West Michigan Wakeup January 2, 2026

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Star one oh five point seven feel good variety of
the eighties till now. It's Adam Rocho in for Schmidty
this morning. She will be back on Monday, and it's
time for us to wake up the news you need
to start your day. It's the West Michigan Wake Up,
powered by Minards on Star one oh five point seven. Again,
it's weird not starting one of these with some sort

(00:20):
of a winter weather advisory. We actually have some clear
skies for once, but I do have to start out
with a little bit of unfortunate news. In twenty twenty five,
the United States recorded more than two thousand measles cases
for the first time in over thirty years. According to
the CDC, they have seen two thousand and sixty five
confirmed measles cases, ninety three percent of which we're among

(00:44):
people who were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status.
In twenty twenty four, the US just had two hundred
and eighty five cases. And get this, measles was officially
declared dead. And now they might have to say that
it's not dead anymore because the seeing so many cases.
So be careful out there. New year means new laws.

(01:05):
We've got six new Michigan laws that go into effect
in twenty twenty six, the most exciting of which is
a minimum wage increase. Starting on January first, minimum wage
went from twelve forty eight to thirteen seventy three per hour,
and the tipped minimum wage will go up to five
forty nine an hour. And if you've got kids working,
the rate for sixteen and seventeen year olds is now

(01:28):
eleven sixty seven an hour. Man, I remember my first job.
I think I made like six twenty five or something
like that, so good on them. We've also got no
taxes on tips that's part of the new laws, a
twenty four percent marijuana tax, with some of those taxes
going towards our roads. We have a new gas tax
coming out this year, and then another law saying that

(01:49):
birth control can now be prescribed from pharmacies. We've got
a full list of those new laws on our website
at Westmichigan Star dot com. And finally, sports fans, it
was a big day yesterday for college football and the
College Football Playoff. Two games that were actually kind of boring.
Indiana just crushing Alabama thirty eight to three, Oregon blanking

(02:12):
Texas Tech twenty three to nothing, and what a lot
of folks are calling the best game of the year,
Old Miss beating Georgia thirty nine to thirty four. And honestly,
I love the Old Miss story. Their coach left them
like three weeks ago to take another job while they
were in the midst of getting ready for the college
football playoff, and so now they're just gonna go ahead

(02:35):
and do it without them. I love to see it. Hey,
for all of your latest traffic, weather, and news, make
sure you're tuned to our sister station, would Radio. That's
News Radio thirteen hundred and one oh six nine FM.
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