This is Gary and Shannon, and you're listening to KFI AM six forty the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app on this January twenty third, twenty twenty five.
Elmer says, it's the nineteenth.
It is a Thursday. Elmer says, it's the nineteen.
Yeah, that says right there, one nineteen.
Well, I mean, come on, do your own work. You're just gonna jump off a bridge if Elmer told you to.
He has a very convincing way about him.
He does. I actually would probably end it.
All for you'd at least get to the edge of the bridge.
I think about it.
Do you like how we took a typo suicide? E?
It does to take it too far.
President Trump spoke to an international audience of business leaders, in politicians, and other elites at the World Economic Forums annual events in Davos, Switzerland.
He was there via a video link.
Republican led Senate is today advance seeing some more of the cabinet nominees, including John Ratcliffe, Trump's choice to lead the CIA.
Davos, Switzerland sounds like a place I'd want to sit with John co Belt in a blue lagoon.
I don't believe you don't.
His travel advertisements make you want to get out there and do weird travels.
Travel Sit in one of those steambaths with a Japanese monkey or something. Yes, CNN is going to be laying off a couple hundred employees. That's about six hundred sorry, this is about six percent of its workforce. The environment for cable TV has been on a downward path, they said. CNN averaged five hundred and seventy eight thousand primetime viewers in the three months through December. That's down seventy four percent from its peak in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty.
It's now third among the major cable networks.
Can believe that.
Well, we are still on the fire lines out there at the Hughes Fire. We are not, but hardworking firefighters are for another week, another very busy week here as we contend with the dry conditions. Yes, we do have rain in the forecast for the weekend. Luckily, it doesn't look like it's going to be enough to cause any mudslide damage, although they are on high alert for that.
It seems like it's going to be just enough to give us a little bit of water without causing any major issues in the burn areas.
Yeah, depending on where you are, somewhere between a quarter of an inch in as much as an inch, probably higher in the mountains. It's also nice because the snow level is going to be relatively low, which may cause some issues if you're driving, for example, in the home Pass, if you're up in the Grapevine, they may shut that down because of snow and ice, which is not that uncommon.
That would be probably Saturday night into Sunday morning, when we can expect to have some of the some of the rain coming in.
The huge fire.
I noticed I'm looking at the entire smoke plume yesterday as I'm driving home because I drive that direction, and I was pretty surprised that.
Even though there were thousands.
Of people who had to evacuate, there has not been one structure reported damaged in that entire thing, right, And that's obviously to the credit of the firefighters, to the prepositioning the assets that they had done yesterday.
Not to minimize that, but it's different. It's very different in terms of the access to water, in terms of what areas were burned through.
These weren't neighborhoods.
A lot of wild land, a lot of shaparral that had been very heavily fortified when we had the rains in the past few years before we had the dry spell. But you weren't dealing with what you saw, for instance, in the Palisades, where you really had that wildland interface. Yes, there are some communities out there, but it wasn't as densely populated of an area as we saw with Altadena and the Palisades.
In any other environment, in any other year, under red flag conditions, this would have been described as an explosive fire threatening, you know. I mean, obviously it was right, but in comparison into the recent history, I mean just a couple of weeks ago, this is a nothing.
And I don't mean it to you know people.
I know they had to evacuate, and that's a hassle and it's scary. But this is a nothing compared to what happened in the Palistates and over in Altadena. So the good news is that it sits right now, just over ten thousand acres.
For the most part.
The evacuation orders directly around the lake itself and to the north of the lake continue. But for the most part, I mean this has been good work by all of the fire crews involved, and seventy six acres fourteen percent containment. A lot of the zones had been reduced from evacuation
orders to evacuation warnings. In fact, just a short time ago, most of those areas between the lake and I five are now just evacuation warning areas because the fire never made its way to the west side of Castac Lake.
What does the future will?
The future has met the present, has it for a lot of people when it comes to insurance in California, But what does the future hold? Insurance companies say what you will, but you do want them to make a profit. Why because one day they may need to write you a big check.
You may need them to write you a big check.
Now, we heard stories of people's insurance being canceled, and that was exactly what happened. California a losing gamble for insurance companies. So what they did was got rid of the highest risk customers, people who live out there in
the wildland, air and interface areas. We heard from people in the Palisades that had lost their insurance just months before that fire hit, and that's why so many people lost their home insurance because it was like, let's get rid of the people whose checks will be astronomical if we have to write them, and just take care of the people that we could take care of. So we'll talk about what that looks like going forward as well.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM.
Six forty. Fires continue to be the big story.
The Hues fire up near Lake Castick about ten one hundred and seventy six acres fourteen percent containment. A lot of those evacuation orders from yesterday and last night have been downgraded to evacuation warnings, but if you are still in the sort of that wild land area to the north of that fire, uphill from that fire, those are still evacuation order areas. Laguna fire that started near CSU Channel Islands and Ventura County about fifteen acres there on
Round Mountain. They had evacuated the campus and University Glen as a precaution. They do not expect this thing to get too much out of control or to threaten infrastructure, but they are being careful. And then the Subulvti fire started last night off the four or five freeway but hit about forty acres. Forward progress has been halted within a couple of hours. At this point, they're still saying zero percent containment, but they do not expect that fire to flare up. But we are still in our red
flag warning. In fact, it was extended once again until tomorrow and then the chance for rain that we've been talking about comes in Saturday into Sunday morning.
A debate that has lasted the test of time.
Recently, Starbucks and their bathrooms decisions. Starbucks allow announced last week a new code of conduct that says people need to make a purchase if they want to hang out or use the restroom. Their policy change for bathroom privileges has left people, they say, confused and divided over who gets to go and when. The American Restroom Association a public toilet advocacy group. I'm sorry, what imagine that business card if they still had them.
What does that meeting sound like, Bob?
How many squares did you encounter at the home depot? Well, James, it was a shallow roll. There were only two squares remaining.
I'm going to blow your mind, Bob.
You're going to have to get the petition over there to that home DEPOTL sereno.
They don't even have squares where we come from. Whoa un perforated? WHOA think of the dangers there?
I remember? Never mind, story for another time.
And probably not on the air, Probably not anyway.
The American Restroom Association was among the critics for this. Rules about restroom access, of course, vary when it comes to restaurants by state, city, county, And there's a big argument that private business businesses get to say who and when the restrooms get used by whom and when the restrooms get used. I think it paying customers is a perfectly acceptable thing.
Yeah, why wouldn't it be?
Why wouldn't it Well, because feelings. You have to look at homeless shoot up their drugs in a nice restroom, don't you.
Yes, with a lock on the door, so that maybe thresh needles inside. Well, they're doing their sink show.
You can put the fresh needles right by the baby changing table.
Yeah, put the sharp's box next to the changing table. Well, this may not sound sexy, but Californiaans actually pay a pretty good deal when are have a pretty good deal when it comes to homeowners insurance.
California's average cost for homeowners insurance ranks is the ninth lowest among the forty eight states. One of the reasons is because they did cut all those high risk people. All of those highest risk customers who live in the expensive homes in the wildland urban interface areas were just cut so they could lower the bar Florida. Florida homeowners live at the most peril pay Accordingly, their typical annual
premiums are sixty six hundred dollars, the second highest. Now we're number two on the hazards scorecard, but our premiums are just about two thousand. What is it, sixty six hundred, We're about two thousand.
Yeah, something. That means that we've been getting a pretty good deal. Add to that, about one estimate says that about ten percent of homeowners in California don't bother to get home insurance at all, so that takes them out
of the market. But if you think about what's going to happen with thousands of more than ten thousand homes and businesses burned out by the palisades and eaten fires and whatever else Mother Nature has in store for us over these next couple of weeks, you have to imagine that those insurance companies are going to be even more skittish, which is why there is regulation in the state of California.
It's one of those.
The necessary evils perhaps when it comes to government bureaucracy, is that people need to have a way to make sure that they can recover in the event that.
There is a disaster like this.
So we have our Fair Plan, right which if you get bumped off of your homeowner's insurance policy, you can apply for the Fair Plan, which is the state funded insurance. But it's the basic It's like catastrophic health insurance. It's the absolute worst case scenario with very little money. You're never going to be able to rebuild using the Fair Plan. They cap it at a certain level, and that Fair Plan is going to be absolutely broke by the time the first fifty claims come in from these two fires.
That's going to be going away.
The Fair Plan could refill the financial hole by collecting a surcharge that would boost home insurance premiums for everybody in the state of California. Right if you live here, you pay your private insurance company. They may have to they may be able to tack on a certain tax lean However, whatever term you want to use to refund that fair plan. But you think about that, that means
automatically your premiums are going to go up. And then whatever company you are with, if they are on the hook for a lot of these payouts for a lot of the people in Palisades and Altadena, then your premiums likely will go up as well. Obviously you're going to could be charged for the indirect cost of the policies that so far in southern California or in California in general have been relatively low.
But it does not look good. And I don't even know. You can still shop around.
I mean, that's the great part about insurance is that it is an open market when it comes to homeowners insurance. But that doesn't mean you're going to get a great deal, and we may never see deals like we currently have because of these fires.
And speaking of the fire out at CSU Channel Islands, Ventura County, they do have road closures there for Potrero Road and Lewis Road south of Pleasant Valley. They see the fires now fifty acres per Incident Command there. All fixed wing aircraft have been released, so that's good. They are asking for more engines on that one.
Let's do some good news. Oh, okay, what do we got egg?
Watch Jackie and Shadow Easy.
Yes, Jackie and Shadow.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Fires continue to be the top story today. The Laguna fire burning out in the Ventura County area near Csu Channel Islands, up to about fifty acres they said, right around and on Round Mountain there Potrero and right along Potrero Road, which happens to be closed. So that is getting a lot of attention today. The Hughes fire up near Castake Lake has slowed considerably. It's at about ten one hundred plus acres fourteen percent containment.
Those are less numbers that we had.
As of about eleven o'clock last night, most of the evacuation orders had been downgraded to warnings, and then at about two o'clock this morning, they had enough of it handled that they let the helicopters go for the night.
They are back out there today.
And then the supulvet of fire last night just before midnight really turned out to be, thankfully, not much of anything topped out at about forty acres, but we have some breaking news out of Seattle. A federal judge has blocked, at least temporarily, President Trump's attempt to rescind birthright citizenship. The district judge John Kunauer said, I've been on the bench for over four decades.
This is his writing.
By the way, no punches pulled. I've been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.
He wrote.
There are other times in world history where we look back and people of goodwill can say, where were the judges?
Where were the lawyers? John Kunauer?
The judge interrupted a Justice Department attorney before he could even complete his first sentence in that hearing today and said, is your opinion? In your opinion? Is this executive order constitutional? And then he said it is. And the judge said, frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order.
The case is one of five lawsuits being brought by twenty two states and a number of immigrants rights groups across the country. They the suits include personal testimonies from ags who are US citizens by birthright. Names of pregnant women who are afraid there are children won't become US citizens. This is supposed to take effect February nineteenth, just for.
Frame of reference.
In twenty twenty two, there were about two hundred and fifty five thousand births of citizens children to mothers living in the country illegally.
I mean, listen, it's different now than it was when the fourteenth Amendment was ratified. But it is, according to the judge constitutional. I mean that the Constitution, the attempt to rescind it is unconstable.
Well, like we said yesterday, it would require an amendment to the Constitution.
Yeah, which is how you not through executive order. You don't get to do it that way. That's not how those work.
Here's some good news.
Are our friends are Bald Eagle friends up in Big Bear have laid their first egg at the season.
Like you care, You're putting on your own caring.
You know why let me because I've been let down before and it frustrates me.
It's hurtful. It is hurtful what we've gone through with Jackie and Shadow. Of course it had there's been heartbreak. But listen, let's let's focus on the positive. Shall we focus on the positive? You'll get more of it. Jackie has laid an egg, y'all. Yes, Jackie in Shadow, Big Bear's beloved bald Eagle duo have laid their first egg of the season. This is a few days earlier than her first egg of twenty twenty four, which made its grand debut January twenty fifth.
Well, lo and behold.
Yesterday, January twenty second is when that egg popped out, about five pm.
Popped out.
There will be more eggs soon to come. Possibly Jackie has laid a second egg around three days after the first. Usually in past years, we don't need to tell you that Jackie and Shadow of captivated people the world over. People stay up to date on Jackie and Shadow. They watch them on YouTube moment to moment. The stream is always feeding. The signs have been building in recent weeks, guys. There have been impromptu nest visits, the moving of sticks, the cozy, amorous signs, and nearby trees.
Nearby trees.
Yeah, yes, those feelings, call them eagle sense if you will. Turned out to be correct. Jackie laid an egg yesterday afternoon. The Bird's Tea kettling was the giveaway that an egg was on its wonderful way. Tea kettling, I'm glad you ask is a term that describes the sounds made during the telltale event. Imagine a tea kettling on the stove as you get ready for that cup of tea.
That's what it.
Sounds like when an egg gets ready to squirt out as Jackie right, there's a lot of air.
Because the agg what are you talking about?
The bird doesn't whistle like a tea kettle.
That's why they call it tea kettling.
No, yeah, no, there's got to be something else. It can't whistle like a tea kettle.
I think it does. Let me see if I can pull up video of a tea kettling eagle. Yeah, well you're doing that.
I think it's taught enough up in them fires to fry an eagle egg.
Okay, that's awful.
Yes it is. I would say it's definitely out of enough.
It's it's a whistling, I'm telling you. Yeah, sounds like a tea kettle.
No, do you hear that? I do hear it, and it is not a tea kettle. Your tea kettle is broken. It just sounds like there's steam coming out.
It doesn't. There's not a whistle. Yeah, there's a whistle.
Listen, No, not listening.
Not listening.
Screens are ubiquitous now in our classrooms.
No, nobody can hear anything. No, there's no squeaking.
I don't know if it sounds like a tea kettle. Maybe the beginning of a tea kettle.
No, pretty good audio too, Why, okay, you know what, I don't know what you have against love and keep childbirth, eagle eagle.
Birth, chromebooks, YouTube, Google.
Docs, screens everywhere in our life.
Like, I'm kind of torn because I hate the kids on screens thing. But if that's the way they're learning.
Doesn't have to be.
I know.
We'll explain why even kids are upset about all of these screens.
We should have an old man slash old women woman river sounder from when we're about to sound real old.
Gary and Shannon will continue, I don't know, trying to play a video of a bird whistling while steaming or whatever you were playing.
Wow, so it's not called that.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
We did the bread. We did the fresh pasta.
My wife has done that a couple of times within the last couple of months.
Oh really, that sounds.
Good, really good.
Oh my gosh, like what kinds?
Lately it's been the carmeli kind of wow, sweet vanilla stuff, fun, really good. There are a couple of developing stories politically speaking. A judge in Seattle has blocked President Trump's attempt to rescind birthright citizenship.
We talked about that.
This is one of at least five different lawsuits that have been filed over that executive order.
But we also just heard out of.
The Senate that Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski says she will vote against Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense, talking about his past infidelity and allegations sexual assault, excessive drinking. She posted a statement on x that she had significant concerns about his nomination. This Senate is supposed to vote on cloture for the nomination today this afternoon, that is,
which would set up a final vote tomorrow. He did advance out of the Armed Services Committee on a party line vote, and he does not have a lot of votes to give if he is in fact going to be confirmed as a Secretary of Defense.
Mention the pandemic when it came to why did we make ice cream? Well, there were a number of pandemic era things that went on that have stuck with us. Whether it's wearing pajamas as we work from home, wearing pajamas in the workplace, what have you. And one of those things has been screens when it comes to learning, this move towards screens in the classroom has happened with little debate, little attention to this, and there is conflicting research.
We've got kindergarteners watching math lessons on YouTube, We've got middle schoolers completing writing drafts on our own books, high schoolers using Google Docs for group projects, and it is called the digitalization of the classroom.
Stephanie Galvani is a middle school English teacher in Boston and says COVID shifted things toward oh, we could do this, but we didn't ask should we do this?
Of course, kids love the screens, right, you see how the addiction plays out at home probably, and I'm thinking that teachers think, well, if they like the screens, if that's what they're paying attention to, maybe they'll pay attention to the assignments if we put them on the screens. I'm assuming that is the thought process, not it's easier this way.
Well, I I have spent a lot of time thinking about that, the similarities between food we eat and stuff we do with our brain, and how when we talk about our wellness segments, we talk about how you can get you know, certain nutrients from specific foods or whatever, and it's best to have a diverse you know, food palate to go from. Don't just you're not going to eat twelve steaks a day and call it good. You're not going to eat just, you know, a couple of things of broccoli and call it good.
You got to have a mix.
This almost sounds like, hey, we can get our kids to have a multi vitamin, but we're going to put it in eight ounces of sugary drink to get that the So whatever you're doing, yeah, they'll drink it. They'll take their vitamin with this you know, soda or juice or whatever that they have. But you're still giving them juice as opposed to teaching them how to make sure that. I mean, kids aren't going to pay attention to this. But how to make sure that they have a well
balanced diet. Excellent analogy.
Eighth grader Aubrey or Tis and San Anton says, I don't like having my eyes glued on a screen for a while. Gives you a headache. I lose my focus. That's the other thing. What it does for your eyesight. If you're constantly looking at a screen close up, it really does degenerate your eyes. Sach In terms of short sightedness, I noticed the ability to see things far away in definition.
So last week I didn't wear I wear glasses to read. If I read read at night, you know, if I'm laying in bed, I'll wear glasses just a little easier. It's the end of the day. I don't necessarily need them, but it just makes it easier.
Your wife is into it.
Yeah, she thinks I'm somebody else. I where I have the kind of little light mustache that ow for groucho reading glasses.
She's like, who's that?
Oh hello, I better get out before my husband gets here. But last week I didn't wear glasses at all. I'm going to wear sunglasses because it was in Arizona. But I didn't wear glasses at all when I came home. I felt better. I just felt like I didn't Uh, I had used my eyes the way they were supposed to be used.
That makes sense, yes, I mean I wasn't looking at stay.
There are muscles that you need to train to work, and I wasn't.
I wasn't looking at computer screens. I wasn't looking. I mean I had the TV on once in a while.
Part of that is also being outside. As much as you were outside, that plays a major role in how good you feel.
Overall.
The doctors and psychologists, of course, have been telling us for a long time we need to limit use of technology, that there should be strict cut off anything below you know, basically eighteen months or two years. You should not give your kids technology because it sets them up for the wrong types of It wires their brain early on for that type of quick reward that they should not be accustomed to.
It's funny when I think back to.
When you were in school and whether it was a rainy day or maybe the teacher was hungover, I don't know, but they would wheel in the big boxy TV and you would get to watch a VHS movie whatever it was PG rated right, And I remember thinking this is so cool and thinking like, oh my god, this is so cool. We'll get to watch like a movie or whatever. But at the same time, something in mean new, isn't this just a waste of time? Like shouldn't I be doing something I don't want to do?
Like learning.
We had a teacher who was a huge sports guy. Huge loved basketball was his thing specifically, but he loved all sports. And he would roll in the movie projector that's sixteen milimeters projector, and he would throw on an NFL film's film.
What a wonderful man.
And if you were.
Good, like if you stayed in your seat, you didn't talk, you didn't make noise, he would play it backwards at the end, so not only did you get to watch a twelve fifteen minute movie or whatever it was, if you were well behaved, he would restring that thing. Or he wouldn't let it run all the way through and he would just run it in reverse, which was funny because you know, guys dropped the ball and the wide receiver throws the ball back to the quarterback and stuff.
Like lazys totally wow, I mean, that's next level.
My dad did that kind of stuff.
He was a fourth grade teacher fifth sixth grade at times, and he was a big proponent of dittos and a lot of screen time. He would play Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. The kids loved it. He played it year after year. But he also would be the first to admit, Eh, probably could have given it. Could have given like a worksheet or something like that.
All right, up next, a lot's going on when it comes to politics. Right now, we'll update you what's happening with the Trump interview from last night, but also a couple of big things, the decision about birthright citizenship and this announcement today that Lisa Murkowski says she's not voting for Pete Hegseeth for Defense Secretary.
Gary and Shannon will continue, ooh, you want to give out some money right now? I'd love to well late, but better than never. Here's your chance at one thousand dollars.
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