Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 29. Sunrise is 7:03 and sunset is 4:22 for 9 hours 20 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 53.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1964, NASA launches the Mariner 4 probe toward Mars.
Midwest farming faces an uncertain financial end to 2025:
Agricultural bankers in Wisconsin and neighboring states report feeling pessimistic about farmers’ profitability at the end of 2025.
Surveys by the Federal Reserve Banks of Minneapolis and Chicago found tougher farm credit conditions in the third quarter of 2025. Surveyed farm lenders reported lower rates of loan repayment and higher demand for extensions and new loans.
The bankers projected those trends to continue for the final quarter of the year, despite the expectation for a strong corn and soybean harvest this fall. More than 80 percent of respondents to one survey expected farm income to be lower than a year ago.
Joe Mahon, regional outreach director for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said during a webinar on the data that a continued slump in crop prices is driving farm incomes down.
See Hope Kirwan, Survey: Farmers expected to end 2025 with tough financial conditions (“Lender says for farmers, ‘The profit margin is tighter than it has been in a long time'”), Wisconsin Public Radio, November 28, 2025.
How Japan Is Tackling Its Bear Problem:
(It’s reasonable that experienced hunters should be a part of the solution here, as there is no species of bear that’s bulletproof.)