide free legal services to migrant farm workers who are in the country illegally.
Governor Newsom announced the four and a half million dollar program Yesterday, which includes
case review services in labor investigations, legal advice, and representation. Newsom says
more than fifty percent of farm workers in California are undocumented, and many don't
speak up out of fear of retaliation and deportation. He says the program aims
to prevent the exploitation of the workers. A beer maker is using the scent
of the SuDS so salmon can swim to their spawning spot. The Oregon Hatchery
Research Center has been working for years on helping samon find their way back to
their birthplace to lay their own eggs. Hatchery raised salmon use their noses to
get back home, but often mistakenly end up in areas with the wild salmon.
So finding the right smell for them to latch onto is key. Turns
out, the director for the OHRC is also a homebrewer, and he realized
the grossest part of home brewing or hop culture contains an amino acid that is
to the salmon's liking. Tests have been positive so far, with the OHRC
getting a grant for the next two years to continue with their beer fueled research.
Michael Crozier, KFI news a couple of quick headlines that we're going to
talk about the credit card perks. The state of California is finding the Temeculi
Valley Unified school Board one and a half million dollars for rejecting curriculum that features
LGBTQ studies. Governor Knewsom announced to find yesterday, one day after the school
board voted not to use the state endorsed curriculum. How Speaker McCarthy is coming
to the defense of former President Trump for his actions centered around the January sixth
capital attack. Air Quality is slowly improving for millions as smoke from Canadian wildfire
starts to thin out. Despite the improvements, air quality alerts are still in
place in more than a dozen states, ranging all the way from New Hampshire
to Wyoming. At five thirty ish, we're gonna get junkie with it.
We're gonna break talk Brett, We're gonna break down junk fees. I got
Kono's attention. These things land on everything from airfare to hotel rooms to concert
tickets, politics, bidonomics aside, these fees impact monthly budgets for the majority
of Americans Right now, though it's credit card perks, not necessarily the rewards
we use on the consumer side of things when we clickity clack that buy now
button. This is how small businesses can use credit card awards to bolster their
bottom lines. David Colado is a small business expert and president of Happy Howe's
welcome in, David, good morning, Thank you for having me. Absolutely.
Look, Wall Street is a running of the bulls right now. How
are the economics playing out from Main Street? Yeah, I totally empathize with
my small fellow small business owners out there that are coming into work and making
a go at their business. And these challenging economic times. And two of
the biggest challenges that we're dealing with our inflation and managing the competition. With
inflation, even though it's not as aggressive as it was last year, we're
still seeing rising costs of transportation, raw materials, labor, and that's really
impacting our business. So we're enlisting the help of our employees, our team
members to help us find ways to become more efficient at what we're doing and
help us find ways to save money. Another challenging aspect to the current economy
is managing competition. The last few years have made it very easy for anyone
to start a new business. And that's great, although that makes it very
difficult for a small business owner to acquire gain new customers. And what we
do there to help gain new customers is making sure that our customers new customers,
know they can pay us with a credit card. We find that when
they know they can use their credit cards to make a purchase from us,
they're much more likely to make a purchase from us the first time. And
they also get the added benefit of earning rewards for themselves as they make purchases
from us. So are you highlighting those perks because obviously if you get a
first time customer, you want to have a repeat customer built out of that.
Right, Yes, absolutely, we are highlighting those perkses Okay, great,
So a little bit of a headwind on main Street and we've talked a
little bit about the credit card rewards. How these programs going to stick around
overall? Are they working for both sides of the equation. I'm part of
a large group that believes that credit card rewards today are in jeopardy, and
they're in jeopardy because of a proposed piece of legislation called the credit card Competition
Act. This proposed legislation attempts to save businesses money by helping them by reducing
credit card fees, but it disregards the fact that those credit card fees are
what fun the credit card rewards program that small business owners like myself rely on.
So rather than targeting credit card fees, politicians are better off educating small
business owners on how to maximize the rewards on the credit cards that they're using.
When I think about credit card rewards, I think there's two types of
cards. And back in the day at least there was a business card,
a corporate card, a travel card that you could use, and then you'd
have your personal card too. It helped with expense accounts and whatnot. Those
are probably not as prevalent as they were, say twenty years ago. Right,
Well, I've only been running my business for the last ten years,
so I've only had my credit card, which I'm extremely happy with and I've
used really well for just the last ten years. David, thank you for
joining us this morning. You're welcome. Thank you. Where can we point
people online for more information? What do you suggest to go online and learn
more about this legislation? I recommend going to a website called hands off my
Rewards dot Com. Again, that's hands off my Rewards dot com. The
website does a good job of educating visitors about what this proposed piece of legislation
is, this credit card competition hack, and the website also does a good
job of explaining how credit card processing fees work and how that network works.
You can also write to your congressman through that website as well. Very cool.
Thanks a lot again, David, Thank you. It's David Colodo,
a small business expert and president of Happy Howe's let's get back to some more
news coming out of the KFI twenty four hour news room. A two year
old boy and Granada Hills has been hurt in a shooting that killed a man
at a local park. The shooting happened just before eleven thirty last night.
Police say the child was on the playground with his mom at the time.
LA police are trying to find a man who's assaulted several women in the Pico
Union District and downtown over six days. The crime spree started Monday of last
week, when a woman was attacked near Olympic Boulevard and Albany Street. On
Saturday, a woman was punched in the face multiple times and knocked unconscious as
she walked home from church. The guy police are looking for is twenty one
year old Sergio Garcia. He's Latino five feet six inches tall, about one
hundred and fifty pounds, with black hair, brown eyes, and a mustache.
He is known to carry a black statchel with red lettering that spells Gucci.
A seventy one year old man from La has collapsed and died at a
trailhead in Death Valley. The man is believed to have been hiking Tuesday,
when temperatures hit one hundred and twenty one degrees. Officials say it's even hotter
inside Golden Canyon because the canyon walls radiate the sun's heat. Earlier this month,
a sixty five year old man from San Diego was found dead in his
car in Death Valley. Universal has denied pruning trees to remove shade from striking
WGA and SAG members. The La City Controller is investigating the trees being cut
where picketing actors and writers have been gathering. The controller says the ficus trees
lining the street outside the studios are regulated by the city and need permits before
they can be cut. NBC Universal said yesterday it wasn't trying to make striking
more difficult, but that the trees are cut annually for safety. If found
in violation, the studios could be cited or face a hearing. Chris Adler
Ka Fine News. Russia has hit cities in southern Ukraine with drones and missiles
for a third consecutive night. The wave of strikes is destroyed some of the
country's critical grain export sites. At least two people in Odessa were killed.
Back to California, the Orange County Board of Supervisors has approved plans to apply
for a state grants so it can buy and refurbish a motel in Coasta Mesa.
The supervisors save the motel would provide low cost housing and shelter. The
county plans to use a six million dollar loan to rehab the one hundred and
twenty room travel lodge. Supervisor Doug Chaffee says he strongly supports the home key
program, but is concerned about the debt servicing of the project. Space Shuttle
Endeavor is going into a launch position at the California Science Center. The shuttle
has been on display horizontally for eleven years. The new vertical display will have
two rocket boosters and an external fuel tank. Construction on the shuttle's new home
began last year. New center is expected open in twenty twenty five. Hacker
and former KFI host Kevin Mitnick has died following a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Mitnick served time in prison for computer and communications related crimes. He hacked into
companies like Motorola, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, and USC in the nineties before
going to prison for five years. He hosted The Dark Side of the Internet
on KFI in two thousand and two thousand and one, he was fifty nine.
Only one of the state's wealthiest counties is in southern California. The financial
website smart Assets as Orange County is the seventh wealthiest county in the state,
with a median household income of just over one hundred thousand dollars and a median
home value of one million and six thousand dollars. The other nine wealthiest counties
are up north, with Santa Clara coming in first. The median income there
is over one hundred forty thousand dollars. La County ranked twenty third wealthiest in
the state. The median income is just over seventy six thousand, and the
median home value is just over eight hundred and fifteen thousand. Angelinos who makes
seventy thousand dollars a year are considered low income. Any king Kfi news,
Oh Kenny got it up its game Right now on wake up Call, we're
going to talk about junk fees. Junk fees are back in the news again
as the Biden administration has made fighting them a top priority, at least for
the campaign. But what does the term junk fees include? And will eliminating
them help consumers save money or at least making them more transparent? Bank right,
Senior industry analyst Ted Rossman is going to help us get caught up on
what could be a money saver junk fees. Now, junk fees to me,
sounds a lot like one of those catch all phrases, kind of like
mistakes were made or results may vary. What exactly about junk fees are we
talking about? These are basically surprised fees. The Biden administration and the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau have made fighting junk fees a priority. They talk about these
fees as being disproportionate to the value received. So some examples would be airline
seed selection fees, ticket fees, and you're buying concert tickets or sports tickets
and they have all those add ons. Credit Card lead fees have been in
the crosshairs bank over draft fees. These are all examples of fees that they
think are basically unfair and too high. Unfair and too high. This is
not news though, right, So why are we talking about junk fees now
or why are you guys over at bank right giving it some quantitative efforts.
There have been some recent movements. There was an event at the White House
a couple of weeks back with the CEOs of a lot of the big ticket
companies like live Nation and Ticketmaster and seed geek, and they've recently pledged much
more transparency on these issues. And Airbnb made a similar pledge late last year,
so we're starting to see some movement. There's a fight brewing on credit
card lead fees. The CFPB has proposed capping those at just eight dollars,
a pop down from the current cap of thirty for a first offense that can
actually go higher for subsequent offenses. This would supposedly trim banks fee profits by
about three quarters in this area, so you know, maybe from twelve billion
down to just three billion. This I think is emblematic of the broader topic,
which is fees are like whack mole. One goes down, another one
pops up. I think something like this could happen with credit card lay fees
and other bank fees. I worry about the unintended consequences, even though I
applaud the transparency. Okay, real quick, let's do some housekeeping. CFPB
explain to us what that is again, please, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
So they're basically this consumer watchdog agency. It's interesting because in some respects they've
taken a more active stance during the current administration, which you would expect.
But what's kind of unexpected is they haven't had nearly as many enforcement actions.
And some of that is because there have been some tie ups in the courts
where some in Congress are kind of questioning the legality of their funding structure.
So kind of long story short, I think they're trying to sort of balance
this carrot and the stick approach. I think those credit card late fee one
is one that could really come to a head. I think consumers would love
to pay lower fees the unintended consequences. Does that lead another fee to go
up somewhere else, or does it become harder to get a credit card?
You know, these are some of the things that we worry about. Hey,
let's go back to your whackamole analogy, because I think it's dead on
its transparency. Is that more valuable here than just necessarily reducing fees, because
wouldn't transparency help with the whackamole problem? I think transparency is good in some
areas. I think it's a good thing for concert and sports tickets because you
know what you're getting into. I think it's great for those short term home
rentals like Airbnb. Some other things I think we need more progress, like
hotel resort fees or a big gotcha that right now is still pretty hidden from
a lot of people, and these are very common in certain destinations like Las
Vegas would be a good example, where you think you're paying a certain amount
and then there's actually a fifty dollars add on for the gym or the pool
or whatever it is. That's one that we have not seen as much movement
on, and I think does snag a lot of people now Sometimes you can
negotiate your way out of it. That's actually a good tip where I think
your case is even better if you didn't use those amenities or they were under
construction. Maybe if you have a lead status or you're paid with points,
maybe you can get out of it. You can ask for a credit card
late fee waiver two. By the way, that actually works more than eighty
percent at a time. You can't do it every month, of course,
but once in a while it doesn't hurt to ask. Yeah, good call.
Let's do another piece of housekeeping, because in your report is something called
the Durban amendam Can you give us a working definition of that please? That
was a rule that went into place a little more than a decade ago that
capped debit card interchange. So interchange is the fee that merchants pay every time
somebody uses their card. And this was wrapped into the Broader Dodd Frank Act
back in twenty ten. And this is a perfect example I think of unintended
consequences because on the face of it, the proposal was, Okay, let's
bring down the fees that merchants are paying when customers use a debit card,
and then won't be great merchants a lower prices and everybody will be happy,
maybe the financial industry. But unfortunately it didn't work out for consumers because merchants
didn't lower fees. They just pocketed the difference. And that's something that the
FED reported on that only one percent of merchants lowered prices. Something similar is
playing out now in the credit card world, where the so called Credit Card
Competition Act has been proposed. That's a little different, but I think he's
intended to solve the same kind of issue. But I think the point is
that, yeah, on the face of it, doesn't it sound great to
pay lower prices, But what if that doesn't happen, or what if in
the case of the Durban Amendment. You know, another thing we saw was
debit card rewards went away, and it became harder to get a free checking
account, and overdraft and ATM fees went up. And I don't mean to
be cynical, but I do think that companies are going to look to make
up the shortfall. So I think probably transparency is a worthy goal, but
I do worry that prices won't come down. Thank you again for your time,
and hope we could talk again soon. Sounds good, me too,
Thank you. It's Ted Rossman. He's a senior analyst and his newest data
and report on junk fees is at bankrate dot com. Some housing rental companies
are promising to show so called junk fees on their websites. This just happened.
The Bid Administration announced yesterday that Zillo Apartments dot com and Affordable Housing dot
Com will be included. Abc'sjim Ryan is on the line to talk about solar
panels and the solar panel panel industry and rather large bankruptcy too. Welcome back,
Jim. Yeah. Pink Energy is a company that filed for bankruptcy this
past yere is Jason, and yeah, not before a lot of customers had
already signed on with that company, had solar panels put on their roofs.
It tried to get them wired up. In some cases they were wired.
Pink Energy says that one of its parts suppliers was giving it faulty and defective
parts, so when those were put into the panels they would break down.
But now it's been impossible, nearly impossible to get those things service because Pink
Energy went out of business or filed for bankruptcy. At least and thousands of
customers around the country now are looking at solar panels on the roofs that don't
work, work only part of the time. Whether they do or not,
those customers are still paying every month for loans that they took out to put
those up. I'm looking at a report out of Hampton Roads, Virginia about
a class action suit from some of the customers as well. Is this going
to be a rolling issue? Are they going to try to stick it to
their suppliers supplier? Yeah, first, the suppliers perhaps, but also I
think the state attorneys general in about a dozen states are going to the lending
companies instead of the solar panel company. They're going to the lending company that
lent the consumers the money to put the panels up, urging them to suspend
the payment requirements, to suspend bills to those customers until the whole thing has
worked out. Because you've got a lot of customers who are paying two hundred
and fifty three hundred, four hundred dollars a month sometimes more to a lending
company for solar panels that simply don't work. They're on the roof, but
it's supplying little or no electricity either to that house or into the grid.
Is this indicative of anything that we should be watching for industry wide, or
is this hopefully just a siloed event. Well, I think it alls.
It does point out the consumers need to be careful in any situation, whether
it's or panels or the purchasing home repair services, whatever it might be.
Keep careful records. That's what consumers specialists are saying now about those solar panel
installations and complaints you might have about them. Keep those records so that you
can either participate in a class action lawsuit or at least lay out your claim
precisely to the company. But right now, I mean, this was why
they call it bankruptcy protection, Jason, because Pink Energy is in bankruptcy and
it's protected from lawsuits filed by consumers like you and me. Right. Yeah,
When about twelve years ago or so, I was at NBC in the
Bay Area and Celindra went under, you might remember that one. And they
had just gotten a bunch of federal grants from the Obama administration as well,
and that was one of the biggest stories we covered for that year. And
it's kind of sad that we have to go back to covering some more bankruptcies
within the solar industry after twelve years, right, and some of these cases
just haven't been resolved at all. Some might date back that far. These
most recent cases are within just the last couple of years that Pink Energy was
marketing these systems, selling the systems, and then unfortunately filed for bankruptcy.
But Pink Energy again says that some of this has nothing to do with it,
that faulty systems may be the work of either installers or faulty equipment,
faulty parts that were brought in. Jim, I know you may not have
anything on this, but you're based in Dallas and I was reading a headline
earlier in the show. A suspected serial killer is in custody in Dallas.
Can you update us on anything there? Yes, Oscar Sanchez Garcia is twenty
five years old. He was taken into custody yesterday, first in connection with
the slaying of a sixty year old woman, but her killing is one of
three that police have been investigating is possibly being connected potential motive. Investigators have
said that the women at least two of the women who were killed had connections
to prostitution and that this may have been some kind of vendetta sort of killing.
So yes, he is in custody looking at three cases or murder.
Police are studying other potential cases to see if they may be connected to Thank
you for that, Jim. I appreciate you being able to pivot ABC's Jim
Ryan. They're always a pro great to hear from him. Again, let's
get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour
newsroom. One ticket sold at Las Palmatas Mini Market in downtown La as all
six winning numbers for the one billion dollar powerball jackpot. The numbers drawn last
night are seven, ten, eleven, thirteen, twenty four and the powerball
twenty four. For those who did not win this one, there's another big
one on the line tomorrow. The Mega Millions drawing is worth an estimated seven
hundred and twenty million. I mean that's kind of like it's not a billion,
but whatever, seven hund twenty million dollars. Ups drivers have rallied in
LA to demand higher pay and benefits for workers. The Anderson Economic Groups Patrick
Anderson says if workers strike August first, it would cost the economy billions and
quickly impact customers of the UPS. Shipments that are currently going out could be
fulfilled by substitute for another carry or even driving things or walking them or biking
them to where they would otherwise go. The Teamsters rallied yesterday to demand air
conditioning in delivery trucks and pay increases for part timers. Their contract expires July
thirty first, a girls basketball coach in Orange County has been convicted of twenty
one felonies, including molesting an eleven year old girl. DA spokeswoman Kimberly Eds
says Carlos Francisco Uarez coached club teams in multiple cities in South oc. He
spent many, many months grooming these young girls into sometimes believe in that they
were an actual relationship with him when they were just teenagers and he was in
his late thirties, says. Six girls testified this week to things like having
their first kiss with Warez and being made to run topless during private practices.
Sentencing is set for next month. Pink Mania, not pink Energy. Pink
Mania, inspired by the New Barbie movie, has extended to the kitchen at
Cafe Landewire in Landwar Landward, Yeah, Cafe Landward and said, oh,
it's in Century City. Of course. The restaurant has released a limited time
menu ahead of the release of Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie tomorrow. The cafe says
it's added a wide selection of pink drinks and food like the Strawberry Cream and
Glitz and Glitter cocktails, which can also be made as mocktails, or people
can get a hot pink latte or smoothie. The menu also features pink hummus
and pink waffles with pink whipped cream. A few business briefs before we get
to the top of the hour. Artificial intelligence news briefly sent Apple's market cap
up sixty seven billion dollars. Put a pin in that number for a second.
Bloomberg reported that Apple is developing its own version of Chat, GPT and
bard to compete with open Ai and others. Now that sixty seven billion dollars,
that's a one day build in market cap. Market Cap is how much
a company's worth, depending on how much it's trading for that day. Microsoft
and Activision gave themselves more time to close their sixty nine billion dollar deal,
so this deal is huge. Sixty nine billion dollars between micro Soft and gaming
company Activision, basically one day's movement of Apple's market cap. That's just for
context, but anyway, Microsoft and Activision are the two companies that have three
more months to clear their final hurdle to merge. The British government is the
last hurdle. Netflix added five point nine million subscribers in the last quarter.
That's the streamer's biggest challenge is to build up its ad business. Now it's
going to lower take away actually the lowest tier that you can have for no
ads. So when people come back to Netflix platform, they're expected to go
ahead and get that ad tier. It's a little bit cheaper on the front
end, but for Netflix, they get to serve more ads. So that's
why that's enticing for them, and that's why the Netflix shares surged yesterday.
Miami is feeling that Messi fever. I know the FIFA Women's World Cup is
going on in New Zealand, but tickets for Inter Miami's first games since officially
signing Lionel Messi schedule for July twenty first is tomorrow, is commanding three digit
prices. Even if the Argentine Stars presence on the pitch is not yet guaranteed.
H Live from the KFI twenty four hour Newsroom, I'm Jason Middleton.
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