You're listening to KFI AM six forty wake Up Call with Me Amy King on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
K f I and KOST HD two, Los Angeles, Orange County. You Amy, Okay.
It's five o'clock on your Tuesday morning wake up Call.
It's September seventeenth. I'm Amy King driving in.
I saw what's almost full? Did you see that moon? And it's a super moon, a super harvest moon. It's gonna peak tonight at seven point thirty our time, seven thirty five, going to appear full for about three days from Monday through Thursday, according to uh NASA says that, and it's beautiful. Here's what's ahead on wake Up Call. Firefighters are gaining more ground on the massive fires burning in southern California. The largest is burning near Rightwood and
Mount Baldwy Baldy. It's nearly fifty five thousand acres twenty five percent surrounded, up from eleven percent the day before. Sixty six homes and other buildings have been destroyed. About a dozen others have been damaged. A Christian pasture from Garden Grove is back home after spending nearly two decades in a prison in China. The US State Department confirmed the release of David Lynn yesterday. It's not clear why
he was released. Lynn, who is now sixty eight, was convicted of contract fraud in China in two thousand and six and sentenced to life in prison. Secret Service agents have found Soviet era rifle, backpack and video camera where they say would be assassin Ryan Rouse staked out from up to twelve hours along the Trump golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
We're going to find more about the would be.
Assassin with ABC's Peter Harrow Lumbus coming up in less than five minutes, and then at the bottom of the hour, we're going to find out who this routh guy is how close he came to taking a shot at the former president.
ABC's Steve Portnoy has that for us.
Also coming up before the top of the hour, Joel Larsgard is going to let us know how we may be able to start saving some money at the grocery store, wouldn't that be nice? And home equity loans and whether one is right for you. Wake of Calso wants to send you to the spookiest place on Earth. It's Halloween time at Disneyland. We're going to be telling you more about that. Let's get started with some of the stories
coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. A wildfire that started in Tribuco Canyon in Orange County and burned nearly two hundred homes and other buildings is now thirty one percent surround it. The fires burned more than twenty three thousand acres in Orange and Riverside County since last week. It hasn't really grown since since last week, so that's good news. Officials say their priorities were on
the east and the west sides the fire. Cooler temperatures have helped firefighters make some progress, and helicopter water drops on Santiago Park helped put some of the flames out there. The surge in COVID cases across California is starting to wane.
Unlike the flu for the past several years, COVID has seen rising cases in the winter and summer. USC virologist doctor Paula Cannon told the La City Health Commission last week that's because of our behavior in warmer weather.
We go indoors and we turn on the air conditioning, we close our windows, and that reduces the amount of pressure we get, and the virus is very happy when we do that.
Another spike in cases could come this winter, but Cannon says the new boosters on the market this fall should fight off serious illness in downtown La.
Michael Monks KFI News. He is brought to you by ruder hero dot com.
La Kenny Sheriff's investigators say the deaths of two people found it inside a home that burned in Glendora art suspicious. One of those found dead yesterday was a seventy one year old man. The Sheriff's department says he was found inside a bedroom. A second person, believed to be the man's wife, was also killed. Sheriff's Lieutenant Steve j Jong says the couple was having marital issues and police had been involved before.
They were here about a month earlier in regards to a domestic violence incident.
No one was arrested in that incident.
Family members say the wife had recently filed for divorce. Music mogul Sean Combs, known as Ditty, has been arrested in New York following a string of sexual assault lawsuits. ABC's Jason nathans And says Combs was arrested last night in Manhattan.
We know that Combs has been hit with lawsuit after lawsuit from women to alleged they were physically and sexually abused by Combs and his colleagues, sex trafficked, and more.
Combs has denied all allegations against him.
The US Attorney's officers the arrest was based on a sealed indictment, which they expect to unseal this morning. More people have tuned in to watch the Emmys this year. Viewership for the awards show jumped fifty four percent to six point nine million viewers, following a record low ceremony in January. The show in early twenty twenty four aired on Fox. Sunday nights broadcast aired on ABC. In the key adults eighteen to forty nine ratings, The ratings were up seventeen percent.
AB says.
ABC says it also outperformed the last time ABC hosted the event in twenty twenty. Earlier this year, ABC also saw a boost in ratings for the Oscars. Let's say good morning now to ABC's Peter Haralambuss.
Good morning, Peter.
Good morning, Thanks so much for having me.
Thanks for being on with us, Hey, we're learning more about the guy arrested in connection with a second attempted assassination on former President Trump in the last couple of months.
Tell us who this guy is that.
We know so far, so we're beginning to get a bigger, better picture of fifty year old fifty eight year old Ryan Ruth. He was a struggling roof contractor who has connected in North Carolina and Hawaii, who seems to have held erratic political views and set out on a far flung mission to help Ukraine fight off Russia's invasion. The exact motive for why he ended up doing this, why he showed up on Trump's golf course on Sunday waited out for twelve hours with a Soviet style rifle, remains unclear.
But this is certainly a figure whose social media history investigators are combing through as they try to understand what compelled him to do this.
And Peter, he you mentioned Hawaii and North Carolina ties.
Do we know where he's currently living or was before he got arrested.
It appears he was spending some time in North Carolina. His neighbors who we spoke to, said that they spotted him back on his property there. Recently, it appears he moved, though, from North Carolina in twenty eighteen to Hawaii. The neighbors we've spoken to kind of described him as a weird loaner type, although they've noted that they're still very much surprised by the that he would ever do anything like this.
We've heard some interesting stories. One neighbor in North Carolina who lived next to Ruth for three to four years, noted that he often had guns around the house and weirdly had a live horse inside his living room. She noted that people didn't even believe her that this neighbor of hers had a horse, and she took photos of it. Another neighbor described Ruth as sketchy, that he kind of weirdly paced around all the time and sent off weird vibes.
Though the neighbors in Hawaii offered a kind of a kinder picture, noting that he seemed to just be a normal guy who was reasonably friendly and that they were overall very surprised by any of this conduct.
Okay, and we mentioned you mentioned that he had been basically lying in wait for twelve hours outside the Trump International Golf Club. Do we know how long he had been in Florida, Like has he been there for a week or did he drive down just for this.
That's something we're still trying to figure out because it's all very unclear. What's even more ambiguous and kind of concerning is the fact that Trump's movement to this golf course was unplanned. It's not like he's a sitting president to us to declare his intention and his schedule to go from one place to another. This was kind of
a surprise move on behalf of the former president. The fact that he was waiting there in the early hours of the morning on Sunday when this was, you know, something that wasn't announced, That the former president hadn't even theoretically made up his mind to go play golf is kind of shocking, and law enforcement are probing that and trying to figure out what exactly was going on there.
They've said that they don't have any evidence at this point that he received any assistance, but they're still looking into whether or not he had any kind of advanced information or kind of any intel that allowed him to make this move and be in position for Trump to be playing just the three hundred to four hundred yards away.
Yeah, And then the other question I would have is has he done this before, Like, if he didn't have some sort of advanced notice or found out from somebody that Trump was going to be playing, did he just randomly go down and camp out there just in case that we just never knew about.
It's hard to say, And I think it's also important to note that Ruth himself has a lengthy rap sheet going back all the way until nineteen ninety seven. For example, there was a two thousand and two incident in which he barricaded himself inside his business while armed with an assault weapon guiltimately pleaded guilty to a felony count of possessing a weapon of mass destruction.
He's pleaded guilty.
To other crimes. He's been sued multiple times, So there appears to have been some kind of history, including that two thousand and two incident with firearms, very erratic behavior that concerned law enforcement. In fact, we know that there was a tip to the FBI in twenty nineteen about him possessing a firearm that wasn't acted upon because they could not verify the complaintant's information.
Okay, so we know that he's right now He's charged on two charges, one felony in possession or a convict or whatever convicted felon in possession of a weapon, and also for scratching out the serial number on a weapon.
So that's two charges. But is he going to face more In.
All likelihood, prosecutors are going to come back with more charges at this point. For now, it seems like those were the lowest hanging fruit. In a way, it seems expected that we're going to see more charges about this entire scheme over the coming weeks and months. For now, he has an arragement technically scheduled at the end of the month on September thirtieth.
And it'll be interesting, Peter, because he didn't actually do anything.
He didn't fire the weapon.
He was just there, So it'll be interesting to see what charges they come up with.
Yeah, we'll have to see. And you're right, he didn't fire a weapon. He still possessed one. He had a criminal record due to conviction, which makes it a crime. But we'll have to see what prosecutors draw up in terms of, you know, kind of offering context to what this crime was and what exactly had happened to here. Certainly a lot of unanswered questions.
Absolutely, but you did answer some of them for us and we appreciate it.
Peter. We look forward to talking to you again soon.
Thanks much having me all right, let's get back.
To some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. A person has been shot by an off duty officer who stepped in during a road rage confrontation in Murieta. The man shot multiple times yesterday and a shopping center parking lot is in critical condition. No one else was hit by the gunfire, and the Hemmet police officer wasn't hurt. The officer is cooperating with
the investigation. Two people have been killed, including a man who the LAPD says shot and killed someone in a parking lot in a North Hollywood mall.
Parking lot.
Lease say they fired on a man in a parking garage when he pointed a gun at them early yesterday morning on Victory Boulevard. The other man was found shot in the head in a car in the parking lot. People who want forced labor out of prisons in California have asked voters in LA for their support.
Proposition six would ban prisons from punishing inmates who refused to work. Democratic Assemblyman Reggie Jones Sawyer says seven other states have recently passed similar measures.
Seventy percent of the voters in Alabama, seventy nine percent of the voters in Tennessee, and eighty one percent of voters in Vermont voted to remove these provisions.
The measure would allow prisons to set up voluntary work programs where inmates can work to reduce their sentences. The measure got little pushback in the state legislature. Blake Trolly k if I News, So I get to.
Do something kind of fun, but I need your help. I'm going over the edge to help fight homelessness. We are literally going over the edge of the Universal Hilton on September twenty seventh. The event is actually the twenty seventh and the twenty eighth, but I and Neil Savedra are going to be repelling twenty five stories down the side of a building to raise money for the Union Rescue Mission. And we know because we've talked about it, and we're so about homelessness and all of the money
being thrown at a problem that doesn't get fixed. But the Union Rescue Mission is actually doing something to help people get off the streets get into permanent housing. They're feeding a ton of people in the process. But we're asking for your donation because the Union Rescue Mission is not government funded. It exists solely on private donations, and
that's where you come in. We would love if you would donate to support the cause of Neil and I going over the Edge, and you can donate at just helpone dot org because, as mother Teresa said, basically, trying to help everybody is impossible, but if you focus on just one person, you can help. So if you've got twenty bucks or fifty bucks or one hundred bucks, we would love for you to join in our cause to
just help one for the Union Rescue Mission. And if you want to raise one thousand dollars, either donate it or create a team and raise one thousand dollars could repel over the side of the building. I'm scared to death to do it, but I've heard that it's really fun and so I'm looking forward to it but also very apprehensive about it. But we're doing it next Friday, September twenty seventh. We're going over the edge for the Union Rescue Mission and would love for you to join
us again. If you can donate, please do any amount, will take it all because it's actually helping people get off the streets, get back into housing, and get their lives back on tracks. So important to do that helping the people who want help and that's what the Union Rescue Mission does again. That's just help one dot org. And then if you go to donate and then the teams, you look for the team iHeartMedia. That's where you can donate to mine and Neil's little expedition. We're going over
the edge. I'll thank you in advance for your support. Cooler temperatures and higher humidity are helping firefighters diglines around the fires burning in southern California. The fire in the San Bernardino Mountains is now forty nine percent surrounded and really hasn't grown since yesterday. The fire New right Wood and Mount Baldy thirty five percent surrounded, and the one that started in Tribute co Kenyon or Tribute Cookenyon just over a week ago is thirty one percent surrounded.
None of the fires has grown much in the last few days.
Homeowners, businesses, and local leaders have their opportunity to say what they think of new plans to reform the insurance market in the state. A virtual public hearing is being held today at ten. The plans have been in the works since several insurance providers stopped offering coverage in California. Online comments can be submitted up until the meeting starts. Most voters say Taylor Swift's endorsement for Vice President Harris
has no impact on how they will vote. In a new ABC Episodes poll, six percent of respondents said they were more likely to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee after Swift's endorsement. Thirteen percent said they're less likely to vote for Harris because of it. At six oh five, it's Handle on the news, Sean did he Combs is going to find out what the charges are against him. He was taken into custody last night in New York City. Right now, let's say good morning to ABC's Jim Ryan.
So it's been talked about for months and months, Jim, and now it appears the Fed may actually be poised to lower interest rates when and how much?
Tomorrow and maybe half a percent? So yeah, the Fed will open Market Committee opens its meeting today. Amy, it'll wramp it up tomorrow, and at that time it's expected to announce that interest rates will be cut. There's something called a CME FED Watch, which estimates interest rate charges
and changes. It says there's a thirty seven percent chance the Fed will cut rates by twenty five basis points a quarter percent, a sixty three percent chance it would go bigger than that at half a percent, and almost a zero percent chance that nothing will be done at all. So now bankers and others are watching this carefully and they do expect that interest rates will be coming down well, and the.
Fed drum pal has been talking about it for months and saying, okay, things are getting better, things are getting better.
Right, And he was criticized after the last meeting in July when interest rates were not where they were held right where they were, there was no decline. And then within a day or two we had unemployment rates that came in very high, much higher than anybody had anticipated. That was probably though, because of Hurricane Barrel, and a lot of people were put out of work from that.
So things stabilized somewhat, and today, finally two months later, it is expected that the interest rates will be pulled down somewhat.
So the question is is it going to do the trick.
Will you do the trick in terms of the whole economy, maybe, maybe not, But will it do the trick for individual consumers? Probably? Yeah. If you're planning on borrowing money, it will cost less for you to do that. So if you're thinking about taking out a loan for a car or a home, you should do better in terms of your interest rate.
But on the flip side, if you put money into a high yield savings account you've been collecting about five percent on that, that rate will fall back down because essentially what you're doing is lending money to the bank, right, and so the bank will see it's return improved somewhat. That means your return on your CD or your high yield savings account's going to drop just a bit.
Okay, So you mentioned that prices will go down on credit cards and home loans that kind of stuff. Is there going to be an immediate drop or does it take a while to catch up.
It does take a while, and it'll take time to soak out into the market, into the mortgage companies and into the banks. And speaking of credit cards, you know they adjust their rates fairly soon after the Fed changes the federal funds. Right, so you can expect interest rates on your Visa, your American Express, your Master or whatever your card is to drop just a little bit. It's not going to be a huge amount because credit cards charge so much anyway, righty two twenty three percent?
How much they're charging.
No, No, it's horrible, and so even a little decline it's not going to impact that so much. You know, the best advice is just to avoid using them if you can.
Okay, So then, Jim, here's my other question, because even I'm curious as to what the car the companies can charge them what they do charge because the interest rates have been.
Up there, we haven't seen a drop in three or four years.
Right, Yeah, so at one point the mortgage rates were up over seven percent. Yes, well there hasn't been an interest rate drop, but the interest rates on thirty year loans have dropped by more than a percent. They're down at like six percent or just over six percent. Now, I don't understand how that happens.
Well, right, I mean, the Fed is not setting the interest rate for every mortgage company at every bank out there. They can kind of work on their own. But the key interest rate that the FED can control has an influence on those other institutions. So it's not as though the Feds it's done, says okay, Bank of America, you're going to charge you six and three quarter percents you know on a mortgage or your mortgage company that much.
They don't do that. But the things that the FED does, when it sets this prime or this this key interest rate, it kind of takes the lead and so the others will follow that almost, you know, individually and almost universally for the next few months.
So could mortgage company could they drop rates down to five percent right now if they wanted to?
You know, I think they could. Yeah, And if you shop around, you're not going to find anything that low, but you could find that things will get down there at some point in the future. And you know, the FED has been bringing rates down from what like zero percent in twenty twenty two to about five and a quarter five and a half percent in July last and
that's where it has stayed ever since. So you know, it may be time now and if you want to start to and obviously the banks know that you do that too, that you start shopping around looking for a that high interests or that high yield savings account, and you can find those and it's not usually the big banks that give you the best return on those, it's the smaller banks.
Okay, all right, Jim Ryan, Well we'll watch.
I'm going to wait to buy anything because I think the rates are coming down more so there.
I think you're right.
You know, there may be further interest rates to cuts through the rest of the year. That's what a lot of economists are expecting. This could just be the start. But again, tomorrow, tomorrow afternoon is when the Fed will make its decision.
Okay, great, thank you, Jim Ryan.
See emmy.
All right, let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Police in Orange County are looking for kids found in a child porn operation linked to a couple from Lake Forest.
So it was also evidence that there might be distribution of the material.
Coas to Mason.
Police spokeswoman Roxy Fiad says, Jonathan Garduno first tried to hook up with a fifteen year old girl who turned out to be a sex crimes investigator.
Detectives continued their investigation involving Gardeno and also conducted his living girlfriend, Kyla Kawfield to the crime.
She says.
The two were arrested Friday but quickly bailed out.
We feel it's important to our community know that bill schedules are not set by the police department, but are based on the legal charging penal.
Codes in Orange County. Corbin Carson kf I News the.
CHP's asking for your help in identifying a boy found riding a scooter on the one ten Freeway near downtown La. The boy, who is between ten and thirteen, is nonverbal. He was found on Sunday evening riding the scooter in the express lanes of the southbound of one ten near Jefferson Boulevard. There are no missing persons reports matching his description. Cyclists now have another four miles of dedicated bike paths
to ride along on San Fernando Road. The bike lanes that opened yesterday complete the third and final phase of a ten mile San Fernando bike path that runs from Banford to Cohasset Streets. This afternoon, the Dodgers take on the Marlins in Miami, with first pitch going out at three forty. You can listen to every play of every game on AM five to seventy LA Sports and you can stream all the games in HD on the iHeartRadio app. The keyword AM five to seventy LA Sports powered by
LA Care for all of LA. Firefighters battling three large wildfires in southern California are about to get help from the California National Guard. Troops are being trained this week and are expected to be deployed early next week. This is the first time in three years National Guard hand crews have participated in the wildfire battle. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine says the bomb threats being called into the town of Springfield are not credible and are originating from overseas.
DeWine said, thirty three threats have been called in and they're all hoaxes. The cities come into the spotlight after former President Trump said during the debate that Haitian immigrants there are eating cats and dogs. Jane's Addiction has canceled the rest of its tour after lead singer Perry Farrell lunged at guitarist Dave Navarrow during a show Friday night
in Boston. The band says it has made the difficult decision to take some time away as a group, the band's current tour w post and on October sixteenth at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles at six o five's handle on the news, Elon Musk is going to stepped in it again, but you wouldn't know it if you didn't actually see his post because he pulled the comment from X and Find fifty. Joel Larsguard is going to let us know how he may be able to save you some money at the grocery store and also home
equity loans whether they are right for you. Let's say good morning now to ABC's Stephen Portnoy. Stephen, the would be shooter was lying in wait for the President to come by during a round of golf on Sunday. How much danger was Trump really in?
Well, I mean, think of it.
You had a man who arrived, according to the FBI, at Trump's West Palm Beach golf Club around two am Sunday, didn't leave until he was found and fired at by Secret Service nearly twelve hours later, and only because a quick thinking agent saw the barrel of the Soviet style rifle poking through the bushes through the fence line, and he the agent engaged the would be gunman ran and in the end he was caught by police fifty miles north on I ninety five.
So what we're learning is more about.
This man, fifty eight year old Ryan Routh, who's now charged with two counts possessing a firearm while he's a convicted felon, and he had a lengthy rap sheet and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. The authorities say that they are scouring through his social media posts, talking with people who knew and have known him to see if they can substantiate a case that he intended to kill the former press.
So I'm still curious if he was waiting there for twelve hours, had he done this before, because what they keep saying Trump hadn't announced his schedule, like people didn't really know he was going to golf that day.
This certainly was an off the record movement in the parlance of the Secret Service, which is to say, it wasn't a publicly announced or even this sssarily set upon an advance or this decided in advance. According to the Secret Services Acting Director, he wasn't even supposed to be there, whatever that means. But the bottom line is the Secret Service didn't know that that was the plan for the day, because sometimes Trump changes his plans and it was sort
of a spur of the moment thing. The question was asked whether Ryan Routh had been to the Palm Beach Golf Club before, and there was no.
Answer given to that question.
Looks like some either some more evidence has to be dug up or they weren't prepared to answer the question.
And do we know if he just like drove down from North Carolina right then, or if he maybe had been in Florida for a while.
Oh, I have no information about that, okay.
And was Trump he wasn't actually in the line of sight because Routh was kind of camped out like a hole ahead of where Trump was right.
Well, of course, I mean, look, just the fact that the way the protocol works, you have the Secret Service ahead of the former president while he's golfing at this particular golf club on this particular date. So it was the agent's ahead of Trump. Trump was on whole five apparently, and the agent was at whole six, and so the agent intercepted before Trump could be in the line of sight.
Okay, It's just so fascinating.
The whole thing I'm glad they caught him, And it was really interesting to me how how they caught him, because what somebody saw and reported the license plate number, and then they tracked that and found him fifty miles down the road.
Yeah, that's incredible.
I mean, it really speaks to the power of technology these days and the idea that you know. In fact, it was set in court papers that the license plates on the Nissan that he drove were switched stolen from a Ford, So he must have thought that that was enough to evade detection. And according to the sheriff of Martin County, Florida, where he was arrested, because he was traveling in a relatively normal rate of speed up I ninety five fifty miles north, he must have thought he
was getting away with it. In fact, they did catch him and he surrendered without incident after being pulled over. One other thing we could talk about briefly is the question about resources within the Secret Service. Yes, because the Secret Service Director said yesterday that the agency needs to undergo a paradigm shift to move from what he described as a reactive model to a readiness model, and it's time for hard conversations with Congress about an agency that's
already understaffed and stretched too thin. Exactly how Ronald Row intends to reform the agency where he's not even the formally appointed director, he's the acting director. Big questions, no easy answers. The Secret Service's budget has ballooned in the past decade, while it's staffing on the protective Detail has shrunk.
Oh, how could that be? Why is that? Reader?
Is that?
We don't know those answers, but it's why there's some curiosity skepticism up on Capitol Hill.
Is the problem more money?
Is it leadership?
We don't know.
Well, we'll be watching and hopefully they'll get it figured out. Stephen Fortnoy, thanks so much for the information as always. You bet all right, Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of KFI twenty four hour newsroom. A wildfire that started in San Gabriel Canyon and has burned nearly fifty five thousand acres is now twenty five percent surround it.
Two evacuation orders.
Have been downgraded to warnings, and an evacuation warning has been lifted. The northwest side of the fires the highest priority as crews worked to stop the fire from spreading to Big Pines and Pinion Hills. Firefighters have also been mopping up and putting out hotspots in right Wood. The fire started last week and spread quickly during the intense heat. A proposed project that promises to mix housing, retail, and public space in Santa Ana is set to go to
city council for approval. Related Bristol is a two block development of residential units, a hotel, a tower for senior living, and restaurants and shops. Orange County Register reports the project as planned for the South Coast metro area. Bootleg printer in cartridges could soon be banned in LA.
The cartridges pile up in landfills, and scientists have said they could take up to one thousand years to decompose. City Councilman John Lee says the green decision would be to stop the foreign made imports from hitting the marketplace. Banning these cartridges is another step that will improve our sustainability efforts and better protect our environment. The city council
Energy and Environment Committee approved the idea. It also accepted a citywide report by the Sanitation Department that could eventually lead to more bans on single use plastics across multiple Industries in downtown La.
Michael monks KFI News.
Well, Halloween is still a month and a half away, but why not start celebrating it now? And they are celebrating at Disneyland Resort. It's Halloween time at the Disneyland Resort and KFI Am six forty wants to give you a chance to experience the frightful, fun happiest Halloween has brought friend fiendishly tasty treats, Oh my gosh, and if
you've been to the park, they look amazing. There's thrills for one and all and bootiful decor to both Disney California Adventure Park and Disneyland Park now through October thirty first, So again, the celebration goes on for quite some time. You can keep listening to KFI right here at wake Up Call because we've got your chance to win a four pack of one day, one park tickets to the Disneyland Resort. Sean Diddy Combs says he's looking forward to
clearing his name in court. Colmbs was taken into federal custody in New York City last night. Charges against him are expected to be unsealed today. Nearly a dozen lawsuits have already been filed against him, alleging physical abuse or sex trafficking. Calfire's reminding residents that the Gray Skies shouldn't fool them. There's still wildfire danger. Captain Mike Cornett says,
despite cooler temperatures, there's a lot of dry brush. Cornett says, to protect your property, create a defensible space, and have an evacuation plan for your family in case wildfires erupt near you. US gymnast Jordan Chiles is appealing a decision that left her stripped of a bronze medal in the Paris Olympics. Giles lost her bronze in the floor exercise. It was given to a Romanian gymnast over a technicality.
Giles's attorney says the Court of Arbitration for Sport decision was unfair and ignored evidence showing Chiles challenged her score within time limits set. We're just minutes away from handle on the news this morning. Meta is banning some Russian state controlled media ahead of the election in November. Let's say good morning now to the host of How to Money. Right here on KFI, It's Joel Larsgard. Morning, Joel, Morning,
Maybe okay, let's talk home equity. Everybody knows that home values have skyrocketed, which means that if you paid one hundred and eighty thousand dollars for a house and it's now worth five hundred thousand, you got some equity in there.
Yeah, you sure do.
Yeah.
This is a blessing and a curse. Mostly a blessing, right, but it also in some ways like monopoly money for a lot of people, because they're like, uh, I bought this house in twenty seventeen, and now I've got hundreds of thousands of dollars. And obviously it's a good problem to have, but you're like, what do I do with it? Because it's kind of sitting there on the sidelines, not
really doing much. But I couldn't have fathomed when I bought a house five or six years ago that essentially the value was going to double or more and then I was going to have this much in home equity. And I'm seeing all of these articles now and all these headlines essentially kind of encouraging people to think about using their home equity wisely. Or there was this article in Bloomberg and it said Americans have a new piggybank
to raid their houses. And that sort of troubles me because I'm worried that, especially as stimulus money has gone away completely and people's bank accounts are getting a little bit smaller, the thing that seems easiest to tap and the largest source of money that people can kind of start to bring into their lives is from their home equity through a heelock or through a home equity loan. And yeah, rates might be coming down incredibly soon, but they're not going to come down in a massive way.
And I'm just worried that people are going to start seeing those headlines and then they're going to be like, cool, let me grab this home equity for whatever it is I want to spend money on. And it's not that using your home equity doesn't make sense in some cases, that it's really hard to use it well, and especially at today's rates, I think a lot of people are going to use it poorly.
Okay, So how can we protect ourselves against that? Because, like you said, if you've got that money, maybe you should use it to you know, increase your wealth. But what are some good guidelines to make sure that you do it the right way?
Yeah, So the average American has something like three hundred thousand dollars in home equity right now, and not all of that is tappable. So the thing is what I would do if for most people, it is to not use your home equity at all, to not think of
that as a tappable source of money. The real reason that people can and should use home equity is to do reasonable home renovations, right And so even that, I think, if hey, if you don't need to do any home renovations, if you're happy with the way your home currently is now, this is money that will accrue to you eventually upon
the sale of that home. And so yeah, can you tap into it for doing some work to the house, renovating a bathroom, redoing your kitchen if it's if it's thirty years old, it's.
Long in the tooth.
Yes, But just know, like, hey, that money is part of your net worth, and when you eat into that, not only do you put your home at risk because you're borrowing against your home, but you're also putting you're doing damage to your overall net worth at the same time.
So it's okay to tap into it reasonably.
If you are going to tap into it, make sure you have a payoff timeline that is reasonable, and I think typically what I mean by that, I like to see people being able to pay off that home equity
loan or line in two to three years. And so if you don't feel like you can do that, then it might make sense to just save up longer and until you actually can pay off that pay off that home, pay off that home renovation with cash, or be able to at least reduce the timeline that's going to take to pay off that loan.
Okay, all right, let's move on to something.
We're talking about big old things houses now we're talking little tiny things air pods.
Oh yeah, did you have you like seen some of the information coming out about the air pods? They seem really cool.
Yeah. We talked to rich Demiro about the new air pods last week.
And so I'm go ahead.
What did he say.
He said that he thought they were very cool, okay, and he said that they're smaller than they used to be, and he's he talked about what you're about to talk about, and that's that they can be double functioned.
As hearing aids.
Right to me, this is the killing because I've not sometimes the apple products can be not really that much better than some of the other competitors, and they can be two to three times the price. Right, So, air pods in years past, I don't really get excited about them because they're two hundred plus dollars. The AirPod are like two hundred plus dollars like headphones. Think about the other over the air headphones. I'm like, no, there's no
way I would buy those, They're so expensive. But when you think about what Apple has been able to do with the hardware and the software on these new AirPods, and what's going to mean in terms of the people being able to hear the AirPods doubling is hearing aids. And hearing aids have been really expensive and hard to get fitted for for a long time, and even until a couple of years ago, we were talking about it
being illegal to buy hearing aids over the counter. And now think about how much progress has been made and how much the price has gone down, and how much better some of these devices have gotten in short order.
So I love what Apple has done with the AirPods.
I think it's we're going to see a lot more people with white buds sticking out of their ears. But it's going to be like it's it's amazing how how many people it's going to help, and how it's going to become so easy for so many people to hear better in their everyday lives through kind of what Apple has been able to build. So I think it's I think it's super impressive. They're expensive headphones, they're cheap hearing aids.
Right, because hearing aids can be like four or five thousand dollars. Although my mom just got hers at Costco. Bill Handle will be happy to hear.
And the place to go for so many years has been Costco because they have the most reasonable price compared to their competitors. But now we're starting to see a line of hearing aids in the two to six hundred dollar range, including these air pods that are pretty darn good. They might not be as expertly fitted, but they're going to have a lot of the same abilities, and so especially for people with minor hearing loss, there's a lot more to choose from now.
Yeah, and so many people are walking around with the stupid earbuds hanging out of their ears already.
Anyway, it's not that big of a deal.
Right, It's become normalized and so people aren't going to look at you like you're a weirdo, because say, everybody's doing it.
I still think it's weird to see people walking around with them, but that's just me. Okay, Amazon is getting into cheap groceries.
Yeah, I like seeing this because there's been a big spot light shown on the grocery space and there's been talk of price gouging in the grocery aisle. I think it's just been overhyped and really there's still a lot
of competition in the grocery space. And then Amazon launching this new Amazon Saver line of groceries on its website is just another shot across the bow to to some of the lower costs of players out there, like All the Trader Joe's another fairly inexpensive grocer, and I love seeing just another competitor and the fact that, yeah, Amazon's
been in the grocery game. But what they realize is there's a big segment of shoppers who say, just give me the maple syrup and make it inexpensive, and that's what All the has done so well. Right, They're they're
kind of like the Costco of grocery. Stores where everything's still kind of in the packaging in the boxes, and because it takes fewer employees roaming the aisles, they are able to lower the costs of groceries for everyone, and they're kind of no. Frill's line of products has just made all the a good place to go if you just want to save money. So if you're like, I want to save money on my groceries and I want to do it quick, it's all about where you shop,
and all these so good at that. But now Amazon is saying, listen, all they needs some competition on the low end, and they've got this Amazon Saber line. So I'm curious to see you know, it's starting off small, but nothing's more than five bucks. And yeah, I'm curious to see where this goes because this is what people are clamoring for.
Is is cheaper groceries?
And is it the it's the same Amazon model though, is you order the things online and they get delivered, So it is.
Right, right, Yeah, that's exactly right.
And it is it only non perishables or is it also like refrigerated stuff?
No, so there is.
It's mostly non perishables, right, So, but it's like canned goods, but there is like turkey breast and coffee creamer and stuff like that too, So yeah, it's I mean, I'm going to try to place in order soon. I want to see kind of how this shakes out, and I want to see the quality of the goods. And I know everybody's kind of got their different opinion about what makes good groceries. And some people are like, I wouldn't shop anywhere but whole foods.
And I get that. I know, more power to you.
The choice that we have in the grocery space along like a spectrum of like super fancy to really inexpensive is incredible.
But I love that we just have another competitor now.
Okay, And you'll have to let us know once you do check it out, I will, all right. Joe Larsgard, host of how to Money on KFI and for more great advice on how to spend and how to save your money, you can listen every Sunday from noon to two right here on KFI.
You can also follow Joel.
I'm sure that he posts some great tips on how to save money on his social media out out at how to Money.
Joel.
Thank you Joel, Thanks Amy.
All Right, this is KFI and kost HD two Los Angeles, Orange County. We lead local live from the KFI twenty four hour newsroom.
I'm Amy King.
This has been your wake up Call, and if you missed any of wake Up Call, you can listen anytime on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to wake Up Call with me, Amy King. You can always hear wake Up Call five to six am Monday through Friday KFIAM six forty and any time on demand on the iHeartRadio app.