Tom Bevan and Tom Fitton joined WMAL on Thursday!

Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C If You Dig Out a Parking Spot, Can You ‘Save’ It? (NBC Washington) —

You took the time to clear snow away from your car in D.C. Can you save that spot, or does the “no savesies” rule apply? News4’s Mark Segraves reports. If you shovel out a parking space, is it yours, or does the time-honored rule of “no savesies” apply? As the D.C. area continues to dig out from under record snowfall, some drivers are clearing street parking spaces and then setting out chairs, tables and other objects in an effort to ward off other drivers. D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier urged drivers to not try to reserve public parking spaces. “When people try to start saving that space, we start to see little tensions flare up between neighbors,” she said. “Nobody does have the legal right to save their own space on public streets.” Fights over “saved” parking spaces have led to violence. A man in Boston was shot Monday after witnesses say he moved a parking space saver and parked his car. D.C. driver John Gerrety said he wanted to protect his hard work. He placed a chair in a spot he cleared.

5am – D         Sofia Vergara Files $15 Million Lawsuit Against Beauty Brand. (ABC News) — Sofia Vergara is one of Hollywood’s most powerful women. But now the actress is taking steps to protect her image with a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed against Venus Concept and a number of its alleged affiliates that she claims have been cashing in on her likeness to promote their beauty products without her permission or endorsement. According to the suit, it began in 2014 with a selfie Vergara posted to her WhoSay account about her Venus Legacy massage, a treatment which she claims in the lawsuit she “ultimately did not like, finding that it was a waste of time and money with little in the way of any results – she would not use it again, and certainly would not endorse it nor agree to appear in an international advertisement campaign to promote it.” But the photo made its way into an “Extra” television segment and Vergara alleges that photos of her appearing to endorse the treatment appeared on Venus’ Facebook page, the Lavoro Laser website and the Twitter page of Beauty Fix Medspa.

5am – E         Clinton tries to bowl over Iowa as Sanders surges. (Agence France-Presse) — Hillary Clinton made a campaign stop at an Iowa bowling alley Wednesday, a must in this US state that will kick off the presidential nominations process next week. But the Democrat — who leads her party nationally in the race for the White House — didn’t actually go bowling. Instead, she sought to convince potential voters she was a better pick than surging rival Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist urging a “political revolution” in America. Clinton’s pitch in the town of Adel came as a new poll showed Sanders leading Clinton by four percentage points among likely Democrat participants in Monday’s much-anticipated Iowa caucuses.

6am – A/B/C Trump refuses to reconsider debate in fiery Fox interview. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday night lashed out at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in his first appearance on the network since he announced he’d boycott the next GOP debate. He also refused to reconsider his decision to sit out the network’s Thursday night debate – the last before the Iowa caucuses in five days – and said he’d move forward with his own competing event to raise money for wounded veterans. Speaking on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump continued his long-running feud with Kelly, who he has been criticizing ever since she challenged him on his past derogatory remarks about women at the first GOP debate in August. “I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,” Trump said. “I don’t think she’s good at what she does and I think she’s highly overrated. And frankly, she’s a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous.” Kelly is also set to moderate Thursday night’s debate on Fox News.

6am – D         D.C. issued more than $1.2M in tickets during snow emergency. WASHINGTON — D.C. issued more than $1.3 million worth of tickets to more than 5,400 drivers who the D.C. Department of Public Works says parked in the District’s snow emergency routes. To accommodate for the snowstorm that dumped feet of snow in the region, D.C. issued a snow emergency that took effect at 9:30 a.m. Friday and ended at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. In a snow emergency, cars parked along snow emergency routes will be ticketed and towed. By the time the snow emergency ended Wednesday evening, 5,479 vehicles were issued tickets for parking in the snow emergency routes, says DPW spokeswoman Linda Grant. Also, 690 vehicles were towed during the same time period, Grant says. Drivers face a $250 fine, a $100 towing fee and a $20 impound fee for violating the emergency declaration.

6am – E         DC News:

• Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin will miss NHL All-Star Game to rest lower-body injury. WASHINGTON (AP) — A lingering lower-body injury knocked one of the NHL’s biggest stars out of All-Star weekend. Alex Ovechkin will miss the upcoming All-Star festivities in Nashville, Tennessee, because of an injury he’s been dealing with since mid-November. Washington Capitals coach Barry Trotz said the team took the decision out of Ovechkin’s hands because the focus must be on the playoffs and the chase for the franchise’s first Stanley Cup. “We have to make the right decision,” Trotz said Wednesday after Washington’s 4-3 overtime loss to Philadelphia. “You don’t win a Stanley Cup. You don’t get two points for (the All-Star) Game. You get prize money. For us, it’s not about the prize money. We have a bigger goal, and if we want to get to where we want to get to, we can’t do it without Alex Ovechkin being 100 percent.”
• Guess which U.S. city watched the most porn during the blizzard. (Mashable) – Some people bake cookies, read, watch a movie. I guess one could argue Washington, D.C., was watching movies…technically. During the record-breaking snowstorm that slammed the northeast U.S. this past weekend, it seems many folks passed the time practicing self-love. PornHub released data exposing Washington, D.C., as the region that logged on to watch the most porn during the blizzard. Initially provided to GQ, PornHub’s survey looked at traffic on the website for the four major cities affected by the snow: New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, but it was our nation’s capitol that…uh…peaked. D.C. porn searches spiked an average 23% on the site, more over the weekend than any of the others. Surprisingly though, the day with the biggest spike was the day after the storm hit. Also interesting: the method in which users watched the videos. This chart shows that more people used their computers rather than mobile devices or tablets to stream in New York.

7am – A         INTERVIEW — TOM BEVAN – Executive Editor, RealClearPolitics.com — discussed Trump dropping out of the debate and the latest polling leading up to Iowa.

7am – B        WMAL’S TRAFFIC REPORTER JAMEE WHITTEN – extended traffic report

7am – C        Trump refuses to reconsider debate in fiery Fox interview. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday night lashed out at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in his first appearance on the network since he announced he’d boycott the next GOP debate

7am – D/E     INTERVIEW — TOM FITTON – President, Judicial Watch

• MD Governor Hogan introduced legislation to eliminate partisan #gerrymandering in Maryland: ANNAPOLIS, MD – Governor Larry Hogan introduced legislation that will reform Maryland’s broken redistricting process and put the state on a new path toward fair representation, election integrity, and transparency. Based on recommendations from the governor’s bipartisan Redistricting Reform Commission, the administration is proposing a nonpartisan Apportionment Commission to replace the existing, governor-led redistricting process.
• Judicial Watch has a suit about gerrymandering in MARYLAND
• FBI going ‘right to the source’ in Clinton email probe, interviewing intel agencies

8am – A/B/C If You Dig Out a Parking Spot, Can You ‘Save’ It? (NBC Washington) —

You took the time to clear snow away from your car in D.C. Can you save that spot, or does the “no savesies” rule apply? News4’s Mark Segraves reports. If you shovel out a parking space, is it yours, or does the time-honored rule of “no savesies” apply? As the D.C. area continues to dig out from under record snowfall, some drivers are clearing street parking spaces and then setting out chairs, tables and other objects in an effort to ward off other drivers.

8am – D/E     Trump refuses to reconsider debate in fiery Fox interview. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday night lashed out at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in his first appearance on the network since he announced he’d boycott the next GOP debate. He also refused to reconsider his decision to sit out the network’s Thursday night debate – the last before the Iowa caucuses in five days – and said he’d move forward with his own competing event to raise money for wounded veterans.