First up Today, We Begin with Gun Control. Every Year More Than 30,000 Americans Have Their

Keith: Hey everyone, it is Wednesday, January 6. I am Keith Kocinski, and Channel One News starts right now.

First up today, we begin with gun control. Every year more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns, and yesterday President Obama said that he is taking on gun control and no longer waiting on Congress to act. But the move has some opponents up in arms.

The president grew emotional Tuesday as he announced his executive order to restrict some gun purchases in America. He wiped away tears talking about first-graders who were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.

President Obama: Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad, and by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago every day.

Keith: The president's executive order requires dealers who sell guns online and at gun shows to be licensed and conduct background checks on buyers, keeps people with mental health issues from getting guns and adds more FBI agents to conduct background checks.

He says his action doesn't violate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gives Americans the right to bear arms.

President Obama: Second Amendment rights are important, but there are other rights that we care about as well, and we have to be able to balance them.

Keith: Many gun rights activists disagree, and two Republican presidential candidates already said if they are elected, they will wipe away the president's executive order.

Senator Rubio: And so these new rulings that he is coming out with that limit and undermine the Second Amendment — on my first day in office, they’re gone.

Keith: All right, coming up: we show you how one young person's Hollywood life is far from glamorous.

Keith: As winter barrels through, the people who will be hit the hardest are those without a roof over their head. Tonight over 500,000 people in America, many out in the freezing cold, won’t have a place to sleep. The situation is getting so bad in some cities, officials are treating homelessness like a natural disaster. Maggie Rulli hit the streets to learn more.

Maggie: Roaming the aisles of this dollar store…

Anthony: Usually I get ravioli.

Maggie: …20-year-old Anthony and his friends start the day off with a little grocery shopping.

Anthony: Spaghetti and meatballs, we got orange soda…

Maggie: Next, it is a short walk down the road to their favorite coffee shop.

Anthony: This is where I hang out for the majority of the day.

Maggie: Sunset Boulevard, one of the coolest spots to be in Los Angeles, California. It is where you will find the live-est night life, coolest restaurants and maybe even bump into a celebrity or two.

Anthony: The Hollywood Boulevard is just down that way, and there’s so many tourists having fun and chilling.

Maggie: Just a few blocks away is where you will find Anthony's home, but without the Hollywood glitz and glam. Anthony is homeless. For more than a year and a half, he has been living on the streets, trying to survive.

What is hardest about being homeless for you?
Anthony: Probably, like, staying safe. Because there’s a lot of other homeless people out there that are very aggressive.

Maggie: An accidental fire left him and his mother with nowhere to live. When his mom was admitted to a mental hospital, Anthony was left to fend for himself.

Anthony: Being homeless is lonely, and it’s sad.

Maggie: He found friendship among three other homeless guys that he met nearby.

Anthony: This is my family; they are closer to me than my real, biological family.

Maggie: With some money from jobs and help from the government, the four of them can afford basic necessities, along with some luxuries: food, phones, even this storage space to store their items during the day. They receive clothes from donation bins and wash where they can.

Anthony is one of more than 44,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County alone, most of them centered in LA's downtown neighborhood, Skid Row. With more than 10,000 residents, Skid Row is known as the homeless capital of America, with the highest concentration of homeless people anywhere in the country. And it has been that way for decades.

Robert: You've got people living in tents. I mean, it's just everyday life on the streets. I would want to leave someday and have a home and a kid or wife, family or something like that.

Maggie: But while Skid Row is the iconic face of homelessness in Los Angeles, it is Hollywood that draws in young people from all over the country hoping to make it big in the entertainment industry.

Nick Semenski: A lot of the youth, they always say if they are going to be homeless or they’re going to be struggling, they would rather do it in an area where they'd like to be, where the weather is better.

Maggie: In LA, where the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is about $2,600 a month, being able to afford a place to live is getting harder and harder, especially for young people. Overall, the homeless population has grown 12 percent since 2013, forcing city leaders to take a bold step.

City Council President Wesson: We are going to begin the process where we declare the homeless crisis an emergency.

Maggie: A state of emergency, a term usually used during a natural disaster, allows officials to tap into emergency funds during a crisis.This time, the emergency was homelessness, and Los Angeles wanted help from the state and federal government.

How does declaring a state of emergency over homelessness compare to a natural disaster?

Semenski: People definitely need more food, more housing, more basic needs met. So, yeah, of course it would be another form of a state of emergency if it's affecting people.
Maggie: Nick Semenski works for Covenant House California, a shelter in Hollywood that serves young people. He says he needs more funding.

So what would you do with extra money?

Semenski: I would continue to expand as far as the amount of beds. That would be great because there would be less people on the waiting list; more people could get in. And a little bit more advertisement: we could be out there just spreading the word a little bit more.

Maggie: Los Angeles did not get those emergency funds because it had never been done before, but the idea caught on.Four other similar declarations have been made in Portland, Oregon; Seattle and King County, Washington; and the state of Hawaii.

So, Anthony, this is where you sleep.

Anthony: Yes, this is my tent. This is where I sleep.

Maggie: For now, Anthony prefers the streets to a homeless shelter. And he says the next time you see a homeless person on the street, don't be so quick to judge.

Anthony: If people think you are homeless, they are going to assume that you are a bad person. And, like, I don't want people to think I’m a bad person.

Maggie: He and his new family are working on a plan to save enough money for an apartment by the end of this year.

Anthony: I don't like my living situation, but I like life. I always thought life is a good thing that needs to be treasured.

Maggie: Maggie Rulli, Channel One News.

Keith: We have more on our website about America's homeless youth, who they are and why they left home. It is all on ChannelOne.com.

All right, coming up: we meet one teen and his $2,000 cell phone bill.

Keith: I don't know about you guys, but I hate when I get a reminder on my smartphone saying that I am almost out of data. But, Arielle, I hear it might not just be me taking a byte out of my data.

Arielle: Yeah, Keith. There is a new feature on your phone that may make your data disappear faster than you think.

Ashton Finegold didn't think much about the text message from AT&T warning him he was getting too close to his data limit. He says he has seen it before.

Ashton Finegold: It just said maybe 65 percent of your data has been used.

Arielle: But then the bill came.

Ashton: I thought my dad was going to kill me.

Jeff Finegold: It's usually about $250 a month, and it was over $2,000.

Arielle: So what caused the steep charges?A new feature on Ashton's iPhone called Wifi Assist. It comes standard with the new iOS 9.1 operating system.

Jeff: I had no idea what that was.

Arielle: It is supposed to make sure you always have a good signal by automatically switching to cellular data when a wifi signal is weak, like in Ashton's bedroom. That is where he thought he was still connected to wifi while streaming and surfing. But instead his phone has been gobbling up data, more than 144,000 MGs.

Mike Campbell: That is pretty high, but I can see it happening.

Arielle: Mike Campbell, of the website Apple Insider, says while some customers like Wifi Assist, many don't know they have it.

Campbell: It comes by default; it is switched on. That's part of the reason why there's kind of an uproar.

Arielle: Now, if you are worried about this, you can turn off Wifi Assist. Just go to Settings, then Cellular Data, then scroll all the way to the bottom and turn off Wifi Assist.

Keith: Good to know. Thanks, Arielle. All right, that is going to do it for us. Have a great day, and we will see you right back here tomorrow.

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