You're listening to KFI AM six forty wake Up Call with Me Amy King on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
KFI had KOST HD two Los Angeles, Orange County.
They do something I hate most of all. Every who down and who will live tall and the small stand close togain with Chrispells. They stand hand in hand those who will stop. Y.
It's time for your morning wake up call. Here's Amy King.
It's five o'clock on your wake up call. Good morning, It's Tuesday, December seventeenth. I'm Amy King. Feel glad you're getting your day started with us today. Eight sleeps until Christmas, and quit giving me that look. She's not ready. She's stressed out, and she says I trigger her every time I say that. Hey, how about three quarters of a billion dollars for Christmas? There's a Mega Millions drawing tonight.
It's worth seven hundred and forty million dollars. It's the largest Mega Million's jackpot ever up for grabs in the month of December. And if you don't want all of that money, you could have about half of it. If you take the cash. It's a three hundred and forty three million dollars if you take it in a lump sum I gotta go buy my ticket, just one. It only takes one. But instead of a Starbucks, I'm buying
lottery today. Here's what's ahead on wake Up Call. A student, a teacher, and the fifteen year old shooter have been killed in a shooting at a K through twelve Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin. At least six others were hurt in the shooting yesterday before noon. At the private Christian school. Two students are in critical condition. Police say the shooter, a student, shot and kill herself. We're going to find out the latest on this with ABC's Jim Ryan. In
less than five minutes. President elect Trump says Mexico and Canada are on notice over the border crisis. In his first press conference since the election, Trump criticized the Biden administration over reports that it is auctioning off pieces of the border wall. ABC's Stephen Portnoy's going to join Wakeup Call to tell us about everything the President elect got into during that press conference yesterday at mar A Lago.
That's coming up at five twenty. A new red flag warning's been issued for much of Ventura County and most of western La County. Forty to sixty mile per hour guests are expected from this afternoon through tomorrow evening at six. The high winds and low humidity levels will increase fire danger, creating conditions much like last week when the Malibu fire started. Coming up at the bottom of the hour, a Christmas miracle of sorts, the story of Susie the Stray Dog.
It's a great story and it's a great idea for a Christmas present for your kids and grandkids. Again, that's coming up at the bottom of the hour. And then at five fifty Joel large Guard's going to tell us whether you should run out and buy a car, not because of Christmas, but because of what could happen after Christmas. Let's get started with some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. The La County Department of Public Health has announced a new program to
help people with medical debt. The Undue Medical Debt Pilot program is aimed at tackling the county's growing medical debt crisis. Supervisor Janis Hans says one in ten people are burdened by medical debt, and many of them are low income.
No one, she'd have to go into poverty to get the health care they need, and yet that's exactly what's happening. Medical debt is crushing families across our communities.
Hans says. Long standing medical debt is often sold on the secondary market for cents on the dollar to collection companies that do what they can to get people to pay. She says La County is going to buy much of that debt. The life of a doctor murdered in Woodland Hills has been charged in his murder.
A hong Mereshoj allegedly planned the murder and hired a hitman to carry it out. LA County DA Nathan Hawkman says the killing of doctor Hamid Mershoj outside his office in August was a betrayal.
The depth of this deceit and violence involved in this case is chilling, and we will not rest until justice is served.
A hong Mere show J and two men face murder charges in the case, while a fourth woman has been charged as an accessory for driving the alleged hitman. Michael Monks KFI News.
The Chikita Canyon landfill in Castaic has been sued by La County. The lawsuit claims the noxious odors and underground smoldering reaction have negatively impacted nearby residents for too long. County officials have said they want the court to grant an injunction forcing the landfill to clean up, to relocate neighbors until work is to complete, and to pay civil penalties. SpaceX is about to send some spy satellites into space
from off the coast of Santa Barbara County. Kfi's Daniel Martin Dale says the launch is supposed to happen around five twenty this morning.
The Falcon nine rocket will be carrying multiple satellites on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office. Because the government is its client for this launch, SpaceX has not released any other information about the payload.
SpaceX did say that following the stage separation, the first stage will land on a platform in the Pacific Ocean. Let's say good morning now to ABC's Jim Ryan. Now, Jim, normally I love talking with you, but I hate that we have to talk about this today. Nine days before Christmas, a high school student walks into a school in Madison, Wisconsin and open fires.
What do we know, Well, the abundant like Christian school is where this happened to a school that has fewer than four hundred students in Madison, Wisconsin. And yes, yesterday morning, just before eleven o'clock, a student of fifteen year old student, a girl, walked into class with a handgun. She opened fire in a class study in a study hall situation with different grade levels there, shot a teacher to death, wounded another teacher, shot a fellow student to death, wounded
critically wounded two other students before turning the gun on herself. So, yes, the shooter is dead. The police were on the scene within four minutes. This is a private Christian school and so you don't have metal detectors or school resource officers or the same sort of security that you would have in a public school in Madison, Wisconsin. But police were there very quickly. They found that the shooter was already down, having shot herself.
Okay, we hear that her family has been talking with and cooperating with police. Have they provided any kind of insight that we know.
Of, not publicly, but you're right, I mean the family, the parents were there at the home. The police showed up within just a couple of hours of the shooting. Began questioning them, and they are cooperating with the investigation. A big question, of course, is why did this happen? What was going through the child's mind when she carried that gun into her own school. It's just done clear at this point. The school is closed now and parents
are being offered counseling kids and staff members elsewhere. Last night that there was a vigil there in Madison, Wisconsin to bring people together to begin some kind of healing.
And I would imagine in the days and weeks to come, we're going to start hearing more about this fifteen year old girl. Fifteen years old and a girl. The only other school shooting that I can recall where a girl was involved was the one in Nashville that they were very hush hush about it. We never really kind of got a lot of information, even though we heard she
wrote some sort of a manifesto on this one. Do we were there indications or is it just too soon to tell whether there were posts on social media or any kind of warning signs like we've seen with other shooters.
Well, yeah, there were some postings that have been attributed to her by family, by other people, but not by investigators. Themselves. Then you're right, A fifteen year old girl in twenty twenty four has a pretty wide social media footprint, and so there's a lot for investigators to go through. The shooting last year in Nashville. I was out there covering.
That, and.
The shooter was born female. The shooter had transitioned to male, So in the record books that still goes down as a male shooter inside that school. In forty years of covering school shootings, I don't recall ever being at the scene where the shooter was female.
Yeah, And so it just again there's so many questions on why she would do this, and was she targeting somebody or a lot of people.
That's a great question. And it isn't clear whether the teacher she shot or the classmate, if they were targets of her shooting, or if it was just sort of a random, you know, out pouring of violence against these people. And I mean, had the rights the social media writings are to be believed, and if they are her writings, then it appears she just went into that school knowing it was her own school, and opened fire randomly.
And open fire randomly because if and this is I don't know if you call it sexist or what you call it. But when I hear that it's a girl, I think of like a romantic tie, whereas if it's a boy, I don't. I don't know why, you know, my brain just kind of goes there. Doesn't appear that that's it. But we will find out more in the days and weeks to come. Jim Ryan, again, I hate
to have to talk to you about this. I hope we can be talking about more maryon happy Christmasy stuff sure later, but appreciate the information as always appreciate it. Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. The fire that has burned more than four thousand acres in Malibu is
now fifty six percent surrounded. Officials say fire activity remained minimal yesterday, with smoldering and creeping and isolated areas within the perimeter of the fire, but they are keeping an ey I on the weather because Santa Ana wins are coming back. CalFire says crews will continue to build and strengthen their lines around the fire. A local assistant center will open today at Malibu City Hall. A Border Patrol agent has been killed in a helicopter crash near the
US Mexico border. The helicopter went down near Potrero yesterday morning. CalFire says the pilot killed in the crash was the only one on board. Communities in the Northeast are still on edge because of apparent drone sightings. The Department of Homeland Securities told New Jersey state officials that there's no evidence to suggest any threat to national security or foreign involvement,
but also they don't know who's operating the drones. New Jersey State Assemblyman Craig Kaflan says they need better answers.
That's another reason to make sure people have clear answers so that there aren't wild theories being circulated on Internet and other places.
He says there's nothing to worry about, and then saying they don't know who's flying the drones is inconsistent. The State Department says negotiations to reach a ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas has been productive in the last few days. Department spokesman Matthew Miller says both sides agree on most points and it's up to Hamas and Israel to close the deal.
We believe we can get to a deal, but again, it remains incumbent on Hamas and Israel agreeing to those final terms and getting it over the line.
He says, they've been down this road many times before, so it's hard to be optimistic about it.
Robert F.
Kennedy, Junior has met with Republican senators who will be key to his confirmation to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. ABC's Mary Bruce says there are concerns about some of Kennedy's views on health.
Robert F.
Kennedy basing fresh scrutiny amid reports his personal attorney, who has been helping to interview candidates for top health jobs in the Trump administration, petitioned the FDA to revoke multiple vaccines, including one for polio.
Republican leader Mitch McConnell, apolio survivor, says undermining public confidence in proven cures is not just uninformed, it's dangerous. Popeye, some Mickey Mouse cartoons and others are about to enter the public domain.
The copyrights to intellectual properties from nineteen twenty nine expired January first. They include Popeye's debut in The Thimble Theater comic strip, and only that version, not the cartoons or references to Spinach making him strong. A dozen Mickey Mouse cartoons become PD, including the Carnival Kid, the first with
him speaking. Also the songs Ain't Misbehaving, Singing in the Rain, and Tiptoe through the Tulips, but just the songs, not the recordings, and the first Marx Brothers movie, The Coconuts.
Forget about money, don't think of it. Just forget about it, because you will get it anyway. Mark Ronner, KFI.
News, Tiptoe through the Tulips. I love it. It is five fourteen. Okay, you may have remembered that earlier we had told you that a license plate had been issued in California that appeared to be making fun of the October seventh attack in Israel by Hamas, And so the DMV quickly pulled that license plate, apologized, and the license plate said lol oct seven. So lol October seventh. Right, So now there's a new twist in this one. The license plate was on a Tesla cyber truck in Culver City.
That's where I was spotted. DMV officials meant it, you know, thought it meant laugh out loud and then October seventh, But now the son of the cyber truck's owner says the license plate is being misread and misinterpreted. He says that lolo Lolo means grandfather in Tagalog, and that CT is short for cyber truck, so grandfather's cyber truck, and the represents the owner's seven grandchildren.
Soon.
That's sweet, right, So we'll see if the DMV lets that one come back out or it sounds like, you know, it could be easily misread, so maybe they won't let it be reissued, but we shall see Grandpa's cyber truck. The woman from Hawaii who was reported missing after she missed a connecting flight at LAX last month has released a statement. Hannah Kobayashi says she's okay and she's back in the United States. She said she had no idea of the massive search for her while she was in Mexico.
The LAPD closed its missing person case yesterday. The La County Board of Supervisors is expected to declare a local emergency today over the Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey. State regulators ordered the facility to close last week, but it's still operating because there's nowhere else to house the two hundred and fifty juveniles. The Superior Court has formerly dismissed California's lawsuit against Huntington Beach that challenged the city's
voter ID law. The voters approved the law. It requires voters to show ID to vote in city elections. The state challenged the law, but a judge ruled to dismiss it last month, and it was formally dismissed yesterday at six o five. Its handle on the news. A judge has rejected President elect Trump's argument that his hush money case should be thrown out. Right now, let's say good morning to ABC's Stephen Portnoy. Speaking of President elect Trump,
he held his first news conference since being elected. Let's review. Let's so, what was the main topic of it the.
Yeah, it was a wide ranging news conference. I think the key takeaway, the headline for a lot of observers was what he said about vaccines.
Of course, this is as Robert F.
Kennedy Junior is working the halls of Congress trying to earn support from senators, and you know, yesterday RFK Junior was hounded by reporters asking what he thinks about the polio vaccine. The reason why is because of the report late last week, and I warn all iPhone users that I might alert your phone when I say that. There's a fellow named Aaron Siri who is a senior advisor to RFK Junior and has been an attorney on the
RFK Junior campaign. Back in twenty twenty two, this man, Siri, asked the FDA to pull back its approval of the polio vaccine from nineteen ninety, arguing that the proper tests weren't done back then.
Well fast forward.
Three and a half decades and you have the Republican Minority Leader of the US Senate, Mitchell occonnell, even if he's stepping down from leadership, a highly influential man in the Senate, saying that any person who hopes to achieve confirmation by the Senate should distance him or herself from this notion that the polio vaccine is anything but safe and effective and should be given to every child.
In the country.
The President elect himself is old enough to remember that before the polio vaccine, you had children living in iron lungs and the and McConnell himself is a polio survivor, so this whole controversy is a function of the fact that Robert F. Kennedy Junior has said things about vaccines, doubting their safety. The medical community insists that there is no link between vaccines and autism, for example, but Trump said that Rfkgnior is going to look into that and
then report back. He said, quote, We're going to find out a lot. So that was a key takeaway from yesterday's news conference, Trump saying that he's a big believer in the polio vaccine and doesn't want it, doesn't want anyone to fear that that's going away, but there's going to be a look at other vaccines. In addition to that, Trump was asked about drones and he alleged the government knows more than it's saying, and quote, for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense.
He suggested it's not.
They're not enemy drones that are flying over various parts of the New Northeast, because he believes that the government would have had them taken down.
But he says that there's more to the story. They know more than they're saying.
He also lamented that the alleged killer of the United Healthcare CEO now has a following online. How people can like this guy is a sickness, Trump said. He also said he has a soft spot for TikTok. We learned after the news conference that he met yesterday at mar A Lago with.
The CEO of TikTok.
Of course, the app faces a deadline in a month for a ban in this country if it's not sold by the Chinese owner Bike Dance. TikTok yesterday asked the Supreme Court to step in. Trump was also asked about pardoning New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who's been indicted on federal bribery charges, and Trump said, yeah, he would certainly look at that.
He did cover a lot of ground, broh, and.
I haven't even mentioned Ukraine, Oh, another major headline. Well.
Trump was asked if Ukraine should be prepared to seed territory to Russia, and Trump responded to Vladimir's Aelenski, the president of Ukraine should quote be prepared to make a deal. Got to be a deal, Trump says, too many people being killed.
Well.
In recent weeks, Zelensky has suggested that he might be willing to give up the parts of his country that are now occupied by Russian forces if the West degrees to grant his country membership in NATO, Well, how would Vladimir Putin feel about that?
Because that was isn't that one of the pushes behind going in there in the first place, is he really doesn't want NATO to encroach any closer.
Right, Well, that was Putin's argument, wasn't it. And so let's see how it all plays out.
Okay, And then, but the actual reason for the press conference was the one hundred million or one hundred billion dollars investment in infrastructure and stuff.
Right, So, this Japanese investment firm, soft Bank, has pledged to invest becaus cross a variety of industries and sectors, not clear which one hundred billion dollars, and Trump tried to get the CEO of SoftBank to double that to two hundred billion and then laughs all around. Exactly where that money would go is again not known at this time, but the CEO of SoftBank says it will result in one hundred thousand American jobs. Of course, lots of questions about exactly what the plan is.
And we will find out in the coming months. I'm sure generally I wanted to go back to the New York City Mayor Adams and Trump being asked whether he might pardon him, and he said, I'll think about it or whatever. Generally, presidents issue pardons when they get close to leaving office, but Stephen, can they do at any time if they want to, of course.
I mean, the pardon power is what they call a plenary power in the Constitution. It's a power that's solely.
Vested in the office.
And there's no you know, despite the fact that over the decades there has been an apparatus built around pardons. There's a pardoner attorney at the Justice Department. They review petitions for clemency and there's sort of a structure that is meant to facilitate pardons to deserving individuals who might not get the president's attention. Nevertheless, president wants to grant a pardon, he can do it. And that's how Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter absent any review by the.
Justice Department and pardon or granted clemency to fifteen hundred.
Well, that was part of a more thorough review, but it also swept up some people who perhaps others feel are not deserving and people who committed some crimes that you know, perhaps we're so notorious that they shouldn't they feel they shouldn't have been granted clemency.
But again, it being a plenary power, it is beyond.
Question, right, So it's a done deal.
It is a done deal.
Okay, all right, Stephen portinoy As always, thank you for the information. We appreciate it. We'll talk to you again soon.
You're back, all right.
The National Weather Service is forecasting more strong Santa Ana wins for southern California. Forecasters say starting today, northeasterly winds will gust up to forty to sixty miles per hour in some areas. The Weather Services the winds, combined with humidity down in the ten to twenty percent range, will very likely caused critical red flag fire conditions this afternoon. The wind is expected to peak tonight into tomorrow morning.
A guy who.
Flashed a gun at a target store in Elmonte has been fatally shot by police. Investigators say the man drove away last night when police were called and officers followed. La County Sheriff's Lieutenant Steve DeJong says the guy stopped the car a short time later and ran off.
He was followed by two officers and ultimately one of the officers was involved in a shooting.
With this aspect.
He died at the scene. Investigator say a gun was recovered. A woman in the car was taken into custody for questioning. A law prohibiting libraries from banning books about race, gender identity, and sexual orientation will take effect January first, twenty twenty five. It's called the Freedom to Read Act. The American Library Association said more than forty two hundred books were targeted to be removed from libraries last year. That's a ninety
one percent increase over the year prior. A sixteen year old has been charged with four counts of murder in New Mexico. WILI say the boy killed his entire family, then called nine to one one in a drunken stupor and confessed. The UN Security Council has held a meeting in New York to review peace and security in Ukraine
as Russia continues the war there. US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas Greenfield says she blames the Russians for constant missile and drone attacks that have caused an energy crisis in Ukraine.
Just days ago, Russia launched one of the largest area assaults yet, using drones and missiles to target Ukraine's energy grid and other critical infrastructure.
Ukraine's military intelligence agency and the Pentagon say some North Korean troops have been killed in combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kersk border region. The woman accused of sneaking onto a Delta flight from New York City to Paris last month has been arrested again. Guess what she tried to do? She was busted yet yesterday in Buffalo, New York, Bill says Vetlana Dolly cut off her ankle monitor and tried to cross the border into Canada. Dolli is a
Russian national who holds a US Green card. A man who died one hundred years ago is set to become a saint because of a priest in.
La weather One. Manuel Gutierrez is a priest in Baldwin Park, and he says a torn achilles he suffered seven years ago was healed not by surgery, but by prayer involving the beatified peer Giorgio Forsaudi.
From that day on, I just never thought about my injury again. I stopped wearing braces. I just didn't feel I needed them.
The Vatican investigated the priest's claims and say they're verified. Setting up for Saudi, an Italian journalist who helped the poor and died of Polio, for sainthood. Michael Monks KFI News.
You know, there's a lot of words that don't you don't get to use in conversation all the time, and beatifies one of them.
It's a cool word.
And my other favorite word is the one that Stephen Portnoy just shared plenary power the president and has plenary power. Police have identified the shooter at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin as a fifteen year old girl. Madison's police chief says the girl was a student at Abundant Life Christian. She killed a teacher and a student and shot at least six others before killing herself Yesterday. He also revealed the nine to one to one call about the shooting
was made by a second grader. A second lawsuit has been filed against the owners and operators of Chakda Canyon landfill in Castaic. Residents say noxious fumes and owners have made local residents sick. The lawsuit, filed by La County, claims the owners have failed to control emissions that have produced hazardous toxic gases into the community nearby for nearly two years. Governor Newsom is named a new chief of staff after Dana Williamson abruptly left her position on Friday.
Political consultant and former advisor T Kamala Harris Nathan Barenkin will take over as chief on Monday. Barenkan will be Newsom's fourth chief of staff. At six o five its handle on the News coming to a store near you, ammunition vending machines. At five point fifty, the host of How the Money on KFI, Joel Larsgard, joins us, and he's going to tell us whether you should rush out to buy a car before Christmas, not because it's Christmas,
but because of what might happen after Christmas. Oh and that morning cup of coffee that you're enjoying probably right now, like I am, it costs more now. Okay, We've got a very heartwarming story for you and a great gift idea for Christmas. Let's say good morning to Jack, Joe Keenan Jack. There is so much bad news today. We get to share a story of kindness and compassion. Kind of a Christmas miracle. So Jack, please tell us about the surprise you got one night that changed your life.
Yeah.
In December of twenty nineteen, my wife and I had a one month old We lived in Philadelphia and we had one dog, George. I took him out for a walk and it was raining, starting to snow of wintry mix as they call it here in the Northeast, and came in wet dog, umbrella, all that stuff, and my door, it turns out, didn't close all the way. It didn't latch, It had just wedged itself shut. But I heard the electric handle. I thought nothing of it because I thought the door was locked.
Four I am.
My wife was standing over me and said, the baby's okay, but there's a dog in our house.
I said, yeah, George, he's right here. Said no, there was.
Another dog in our house. And I went downstairs to find what I thought was a puppy because I hadn't wiped the sleep out of my eyes. But it turned out to be a senior dog who was underweight and into some bad shape medically.
How did he get in your house?
I was able to pull up security footage and see that the storm blew the door open in the middle of the night. And then at three fifteen in the morning, Susie came hobbling around the corner down the block from us and went up the steps and in the house and out of the house and in the house and
out of the house and in the house. And a guy coming home from working a late shift at a bar saw our door open and went up and knocked and yelled and pulled the door shut, not even knowing that Susie was in there.
I watched the video of her walking back and forth in front of your house, and then she like looking up like, oh, that could be a dry, safe place for me.
Yeah.
And you know, it all just kind of worked out because when you think about it, in a major city, if your door's wide open in the middle of the night, things can go really bad, really fast.
Good.
Yeah, And so since we had great neighbors, since we were very fortunate that nothing bad happened in that moment. We first, you know, called animal control first thing in the morning. There's not much on the internet when you Google found a dog in my house?
What do I do next?
Yeah?
And you know their response was, you can drop it off at eleven and we'll take care of it, and I did not like the way that sounded. We were fortunate we called an emergency VET and were able to get her in. She had fleas ticks in fact, and all four pause it was about half the weight she should be. Also had heart murmur and had some really bad teeth, so she gets the regular echo cardiograms and
had to have nineteen teeth and roots removed. But with that we made some global news and we're very fortunate to get you know, people like yourself who covered our story, and we received a large number of donations for her medical bills, way more than we needed. And so after Susie happened, which is just kind of how I describe it, she happened, I got a message the next day from someone with a picture of a dog and said, this
is Tito. I saw your story on the news, and I went and adopted Tito today if I post this. And then the next day I got Carson, and the day after that was Freckles. Then it was Cassie, then it was Harley Quinn, and it kept going. About six months in we knew Susie was going to be okay.
We also were about ninety five adoptions, so I said at one hundred adoptions, have a big announcement, And at one hundred adoptions, I announced that I would give away at least ten thousand dollars to save one hundred animals. We just kept that going and we ended up saving a life a day for a year for twenty twenty. And that was our main focus was just get this dog healthy, help other dogs. Use the platform that we were fortunate to have to try to just show you know,
there's good in the world, there's good stories. And then after a year, connected with some of the right people and got the opportunity to get a literary agent, and then wrote a manuscript and was fortunate enough that we have.
A Stray Dog for Christmas.
To a great Christmas gift for any child in your life or even adult if you just want a heartwarming story. And it tells the story of that night, but it also has real life pictures.
There's a QR code to get.
To Susie's social media so you can see this real life dog and the process.
She has their own social media. Yeah, yes, I love it. I love that, okay, And it is and it's just an adorable book. So if you have kids, grandkids and Christmas is coming up. It's called a stray Dog for Christmas, and Jack, I'm just so impressed that your one kind act snowballed, you know, like too little girls.
Now, my main motivation was to just show them that you can make a large impact from your small corner of the world as long as you work hard and you have good intentions.
Yeah, and how's Susie doing.
Susie's doing great.
I mean we've been on kind of a mini book tour in Philadelphia and New York, so she's gotten to meet so many people. Everyone comes out with their dog to meet Susie, So she's just getting lots of pets, lots of sniffs and really just living like a princess life right now.
Yeah, and how's George handling that? Because George is your other dog.
Yes, so George he gets some rest because his sister's out of the house sometimes. But George has been amazing.
You know.
The first day when we came back from the vet, she needed fleeing tick bath and then to dry out a little bit, and he was laying on the dog bet he had on the first floor of our house, and she came out of our finished basement where we had the bathroom that we cleaned her in, and he was laying on his bed and he just saw her and just got up and laid down on the floor next to the bed, as if he knew she needed it.
So they've just created this great bond. You know, it's weird, he's a dog, but I'm incredibly proud of the way he handled this whole situation.
Oh my god, you just make me cry at five point fifty in the morning. And how old is Susie now?
They estimate she's about fourteen years old, so she is a senior pup. We make sure she gets all the best medical care. She has her next echo cardiogram coming up on the twenty second, and then she goes in and sees the vet sometimes twice a year, just to make sure she's doing all right.
And it sounds like, you know, she had a rough go of it. So that she gets to live out her golden years loved and with company and in her forever home. That's just lovely. And I love this story. I love this book and so appreciate what you what you did for Susie. Jack Joe Keenan, thank you so much for your time and for not only saving Susie but also sharing the story of Susie. That's great.
Thank you, thank you so much for having me.
And you know, if any big you know this is La, If any big Hollywood producers are listening, great animated.
Film, absolutely nice. I love the plug and we have this contact information right all right, Thanks so much, Jack. Thank you called a stray Dog for Christmas. You can kind of get it anywhere. And if you are looking for a Christmas present for the kids, the grandkids. It's the sweetest story. It's so lovely. I love stories like that.
I'm not crying. You are.
Will see what happens when you come and hang out with us.
In the studio.
You cry. It's a beautiful thing. Santa Ana wins will be blowing through the Southland, raising the risk of wildfires, just a week after a wind whipped fire tour through Malibu, destroying twenty homes and other buildings. The winds are expected to peak tonight into tomorrow morning. A red flag warning for high fire danger will be in effect from three pm to six pm tomorrow three pm this afternoon through
six pm tomorrow. Caltrans by the Way says only residents and local business traffic are going to be allowed to travel along to Pega Canyon Boulevard between Mulholland Drive and pch because of the fire danger. Three adults and two children have been hurt when a school bus and an SUV collided in Orange. Orange County Fire Authority says the crash happened just after a three yesterday afternoon on Santiago Canyon Road near Red Rock Canyon Road. The people heard
are in serious but stable condition. DC Studios is giving fans their first peek at next year's Superman movie. Director James Gunn shared a motion poster on social media with David corn Sweat as the Man of Steel. I'm not sure did I say that name right. It also features a slowed down version of John William's iconic Superman theme from the nineteen seventy eight movie. A teaser trailer for Superman will be released on Thursday. We're just minutes away
from handle on the news this morning. Things are not always as they seem. Remember that lol October seventh license plate the DMV has pulled. Apparently it wasn't anti semitic after all. Let's say good morning to the host of How to Money on KFI. It's Joel lars Guard Morning.
Joel, Morning Amy.
Okay, we're going to talk about why you might want to run out and buy a car right.
Now that you might be over selling what I'm going to say.
Okay, but it's and you might be heading out for a car purchase not because of Christmas, but because of something else looming.
Oh gosh, you are making me think of the car commercials that happen this time of year where there's like a new Lexus in your driveway with a giant.
Bow on giant bow.
Have you ever seen anybody get a car with a giant bow?
Nope, never seen it in real life. It's it's my.
Pay I think.
And if I came home in my driveway to a giant, expensive car with a bow on it, I would be like, we should have talked about this, honey, Like this is a really expensive purchase. But yeah, when it comes to car purchases right now, there's something that's on people's mind, and it's the threats of looming tariffs coming in with the incoming Trump administration, and so people are kind of
individuals are trying to decide. I just saw an article on CNN yesterday that people are even stockpiling on groceries. They're assuming that everything's going to get more expensive because of these new threats of tariffs, and cars are one of those things where tariffs could hit hit the hardest, and so people are saying, oh, well, I was thinking maybe about buying a car next year, Maybe I should do it now instead of waiting. And that's a really
good question. I think when you look at the numbers, the best we can tell is really hard to decipher because some of these tariffs like will they or won't they? Are they threats? Are they going to become reality? It's anybody's guess. And it looks like if the tariffs as promised come into being, the car prices will likely go up by roughly two and a half percent. That's like the best estimates we could I could find. And so should you go ahead and buy a new car now
instead of buying it next year? Well, I think it depends on whether or not you were like legitimately going to buy a new car, or if you're just kind of like telling yourself, oh, now I'll buy a new car even though I wasn't planning on it already, because you think of it as a money saving thing, but really ultimately it's not. I think when it comes down
to electric vehicles, that's the thing. If you were, like I was thinking about buying an EV in February, well you might want to kick that up to December.
One.
Often the best car deals are found in December, and two if the EV tax credits on the national level get repealed. I know there's talks about bringing them back in California, but if the EV credits on the national level get you know, are gone, that's a seventy five hundred dollars increase in the price of the car. That could be the biggest reason to front load your car purchase.
Okay, and then you said that December one, there's there're ten to be deals. But don't they start clearing out the previous model, like the twenty twenty fours. Didn't they start getting replaced by the twenty twenty five models like in September?
Yeah?
So yeah, the new cars are new model cars are often out these days and they're being sold. So if you're opting for an older model and you're looking towards buying at the end of the year, I mean, that's typically when you're able to find the best prices. So it's true that end of the month, end of the year, those are legitimately the.
Best times to buy.
But you also have to have to be a savvy shopper and you have to know how to And there's a gosh, there's a great website I'm blanking on the name right now, but I'll look it up for you that can help you kind of offer some negotiation tactics and help you figure out how to find the best deal in a car. Just because you're going at the best time doesn't mean you're getting the best deal. You also have to know how to negotiate and know how to play your cards.
Did you tell me about this or was it Maybe it was Rich Jamura? Who was Rich Jamiro told us about last week that Amazon's going to start selling cars.
Oh yeah, that's right. They're selling hun days on their site, which is crazy. The Amazon sells everything these days. And by the way, that website is called car edge dot com. They do a great job. They'll help you. You can pay them to help you find the best price, or you can just read their blog and watch their videos and learn essentially how to negotiate for a car.
On your own to get the best price.
But there are a lot of resources out there to help you find and get the best deal on a car.
But and so much of it depends on how popular that vehicle is.
There a certain vehicles that are more popular than others, and so you're going to be hard pressed to find a deal on a model that's super hot, like the Kia tel You Ride or the Toyota Rav four. Those are like incredibly popular, and so you might you're not going to get much of a discount on those, But on other models that maybe they have more stock on hand, you're going to be able to kind of push the price down on those.
Okay cool. We have been talking and you and I have discussed how more people are using their credit cards. And while using your credit cards is great if you pay it off every month, but there's some new information that retirees are using their credit cards and they're not paying them off.
Yeah.
Yeah, And so when it comes to credit cards, I'm not a hater like some people in the personal finance community are. I think they're a tool and you can, just like a chainsaw, you can use it to chop down a tree or cut your you know, hurt your leg. And so you got to be really careful with how you use that tool. And so if you use it wisely, like it can be, you know, you can get amazing free trips, cash back, it's it can be great, but
as long as you're using it properly. And there's some new data out of specifically about how retirees are getting into credit card debt and they're staying in credit card debt well into retirement, and to me, that is pretty frightening. I don't mind certain kinds of debt. Like let's say a retiree is holding onto their mortgage because the mortgage rates three percent. That's great, Like, especially given what's happening
with inflation savings rates. Being able to leave some of your money invested instead of taking it out to pay down the mortgage, that's okay. That's the kind of debt
I'm not mad about. But six in ten retirees have some form of debt, and the majority of those people who have have credit card debt, and credit card debt, well, the rates, the interest rates on that credit card debt hasn't really come down, even as the FED has been cutting interest rates, and credit card debt's bad no matter what, basically all the time.
So yeah, I think it's a massive problem.
And whether you choose the debt snowball method the debt avalanche method, retirees in particular getting rid of the credit card debt needs to be a top priority.
Okay, So and Joel, are you finding that they have the debt because they don't have the money to pay it off, or they're just used to having the debt, Like my dad used to say, and this was years ago, and go, why do you want to pay off that credit card? And I'm like Dad, So it's just a mindset.
It's a little bit of both. Like I was talking to a retiree the other day and yeah, they had lingering credit card debt, but they had the money to pay it off. And so I think you just kind of get used to it, or you think it's no big deal and you're like, it's just like three thousand bucks in recurring credit card debt. But that adds up, especially when we're talking about a twenty two percent interest rate.
And so yeah, I.
Think part of it for some time for some retirees, it is just being comfortable with credit card debt. For other retirees, it is having to trying to figure out where else you can save money so you can throw more towards that credit card debt and actually have a payoff plan. But it is maybe a lack of financial resources. There are ways, I think to reduce some of the costs in your life. It's something we talk about on the show all the time. In order to find more
money to throw at the debt. And if worse comes to worse and there's no way for you to get out of this, going to see somebody at a non forfit credit counseling center like Money Management International, I think is a great way to go.
Okay, all right, now, time to talk about coffee.
Okay, one of my favorite topics.
I know I'm enjoying a cup right now, but you're saying it's getting more expensive.
Yeah, So, like there was apparently just some terrible weather conditions in some of the places where coffee is grown the most, and so Brazil being one of those places, and so the prices for the nicest coffee beans, which is what most of us are these days, have just skyrocketed. And I've noticed it when I go out to get a coffee at a coffee shop. But you also notice it in the price of beans, even if you're just
picking up a bag at costco. The bag that was ten or eleven dollars for two pounds of coffees now like fifteen or sixteen dollars, And that price is likely to continue to go up because of what's happened with the coffee coffee bean producers. And so I think this is just a call to people. I'm not one of those anti coffee out people, don't do it every day, but because it does really add up. But also it
can be a nice experience. But you know, the more you make your coffee at home, the truth is, the more you're going to save, especially as the price of coffee beans are going up.
What if I already make my coffee at home, now, how am I going to save?
Yeah, you're not going to say if you just get keep doing the right thing, and you're just gonna pay a little more to do the right thing, all right, All.
Right, right, that's not great news.
No it's not. But you know what coffee's worth it, I'll take it.
Don't blame the messenger, I'll take it.
So we don't get to talk to you next week because it's Christmas Eve a week from today, right, that's right, so I will issue a Merry Christmas right now then?
All right, well, thank you Amy, same to you.
All right, Thanks Joel. We'll talk to you next year. Sounds good, I lovely Do we get to say that at the end of the ear all right. This is KFI and KOST HD two Los Angeles, Orange County, Southland weather from KFI. Lots of sun today, highs in the upper sixties to low seventies at the beaches Metro LA and Inland Orange County, low to mid seventies in the valleys, with a wind advisory kicking in this afternoon win gus to forty to sixty miles per hour. Mid to upper
seventies for the Inland Empire. Low sixties in the Antelope Valley. Clear skies tonight with those in the forties and fifties, so not quite as cold as we've seen the last couple of nights. Sunny and warmer tomorrow, with highs in the seventies at the beaches, around eighty for the metro areas and valleys, seventies to low eighties for the Inland Empire, sixties in the Anelote Valley. And then it's going to
cool down a bit. For Thursday and Friday. It's forty seven in Cyprus, forty six in Woodland Hills, forty nine and Seal Beach fifty in Whittier. 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 wake up call, you missed a lot, so you can catch up and you can go listen at 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 on KFI Am six forty and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.