Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 64. Sunrise is 5:16 and sunset is 8:32, for 15 hours, 16 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Plan & Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM. On this day…
Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with scattered afternoon showers and a high of 73. Sunrise is 5:16 and sunset is 8:31, for 15 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 92.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1959, USS Barbero and the United States Postal…
Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:30 and sunset is 8:12, for 14 hours, 42 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 86.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1527, the Florentines drive out the Medici for a second time and Florence re-establishes…
Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 73. Sunrise is 5:37 and sunset is 8:06, for 14 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1773, the Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save…
Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 69. Sunrise is 5:40 and sunset is 8:02, for 14 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Starin Park Water Tower Committee meets at 6 PM, and the Landmarks…
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:42 and sunset is 8:01, for 14 hours, 19 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 70 percent of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater Unified School District’s Finance Committee meets at Noon. Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Committee…
Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 62. Sunrise is 5:43 and sunset is 8:00, for 14 hours, 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 60.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater Unified School District Board meets in open session at 6:30 PM, then…
Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will see a mix of clouds and sun with a high of 64. Sunrise is 5:44 and sunset is 7:59, for 14 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 50.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 2007, Greensburg, Kansas is almost…
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 55. Sunrise is 6:11 and sunset is 7:38, for 13 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 89 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.
Yesterday’s post, Farmers, cited reporting on the effects of a trade war on farmers. Trump is aware of these concerns, and so he used his Truth Social platform to publish his position on a trade war’s effects on agriculture. Below are Trump’s remarks contrasted with real experiences.
Our farmers are GREAT, but because of their GREATNESS, they are always put on the Front Line with our adversaries, such as China, whenever there is a Trade negotiation or, in this case, a Trade War. The same thing happened in my First Term. China was brutal to our Farmers, I these Patriots to just hold on, and a great trade deal was made. I rewarded our farmers with a payment of $28 Billion Dollars, all through the China deal. It was a great transaction for the USA, until Crooked Joe Biden came in and didn’t enforce it. China largely reneged on the deal (although they behaved during the Trump Administration), only buying a portion of what they agreed to buy. They had ZERO respect for the Crooked Biden Administration, and who can blame them for that? Interestingly, they just reneged on the big Boeing deal, saying that they will “not take possession” of fully committed to aircraft. The USA will PROTECT OUR FARMERS!!!
The payments were helpful, Pihl said. But they weren’t a fix for the longer-term damage done by Trump’s first-term tariffs.
“That was just for the one year. What about the market loss that continued through his term and into Biden’s term? I think the amount is incredible,” he said.
Trump claims that China has ‘behaved’ during his administration, but he admits in his post that (a) they’ve hit back at Boeing and (b) China has applied huge retaliatory tariffs across the board.
Meanwhile, here’s how ordinary Chinese are depicting the Trump Admin:
Even ordinary TikTok users on the other side of the world have Trumpism’s number.
One can and should oppose the Chinese government without stumbling into an inflationary trade war.
Meanwhile, where did Trump get all those gaudy gold appliqués with which he’s littered the Oval Office? Trump’s vulgar additions are surprisingly similar to what the Chinese sell on Alibaba:
Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 50. Sunrise is 6:12 and sunset is 7:37, for 13 hours, 25 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 94 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1922, U.S. Senator John B. Kendrick of Wyoming introduces a resolution calling for an investigation of a secret land deal, which leads to the discovery of the Teapot Dome scandal.
Tariffs are making life more expensive for John Pihl. He’s been farming in Northern Illinois for more than 50 years.
“These tariffs are going to affect everything. It’ll affect our parts — it’s just across the board. Which is going to hurt everything,” he said.
Not only do tariffs affect the cost of farm supplies, but they also raise the risk of retaliation against exports of U.S. crops: a double-whammy for farmers like Pihl.
“It’s a good way to lose your customers,” he said. “And I think we’ll probably lose more on this round too, because I know that Mexico is our biggest importer of corn. But this time, they may figure out that they can get corn from South America just as easily as from the U.S.”
….
All told, the first Trump administration spent $28 billion bailing out farmers. This time around, the tariffs are much higher than they were six years ago, and it’s unclear how long they will persist.
NPR asked the White House for details on what relief is under consideration this time, but received no response.
The payments were helpful, Pihl said. But they weren’t a fix for the longer-term damage done by Trump’s first-term tariffs.
“That was just for the one year. What about the market loss that continued through his term and into Biden’s term? I think the amount is incredible,” he said.
But it’s all fake news, right? These consequences for can’t be true, can they? Mr. Trump has a plan, of course he does. (He had a plan before each of his six business bankruptcies, didn’t he?)
Come for the culture war, stay for the inflationary trade war.
Elephants formed an ‘alert circle’ to protect their young after a 5.2 magnitude earthquake in southern California. Video footage from the San Diego zoo safari park showed elephants instinctively circling their young, as soon as they felt the earthquake on 14 April
Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 59. Sunrise is 6:14 and sunset is 7:36, for 13 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 98 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Plan and Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1958, the Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days. This was the first spacecraft to carry a living animal, a female dog named Laika, who likely lived only a few hours.
One of the justifications for tariffs is to bring back manufacturing to states like Wisconsin. It’s ill-considered:
But one of the biggest barriers to bringing manufacturing back, both in Wisconsin and nationally, is a labor shortage.
Over the last decade, [founder of the Florida-based Reshoring Initiative Harry] Moser said employers have told him the U.S. labor market is “weak, both in terms of quantity of people and quality of people.” He said there have been efforts in recent years that have helped some, pointing to high school apprenticeship programs. He says Trump’s goal of bringing manufacturing back hinges on workforce.
….
In Wisconsin, a 2023 research report from WMC found the state’s median age was older than the rate nationally, and warned if the population doesn’t grow at a faster rate, workforce shortages would worsen.
“We don’t have enough workers for the jobs that we have, let alone if we want to grow a job (field),” [president of the business lobbying group Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Kurt] Bauer with WMC said. “This is a significant challenge.”
One hears talk in Whitewater on recruiting for manufacturing before any other priority. It’s more a diversionary tactic than anything else; these gentlemen are simply looking for something, however implausible, to shift the conversion.
Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:50 and sunset is 7:12, for 12 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 28.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM and the Police and Fire Commission at 6 PM.
Farm and construction equipment manufacturers started the year with high hopes for the economy, bolstered by President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to cut taxes on domestic producers and slash government regulations.
But that optimism has given way to fears of a possible recession, sparked by Trump’s international trade war, said Kip Eideberg, senior vice president for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, a national trade group based in West Allis.
“If we are dragged or pushed into a recession as a result of the tit for tat tariffs, that’s a whole ’nother level of pain,” he said. “That’s the biggest fear right now.”
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China, Canada and the European Union plan to hit Wisconsin’s two largest industries, agriculture and manufacturing, with retaliatory tariffs. The moves come in response to Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum and his broader threats and use of tariffs.
Almost 10 percent of Wisconsin’s jobs — or nearly 300,000 — were in industries those countries are targeting. That’s the largest share of any state in the country, according to an analysis from The New York Times.
From the New York Times, here’s the portion of the story to which the WPR story refers:
Rural parts of the country are once again at risk from retaliation. Agriculture is a major U.S. export and farmers are politically important to Mr. Trump. And rural counties may have one major employer — like a poultry processing plant — that provides a big share of the county’s jobs, compared with urban or suburban areas that are more diversified.
The retaliatory tariffs target industries employing 9.5 percent of people in Wisconsin, 8.5 percent of people in Indiana and 8.4 percent of people in Iowa. The shares are also relatively high in Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Kansas.
The shapes of these cells are puzzling. They have wavy edges and protrusions and fit together a bit like puzzle pieces. But what is it for? New research looking at the lymph capillary cells, found throughout human tissues, has determined how exactly these tiny vessels are able to let fluid and immune cells pass through between them while also being strong enough to resist rupturing under pressure. Their unusual shape seems to be key…
Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 48. Sunrise is 7:13 and sunset is 5:03, for 9 hours, 50 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 1.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM, and the Public Arts Commission at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1958, the Lego company patents the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.
More data centers — computer warehouses that underpin artificial intelligence and store everything from PayPal transactions to YouTube videos — are coming to Wisconsin.
Microsoft has purchased 240 acres for a new data center complex in Kenosha, the city announced Monday. It will sit northwest of the intersection of Interstate 94 and Route 142, 6 miles south of the company’s $3.3 billion data center campus under construction in Mount Pleasant.
Meanwhile, the hydroelectricity that once powered Wisconsin Rapids’ paper mill will now flow to a new data center. The data center developer Digital Power Optimization, known as DPO, announced on Thursday it has purchased the site and its power supply.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 26. Sunrise is 7:04, and sunset is 4:22, for 9 hours, 18 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1961, Enos, a chimpanzee, is launched into space. The spacecraft orbits the Earth twice and splashes down off the coast of Puerto Rico.