CES 2024 is Here!

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 King. Good Tuesday morning to you. It is five o'clock. This is your wake up call for Tuesday, January ninth. I'm Amy King. Thanks for getting your day started with us today. I've got my coffee. I had a double dose today. I see Kno has his two Good boy. What would we

do without coffee? Have you ever tried to quit coffee? I actually just recently started coffee. Oh, you just recently started coffee? Actually I started here. I tried to quit it once, well, probably more than once. But you get used to the caffeine and you get these nasty caffeine headaches as you go through withdraws. Not hurt them, not worth it. Just give me more coffee. Good to go. Here's what's ahead on wake up

call. Oh, I want to mention I had a good night's sleep last night, did you, Because guess it wasn't windy last night, at least not by my house. It was the first night and so many nights, and I was just like, ah, you know that calm app that has has the background noise, it's supposed to be very soothing. When the winds

are blowing like they have been. That's not soothing. It's almost panicky for me because, like I said, I feel like the roof is going to come off, or the doors are going to come swinging open, something like that. Anyway, hope you had a good night rest too. Here is what is ahead on wake up call. Huntington Beach taxpayers could be on the hook for millions of dollars in fines if the city loses its fight with Sacramento

over its refusal to build thousands of new housing units. Huntington Beach calls the mandate unrealistic and government overreach. Huntington Beach could face one hundred thousand dollars in fines every month if it is not in compliance. Secretary of State Antony Blincoln is meeting with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv. It's part of the US effort

to prevent the Israel Hamas War from spreading further in the region. It's Blinken's fourth trip to the Middle East since Hamas massacred and kidnapped Israelis On October seventh, California State Controller says most of Shoheo Tani's seven hundred million dollars salary with the Dodgers is going to be referred at least or deferred at least ten years.

We know that, but the controller says that could mean that shohe could go back to Japan and not have to pay California income taxes on that money. Malia Cohen says the current tax system allows for these kinds of deferrals primarily to the wealthy, and is asking Congress to change the laws so everyone has to pay. At six oh five, it's handle on the news. Former President Trump has headed to court to argue that he is immune from prosecution because

he was president. Let's get started with some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Alaska and United Airlines have reported finding loose parts in panels or door plugs on some other Boeing seven thirty seven to nine Max jets. The fuselage portions are all made in the same factory and then ship by rail to Seattle, and then the final assembly of the airplanes is there, so there are a number of different places and points in the assembly

process where this should have been caught if there was a defect. ABC's News aviation analyst John Nance this Federal investigators are looking into whether four bolts that were supposed to help hold a panel in place on a flight from Portland, Ontario, last week, might have been missing. When the plane took off, the door plug ripped a hole in the fuselage about sixteen thousand feet up. Boeing has called an online meeting for all employees today to talk about safety.

The LAPD says a group of pro Palestinian protesters have defaced the entrance to a national cemetery in West la. Police say the group spray painted the words free Gaza on the concrete walls, along with an upside down red triangle on Saturday afternoon. The group also blocked a portion of Wiltshore Boulevard from the four h five to Glendon Avenue. The group chanted long Live Palestine from the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free, and Biden, Biden, You're a

liar. The LAPED says there were no reports of injuries and no arrests made, though it is a violation of state and federal law to deface a memorial, tomb, monument or marker in a national cemetery. Steve Gregor KFI News. An explosion at an historic hotel in Texas is injured at least twenty one people. Fort Worthfire Department spokesman Craig Trojicek says the Sandman Signature hotel had been

under construction but was fully operational. He says the explosion yesterday was caused by a gathlek, but they're still looking into what happened based on our characteristics of the explosion. At this time, we had been working in collaboration with the ATF, the FBI, with r R and Bomb Division as well. He says. Some people got trapped in the basement. When found by rescue crews, one person was in critical condition. A driver who crashed into an exterior

gate of the White House has been taken to custody the Secret Services. It's investigating the cause of last night's crash. Right now, let's say good morning too, Mike Dubuski, who must be like a kid in the candy store today as CES kicks off in Las Vegas. Yeah, that's right. So CES obviously the big tech conference that kicks off every year for the tech community.

You know, tech firms from around the world congregating in Las Vegas to show off like consumer facing products, but also like more flights of fancy, more concepts and prototypes and kind of the ideas about where each of these particular companies think that their sliver of the industry is going. So a lot to get into. There's been a bunch of keynotes already from TV manufacturers and car

makers and gad enthusiasts and what have you. So, yeah, stuff from all across the tech space today, So let's get into some of them. Let's start with the car makers. What are we going to get to see this year? Yeah, so a couple different car announcements. Yesterday, Volkswagen

made a pretty interesting AI announcement with relation to its upcoming cars. You might not think about artificial intelligence and cars immediately, but Volkswagen says that starting later this year, Chat GPT is going to be integrated into its cars virtual assistant. So you might be familiar amy with like Siri or Google Assistant or those those systems are often pretty hard to talk to. They interesting, I have

no communication with that thing. Yes, So interestingly enough, the idea behind art some you know in the artificial intelligence space have is that, like, artificial intelligence can make those systems a lot easier to talk to. Right, You're not going to be limited to saying certain words and phrases and then the thing doesn't hear you and you got to repeat yourself. Like. These are designed to be very natural sounding language, right, They're trained on human language

and they're meant to mimic human language. So Volkswagen says that it's virtual assistant, which comes baked into some of its cars. It's called IDA, is going to be using chat GPT going forward, which means that you'll be able to have a pretty natural, float, free flowing conversation with your car. You can say hey, I'm cold, and it will turn on the heat for you. You can say hey, take me home and it will put your home address into the GPS for you. And VW says you can even

ask it non car related questions. So if you want to ask your passat what the capital of France's you can probably do that with this. But amy, the thing that's hanging over all of this with relation to Volkswagen is whether these systems are fully baked, right, We've seen these systems get things wrong before they've hallucinated, They've given incorrect answers or just weird answers in some cases.

If I'm asking my car to take me home, I wanted to take me to my home, not somebody else's home, I know, So think about that, like, because I'm still scared of AI. I know I'm not supposed to be, but I am. And like when the machines take over, what if you tell it to take you home and then you try to turn the wheel and it's like, nope, we're going this way.

So I think it's important to draw a line between the sort of mechanics of these vehicles and the chat GPT side of this vehicle because this seems to be baked into the infotainment screen. Right, your voice assistant isn't in control of the car really in any substantive way, not at least not at this stage, right, Like, this is Volkswagen's kind of just experimenting with this again. This is what CES is for. It's to sort of try out new

things and see how people react to it. So, yeah, it's not like, you know, the robots are necessarily gonna you know, have any control of your vehicle necessarily just kind of you your GPS, your infotainment screens and that sort of thing. Okay, so I want to talk TVs because you told us that they're unveiling a transparent TV. What the heck is that? So sees always a big TV show. It's where TV manufacturers really go

wild. We've seen some crazy concepts in the past. LG is really capturing a lot of attention this year with what they're calling the O led signature T and no extra points for what the T stands for. It's for transparent. This thing is seventy seven inches and it is a glass panel. You can see the wall behind it, You can see anything you put kind of behind your TV stand, and it will play you movies and TV shows with a

certain amount of transparency to them. Of course, now LG does have a special film that will rise behind that transparent panel that gives you extra contrast. It behaves more like a normal TV in that scenario, but with that film down, this is meant to kind of just be an ambient piece of furniture in your room. LG showed off a couple of demos with like an aquarium and fireplace, these sort of like ambient kind of things that are displayed on

this screen. There's like a three dimensional quality to them that was kind of interesting and interestingly enough, amy this is like a trend that we're seeing in the TV space in general. Samsung will sell you a TV called the Frame, which has a matt finish when it's off and will display paintings. You can even option it with the wood frame. It is very cool. People like it. It is expensive. It's on the high end of the market,

as we expect this that's high end. What's that mean, Well, several thousands of dollars, right, I mean I will put the caveat on here that like, you know, non fancy TVs like this, the sort of you know, mainstream TVs have actually broadly gotten very good and very cheap, so it's a pretty good time to just buy a normal TV. But again, the CEES is kind of where we see the outer edges of the market, these sort of things that are not necessarily meant for broad consumer use,

but like where these companies see the future of their industry going. And these sort of more ambient, natural looking pieces of technology that blend into your room that don't look like tech. That is something that we're seeing happen in the TV market. I think it's really interesting and something worth paying attention to.

Yeah, I want to I totally want to transparent TV. Don't know where I would put it, but so you and these are concept things, so like if we're looking at today and then how far out are they from actually you know, being available. So with regard to the transparent TV, LG has not announced a specific release date, but they do say they plan to put something like this on sale before the end of the year. The

big question mark is price on this thing. LG last year, speaking of crazy TV concepts, they showed off a rollable TV where the screen literally rolled up into sort of a scroll, and that was one hundred thousand dollars, so really out there. Yeah, now this might not be quite one hundred thousand dollars, but it will be you know, somewhere south of that.

We think, we don't know a specific price, we can expect it to be pretty expensive because again, it is this sort of like high end like you know, it's designed to get people in the showroom, into the LG store and then you walk out with something maybe a little bit more reasonably priced With regard to the Volkswagens that we were talking about there, that chat GPT integration is going to start rolling out in Q two of this year on the Golf, the Pasad, the Tigue, and as well as its range of

electric vehicles. Okay, and is there anything in particular that you've got your eye on that you're hoping to see at CEES this year? Oh man, there's there's a lot. You know, it is, as we said, a car show. So Honda has some electric vehicle announcements plan. That's going to be the first time we really get a glimpse into what that company's you know, future for electric vehicles is. They really don't have many evs on the market right now. They had a partnership with General Motors, but that

fell apart. So we're kind of seeing like Honda's vision of evs probably at this at this show as well. The Maddic robot vacuum and mop weirdly, I think is actually kind of an interesting piece of tech. It's a robotic vacuum cleaner similar to a rumba, but of course made by a company. This thing's really advanced. It you know, can clean up like spilled you know, liquid like milk and water and juice and what have you, which

is not really what roombas are good for. Like they've they've actually figured out a way to do this in a robotic vacuum cleaner. It is able to sort of navigate its way around you and furniture, which is also an improvement over traditional robotic vacuum cleaners that are known for just bumping into things and then turning around and moving somewhere else. This thing kind of knows where it is a little bit more, okay, So if you want to impress me,

get something that cleans up para balls. I can't unclear. I did not see that in the demo, but you know, I'll report back. But something that you might be interested to know about this robotic vacuum cleaner is that it's not connected to the Internet, which means that it's not sending any information about the layout of your home back to some company somewhere. This is kind of just its own little, you know, standalone robot that runs around your

house. But you're going to pay for it. It is eighteen hundred dollars, which is feel expensive for a robotic vacuum cleaner. And then One more kind of crazy thing that I'll say is Victrola. As a technology reporter, I don't get an opportunity to talk about Victrola very often. It is a one hundred and twenty year old company, almost but of course they make turntables, they make vinyl record players, and they are at CES showing off a

new kind of high end turntable. It is wireless. It will connect to speakers around your home without the need for any cables or wires or anything like that, and it plays vinyl records. It is expensive, it's fifteen hundred dollars. It's called the stream Sapphire. But I just thought that was an interesting little oddity of CES. Kind of what makes cees fun is that you see these companies that don't often get time in the sun, that we don't often get time to talk about, get there, you know, time in

the limelight. And Victrola is one of them. So, yeah, who knew we would be talking about Victrolla in twenty twenty four, but here we are, no kidding, Well, lots of fun techy things can't wait to see. I want that transparency, but not for one hundred thousand dollars. Mike Tbuski, Thank you so much. Of course you have fun perusing the tech. I will again the kid in the candy Star thing right. Vandals have smashed dozens of headstones at an historic cemetery in Compton, apparently to get

the bronze from the headstones to sell. They also stole plaques and lawn equipment from the woodlawn celestial gardens sometime last week. The cemetery is the final resting place for more than nine hundred veterans from as far back as the War of eighteen twelve. Republican Congressman Matt Rosendale of Montana plans to introduce one or more

articles of impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Austin's under fire for not telling anyone he was in the hospital until days later. A great celestial lineup is in the sky. The Moon, Venus, Mercury, and Mars are all aligned. The pad On planets will be out just before sunrise. Best way to see him is to get away from city lights, so good luck with that. At six oh five, it's handled on

the news of calls to fire. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin because it went dark for days. Bill's going to be talking about that. But right now, let's say good morning to the host of How to Money on KFI. It's Joel large Scard. Joel, we've got WROTH workplace accounts available, tell us about him and are they a good choice? Okay, So that's a really good question, and sometimes it's complex, right. It just depends kind of on your specific situation, how much money you earn, how much money you

expect to earn in the future. I really like WROTH accounts for a lot of reasons. I specifically like ROTH iras for everybody who can contribute to one. But when it comes to WROTH four oh one K options, these days, we're seeing more and more employers offer them. So let's say you're like, you've been working, you might have gotten to notice just at the beginning of the year that your employer says, hey, now you can invest in a four to one K instead of just a traditional four one K, and

you're like, huh, what's the difference. Yeah, So the WROTH is basically when you say, listen, I don't want the tax break right now on the money that's going into my retirement account. I would prefer to get the tax break later. It's a deferral of the tax break, and that makes sense for some people, especially especially if you're the kind of person who

thinks my higher earning years are ahead of me. So let's say you're early in your career, you're not making ridiculous sums of money, but you want to contribute to your retirement account. I love the WROTH for one K as an ability for you to get some of that money in pay the tax now while you're in a lower tax bracket, and then you'll never pay tax on

the earnings or the withdraws of those funds in the future. And there's one interesting new little thing that happened because of the Secure Act two point zero is that matching dollars that your employer tosses in well. For the longest time, even though you were contributing to your wroth WORO one K, your employer was sticking in pre tax dollars. So you're still getting kind of two buckets of money inside of your retirement account. But now your employer is allowed to stick

that money inside of your wroth as well. Whether or not your employer is going to do that, that depends, but it's worth reaching out and asking and saying, hey, I know this is a thing. Now, can you guys stick that money inside of my wrath instead of inside of my traditional because that's just beefing up more tax and pervious dollars for your future. My financial advisor was talking to me about this about six months ago, and I

didn't understand what she was saying. Now I get it, okay. So here's a question though, so can you if you're stocking away the money in your wroth for a one case, so you're paying the taxes and all that stuff, and you said probably for lower earners, and then can you flip it later or once it's in a wroth? It's in the wroth four A

one K and you have to stay with it. See, that's the thing is is it does prevent some tax planning, but you're planning pretty well if you have if you're in one of those lower income brackets and you're taking the you're taking the tax punch on the chin right now. But it does prevent

tax future tax planning. So that's one of like some people love the traditional always because it means, yes, you take the tax break now, and you can decide later, at a later date, to convert your traditional dollars to Roth dollars, and you can find maybe the most opportune time, maybe a down year, maybe a year where you're taking you're taking six months off

or something like that to take a sabbatical and your income's drastically reduced. Maybe that's a year then that you can do a conversion of traditional dollars to Roth dollars. And so that is true that if you stick money into a wrath, it's wroth money for basically the rest of its days, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just all about planning and trying to minimize the overall

amount of tax that you pay. Okay, So, speaking of four to one k's iras that kind of stuff, Robinhood has started offering a match for IRA contributions, not for one k's but iras. Yeah. So this is a brand new thing and no one has ever done this before. Yeah, and so Robinhood, of course, being the semi gimmicky startup that they are trying to pull in dollars from anybody in their mind, they said, listen, we're going to offer a one percent match for folks who contribute to an

IRA or wroth IRA and that's I think it's kind of cool. I get why they're doing it. It's a lost leader for them essentially to give you money to stick money in a retirement account. And even though it's a gimmick, it is free money for you in an incentive to stick money into the retirement account you should be sticking money into. And then so Fi, which is another kind of fintech app, did something really similar and they actually doubled

down and they said, we're actually gonna do two percent this year. So if you contribute money to your roth or your traditional IRA through Sofi, you are going to get a two percent match. And there are all sorts of hurdles or that you need to be aware of, like, oh, hey, the money doesn't settle for a couple of years, so you can't just get the match and then move that money out. There are all sorts of

things that that you need to be aware of. And the other thing you need to be aware of with companies like this, and with Robinhood in particular, is if you stick money in a Robinhood account, well, the thing that Robinhood is best at is getting people to trade and so even if there's a free one percent, that is enticing. But if it gets you to be more involved in your investments in a negative way, which means trading more often, then it's a bad deal and it's not worth it. Okay,

So look at that closely. Okay. We ran out of time, as we always do, Joel. But so next week I want to talk to you about streaming because breaking the bank on my accounts probably on yours too, I want to talk about, you know, maybe how we can be a little more responsible when it comes to our streaming bills. Yeah, sounds good, Okay. And you can find out more about all kinds of financial things and how to save money and how to be smarter with your money at How

to Money Joel. And you can also hear Joel every Sunday on KFI from noon to two. Thanks so much, Joel. Thanks Amy. Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four our newsroom. Gang members have started receiving prison sentences in connection with a racketeering indictment for OC Mexican mafia members. When you're a convicted fellon, you're not supposed to possess a firearm or m o US Attorney spokesman Kieren McAvoy says Andras Alba got

five years for the possession. The Mexican Mafia or also known as LAMA, controls a certain area, also controls a sale of drugs, collection of quote unquote taxes, and oversees the maintenance of discipline over gangs and gang members in that area. Alba was sentenced yesterday. He's the twelfth to plead guilty. Thirteen others are awaiting trial. Three have pleaded guilty to murder for rocketeering purposes. Their sentencing is set for March at the federal courthouse in Santa Anna.

Corbin Carson KFI News, a convicted killer considered a walking crime spree by prosecutors, has been sentenced to twenty seven years in federal prison for robbing or trying to rob ten businesses across South LA and the South Bay. The robberies happened over five days in late twenty twenty, while Justin Washington was on parole from state prison where he served ten years for armed robbery. Investigators in Illinois this is a weird winner trying to figure out how a seventy three year old man

got boarded up inside his low income apartment. Rudolph Williams says he was home in Harvey, Illinois, in front when he realized the doors and windows to his courtyard style apartment had been covered with plywood and he was trapped inside. City officials and residents have conflicting accounts about what happened at the thirty unit development.

Huntington Beach taxpayers could be on the hook for millions of dollars in fines if the city loses its legal battle with Sacramento over its refusal to build thousands of new housing units. Huntington Beach calls the mandate unrealistic and a government overreach. Huntington Beach could face one hundred thousand dollars in fines every month if it's not in compliance. Secretary of State Antony Blincoln is meeting with Israeli officials in

Tel Aviv. It's part of the US effort to prevent the Israel Hamas war from spreading further in the region. It's Blincoln's fourth trip to the Middle East since Hamas massacred and kidnapped Israelis on October seventh. Bars and nightclubs in California will soon be required to provide so called roofye tests to customers. The new law kicks in in July. The test kits typically will detect common date rape drugs like ketamine or GHB. It's up to the bar owners to decide whether

to charge customers for the tests. Long Beach started an anti date rape drug testing service last year at six oh five. It's handle on the news. Lawmakers are looking to crack down on retail theft, like flash mobs and smash and grab robbers. Nothing like waiting until an epidemic to do something. At I point fifty, we're going to find out what's going on with that moonlander

that's having technical difficulties that have jeopardized the moon mission. But right now, let's say good morning to best selling author Brad Meltzer, who is celebrating the tenth anniversary of a series of children's books, Ordinary People Change the World. He's written thirty two books, including his latest that is being released today. So Brad, please tell us about your brand new book. It's a big anniversary for author Brad Meltzer. He is celebrating the tenth anniversary of his series

of children's books called Ordinary People Change the World. And good morning, Brad. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your busy schedule today because it's your big anniversary. I know I feel like you know, as someone who loves to pretend how young they are, saying I'm ten feels terrific. Okay, So you are not only a best selling fiction author and a best selling non fiction author, you are also a children's best selling author.

And in honor of your tenth anniversary, you have a new book out, So tell us about it, and then I want to talk about some of the other books that you've also released over the last ten years. Yeah. So the new book is it's a kid's book. It's I Am Ruth Beta Ginsburg and honors of course the famous Supreme Court justice. And we started the series because I wanted to give my kids better heroes to look up to. If you look around today, you know, being a famous and wealthy business

person doesn't make you a hero. What you have to do is think about someone beside yourself. So we started writing kids books for my kids. You know, ages about four to twelve years old is who they'refore the book series, their cartoons, and Ruth Bata Ginsburg is someone that I love because we all think of her as this serious Supreme Court justice. But when she was a little girl, and that's what the book focuses on, is she leves to go on adventures. She loved to play tag and ride her bicycle.

But back then, girls weren't supposed to do that. In fact, in the books, in the books she read, there, you know, girls would sit in pretty pink dresses and boys will go on the adventures. And it was her mother who broke that stereotype. She took her to the library every Friday afternoon, and every Friday, Ruth Betaginsberg's mother would say, you can pick out five books. And young Ruth her favorite books that she always pick out were about real heroes that she loved most of the time. They

were about Amelia Earharts, about Harriet Tubman. And in those books, young Ruth realized, there's absolutely nothing that a little girl can't do. And that's the lesson I want for my daughter, that's the lesson I want for my own sons. And that's what as a book, I Am, Ruth bae Aginsberg is about. Yeah, And I love the lesson of serving others and giving to others because we are so incredibly self centered and everything is me, me, me, instant gratification. How can I get in the spotlight more?

And I think this turns that away to where it needs to be. I mean, that's it. I mean, your kids are going to pick heroes, whether you like it or not, you might as well have some say in it. So what our book series is designed to do is we show them real people when they're little kids. I mean, my kids don't care about a Supreme Court justice, they don't care about a case. There's no politics in this book. But what it shows you is it Ruth Betiginsburg

didn't just fight for women. You know, she's called this great feminist, but she fought for men also. Her big belief was if you're saying men do it this way and girls do it this way, then you're being unfair to both of them. And that's what justice is. I love that. And so this is the brand new book that's just hitting bookstores now. But you also just recently came out with I Am mister Rogers, who is one of my absolute heroes. Let's talk about him best. He's my favorite,

mister Rogers. You know, when I was five years old mister Rogers taught me on TV that you can use your creativity to put good into the world. For me, the story about him as a kid that you'll love, and I didn't know this story is when mister Rogers was a little boy, he was bullied. The boys would make fun of him. He was chasing him home from school, and we all think of mister Rogers as this perfect person. But on those days, mister Rogers was mad. He was angry,

he hated, I mean, just did not like those boys. And he got so mad that he mailed away for you know, those those mail order catalogs that used to have when when in kind of a generation before, where you know, if you kick sand in my face, order away right now and we'll send you muscles in this mail, you know. And he got. He ordered away for the system, did all the pull ups,

didn't get any muscles. And what he realized from his mother is it's the things you can see in life that are the strongest things, the kindness and again empathy. And his mother taught him that he saw this his mother at school, the nurse that is at his local elementary school in junior high school, would see that there were kids who couldn't afford sneakers, So the mother, because they had money back then, would send in a pair of sneakers

for the person who didn't have them. And then the nurse would say, we have someone who can't afford sweaters, we have someone who can't afford furniture. And the mom would keep buying all these things donated to these kids, but never take any credit for it. Never, And what did mister Rogers learn in that lesson? How to be a good neighbor? And it's his mother who teaches him that when life is scary, when the bullies are around, when you see something in the news that scares you, look for the

helpers. We've all heard that quote, right, look at the helper. I love it. And it's his who his mother teaches it to him. It's not a mister Rogers quote, it's his mother's quote. And look where the world is right now. Look what's happening in Israel, Look what's happening here in America. Again, how do we teach our kids' empathy unless you take a role in it. So I am mister Rogers, and I am

Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Or how we're celebrating ten years of these kids books, seven million books in print, all these parents who have come along with us on this adventure that we're on to bring a little bit more kindness into the

universe. Yeah, and you know what I love about looking over the list of all of the different books and then having read Mister Rogers and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and also the Dolly Parton book, which, first of all, the animation is just charming, and the writing is wonderful and engaging, and obviously it's an easy rate for an adult because it's for a kid. But I

mean, I just I love the way that it's written. But I love that all of the people that you talk to, Brad are people that you know, when somebody goes, hey, if you could pick somebody from history who you'd like to sit down and have dinner with. All of the people that you wrote about are those people. Yeah, No, listen, you know we've done my heroes, so and you know what, I know,

I'm not that special. So all of us wish we could have a night we could talk to doctor King, or talk to Rosa Parks, or talk to Jing Goodall or Dolly Parton, Billy Jing King. You know, we did Jim Henson because he's on my list of all time. And I'm telling you we sell it. I think we sell as many books to the parents buy for themselves and the adult spy that we do with kids. Like you know, everyone tells me that our Lucial Ball and Dolly Parton books are like

forget the kids. I bought that for myself because they love the stories in them and they love the inspiration in them. And boy, right now, when you look around at the world, we all need some inspiration right now. Ooh, Brad is so right about that. So moms and dads, grandma's, grandpa's. These books are not only beautiful, but show what a real hero looks like and how ordinary people change the world. They're really nice

little books. You can find them at Brad Meltz Brad Meltzer like Seltzer, but with an m brad Meltzer dot Com, also at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Brad said they're also available at local bookstores and reminds people that buying local is always a good way to go and giving away is always a good way to go. And we have three sets of these books. We have the im Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the IM Mister Rogers, and the IM

Dolly Parton books to give away to you right now. So if you have kids or grandkids, or maybe maybe as Brad said, you want it for yourself, we have some books for you. So give us a call right now. We'll take callers number eight, nine and ten at one eight hundred five to two zero one KFI. That's one eight hundred five to two zero

one five three four. It's for your chance to win three of the books Ordinary People Change the World, including the new IM Ruth Bader Ginsburg that is out today and it's, like I said, it's a really sweet story. Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. A lunar Lander mission is being scrapped after suffering a critical malfunction

about seven hours after launching. Astrobotic Technology was trying to become the first private company to land on the Moon, but the Peregrine spacecraft was hit with propulsion issues shortly after launch, keeping the vehicle from charging its batteries and causing a fuel leak. We're going to be talking more about this with ABC's Jim Ryan in just about five minutes. A Navy sailor from Monterey Park who sold military

secrets to China has been sentenced in La to two years in prison. US attorney Martine Strada says yesterday's sentencing should send a message to anyone in the military who's considering leaking information. I will say the vast majority of those in the military would never dream of doing such a thing. Thomas Chao sold information about

radar systems, naval exercises, and operational security. He pocketed nearly fifteen thousand dollars in bribes from a Chinese intelligence offer officer from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty three. He pleaded guilty in October, and LA based financial advisor has been arrested for allegedly stealing two and a half million dollars from elderly and special

needs clients. LAPED investigator say Donna Bodanovich was arrested Friday following a fourteen month investigation into how she allegedly preyed on people she was supposed to be helping. She is a licensed fiduciary, please say, there are likely more victims who have not yet come forward. The Big three automakers are taken a pass on the Super Bowl. Stalantas says it is readjusting its spending on marketing. General

Motors will not run commercials after focusing on evs during last year's game. Ford has not run an ad during the Super Bowl for several years. A thirty second commercial during the Super Bowl this year reportedly will run seven million dollars. There's a new push to increase California's punishment of retail theft. A new bill would crack down on robbers and burglars with two or more convictions and would guarantee the crime would no longer be prosecuted as a misdemeanor, with jail time ranging

from six months to three years. Republican Congressman Matt Rosendale of Montana plans to introduce one or more articles of impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Austin's under firefirm, not telling anyone he was in the hospital until days later. A great celestial event is lining up in the morning sky. The moon, Venus, Mercury, and Mars are aligning. The planets will be out before sunrise, so you have a little bit of time still

to see him best scene from actually away from city lights. We're just minutes away from handle On the news this morning, people must have wanted to find out who the winners and losers were because the Golden Globes audience was up fifty percent from last year. Right now, let's say good morning to ABC's Jim Ryan. Jim, good morning, but not such a good morning for the people who were trying to get someone to the moon or something to the moon.

Well, you're right, you know, and eventually to get some people back out of the Moon. This was an important step in that Amy thought it called astrobatic. Astrobotic had engineered this whole process, had contracts with NASA and several private companies to send this lunar lander out to the Moon's surface opposed to land on February twenty third, but launched yesterday and launch was perfect. It was absolutely flawless. But at some point the experts, the engineers at

Astrobotic, realized that there was a propulsion problem. Initially, the lander wouldn't rotate itself to face the Sun. It has to do that because it has solar panels that power the thing, and without the power to charge the batteries, you're dead in the water. But the engineers did manage to use their finase here on Earth to rotate the thing toward the Sun. But they wondered,

why didn't it do it by itself. It turns out there is a propulsion problem, and that could be a fatal propulsion problem that dooms this mission before it even makes it out of Earth's orbit. It's still orbiting the Earth the Peregrine Lander, and unless something could be worked out today, that's where it's going to stay. So I don't understand propulsion problem. Yeah, Well,

the fuel the thing that pushes this thing along. By the way, the propulsion in this case, these thruster rockets are the things that are used everything that happens in space. You can't just steer the rocket or use fins because you're in the vacuum of space. So they use little thruster rockets to move the thing in the direction that they needed to go. And so without

that ability, the rocket is essentially a rock flying through space. Okay, So the solar panels weren't aligned to the Sun, so they couldn't suck the energy in and in turn then cannot be used to do the propulsion. Well, yeah, no, no, it's kind of the other way around. Once once the engineers here on Earth, working with their computers, said okay, we're gonna do this manually. If the rocket is not if the lander is not going to rotate itself toward the Sun, we'll do it from down

here on Earth. They click a few keys, and the thing rotates toward the Sun. The batteries get fully charged, and they are fully charged. But these same engineers were saying, so why didn't it do it by itself, Why didn't it make that change on its own? And then that's when they found this deeper propulsion issue, that this anomaly they'd like to call it, that could doom the whole mission. I mean, oh okay, now

it makes sense. So they were able to fix the issue from yesterday, but then in fixing and finding that, they found something else that's gone wrong exactly thinking that, could you know, scrap this whole thing, one hundred eight million dollars worth of NASA equipment that's supposed to land on the Moon and figure out the radiation, the water source, potentially figure out the gravitation.

You know, it was all aimed at getting people to the Moon. By the end of this decade, so this may slow that process down again. I mean, luckily nobody is on board this lander. It's just a piece of equipment at this point. Okay, so what happens to it? Do we just leave it up there? Does it burn up on re entry or what? Do we know? Well, yeah, that may be the most likely scenario. I know, it was coming around the Earth to pick up

some energy, some gravitational pulled to then slingshot towards the Moon. But for now it's just rotating around the Earth or orbiting around the Earth until the engineers can figure out something to do. I mean, in tweets that Astrobotic was putting out yesterday, the hope was that they'd be able to figure out the problem and then send the thing off toward the Moon for it's February twenty third scheduled landing there. But we'll just have to see what happens at this point.

But your scenario the one of an eventual degradation of the orbit and then this thing coming back down to Earth burning up. That may be the most likely scenario. Okay, but here's my big concern. What happens to Lieutenant Ohora, Because remember we told you yesterday that there are either DNA or parts of ashes or something of Michelle Nichols, several other Star Trek people. I think Geene Roddenberry, or maybe he's already up there, but that was on

board. Yeah. You know, we heard a couple of years ago that Roddenberry's ashes had gone to space. I think that they separated them, so Roddenberry could be on a bunch of different rockets, you know, his ashes or his DNA and all over the universe. Yeah, the Forest, Kelly, Geane, Roddenberry, James Douhan who played Scottie, and yes, Michelle Nichols, Lieutenant O'Hora. They all had some DNA evidence or DNA on board this rocket. So we just lose that. Yeah, well, you know

what, it's probably anyway. It was such a minuscule amount. Anyway, I bet they have more if they were to send them up again. All right, well we'll be watching. Thank you so much, Jim Ryan. That's super disappointing. Yeah, it's kind of a bummer, but you know, you learn from stuff. Absolutely, That's what like Elon Musk, when a rocket blows up, he goes that's okay. It was a successful test and we'll get it next time. All right, thanks Jim. All right,

take care. Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. The President of Mexico says he is willing to help slow the flow of illegal immigrants across the US Mexico border for a price. Wondrous man Well Lopez Overdoor recently met with US officials to discuss the

surgeon illegal migration through Mexico and into the US. On Friday, President Lopez Overdoor announced at a press conference he's willing to work with the US to slow the flow, but he has some requests for the Biden administration deploy twenty billion to Latin American and Caribbean countries, suspend the US blockade of Cuba, remove all sanctions against Venezuela, and grant at least ten million Hispanics living in the US the right to remain and work legally. No response yet from the US.

Steve Gregory King of I News. The California Mountain Lion Project says the big cat population is a lot smaller than previously thought. Researchers found there are between thirty two hundred and forty five hundred in the state that is below the longtime estimate of about six thousand mountain lions. They say the most dense populations are in coastal forests up north, while the least dense are in the high

desert east of the Sierras. The California Fish and Game Commission is considering declaring the animals a threatened species. A ruling is expected this year, and SpaceX is getting ready for another rocket launch from northwestern Santa Barbara County. This one should be visible across the West coast. Lift Off from Vandenberg Space Force Space is scheduled for nine oh six tonight. The launch window is open until eleven

twenty eight. The payload is twenty two more Starlink Internet satellites destined for low Earth orbit. This is KFI and kost HD two Los Angeles, Orange County, live from the KFI twenty four hour Newsroom. I'm Amy King. This has been your wake up call, and if you missed any wake up call, you can listen any old time on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening

to wake Up Call with me, Amy King. You can always hear wake Up Call five to six am Monday through Friday on KFI AM six forty and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.