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Daily Bread for 10.23.24: Wisconsin Senate Outlook

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 59. Sunrise is 7:18, and sunset is 5:59, for 10 hours, 40 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 57.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4 PM.

On this day in 1868, having taken the shogunate’s seat of power at Edo and declared it his new capital as TokyoMutsuhito proclaims the start of the new Meiji era.


Anya Van Wagtendonk, Joe Schulz, and Evan Casey report Fight for control of state government runs through 3 Wisconsin Senate districts (‘Races for the 14th, 30th and 8th state Senate districts have been hotly contested’). They highlight three Senate districts: 14th District (Democrat Democrat Sarah Keyeski and Republican incumbent Joan Ballweg), 30th District (Democrat Jamie Wall and Republican Jim Rafter), and the 8th District (Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin and Republican incumbent Duey Stroebel). These races will not alone be enough to determine Wisconsin Senate control this year, but outcomes will suggest longer-term trends.

The story offers snapshots of each district:

[The 14th] district now encompasses all of Richland and Sauk counties and portions of several others, including Dane County, a Democratic stronghold. It includes the communities of Richland Center, Reedsburg, Baraboo, Spring Green, Sauk City, Lodi, Portage, Columbus and the Wisconsin Dells. Part of the district also dips into the city of Madison.

According to data compiled by Marquette University, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would have won the district by about 10 points in 2022, and President Joe Biden would have carried it by about 4 points in 2020.

….

Before redistricting, the 30th Senate District stretched north to Marinette, and favored Republicans. It’s been held by Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Green Bay, since 2021, but this year, he’s running in the adjacent 2nd Senate District, a seat with a strong Republican lean.

In recent elections, the 30th District has leaned Democratic. In 2022, Evers would have carried it by about 7 points. Four years ago Biden would have won it by about 3.

….

Wisconsin’s 8th Senate District includes parts of Milwaukee County and also Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee Counties, also known as the WOW Counties. The area has historically been a Republican stronghold, but it’s been trending Democratic in recent years.

The test this fall is whether redrawn districts like these will lead to partisan changes.


How To Win A Nobel Prize: A three minute guide:

Daily Bread for 10.22.24: A Reminder on Jill Stein

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 57. Sunrise is 7:17, and sunset is 6:00, for 10 hours, 43 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 68 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval quarantine of the Communist nation.


It’s understandable that voters would be curious about different candidates. Some ordinary voters might want, reasonably, to take a look at Jill Stein, for example. Prospective voters, however, are not Stein; well-meaning and curious people should not be confused or conflated with this aged perennial candidate. She may seem as through she’s a viable choice, but looking closely she’s a shill for Putin and an effective vote for Trump.

Lawrence O’Donnell describes Stein’s Trojan Horse candidacy aptly:

And look, and look… there’s a distinction to draw. Voters are sometimes mistaken and misguided, and should be critiqued cautiously. Candidates and their operatives, especially someone like Stein, do not deserve gentle care and feeding.

(In a comment and my reply about Stein here at FREE WHITEWATER from two months ago, this libertarian blogger yielded no ground to a Stein operative, and ended further comment from him at a moment of my choosing. Stein and her campaign team, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, are experienced politicos who deserve no particular caution or deference.)

This libertarian blogger is not a Democrat, but instead is a Never Trump man who knows that Trumpism can only be overcome by joining the largest possible coalition. That coalition is composed mostly, but not exclusively, of Democrats. That coalition has Kamala Harris as its standard bearer. Harris does not have my partial or sometime support: she has my full and complete support in defense of our constitutional order. I am not hesitant about supporting her; I am wholly supportive of her and her defense of our centuries-long liberal democratic tradition against autocracy.

It’s important both to take a principled position and hold that position against opposition. Cannot imagine another other way, truly.


Bear Seizes Control of Gatlinburg, TN (Demands daily supply of honey):

Daily Bread for 10.4.24: Harris, Cheney, and Wisconsin Republicans

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 70. Sunrise is 6:56, and sunset is 6:29, for 11 hours, 34 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 2.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1957, Sputnik 1 becomes the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.


There’s no one who now knows, truly, what will be the outcome of the 2024 presidential race, in Wisconsin or anywhere else. It’s enough to take a position, first to hold that position against opposition, and thereafter to advance from it against opposition. One watches and acts without foreknowledge of the final result. A letter yesterday is like that, as Erik Gunn reports Wisconsin GOP group launches pro-Harris campaign with open letter:


Two dozen Wisconsin Republicans, including former lawmakers, other former elected officials and a GOP sitting district attorney, have signed an open letter declaring their support for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in her campaign for president and condemning the Republican nominee former President Donald Trump.

The Harris campaign released the letter early Thursday, describing it as the product of months of outreach by the campaign and by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to Republicans.

“We, the undersigned, are Republicans from across Wisconsin who bring the same message: Donald Trump does not align with Wisconsin values,” the letter says. “To ensure our democracy and our economy remain strong for another four years, we must elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to the White House.”

The letter was released as part of the launch of a formal Wisconsin Republicans for Harris-Walz organization, with just over a month to go before the Nov. 5 election.

“Wisconsin Republicans for Harris-Walz will play a pivotal role in facilitating Republican-to-Republican voter contact,” said the Harris-Walz campaign announcement Thursday. Through phone banking and networking with “Republican organizations, businesses, and community groups,” the GOP-oriented group will focus “in part on the more than 120,000 Wisconsinites who voted against Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary earlier this year,” the campaign announcement said.

Trump’s Wisconsin primary opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, finished with more than 16% of the vote in Ozaukee, 12% in Washington and 14% in Waukesha counties.


Liz Cheney joins Harris rally at historic birthplace of the GOP in swing state Wisconsin:

Daily Bread for 10.3.24: Perhaps Accurate for a Moment with Much Ahead

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 76. Sunrise is 6:55, and sunset is 6:31, for 11 hours, 37 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 0.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a Home Buyer’s Educational Event at the Community Engagement Center, 1260 W Main St. in Whitewater from 6 to 7:30 PM.

On this day in 1952, the United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon in the Montebello Islands, Western Australia, to become the world’s third nuclear power.


The Marquette Law School Poll, a respected survey of political preferences, issued its latest findings yesterday. Here are some key results of their latest work:

I’ve reported poll results before, in these races and others, and yet one should be clear with oneself: these are no more than possible descriptions of sentiment at those brief moments when respondents answered a pollster’s questions.

With differences between the candidates so stark, and thus stakes so high, the course both practical and moral is simply to carry on, march on, and slog on in support of one’s candidates.

If ever one’s conscience were to be one’s guide, now’s the time.


Java In zero-g! How the space coffee cup works:

Astronauts on the International Space Station have a zero-g cup for their java. Find out about it here.

Daily Bread for 8.29.24: Scouting Whitewater’s Political Landscape

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 84. Sunrise is 6:17, and sunset is 7:32, for 13h 14m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 18.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1997,  Netflix launches as an internet DVD rental service (streaming came later, in 2007).


Joe Tarr reports on the enthusiasm that Kamala Harris is generating among many college students in Young Wisconsin Democrats fired up with Harris at the top of the ticket. Tarr’s story begins with an anecdote from UW-Whitewater:

Alyssa Wahlborg knows that her politics don’t always gel with that of the community where she attends college. 

While a lot of students and faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater might lean left, the larger community “leans a bit red,” she told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” Nevertheless, Wahlborg sees hope that the Democratic Party can make gains in rural Walworth County and elsewhere. 

“Having conversations with people on our campus makes you realize how blue we can get, and how we can flip our district,” Wahlborg said. “We even flipped our city council blue. We (elected) Democrats to our school boards.”

First and foremost, to all those arriving on campus: Welcome to Whitewater. It’s a beautiful city. There’s no better place to live.

The story inspires me to update a series of posts I wrote in 2021 about politics in the city proper (city politics that are evolving and different from red Walworth County). Here are those posts from 2021: 2021 Unofficial Spring Election Results, The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater, The City’s Center-Left, The City’s Few Progressives, The Campus, The Subcultural City, Marketing, COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric, Majoritarianism, and The Limits of Local Politics.


Kevin the Canadian Chihuahua calculates the task ahead:

Daily Bread for 8.22.24: More (and Less) Important Political Trends

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 76. Sunrise is 6:10, and sunset is 7:44, for 13h 34m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Board of Zoning Appeals meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1902, Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to make a public appearance in an automobile.

On this day in 1920, native Milwaukee runner Arlie Schardt won a gold medal in the 3,000-meter team race at the Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium. Schardt was part of a three-man team that included Hal Brown and Ivan Dresser.


There’s more than one political trend at play in Wisconsin: Craig Gilbert writes As DNC gathers, Democrats grapple with its fall among Wisconsin’s rural voters and Bruce Thompson writes WOW Counties Turning Less Republican (‘Ozaukee and Waukesha now less red while Washington County resists the trend’).

These stories aren’t equally useful, and it’s easy to see why. Gilbert wants to highlight continued decline of Democrats in rural counties, but the story head doesn’t match the story itself:

The Democratic Party’s geographic foothold has shrunk in Wisconsin, amid a plunge in support among rural voters in the central, western and northern counties.

The new election map has a lot less “blue” than the old one.

That hasn’t stopped Democrats from winning big elections, which it has done with regularity in the Trump era. Winning statewide races is not about winning the most counties or the greatest acreage, but the most votes.

(Emphasis added.)

Those areas where one finds the most votes are also where most people live, and where legislative districts are situated by population. The headline says trouble (Democrats have to ‘grapple’) but results in statewide race after statewide race say otherwise.

The decline among Democrats in low-population areas is offset by gains among Democrats in areas of high population. Bruce Thompson writes:

The Milwaukee area is following the national trend in which close-in suburbs become increasingly Democratic, while more rural areas become more Republican. Though there are many theories on what is driving this trend, it still remains something of a mystery. But clearly the trend is changing two of the three WOW counties.

The increasingly blue Milwaukee area has a greater population than the rural counties that Gilbert over-emphasizes.

Two analyses, Gilbert’s and Thompson’s, but only the latter presents the key trends perceptively all the way through from head to tail.


Tiger almost bites woman’s hand at New Jersey zoo (Alternative Title: Do Not Pet Zoo Tigers):

New Jersey authorities shared footage of a woman putting a hand through the fence in a tiger enclosure at the Cohanzick Zoo.

Daily Bread for 8.18.24: Prof. Anthony Chergosky on Wisconsin’s 2024 Partisan Primary Vote

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:06, and sunset is 7:50, for 13h 44m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1937, a lightning strike starts the Blackwater Fire of 1937 in Shoshone National Forest, killing 15 firefighters within three days and prompting the United States Forest Service to develop their smokejumper program.


Anthony Chergosky on Wisconsin’s 2024 partisan primary vote:

UW-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky considers the rejection of two proposed state constitutional amendments and outcomes of two congressional races in the 2024 partisan primary.

Ferris wheel catches fire at German music festival:

A Ferris wheel caught fire and injured a number of people at the Highfield music festival near Leipzig in eastern Germany.

Daily Bread for 7.23.24: Wisconsin Will Be Visited Again & Again

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will see morning showers with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:38, and sunset is 8:24, for 14h 45m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1962,  Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.


The Republicans had their national convention in Wisconsin, and both parties will send candidates and surrogates into Wisconsin through November. Today, for example, Kamala Harris will hold first rally of her presidential campaign in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee isn’t America’s biggest city, and Wisconsin isn’t America’s biggest state. Many larger places, however, are decidedly settled on one party and so will not be swayed. Wisconsin might pick either party and so she will receive frequent visits.

There’s a local angle for Whitewater in all this: if Wisconsin receives more attention, then some of the cities & towns in the state may receive more attention, too. We have received much notice over the last year concerning newcomers to our city. National attention on us would be an order of magnitude higher than what we’ve previously garnered if we received a visit from a central figure in either party.

I don’t know, of course, that we will receive a high-profile political visit; it’s simply the case that no one visits a place that he or she doesn’t know exists.

The major parties well know that Wisconsin, and as it turns out, Whitewater, exist.


As the Olympics near, Ukraine mourns athletes lost to war:

Daily Bread for 7.22.24: America Is a Dynamic Place

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:37, and sunset is 8:25, for 14h 47m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 5:45 PM, and returns to open session at 7 PM.

On this day in 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act passes in the British House of Commons, initiating the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire.


America is a dynamic country, socially, economically, and politically. Yesterday was an excellent example of that evident truth.

Zach Beauchamp perceptively draws lessons from yesterday’s political developments:

It’s enough to make even the most jaded observer a little more optimistic about American democracy — for at least two big reasons.

First, it shows that there can still be standards in politics. 

American politics isn’t just made up of two parties, wholly owned by party elites, locked in a mortal and uncompromising struggle to the death. At least one of our parties is capable of policing its own: challenging an incumbent president and, ultimately, convincing him to step aside. The contrast with the GOP’s behavior after Trump’s many scandals — from the Access Hollywood tape to the January 6 Capitol riot — is unmistakable.

Second, Biden’s departure shows that unexpected things can still happen.


This is hard to prove, but I think so much of the polling showing public distrust in the American government is rooted in a sense that it’s stuck: that what’s happening right now isn’t working, and that no one is capable of doing anything surprising to right the ship. But a president abandoning a reelection campaign is nothing if not surprising. 
Politicians like Trump, in both the United States and elsewhere, thrive on the notion that the system is broken and nothing can be done to fix it. This is a problem not just because those specific politicians are dangerous, but because distrust rots democracy’s foundations.

Indeed.


This tiny solar-powered flyer weighs less than a paper plane:

Researchers have overcome efficiency and power issues to create what they believe to be the world’s lightest and smallest sunlight-powered rotorocraft.
Micro aerial vehicles or MAVs could have a host of applications from environmental monitoring to search and rescue. But currently, these tiny flying machines have a problem — endurance. MAVs that weigh less than 10 grams are normally limited to around 10 minutes of flying time.
To increase flying time, other types of propulsion have been tested, but these still require bulky power systems on the ground to take off, preventing any craft from freely flying.
One solution could be solar power. But until now no solar powered MAV has been capable of untethered sustained flight in natural sunlight.
So to solve this, researchers have developed CoulombFly, a solar-powered MAV propelled by a new extremely efficient electro-static motor and powered by incredibly light solar panels.

Daily Bread for 7.16.24: Wisconsin Cities Get Stiffed for Campaign Visits

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:32 and sunset 8:29 for 14h 57m 48s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 73.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets at 5:30 PM, and the Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1969,  Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, launches from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida.


Julius Shieh reports Wisconsin cities want presidential candidates to pay for pricey campaign stops:

With President Joe Biden and Donald Trump again eying Wisconsin as a crucial presidential election battleground, some cash-strapped municipalities hope their campaigns will pick up the tab for their expensive visits to the state.

Those include the cities of Green Bay and Eau Claire, where officials said they still haven’t been reimbursed for tens of thousands of dollars in costs related to public safety and operational support during campaign visits dating back to 2016. 

….

  • Officials in Green Bay say Donald Trump’s campaign has refused to reimburse the city for more than $42,700 in public safety and operations costs from rallies in 2024 and 2016. 
  • President Biden has not visited Green Bay this year, but the campaign has reimbursed the city for $7,000 in costs related to first lady Jill Biden’s visit.
  • Green Bay says the campaigns of two Democrats still owe the city for costs stemming from events in 2016: Hillary Clinton (about $12,500) and Bernie Sanders (nearly $2,000).
  • Officials in Eau Claire, which hosted Trump and Clinton in 2016, say the city is still owed nearly $47,000 and $7,000 from each visit respectively, but they are next [sic] expecting to be paid. 
  • Madison, the site of a rally for President Biden on July 5, follows a long-standing practice of not billing campaigns for visits. It does not plan to invoice Biden’s campaign.

Watch as storm chasers follow a forming tornado in North Dakota:

Two storm chasers watched from their car as a tornado formed in Richland County, North Dakota.

Daily Bread for 7.15.24: The Different Politics of Wisconsin & Minnesota

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 88. Sunrise is 5:31 and sunset 8:30 for 14h 59m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 64.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1799, the Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.


Jake Steinberg and Briana Bierschbach ask Why is Wisconsin a swing state while Minnesota isn’t? (‘A mix of political history, shifting economies, turnout and state policies have set the two states on diverging paths’):

On paper, Minnesota and Wisconsin seem like they would produce similar election results.

They’re both upper Midwestern states with farms in the south, forests in the north and connections to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River that drew Scandinavian and German migrants.

But Minnesota hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential nominee since 1972. Its politics lean left, with Democrats controlling a trifecta in state government. Despite Donald Trump’s belief he has “a really good shot” of winning Minnesota this year, Cook Political Report rated the state as “likely Democrat” until last week, when it downgraded the state to “lean Democrat.”

Wisconsin, on the other hand, shocked the nation by helping elect Donald Trump in 2016. The state’s politics have shifted right under an entrenched Republican majority in the state Legislature. The Badger State is a key battleground in this year’s presidential race, a point emphasized by the Republican National Committee’s choice of Milwaukee for its nominating convention this month.

The states have long walked a similar path, but differences in political culture, economic fortunes and voter enthusiasm are causing them to diverge….

Worth reading in full.


Sun blasts X1.2-class solar flare. See spacecraft views:

Daily Bread for 5.16.24: What Vos Wrought

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 73. Sunrise is 5:29 and sunset 8:13 for 14h 43m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 59.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1842,  the first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail from Elm Grove, Missouri, with 100 pioneers.


Rich Kremer reports Dueling radio ads in southeastern Wisconsin call for, against recalling Robin Vos (‘Racine Recall Committee ad accuses Vos of blocking impeachment of top election official, while Wisconsinites for Liberty Foundation ad call recall organizers ‘out-of-state creeps’)

Conservative activists trying for a second time this year to remove Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos from office have launched a $50,000 ad campaign encouraging residents of Vos’ district to sign on to the effort. 

Meanwhile, a group aligned with the speaker is running radio ads calling recall organizers “radicals” and encouraging residents to reject the effort. 

The Racine Recall Committee’s latest radio ad accuses Vos of protecting Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe from impeachment and includes audio of him saying he would work to keep former President Donald Trump from becoming the Republican nominee.

“Vos is bad for elections, bad for Wisconsin and bad for America,” the ad said. “If you live in his district in Racine County, sign the new recall petition.” 

Here’s that radio ad against Vos:

Vos brought this on Wisconsin and himself by advancing conspiracists like Michael Gableman.

Somewhere, possibly in Whitewater, there’s someone (albeit someone impossibly dense) who thinks Robin Vos is a shrewd man whose name is worth dropping now and again.

No, and no again.

How unfortunate that Mad magazine is no longer publishing; Vos would have been a contender for that publication’s cover.


Why Does NASA Want to Explore Jupiter’s Ocean Moon?:

Daily Bread for 5.2.24: Did Trump’s Waukesha Visit Include a Mention of Whitewater? No

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:45 and sunset 7:57 for 14h 12m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 37.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2000, President Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.


Mr. Trump was in Waukesha yesterday.

Did Trump’s Wednesday visit include a mention of Whitewater (as his 4.2.24 Green Bay visit did)?

No. (The Republican National Committee press release announcing Trump’s Waukesha visit, however, did include an express reference to Whitewater. There was, therefore, reason to be attentive to his remarks.)

For now, Wisconsin’s rising nativist sentiment hasn’t brought yet another false, mendacious use of Whitewater’s conditions.

So much the better for this community that Mr. Trump kept the city’s name out of his remarks.

The state & national distortions of last fall & winter would prove slight as against state and national distortions this fall.


May 2024 Skywatching Tips from NASA:

Daily Bread for 5.1.24: Will Trump’s Waukesha Visit Include a Mention of Whitewater?

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 70. Sunrise is 5:46 and sunset 7:56 for 14h 09m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 48.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4 PM and the Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1898, during the Spanish-American War, the Asiatic Squadron of the United States Navy destroys the Pacific Squadron of the Spanish Navy after a seven-hour battle. Spain loses all seven of its ships, and 381 Spanish sailors die. There are no American vessel losses or combat deaths.


So, one reads that Mr. Trump will be in Waukesha today. Trump mentioned Whitewater by name while in Green Bay on 4.2.24. If he’s going to keep Whitewater in the headlines, another Wisconsin visit would be a prime opportunity for him to do so.

Will it prove true that Trump again uses Wisconsin’s Rising Nativist Sentiment [to] Keep Whitewater in the News?

Let’s see what happens.


Relocating bees from a Washington, D.C. backyard: