You're listening to KFI 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. It's time for your morning wake up call. Here's Amy Kig. Is it really time? It is? Because it's five o'clock. This is your wake up call for Wednesday, November fifteenth. Good morning, I'm Amy King. I slept good last night. My alarm went off and I was like, dang, I didn't wake up ten times last night. I hope you
had a good night sleep. Maybe it's because the rain is coming, and I know that that's going to be very soothing. We're actually expecting light rain to start following this morning, more rain this afternoon, and then rain off and on, about one to three inches total between now and Saturday. Here's what's ahead on wake Up Call. La bass is urging commuters who normally take the ten freeway in downtown LA to avoid the areas crews work to repair the
fire damage. Freeway repairs are expected to take three to five weeks. Governor Newsom says Cruise will be working twenty four to seven to get those lanes reopen. The House has passed a stopgap bill that will prevent a government shut down. The House voted in favor of the Republican plan to fund some departments until mid January and the rest through early February at current spending levels. Bill now heads to the Senates, where it does have bipartisan support. Inflation is held
steady from September to October. That's the first time there hasn't been a month to month increase in more than a year. Several sectors are down, price of gas down, appliance is down, autos down, same for airfares, hotel rooms, and doctor fees. The news could be a signal there's no longer a need for the Fed to raise interest rates again. At six oh five, it's handle on the news. Israeli troops and tanks have launched a
targeted operation against tomas at the largest hospital complex in the Gaza Strip. Let's get started with some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. A section of the ten freeway damaged by fire in downtown La is expected to reopen in three to five weeks. No Unter Newsom said he was relieved to hear the results of Core samples taken from deep within the upper deck of the freeway. We've continued to assess the samples. The preliminary sample results
were very positive. Newsom said yesterday. If the freeway needed to be demolished, it could have been closer to six months before it was done. Newsom said the property was being leased by Apex Development out of Calabasas and was in breach of their lease. He said the company's also in breach of its lease on four other sites nearby. Steve Gregory k Fine News. The freeway closure
has commuters turning to public transit. Metrole had an increase of six hundred riders from the Inland Empire on Monday. This woman says she began using the rail system after a painfully long drive from La to Chino Hills two hours or more. I can't, I didn't. I didn't track it then anymore because it's just Metrolink has added trains and added cars to those trains to increase capacity. The rail service says it could make even more additions if needed. In Covina
Blake Trolley kaf I News. For more information on the closure of the ten Freeway, you can check out KFIAM six forty dot com slash Freeway. Firefighters in Orange County have had to deal with another flare up at a fire burning a massive blimp hagar at the former test and airbase. It happened around seven last night. The fire has been burning for over a week now. A local state of emergency has been declared and schools were closed. Some are going
to reopen today. The EPA says asbestos will be present as long as hotspots continue to burn, and will be present in any debris. The Israeli military says its soldiers are conducting a targeted operation at Alshifa Hospital, which is the largest hospital complex in Gaza City. Hundreds of medical staffers, patients, and
civilians have been taking shelter at the hospital. The Hamas run Health Ministry claims dozens of soldiers were inside the emergency department as Israeli forces search the hospital's basement. ABC's Justin Finch says news of the Israeli operation followed an announcement from the White House that it had information a Moss and other militants and Gaza use tunnels
underneath hospitals, including Al Shifa, to hide in and keep hostages. Health officials in the US have worn doctors to look out for possible cases of lead poisoning in children. The CDC says at least twenty two toddlers in fourteen states have become sick by lead linked to tainted pouches of cinnamon, apple puree and apple sauce. It says at least one toddler had a blood level eight times higher than the level that raises concern. The CDC said Monday, there is
no safe level of lead exposure. People in the metro area in Denver maybe noticing loud Christmas music blaring in parking lots. It's not to spread holiday cheer, but to reduce crime and loitering. The music is played on a loop and it's designed to annoy and discourage people from hanging out in areas they're not welcome. Business owners say, so far, it seems to be working,
as they're getting fewer customer complaints about criminal activity and loitering. Let's say good morning now to ABC's Karen Travers. Karen, the big meeting is today between the President Shijingping and President Biden. What are we expecting? Yeah, I mean, the White House is really going to great lengths to manage the expectations for this summit to trying to downplay expectations of a major breakthrough, saying this
is all about restoring communications and having face to face diplomacy. One thing the President does want to see though, is restoring military to military communications. It's the top priority for the president. China had frozen those military communications in August of twenty twenty two, after then help speaker names to Pelosi visited Taiwan.
China claims that island as a territory, and so the president would like to see those two ties restored because, as National Security resid Jake Sullivan put it, having the militaries and munication is how you reduced some mistakes. It's how you avoid escalation and how you manage competition so it doesn't veer into conflicts.
Can I ask you real quick what military to military communications? That just means no, China and there are direct ties between the two militaries, so they can literally like pick up the phone and have direct contact between defense secretaries and secretaries over there. There are no connections right now between the two countries like that, all right, and so and you you mentioned that those broke down like a year ago after Pelosi went to Taiwan, and that ticked off the
Chinese and they just stopped, stopped picking up the phone. Yeah, they cut it off. And so that this is something that the President would like to see restored today after the conversations with President g because you know, look at what's happened in the last year with some provocations by the Chinese military against the US military, the Chinese by balloon incidents earlier this year. Those are things that could have tipped over into significant escalation. And this is where the
two countries were not having those military to military communications. Okay, so they're going to sit down, but they're not having an official meeting like at the APEX summit. It's on the sidelines, just technically between the two of them. It is a separate summit on the sidelines at a different location about an hour south of San Francisco. They're going to meet for a couple of hours. The President's going to have a press conference solo afterwards. But many weeks
have gone into the planning and preparations and the choreography of this summit. No detail have been left to chance. There's a lot of planning, very meticulous, especially pushed by the Chinese for how this is going to look, who's going to pull up first, how the president will greet she when he arrives. This is all very very detailed, and we will get to see that in a couple of hours. Okay, and after the summit, what's next.
I know you said that they're trying to downplay expectations, but there's got to be some hope coming out of that besides just re establishing those military to military communications. Well, they're really not saying what they would like to see as a deliberable as they put it in diplomatic speak, they are going to great lengths to say they want to see the president's talk and let those conversations
take place. They're not going into this saying, you know, here are the five things that we want the president to walk away from this summit having accomplished. They want to let the conversations happen. They want to see what
can come out of it. But again I'm going to say, the big agenda that they have on tap for today though, includes Russia's war against Ukraine, the Israel Hamas war, managing economic competition between the US and China, and of course they'll be talking about Iran and regional stability in the Middle East.
So much to talk about. So here's my big question. Are they going to talk about the pandas China took their darn PANDAA Yeah, the question came up yesterday the really briefing we had on Air Force one about the bandas you know, White House said they're very sad to see the pandas go. Not clear that would be brought up in conversation, but yeah, and that
was the last of the right. I guess there's one more zoo that has pandas, but it was a very sad day the other day when the pandas left the National Zoo in Washington. All Right, thank you so much Karen for keeping track of everything, watching it for us, and we'll look forward to seeing what comes out of this one. He's a great day. Thanks you too. Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. The House has passed Speaker Mike Johnson's funding bill
to avert a government shutdown. The bill passed three thirty six to ninety five yesterday, with many Republicans refusing to support more spending. Our economic outlook has been downgraded not because Congress was looking for a Speaker of the House, but because Congress has refused to take seriously the fiscal outlook of this country. Florida Congressman Byron Donald says there's still plenty of work to do when it comes to
the House Freedom Caucus's goal of reducing government debt. The bill will go to President Biden to be signed into law Friday, but first has to pass the Senate, where it is expected to pass. A lawyer claims the security guard at Baldwin Park High School allowed a female student to get beat up in a girl's restaurant. This conduct is reprehensible, shocking, evil, and potentially criminal. Lawyer Brian Claypole says the female student ended up with multiple injuries, including
a fractured nose. We have a video that shows the security guard for the school standing there with a smirk on his face watching the entire fight. I mean, this is as shocking as it gets in a high school. The family filed a precursor to a lawsuit tied to the attack last month. Baldwin Park School District says it can't comment on pending litigation. In La Corbin Carson
kf I News. The Pasadena Police Department has confirmed it was high school students who stole the belongings of Colorado football players during a game against UCLA at the Rose Bowl. Colorado Buffs head coach Dan Sanders says the kids shouldn't be crucified for a mistake, because we were to really do a role call the mistakes at the age of seventeen eighteen in here, I'm sure everybody would tip out
of here with the head down like we're in church. Okay. Sanders says the rest of the kids' lives and opportunities should not be ruined because of a dumb mistake. Willy say they've recovered and returned most of the items stolen last month. It was about twenty two thousand dollars worth of stuff. A hockey player in Britain has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter for the death of a
US hockey player whose neck was cut with a skate. ABC's Derek Dennis's Minnesota native Adam Johnson, was killed last month while playing for the Nottingham Panthers. Urga collision, an opposing player's leg goes up and his skate appears to slice Johnson's neck. He later died at the hospital. Tributes to Johnson have been held in Pennsylvania. His death has already prompted change. Neck guards will soon
be mandatory for hockey players in England. A church in Riverside County that provides thousands of free meals on Thanksgiving is asked for volunteers to help with deliveries. The Central Community Christian Fellowship says the meals go to the home homeless, seniors, families in need, and those who will be alone on the holiday. It says anyone interested in lending a hand next week can email office Centralcommunity dot
com Office Centralcommunity dot com. So how do you feel about cockroaches? Generally you want to keep them out right, But a pest control company in North Carolina is offering homeowners twenty five hundred dollars to release cockroaches into their homes. Okay, it makes my skin crawl with that. So it's being done so the company can test the effectiveness of a specific pest control technique. So if you're picked, which you won't because you're in North Carolina and you're unless you're
listening on the iHeartRadio app in North Carolina, that would be cool. You have to live in your home for approximately thirty days with the cockroaches in your home. The company assures that if the test doesn't work and their method doesn't get rid of those one hundred cockroaches roaming around in your house, that they will resort to traditional cockroach treatment options if the new technique fails to eliminate the infestation. I don't know if I feel but good about that or not.
Here's another thing I wanted to mention really quick, because we're heading into the holidays and you spend time with friends and family, and there's a new study out that says the average person spends four hours a month socializing with friends. More than twenty five percent spend less time in person with friends this year compared to last year. Most pronounced among millennials between the ages of twenty five and thirty four, with thirty seven percent are struggling to find time to spend with
their pals. What do they say? The reasons are at distance, busy work, schedules, family commitments. That sounds familiar, right. More than one intent admitted to wanting to share quiet time when they're with their best friend over their partners. Yeah, so anyway, days are coming up, make some time, spend time with friends. I think it's good for the soul.
Traffic on surface streets wasn't exactly gridlocked, but officials say downtown LA saw a nearly fifteen percent increase in traffic through yesterday's commuters tried to get around the closure of the ten. Officials are urging people to work from home or take public transportation, as the freeway and connectors to it remained close for the next three to five weeks for repairs from last weekend's fire. The first big storm
of the rainy season is moving in. Light rains expected to begin following falling this morning, with heavier rain this afternoon. Forecasters are calling for off and on showers through Friday and possibly Saturday. Consumers are buying fewer toys as they continue to struggle with inflation. Retail experts say retailers anticipated lower demand and ordered fewer toys than for past holiday seasons. Barbie dolls, transformers, and hot
wheels are still top of children's wishless this year. At six oh five's handle on the news, the houses paths a stopgap measure to keep the government running, and they had like three days to spare. That's big news right now. Let's say good morning to KTLA tech reporter and host of Rich on Tech. Right here on KFI, it's Rich Demiro. Good morning, Rich, Good morning to Amy. So wanted to talk about how Android and Apple may
finally be kind of coming together and stopping the text message war. Yeah, it's really kind of a pain, and especially for young people, the teenagers in the world that have to deal with this because they have to get an iPhone because I Message is king at their school. So this startup named Nothing I know, it's a funny name for a phone startup, but they made a great phone this year called the Nothing two phone. That's the brand out of London. They said, you know what, enough is enough. We
are going to make I Message available on our Android phone. So they are introducing a new app that basically lets you log in with your Apple ID and we'll give you blue bubbles across Android and iPhone because imagining that some people have green bubbles and some people have blue like people. Oh yeah, it's such
a thing and it's so annoying that people even care about this. But it's really Apple that is breaking this entire system because they refuse to adopt what's called RCS, which is a much more modern version of SMS, which would make all phones act the same. But anyway, as you can imagine, Apple probably does not like this idea. So we'll see what happens with this. But it's a nice it's getting them some publicity. Let's put it that way.
It's getting this nothing phone some publicity. All right, can't we all just get along? That's what I want to know. Okay, So Apple, speaking of, has just passed its one year anniversary of the Emergency SOS over satellite system. What's the latest on that. So, with all the grief that I give Apple for the I message stuff, they do a lot of nice things and this is one of them. It's called Emergency SOS via
satellite. This was introduced last year on the iPhone fourteen. It's also on the iPhone fifteen, and it means when you are out of range of cellular, your phone will look thousands of miles into the sky and find a satellite to send your help request through. And that way you can directly connect with nine one one. You can get triple a assistance whatever you need, even if you don't have a cellular connection, and millions of people have this built
into their iPhone fourteen and fifteen. Apple said originally they were going to give it to users free for two years. They're now extending that one more year for iPhone fourteen users. So basically pretty much most people keep their phones for three to four years, so for almost the whole life of that phone, people will have free use of this emergency SOS via satellite feature. As I said, like after that time, how much it's gonna cost? Good question.
This is why you're paid the big bucks, because that's what you wonder, right. No, Apple has not said a word, and I don't think Apple can because here's the thing, Amy could you imagine the first time that someone has this on their phone but they didn't pay for it, and now they're stranded or die. I mean, it would be a pr nightmare for Apple. So they need to figure out how to price this and how to make it work no matter what, and affordable for everyone that has an
iPhone. I think we're paying enough for those iPhones. They should just include it forever for free. I would agree with that, but I mean yes, and Apple has made a note of how much they've spent on this service. It is a lot. They have invested millions upon millions of dollars. Here's what I think. I think that no matter what, if you are in an emergency situation, you should be able to use it for a one
time fee of whatever. Because if you were stuck with the broken ankle, like the girl I interviewed, you'd pay fifteen bucks to use this one time. Yeah. That's a good idea, all right. So Chuck E Cheese made a big announcement this this week or last in the last week, and it wasn't about their bad pizza. It was about like their animatronics, the bands. Why does everyone say Chuck E Cheese has such bad pizza. I think they've changed it. So I remember I had my kid's birthday party there
six years ago. I'm trying to remember if I liked the pizza. I always liked the case there anyway. So I was here on the big announcement night at the north Ridge Chuck E Cheese, where I was very surprised to find that they're doing away with all of the animatronics, which is really really sad for people like me that grew up with these, but they are keeping
them at the one location in the world, Northridge Chuck E Cheese. Don't ask me why they chose the north Ridge location, but they will have munches. Make believe band stay there permanently. They gave it a kind of a little facelift, like the band is looking very fresh and new and clean. Yeah, and this will be a place where you can go and see this band apparently forever, as long as it stays open. So Chuck E Cheese
is a new destination in Northridge. Well, yes, it's always. Yes, it'll be when people come to LA I guarantee you they will make a stop. The parents will drag their kids there because the kids, you know, they're good with their iPad nowadays, do they still have the ballpits? So no ballpits? You know? They went through tubes, you know those
like two did you crawl through? Oh? Yeah. And the new thing they're doing amy they're going to start installing trampolines, which I think is a nightmare as a parent, but I mean, I guess that's good for kids moving around. Okay, Yeah, we'll see. Okay. So you can find out more about all of this and a whole lot more on rich On Tech right here on KFI Saturdays from eleven am to two pm, and you can follow Rich on Instagram at rich on tech is website is richon tech dot
tv. Thanks Rich, Thanks Amy. Have a great day. All right, Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom following hike after hike, the Federal Reserve could start making deep cuts in interest rates coming spring. A new estimate from UBS Investment Bank says cuts easy inflation could pave the way for a two point seventy five percent decrease
in the interest rate over a year. The bank also predicted the US economy would go into a recession by next year's second quarter, and that would enable a rate cut. Good news or bad news? Not sure? I'm unaccused of a mass shooting, and Colletto, in which ten people were killed at a supermarket, is pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Yesterday's plea means
a person's mental health prevents them from understanding right from wrong. When a crime is committed, the guy's charged with murder and multiple counts of attempted murder. Police say the first eight people killed in twenty twenty one died within sixty nine seconds. Republican Congressman Tim Burchett has accused former Speaker Kevin McCarthy of elbowing him from behind. Burchette says he stopped in a hallway yesterday to talk with reporters
when McCarthy bumped him as he passed. Burchette claims it was deliberate and he exchanged words with McCartney. The former or McCarthy the former speaker, denied elbowing Burchette on purpose. I did not run and hit the guy. I did not kidney punch him. I did not shoot anything like that. He didn't shop. No. The lawmaker from Tennessee is one of the eight Republicans who
voted to remove McCarthy from the speakership. LA Mayor bass is urgent commuters who normally take the ten freeway through downtown LA to avoid the area duh work to repair the fire damage. Freeway repairs are expected to take three to five weeks. Governor Newsom says Cruise are going to be working twenty four to seven to get those lanes reopened. Presidents Biden and Xijingping will meet today on the sidelines
of the APEX Summit in San Francisco. The White House says Biden is planning to talk about some tough issues was she, including trade, Beijing's relationship with Iran, and human rights concerns. The two leaders last spoke a year ago. Sales of electric vehicles have slowed way down. Car Guru says EV inventories on car lots are of five hundred percent from last year. Despite incentives, many say the price of an electric veal is a vehicle is still just too
high. At six oh five, it's handle on the news twenty three MS. Thirteen gang members have been busted for allegedly trafficking meth. At five point fifty. We're going to be talking to ABC Stephen Portnoy, Capitol Hills kind of turning into fight club. We'll be talking about that. But right now, Amy it on it? What am I on? I'm on lots of streaming shows, movies, TV shows, documentaries, sometimes even books. In fact, I'm reading one right now, but I'm probably gonna tell you about
real quickly. But you know, there's so much content out there, like how do you know what to choose? And it doesn't even mean like new releases. Sometimes it's old stuff that's come out that people just miss. Like, we talked about Billions last last week and I got a really nice note on Instagram at Amy K King invite you to follow me, and he said, I've never even heard of Billions, and so he went and watched it and now he's hooked it. I'm like, dude, you got seven seasons,
go for it. So this week, though, we're talking about something from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's Lokey. Tom Hiddleston is Lokey, and then our favorite guy from Everything Everywhere, all at once he wa Kwon. He's in it too. So this is two seasons on Disney, plus the full seasons are now out. And it starts when Loki steals the Tesserak, which happens during the Avengers movie, and he gets the attention of the TVA, which is the Time Variant Authority I believe, so in the timeline of
MC eight happens during Avengers, which you also see an Avengers endgame. So it's a little bit confusing because they're jumping around in time. But if you know about the MCA, you can watch it. Enjoy this even if you haven't seen all the Avengers movies. So the god of Myss just finds himself in the Time Variance Authority after he basically may messes with what they call the Sacred Timeline, and there's basically this authority that makes sure that people don't mess
up the timeline and basically screw up people for the rest of eternity. And so Loki is labeled as a variant variant, which is basically a criminal who threatens to mess things up as they're supposed to happen. The story is really intriguing, really interesting. It's fun to watch. The storyline is strong. I like it because there's character development as Loki, who's a notorious bad boy,
struggles with being bad and then finding good in himself too. And unlike the movie The Marvels, which again fun to look at, but there just wasn't a whole lot of content there, this story is really fun and entertaining. There's action, but not too much. There are time jumps, which is kind of standard fair in the MCU, and because it's a series, they don't have to cram everything into two hours. This is the series really has times time to breathe, and the characters can develop and they can fall,
and they can get up again and they can evolve. And I would say that Loki is a great watch, one of the best stories in the end to come out of the MCU in quite a while, because I think that they've they've been struggling a bit, but Loki really good. And my nephew, who is a big MCU fan, it gets two thumbs up from him. So there you have it. Let's get back to some of the
stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Governor news says core samples from deep inside a section of the ten Freeway in downtown LA show the damage from the fire last week wasn't bad enough to force the demolition of the freeway. Newsom says Cruise are working to shore up the areas that were damaged. That shoring work will continue twenty four to seven and it will allow us to reopen for traffic the I ten in a matter of weeks. The estimate
currently is three to five weeks. Newsom said yesterday. If the freeway had needed to be demolished, it could have been six months before it reopened. Thank goodness for small favors. Right For more information on the freeway closure, you can check out KFI Am six forty dot com slash freeway. And here's something not so fun that happened during that fire. A driver who was forced to abandon his car as the fire burned on the ten has been charged to
towing fee to get his car back. The twenty year old says he was trapped and was hearing explosions early Saturday morning, so he and dozens of other drivers got out of their cars and ran off. We'll see HPA the car toad and the guy says it cost him more than one thousand dollars to get the car back. The typical homeowner in the US needs to make one hundred and seven thousand dollars to buy a home. That's twenty two percent higher than
a year ago, the largest increase on record. And that's less than half which you need to make in LA. Redfinn said in twenty twenty two, So not even this year's numbers, you needed to make more than two hundred twenty thousand dollars a year to afford to buy a median home in LA. For the average family in the US, median income is about seventy five thousand
dollars a year. The National Association of realtors reports has buying a home has become much more difficult for people as mortgage rates surge over the past two years and home prices continue to go up because inventory is low. So the question is is now a good time to buy? So we dug a little into that, and real estate investors say that now is actually still a good time to buy. And this is why the big one is because real estate keeps
more of its value than other investments like stocks gets high. The Federal Reserve reports the median value of a house jumped forty four percent between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty two, so if you bought something, the value of visit up
is up. And He's A chief investment officer at Creative Planning said in a low growth, high inflationary environment, real estate is still a strong investment and says that even in bad times, financial experts say they are advising clients to consider buying a home, even with prices at all time highs and mortgage rates really high. If you can afford it, good luck. I would buy one if I could. I have one in Portland. I can't afford to buy one here, so time to talk swifties. I know that Nick is
a Swifty fan, but not a maybe not a super fan. But yeah, I'm a swiftly acquaintance fan. If that's it. Okay. So here's here's one thing you could do, or maybe your kids could do if you want to spend a bunch of money. Uh, They're gonna let you go cruising with Swifties. It's a Taylor Swift themed cruise. The travel agency Marvelous Mouse Travels is organizing the in my Cruise era it's a Royal Caribbean cruise setting
I knows era. Yeah, come on, okay, setting sail in October of twenty twenty four from Miami. Are you gonna go for my birthday? Amy? Is that what I'm hearing? Oh? I don't know if I could do that, but they okay, but maybe uh join us as we celebrate all things Taylor, make new friends, dress up in our favorite eras, trade friendship bracelets, and enjoy everything this amazing ship has to offer. It holds fifty five hundred people at double occupancy, So that's a lot of
Swifty fans. But that's not even a tenth of like the ones the people that went to see her at Sofi So maybe it doesn't say how much it costs. But it's a four night cruise hosted by fans four fans, but Taylor is not involved with it and isn't expected to be there. Seems like a lot of money to trade friendship be bracely Yeah, no, no, no, no, yeah. I'm like, if I'm not getting the you know Travis Kelcey or you know Taylor rolling in, I'm out. Yeah.
If they were going to stop by, like helicopter in for a short show, I'd do that. Maybe, I know I wouldn't every down, No, you do it because then like they I mean, they got a helicopter out, so at least it'd be a captive bodience. Yep, okay, okay, Now here's the other one. Taylor is taking over Christmas. It's now called Mary Swift. Miss she's got I know, I know, she's everywhere. God love her and you know, much to her success, and she does love her fans and takes care of her fans. But they put
out a line of ornaments. You can get ornaments that are from the ten eras, so if you are total swiftye and you really want to buy all of them, there are sixty ornaments. They range in price from fifteen to twenty five dollars. If you wanted to buy them, all would be twelve hundred and forty dollars, which is about what you paid for a concert ticket. Right, of course it's an ornament. So they went for up for sale. The site was immediately crashed down for an hour. Okay, So
here's what I got to say. How do we get a wake up call eras edition something and get in on this swiftiness we're missing out. I don't know. I'll let you research that a little bit. Oh no, come on, buddy, let's get this done. And if you're thinking of Taylor Swift something for Christmas, you're not alone. Almost ten percent of Americans planned
to buy a Taylor Swift related gift this Christmas, just a thought. Traffic on surface streets wasn't gridlocked, but officials say downtown LA saw a nearly fifteen percent increase in traffic as commuters tried to get around the closure of the ten Freeway. Official still urging people to work from home or take public transportation for the next three to five weeks until repairs from last weekends fire are complete and
the roadway's reopened. The Lacitc count approved the construction of a controversial sports complex and studio. City Harvard Westlake High School is going to demolish the Weddington golf and tennis facilities and replace it with an athletic and recreational facility that neighbors say would impact parking and traffic and increase noise. Consumers are buying fewer toys as they continue to struggle with inflation. Retail experts say retailers anticipated lower demand and
ordered fewer toys than for the past holiday seasons. Barbie dolls, transformers, and hot wheels are on the top of children's wishless this year's We're just minutes away from handle on the news and other effort to kick former President Trump off the ballot has failed. Right now, let's say good morning too, ABC's national correspondents Stephen port Noise, Stephen Capitol Hills looking more like a scene from
fight Club. A couple of ugly scenes yesterday in the Capital, involving Republicans getting into it with one another, it seems, and a Republican senator trying to get into it with a labor leader. Let's talk about the first incident that happened in the basement of the Capitol yesterday involving the former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. And it happened as a Republican Tennessee congressman named Tim Burchett was being interviewed
by an NPR reporter. Now, Burchett happens to be one of the eight Republicans voted to aust McCarthy early last month, And as the reporter was speaking with Burchett, all of a sudden, you hear on the audio tape, Burchette stops talking. The reporter says that Burchette lunged toward her just as Kevin McCarthy was brushing past him. The reporter says that she saw McCarthy essentially shove Burchette. Burchette says that the former speaker elbowed him from behind to his kidneys.
He says it was deliberate. Now McCarthy denies this, but Burchette, you hear on the audio tape, is confronted by McCarthy in the moment. He says, why did you elbow me in the back? Kevin? You're pathetic Again, The former speaker later insisted he didn't do it. Now,
on the other side, of the Capitol. In the middle of a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, or the Help Committee, chaired by Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Oklahoma, Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen got into it with the head of the Teamsters, a man named Sean O'Brien, and it started with Mullen reading some of the social media posts that Sean O'Brien is made of late about the Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, that he's
pretending to be a self made man, that he's a clown, and then Mullen quoted a post in which the teamster's chief told him to pick a time and a place for a fight. The Senator said, we could be too consenting adults, settle it right here, and the labor leader said, okay, that's fine, perfect, and when Mullen stood up, the hearing devolved
into chaos, shouting and screaming. Bernie Sanders tried to cool things down, reminding the senator that he's a member of the most august lawmaking body in the country, perhaps the world, and the two men seemed to agree that they should settle their conversation over coffee rather than a fight in the middle of a Senate hearing and wait, there's more. Well, to the extent that there's
more. This was not something that got a lot of attention yesterday. But there was another incident involving Congressman Comber, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, and another member of that committee alleging something about the personal finances of Comer. This has to do with the fact that Comer wants to get into the finances of the Biden family. This was not something that achieved the spotlight the way
that the McCarthy and mullen episodes did. Yeah, and that was with Comer, and he was calling out Representative Jaron Moskowitz for questioning his dealings with his family. So the tensions are they just in general because you're there are tensions just super super high around the Capitol and just kind of coming out or what is what could be fueling this? I mean, look, it's emblematic I
think of the lack of civility in America. Yeah, and it's most unfortunate because we tend to think that we are more enlightened and more civilized, that we have agreed amongst ourselves to settle our disputes at the ballot box and have our elected representatives settle their disputes in roll call votes. And there, of course have been times in our history where things have been ugly, far uglier
than what we saw yesterday, but this ranks among the ugly moments. And we can laugh it off and say it's like a tailor switch song, and we can joke that it's it's all games, but it's not. Yeah, you know, I used to you said that it used to happen in the past. And I was watching some show yesterday and they were talking about, oh, well, back in the seventeen hundreds, so and so got beat up, and I was like, yeah, but that was like three hundred,
you know, three hundred years ago. But you know, is that the during the founding of our government. It's then Now we're supposed to be more evolved and more i don't know, respectful of others, and it seems to be devolving into the other direction. And same thing like with Parliament in Britain, like they fight and yell and scream at each other all the time,
but that didn't used to happen here. Well, I mean, look, yes, a lot of things used to happen here, but the idea that in twenty twenty three, at a time of rapid advancement and communications and technology and the way we share information, the idea that it's taken us to a place where we are so angry and that anger can spill over is really quite awful to think about. You know. Earlier this week there was National Kindness Day. I don't think anybody took it to heart. All right,
So we'll see what happens next. But yeah, can't we all just behave ourselves, especially like Bernie Sanders said, you are a US senator and kind of yelled at the guy. I'm like, you know what, that's justified. Knock it off. Guys. Thank you so much, Steven Portino. We appreciate the information today. You all right, let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four our newsroom. The PCH
Task Force is trying to improve road safety. Following the deaths of four Pepperdine University students killed in Malibu last month, a special meeting was called to lay out a plan to better protect the over fifteen million people who travel the twenty one mile stretch of highway each year. LA County Sheriff's Department Captain Jennifer C. Two says this year alone, the statistics on PCH and Malibu have been alarming. Three thousand, three hundred and thirty four collisions, forty nine fatal
collisions that resulted in fifty three decks. The city said yesterday it's collaborating with Caltrans to rework PCH, lower speed limits, and potentially add speed cameras in Malibu. Chris Adler KFI News LA has kick started an initiative to address what officials say is an epidemic of copper theft by cracking down on metal recyclers.
City Attorney Heidi Feldstein announced yesterday that letters have been sent to nearly seven hundred recyclers warning they must comply with state laws requiring to keep records of all sales. Sellers must also wait three days to receive payment. Feldstein says copper thieves rely on recyclers who violate state law. A record number of people from southern California are expected to travel for Thanksgiving. Triple A says about four point six
million people will be on the move. That's a three percent increase from last year's record. It says most travelers will be driving to their destinations. This is KFI and KOSTHD two Los Angeles, Orange County, live from the KFI twenty four hour Newsroom. I'm Amy King. This has been your wake up call. If you missed any of wake Up Call, you can always listen anytime on the iHeart Radio 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.