You're listening to wake Up Call on demand from KFI A M six forty KFI and KOST HD two Los Angeles, Orange County.
KFI Radio.
This is Mission Control Houston.
Please call station for a voice check.
Station.
This is Amy King with kfi's wake Up Call. How do you hear me?
I can hear you loud and clear.
And it's time for your morning wake up call.
Landed and its name is Amy k.
Here's Amy King.
This is.
Yah.
It is five oh one. So if you set your alarm for five o'clock, get up. You're late. This is your wake up call for Tuesday, February eleventh. Good morning, I'm Amy King. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Got so much going on today. I know I say that a lot, but it's always true. Here's what's ahead on wake Up Call. Well, here comes the rain again, and a lot of it. The National Weather Services issued a flash flood watch for most of the Southland. Now
it doesn't start till Thursday. One and a half to three inches of rains expected in the valleys and coastal areas. Three to six inches of rain could fall in the foothills and mountains. The heaviest rain expected on Thursday, and the thread of debris and mudflows, especially concerning in the recent wildfire burn areas. FEMA and the US Army Corps of Engineers will begin removing fire debris from homes destroyed
in last month's wildfires. That work begins today. Residents who want free debris removal have to submit a write of entry form by March thirty. First. Forms are available online and at any FEMA Disaster Recovery center. President Trump says all hell will break out and he'll call for the end of the Israel Hamas ceasefire if every Israeli hostage isn't released from Gaza by Saturday. AMASS announced yesterday it was delaying the next group of hostages to be released
that was supposed to happen that's Saturday. We're gonna be talking with kfi's White House correspondent John Decker about that and also who the President is welcoming to the White House today. Mike Dubuski's joining us at five thirty. People apparently are swiping less. We're going to dig into that a little bit. What fees are fair when it comes to your investments. We'll find out from our host of How to Money on KFI, Joel Larsgard. That's at five
point fifty. More people answering Uncle Sam's call. We'll find out what that's all about with ABC's Jim Ryan at five twenty and also sometime this hour, we have tickets to see Dear Evan Hanson. It's coming to the Cbritos Center for the Performing Arts this weekend, and we're going to be giving those tickets away this hour, so keep your phones close. It is a Tony Award winning show from Broadway, and they also made a movie about it, which I just watched yesterday. It's such a great, great show.
Love it so again, Dear Evan Hanson. Tickets coming up this hour, so stick with us. But let's get started with some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. A convicted felon who joined an immigration protest near the one on one freeway in downtown La is facing criminal charges. LA County DA Nathan Hoffman says the guy allegedly committed various crimes over the weekend, including throwing books and other objects at cars on the freeway.
One of them actually making contact with a vehicle while he was up there, and he also engaged in felony vandalism the Los Angeles street sign.
Itself, and says people are allowed to protest if.
You want to do it lawfully and you want to comply with the various laws and ordinances that are applicable to such protests. We will not only allow that to happen, we will protect your right to do it.
But he adds once a protester crosses the line into criminal activity, they will be arrested and face possible felony charges. A resentencing hearing for the Menendez brothers has been scheduled for late March.
Seric and Lyele Menndez could appear in person at the Vanni's courthouse, but whether they appear in person or virtually has not yet been determined. It would be their first in person court appearance in close to three decades.
Kfi's Daniel Martindale says the hearing was supposed to happen last month, but was put off because of the wildfires. Former DA George Gascon recommended in October that Eric and Lyle Menendez be re sentenced. They're serving sentences of life in prison for murdering their parents in nineteen eighty nine at their home in Beverly Hills. Some Danes are making a play for California in response to President Trump's comments that he wants to acquire Greenland.
Hundreds of thousands have signed on to a petition, even if it is tongue in cheek, calling for Denmark to make a purchase of its own California.
Come right back.
The organizers say they need to raise eight trillion dollars to purchase California from the US. The mischievous Danes say, the weather is better, there's Disneyland, good food, and our city is apparently just perfect to be called Los Angeles in a new state called New Denmark. So what do you think?
Yay or nay?
Michael monks KFI News.
They also say the avocado toast is spectacular. Right now, let's say good morning to kfi's White House correspondent John Decker. So, John, well, we've got a lot to talk about when it comes to the president. But first, he's meeting with another world leader today who's visiting.
Visiting today, as you point out, amy another world leader. This is Jordan's King of Dullah. This comes a week after the President made those remarks during a joint press
conference with Israeli Prime Minister of Benjamin Nett Yahoo. The idea of the US taking over Gaza and Jordan would figure into that plan in the sense that the President is asking neighboring Arab countries Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia to take in two million Palestinians that would be moved out of Gaza to make way for essentially redeveloping Gaza, which would be a ten to fifteen year effort. So that will likely be number one item on their agenda when they meet later today.
So far, Jordan hasn't really received that idea very well.
No, they have it, nor have the other countries that I've mentioned, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister putting out a statement saying this is a non starter, this idea the President has for Gaza. They say that they insist on a two state solution, a state for the Palestinian people alongside the state of Israel, before Saudi Arabia will even entertain the idea of normalizing relations with Israel.
And do most people in the region seem to want that two state solution.
Yes, every Arab country insists upon a two state solution. It's been the position of the international community as well, and so the president really doesn't have that. I've seen any other world leader backing him up in terms of his vision for the Middle East and his vision specifically
for Gaza. So the President says there's a lot of support, I haven't seen it other than from some congressional Republicans, and they really don't count in the equation, just because it's the Arab countries that likely would be so critical in terms of making the President's plan, his vision for God's come to fruition.
Right, like you mentioned, you have to find homes if they even wanted to try to attempt this, So you'd have to find homes, permanent homes for two million people. Because Trump also said that part of the US taking over Gaza, if it did, would not include having Palestinians come back.
Well, that's right. He has given several different statements, different positions on that particular issue. The most recent statement is the one that you just mentioned, Amy, and that is those Palestinians, once they, according to the President, are moved out of Gaza into Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Egypt, they aren't coming back. That's not what he said during that joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin net
and Yahoo. But that was a week ago. A week later, his position appears to have changed in terms of whether those Palestinians who would be displaced would be coming back to Gaza.
Okay, And from a legal standpoint, since you are awyer, I, could the US take that territory? Would they be allowed to who would give them the authority to do that? Or would that be an act of war?
Well, it's sovereign territory, and it would violate international law, and it would certainly amy give a green light to a country like China, which has in its long term game plan putting Taiwan in its territory. What's to stop from China from saying, well, if the US can essentially take over Gaza, why can't we just take over Taiwan? And so that to me is one of those problematic parts of the President's vision for the Middle East.
Yeah, I think it's really interesting when this all came forward. Everybody's like, oh, he doesn't really mean that, But the President seems to really believe that this is an option on the table to take over Gaza. We'll see how it plays out.
Yeah, he hasn't walked it back Amy at all. And as far as the meeting with King of Dolla today, it's closed press unlike what we saw last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjaminett Yaho. There will not be a joint press conference. We won't have an opportunity to ask questions, for instance, to Jordan's King about how he feels about the President's vision, just simply because the meeting itself the idea of a joint press conference. That's not happening with King of Dolla today.
All Right. Kfi's White House correspondent John Decker, thanks for the information, Thanks Amy. All Right, let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. One person has been killed at an airport in Arizona when a private jet owned by Motley Crusinger Vince Neil collided with another jet that was parked. Scottsdale Fire Captain Dave Folio says Neil's plane veered off a runway yesterday while arriving in Scottsdale and crashed into a Gulf Stream jet.
We you have five souls, one doa two immediates that have been transported to local trial centers, one delayed stable to a local hospital.
And aviation planning and outreach coordinator at the airport says it appeared the left main landing gear of the arriving jet failed. At least fifty three people have been killed in Guatemala when a bus crossing a bridge collided with other vehicles and plunged into a ravine.
This bus plummeted about sixty five feet down into that ravine driving off the Belize Bridge in Guatemala, and this is a very busy bus route. The president has declared several days of national mourning and has called on the military to assist.
ABC's Marcus Moore says the bus landed upside down yesterday and was half submerged in a sewage polluted stream. Emergency teams had to work in the dark with headlamps and flashlights to rescue people. Looks like New York City Mayor Eric Adams is off the hook. The Department of Justice has announced that it's dropping the federal corruption case against
the mayor. CNN got its hands on a MENEMO, confirming it charges were brought against that last year in what was the first prosecution of a sitting mayor in New York City history. Defense Secretary Pete HeiG Seth has ordered a pause on recruiting people with a history of gender dysphoria kafies. Lisa Taylor says it follows President Trump's executive
order that restricts transgender military service. Meg Seth wrote in a memorandum for senior Pentagon leadership, efforts to split our troops along the lines of identity weaken our force and make us vulnerable. Heg Seth also ordered a suspension of medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for current service members with gender dysphoria. Marriages in China
have dropped to their lowest level ever. Official Chinese stats show the number of marriage registrations has fallen to six million after a post pandemic rise to nearly eight million that was in twenty twenty three. The Chinese Communist Party, which runs the government, says it wants people to get married to help stop a drop in the country's birth rate. The Mister Kennel Club dog Show is underway in New
York City. About twenty five hundred dogs representing more than two hundred breeds are taking part in the annual event at the Javits Convention Center and at Madison Square Garden. It culminates in the coveted Best In Show later tonight, which reminds me of the movie Best In Show, which is hysterical. All of that movie if you haven't seen it, the mockumentary with Christopher Guests and Eugene Levy and Oh
my gosh, so so funny. Don't want to forget that coming up this hour speaking of a great show, Tony and Grammy winning musical Dear Evan Hanson is coming to the Soritos Center for the Performing Arts this weekend February fourteenth and February fifteenth, also February sixteenth, and we have tickets for you to the show on Saturday night. In fact, we have five pairs of tickets, so keep your phones handy. We're given those away in just the next few minutes.
A man is facing felony charges allegedly throwing objects on to the one to one freeway during one of the protests against President Trump's immigration policies. Martin Torres is charged with throwing things off the Spring Street overpass and vandalizing a freeway sign on February third. He could get more than seven years in prison if convicted. A pause on President Trump's buyout offer to federal employees has been extended again.
Federal judge in Boston extended the temporary restraining order yesterday. It affects as many as two million federal employees. More than sixty thousand workers have reportedly accepted the offer so far. New Laker superstar Luka Doncic has made a splash in his new city, announcing his foundation is donating a half million dollars to fire recovery efforts. The money will go to rebuilding properties destroyed by the palisades and eaten fires,
with a focus on playgrounds, sports courts, and fields. So as his message message said, kids have a safe place to play, the announcement was signed, your new neighbor. That's a good neighbor to have. Let's say good morning to a he sees Jim Ryan.
So Jim, I hate that he left town here.
Oh that's right. Well Luka Doncic, Well, I think we're going to love him too. He scored fifteen points last night. Yeah, okay, well let's move on now. We haven't depressed. Jim Ryan, Jim Moore. High school grads are often not to go to college or trade school or directly into the workforce, So what's their other option?
Uniform? They're signing up there and listing for the military one of the what do we have six branches now? I guess Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, Coast Guard, and Space Force six of them. And the Army secretary, I mean there's the former Army secretary said that that branch the Army is on track to meet its twenty twenty five and listman goals easily, and they're expecting eighty one thousand new recruits at the Army, and the same holds true across the branches here the Air Force ten thousand
more recruits in eighteen months. That a lot of this, I mean, there are a lot of reasons behind this. Pete Hagsath, the new Defense Secretary, says that it's a new spirit of patriotism related to the election of President Trump. But the trend really began early last year, so before the election, you were seeing these numbers rise. So we'll see if this is a trend or just a spike.
Amy, Okay, because I think in your notes. You said the December numbers kind of shot up.
It did.
Yeah, they were dramatically higher than they had been the you know, the previous December. But even the December number at fifty eight hundred and seventy seven new recruits in the army was lower than you saw in August. So three months before that you saw this spike. That's why, you know, you've got to give it to some time, give the averages a chance to even out so that we can see if it is an actual trend, a rising number over time. Because we saw the numbers drop
off dramatically during the pandemic. Military recruiters couldn't set up their folding tables at junior colleges or high schools and try to recruit new people that way, and that was a major way that they had people signing up. And so we you know, lost a lot of folks from attrition because of lack of recruiting them. Those numbers now than there were. Enlist of recruiters has gone up as well for the Army.
Okay, And is it across the board? Is it the other branches as well, or is it really focusing on Army. No, they're all.
Seeing this increase, and critics say that part of it may be that some of the standards for enlisting, for signing up, for getting in have been lowered. You know, at the Air Force, for example, ten thousand more recruits across eighteen months than some critics, even in trade magazines Air and Space Forces Magazine, they say it's because these
standards were dropped a bit. But the Air Force insists that it's not dropping standards for training, so well, it may be a little bit easier to get into the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, that the training once you're inside is as rigorous as it has been before.
Oh okay, because I was going to say, well, heg Seth has been saying, hey, we are going to increase the lethality and not decrease standards. But it sounds like once you're in it's going to be the same. But getting in is a little bit easier.
Right on one thing they're doing once you if you score in the bottom thirty percent, for example, at the Army, some of those folks are being offered remedial courses or opportunities to retake the test or to study up and then improve their score, so well, they may not be allowed in with a lower score. They're being allowed a chance to bone up on the material, to take the test again and then to get in that.
Way to enlist.
Okay, and do we know or have you heard if there are more people applying for military academies too, like West Point and Air Force Academy or is that still too soon to tell?
Yeah, they're always they're always brimming, you know. And of course with those you have to have recommendations from members of Congress and others and letters sent off, and so that's always a major way that recruiting is done. I was interested to see interested in this amy. So sure, we've got the six branches of the military. You know who else is recruiting heavily right now? The Secret Service?
I know.
Did you see their Super Bowl ad?
It was Prettyeah, there was an ad that aired. I don't know if it was streamed or ran on TV. I don't think it did. But it was inside the Superdome, this ad that was put on the jumbo trons recruiting people for the Secret Service.
Yeah, it was a great ad too.
Did you see it? Where did you see the ad?
Well?
I thought I saw it during the Super Bowl.
Well, maybe maybe it did air. I was told that it only showed inside the Superdome, but I don't know.
Well, I have to tell you, I was at a Super Bowl party and it wasn't paying that close of attention, so I was watching the ads after. So maybe that was one of the ads and didn't specify. But it's pretty cool. Yeah, very patriotic. We like all that stuff. Jim Ryan, We're sorry about Luca, but Lucah. Yeah, sorry, Luca.
We hardly knew ye.
We'll talk to you soon, tell you all right. People in the Burn areas in La County are getting ready for more rain. It's expected to start sometime tomorrow late and could trigger flash flooding and debris flows. The National Weather Services issued a flash flood watch. It'll be in effect from Thursday afternoon through late Thursday night for most of the LA area. Forecasters say rain rates near one inch per hour will be possible after midnight. There's also
a ten percent chance of thunderstorms. The Governor of Virginia has declared a state of emergency ahead of a storm moving that way. The National Weather Service's travel is going to become treacherous today and tomorrow in much of Virginia and West Virginia. Winter storm warnings extend from Kentucky all the way to southern New Jersey. A separate storm system is set to drop heavy snow tomorrow from Kansas and
Missouri to the Great Lakes. Sounds like winter. Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates, who has but heads with state officials on numerous issues over the past several years, has announced he's going to be joining the Trump administration as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Teachers at El Camino Reel High School and Woodland Hills have gone on strike over failed contract negotiations.
United Teachers LA says educators have been working without a contract since July. This teacher tells KTLA they deserve to be paid a fair way.
Especially here in California where cost of living is storrying to skyrocket food prices right in a skyrocket, So it's really important that we stay in fight and make sure that we have on schedule salary increases.
The teachers say they'll stay on strike until all of their demands are met. Now that Super Bowl fifty nine is over, San Francisco is getting ready for Super Bowl sixty San Francisco. Forty nine Ers owner Jed York was in New Orleans to accept the hosting duties.
We had a great Super Bowl and Super Bowl fifty. This is going to blow the doors off.
This will be the second time the game will You played at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara. In twenty sixteen, the Super Bowl boosted sales tax revenue in the Bay Area by two hundred and forty million dollars. That is music from Dear Evan Hanson. There's a movie about it. But we have tickets for you to go see this stage show. It's coming to the Si Rito Center for
the Performing Arts this weekend. We have five pair of tickets to give away for the show on Saturday night at eight pm, and we would love to give them to you, our wake up call listeners. So now's the time to call again. These are tickets to go see Evan Hanson the Musical. Such a great show, but bring your tissues. One eight hundred five to zero one KFI is the number to call. That's one eight hundred five to zero, one five, three four and let's we've got
five pair. It's not cool, so let's take caller six seven, eight, nine and ten. And then if you're calling and it keeps ringing, you know, hang out because an can only answer the phone so quickly. Again, it's a color six seven, eight, nine ten for tickets to go see the Tony and Grammy winning musical Dear Evan Hanson at the Cerrito Center for the Performing Arts. Here's the number again, one eight hundred five two zero one KFI. That's eight hundred five
two zero one five three four good luck. The risk of debris and mudflows in the burn areas is higher as a powerful storm heads towards the Southland. Forecasters expect one and a half to three inches of rain in most areas. Three to six inches could fall in mountains and foothills. The heaviest rain is expected Thursday in two Friday. The California Association of Realtors says it's giving a million dollars in disaster relief grants to residents affected by the wildfires.
Grants up to one thousand dollars can be used to cover mortgage relief, rent or temporary housing applications are being accepted accepted at c a R now through April thirtieth. In response, to President Trump's talk about wanting to acquire Greenland from Denmark, thousands of Danish citizens are launching their own effort to purchase California. The online petition has almost
two hundred thousand signatures. It says buying the Golden State would provide them with more sunshine, dominance in the tech industry, limitless avocado toast, and easy access to Disneyland. At sixoh five handle on the news, President Trump says, all hell is going to break out if AMAS doesn't let the hostages out now right now, let's check in with ABC's Mike Debusky. Mike Elon Musk is looking to acquire more.
Yes, he is looking to acquire open Ai specifically, which is kind of the leading artificial intelligence company that's out there.
Doesn't he already have an artificial intelligence company.
He sure does. It's called Xai, but it is largely seen to be kind of lackluster in comparison to open Ai, though there is some history but between Elon Musk and open Ai. Open Ai, of course, the maker of chat GPT and one of the most prominent artificial intelligence companies in the world. He and Sam Altman, the CEO of open Ai co founded the company back in twenty fifteen as a nonprofit and the stated goal of that nonprofit
was to create good AI for all humanity. Right, this sort of very heady goal of creating safe AI, and
they thought that a nonprofit with the way to do that. However, there is a for profit piece of open ai that is controlled by the nonprofit board, and the concern that Elon Musk had before he eventually left open ai was that Sam Altman was getting a little too friendly with the for profit wing, that he was becoming too focused on making money and not focused enough on keeping AI safe and deploying it in a way that would be
beneficial to humanity. So he left the company in twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, founded his own company, Xai, and now he is putting in a major bid almost one hundred billion dollars to acquire OpenAI, though it is already running into some headwinds. Sam Altman posted on social media, no thank you, but he is interested in acquiring Twitter for nine point seventy four billion dollars if Elon Musk is open to it. That is one tenth exactly of the number that Elon Musk threw out there.
Okay, so does it sound like either one of those things they're going to happen. Here's something that's not happening online dating now while it Hub just released a survey and said that California is the second best state in the country for online dating opportunities, but apparently fewer people are swiping.
Yeah, we are observing a pretty big slowdown in the online dating app industry. Match Group which is the biggest player here. They own match dot Com and Tinder and Hinge. They reported flat overall revenues for twenty twenty four in their most recent earnings report, paying subscribers are down. Management of match Groups says that they expect sales to continue to decline in twenty twenty five. The picture is not much better over at Bumble, which is match Group's major competitor.
They said that they did see an increase in users, but they are making less money off of each individual user, and that overall revenues are down as a result. That's just the finances. We're also seeing a general malaise in how people think about these online dating services. A Pew Research study from twenty twenty three finds that people haven't been having good experiences Almost half of all online daters say that their experiences have been negative on the apps,
and that is particularly true for women. Perhaps no surprise there. What does negativetivity mean in this context? While a couple different things, Fifty two percent say that they've encountered someone who they thought was a scammer on one of these apps. Fifty seven percent of women say that online dating is unsafe, and eighty five percent of people say that someone continued to talk to them when they said the conversation and
was over. So if there's any takeaway from this conversation, it's to layoff if someone says they're not interested.
Okay, sounds like we're all just giving up, right. ABC's Mike Dubuski, thanks so much for the information.
Of course, take care.
All right, we'll talk to you soon. And now let's switch over to Bloomberg's Courtney Donahoe. Good morning, Courtney.
Good morning, Happy Tuesday, Happy Tuesday.
So mister Powell is headed to the hill today. What is that? What is that? And what does it mean?
Yes, well, a lot of people are looking at a reserve chair Jay Powell. He's giving a semi annual testimony to lawmakers starting today.
So He's likely going to highlight.
How the resilient economy is a reason to hold interest rates steady.
But everybody on Wall Street's going to.
Be watching for every word that he says on what that means ahead for interest rates, what he sees ahead for the economy.
So it is going to be a key event. Head of that. Stocks are lower.
We're looking at Dow futures day down about one hundred points and p futures falling three tenths of a percent. Yesterday, though we saw rebound for stocks led by the market's most influential group, that is technology shares. The Dow closed up one hundred and sixty seven points on the day. But one stock we're following on the radar on Wall Street.
Higher prices helping Coca Cola profit beat expectations. At the drinks giant, shoppers have been paying more for the company, SODA's energy drinks and juices, and we're seeing the stock higher in the pre market.
SODA's like ten bucks for a twelve pack. Now I'm wearing my love Diet Coke shirt today. But it's crazy how expensive it's gotten.
Oh yeah, and it's but still but just a lot of people are budget conscious shoppers right now, they've been pulling back on a whole bunch of other items, including pepsi. But it seems that people are still buying Coca Cola product.
Oh that's CAUs coca is better than pepsi. Okay, so I have no opinion. There something else that people are spending a lot of money on. Is Valentine's Day coming up this Friday? Yes, and time is ticking it you have to buy something. I like jewelry by the way.
Anyway, Consumers are expected to spend a record twenty seven and a half billion dollars on Valentine's Day this year, according to the National Retail Federation, slightly above the record that was set in twenty twenty. I guess we had to buy something for our loved ones, knowing that we were heading into the pandemic lockdown with them, so you definitely want to make them happy. But the most popular gift this year is candy, followed by flowers.
Candy's less expensive than flowers in most cases, so I'm voting for candy. There we go. I love candy. Donaho. Thank you so much for the time this morning. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. All right, take care, Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Felt like I cut her off, but I've been told to limit my time with her. She's a busy woman. She's
on like dozens of stations around the country. So I love that we get to kind of check in with her and get little money updates every day. Federal officials say wildfire cleanup in the Alta, Dina and Padalisades fire area is is moving quickly.
More than one thousand workers from the EPA and hundreds more from FEMA have been on the ground at both burn zones, working through phase one, the removal of hazardous waist. Eric Swinson of the Army Corps of Engineer says Phase two is when all the rest will be cleaned up.
These teams are working around the clock to clear eligible degree as quickly as possible while upholding the highest safety and environmental standards.
The Army Corps says more than seven thousand property owners have submitted right of entry forms asking the federal teams to take care of the cleanup. Michael Monks KFI News.
And Ellie County Sheriff's deputy who pleaded no contest to an off duty hit and run crash on the ten Freeway, and Covina has been sentenced to two years probation and a three month DUI program me. He also has to give up his Peace Officers Standards and Training certification and has to pay restitution to the person hurt in the crash back in twenty eighteen. Prosecutors say the deputy was speeding around midnight when he rear inted a car, forcing
it into another vehicle. Police in Santa Monica say the body of a homeless woman who'd been badly beaten has been found on the beach. Lifeguards say the body found yesterday was in a sleeping bag. They say the woman was pronounced dead at the scene and murder is suspected. Marriages in China have dropped to their lowest level ever.
Wait already did that story. The Chinese Communist Party runs the government says it wants to get people to get married to help stop a drop in the country's birth rate. Tiger Woods has withdrawn from the Genesis Invitational PGA Tour event he hosts as he mourns the death of his mother. He said on x he was planning to compete, but just isn't ready. His mom died February fourth. Tiger says
he's still processing that loss. The tournament kicks off on Thursday from Tory Pines in San Diego in the strongest storm in the years, headed towards southern California, with rainfall of two inches or more. The rain could trigger mud and debris flows, especially in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena Burn areas Tolca. Gabbert has taken another step toward becoming the next Director of National Intelligence, cleared a major hurdle yesterday when the US Senate voted along party lines to
advance her nomination. The final vote to Confirmer is expected to be held late tonight or early tomorrow. Lift is getting into the robotaxi game. The Ride Stairs ride share services announced it's looking to launch an autonomous vehicle fleet sometime next year. It'll be rolled out in Dallas first. We're just minutes away from handle on the news this morning, is there a run on eggs? Trader Jos is getting ready for it right now. Let's say good morning to the host of How to Money from noon to two
on Sunday, Right here on KFI, it's Joel Larsguard. So Joel, President Trump says it's time to ditch the pennies.
Hey, I've been saying this for years, Amy, nobody's listening to me.
Well, apparently you got the president's here. Maybe maybe I doubt it.
This has been a proposal, a bipartisan proposal. Actually, there have been people on both sides of the aisle saying, hey, the penny's longer to get rid of it. Especially like think about when the good old days when my grandma would tell me about buying a coke for a nickel, and that's five pennies, right, and so, like pennies actually mattered because you could buy stuff with them. There's like essentially nothing that you could buy for a penny anymore.
Even think about like dollar stores. Most of the dollar stores have gone away from selling things for a dollar because of rising prices, and so you can't really even buy as much for a dollar anymore. So the fact that the penny costs more than a penny to make, essentially almost four pennies to make a penny, I think it makes sense to get rid of it. And then the next thing, potentially on the chopping block is the nickel.
Oh okay, so how you said that to make a penny it costs four cents. How many pennies do they make every year? Do we know?
So that is a good question. Usually what they're doing is they're attempting to make pennies to because there's some of these fall out of circulation. So when you put your pennies, I think there was a billions of pennies churned out last year, maybe three billion pennies. And I think the reason is essentially because when you stick them, when you lose them in your couch cushions or you stick them in some sort of a jar to kind of save up, those pennies fall out of circulation. And
so the US mint has to replace those pennies. So what's it going to look like. It's not that we're going to like stop seeing pennies immediately. Pennies will still be in circulation. It's just that we will stop minting new pennies to basically, you know, make up for those pennies that we have either lost, not picked up or stuck into a jar.
Somewhere, and we can save a lot of money on it.
Yeah, I mean, this is a good This is Obviously there's been a lot of focus in these first few weeks of the Trump administration on cost cutting and some ways. Some people would say really great ways, and other people would say, oh, man, I don't really like what they're
doing over here. I think this is at least one of those things where the vast majority of people can agree on the fact that pennies are essentially worthless and there's no reason to manufacture them anymore, especially as our world gets more and more digital and paying with debit cards. Credit cards are just kind of the norm. Pennies are just kind of more of a pain than they are a solution.
Okay, so if you are still pinching pennies. We were talking about how much is a fair fee for investment companies to take because they need a cut to stay in business, and what is that? Is there a hard and fast number, Jewel.
So there's not really a hard and fast number. But over the past few decades this has only gotten better and better and better for individual investors, it's become fees have dropped precipitously, and this is honestly, I think we can call it the Vanguard effect, because Vanguard was the low cost brokerage firm launched by Jack Bogel in the late nineteen sixties early nineteen seventies, and he kind of
invented in some ways the index one. He didn't fully invent it, but he at least brought it into the mainstream in that in particular, in his focus on lowering fees for investors, basically was the lowering tide that lowered all fees. And so Vanguard literally just announced last week they're lowering their fees even more, and they're basically the lowest cost fe brokerage firm in existence, and they're lowering
fees even more. The average fee now on a Vanguard fund is point oh seven percent, which is pretty miniscule. The rest of the industry is point four to four percent, almost half a percent. So the difference between what you're going to pay in fees based on where you're investing can be significant.
Are they expecting others to kind of follow suit or are they going to just say, no, we're keeping our fees where they are.
They don't care, they don't care if other people follow suit. But the truth is other people have to, right because this is why like Fidelity, which is another one of my favorite brokerage firms has launched what they call zero fee funds, like I don't know, this was probably seven or eight years ago, and so they literally have a few in house funds that charge a zero expense ratio.
And when you think about what this means for investors, the fact that that Vanguard just cut fees by a little bit, well that's that's big news in some ways, but it's not big news in other ways. The big news is what individuals do with this information. And the
truth is where you invest matters. If you're with a really high cost firm where they charge a lot of money for advice and where they charge a lot of money for you to own a fund that's very similar to what you can get much cheaper at like Fidelity,
Schwab or Vanguard, then you're overpaying. And so this is this should be just another reminder to everyone out there who is investing, which is great, to check your fees and to make sure more of your money isn't going to pay the fund manager than is going to invest in assets that are going to grow on your behalf for years and decades to come.
Okay, so always ask that question before you make your investments. How much am I paying you?
Yeah, how much am I paying you? And then almost how much does just the fund itself charge? And you can go into the back end of your investment. You know your investment company. You can see Oh wait a second, the expense ratio on this fund. You need to type it into Google. Right, So, like vo is one of Vanguard's s and P five hundred funds, and I think the expensory show is like point two or point oh three,
it's essentially non existent. Go type in those letters from your fund that you're invested in and figure out what the expens ray show is. If it's above point three point four point five, you should be thinking again and seeing if there's lower cost place you can do business. And I guarantee you there is.
Okay, always great advice from our buddy Joel Larsgard, and you can get more information about how to manage your money and other great advice every Sunday from noon to two right here on KFI. It's called how to Money with Joel Larsgard. You can also follow Joel on Instagram at how to Money. Joel. Thank 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