Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 6:07 and sunset is 7:48, for 13 hours, 42 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 8.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1968, Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring. East German participation is limited to a few specialists due to memories of the recent war. Only Albania and Romania refuse to participate.
This was supposed to be a new golden age, but for Wisconsin’s dairy farms (and so many other businesses), it’s not turning out that way:
The Trump administration’s recent tariff actions could make it difficult for Wisconsin dairy farmers to export excess milk products and for beef producers to access Chinese markets, state farm leaders told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
Consumers are contending with the highest average effective tariff rate since 1933, at 18.6 percent, according to the most recent estimate from the Budget Lab at Yale.
President Donald Trump’s recent tariff modifications are part of his goal “to take back America’s economic sovereignty by addressing the many nonreciprocal trade relationships that impact foreign relations, threaten our economic and national security, and disadvantage American workers,” according to a White House press release.
But Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden said dairy farmers rely on international trade to export excess milk.
Wisconsin exported over $3 billion of agricultural products in 2024, according to a report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension Farm Management program.
“We’re currently coming out of our highest milk production part of the year,” Von Ruden said. “When you have that scenario, plus these new tariffs coming on, countries not being able to afford our products … it stays here, which just then adds to that problem of lowering the price that farmers receive for their products.”
See Anna Marie Yanny, Wisconsin farmers grapple with recent tariffs from the Trump administration (‘Dairy and beef industry leaders share how the Trump administration’s economic policies influence small farming operations across the state’), Wisconsin Public Radio, August 19, 2025.
Wisconsinites understandably want to save dairy farms — Trump’s tariffs will do the opposite.
Hurricane Erin looks huge in views from space station: