Tuesday, August 12th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of The Amateur @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Spy/Action/Thriller
Rated PG-13. 2 hours, 2 minutes. (2025)
After his life is turned upside down when his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed in a London terrorist attack, a brilliant, introverted CIA decoder (Rami Malek) takes matters into his own hands when his supervisors (Laurence Fishburne) refuse to take action. An exciting deadly chase ensues across many European locales.
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:53 and sunset is 8:07, for 14 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Arts Commission meets at 5 PM.
On this day in 1942, the Battle of Guadalcanal begins as the United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the Pacific War with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.
They’re asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which has declined to hear other redistricting lawsuits this year, to appoint a three-judge panel to decide whether the state’s congressional districts initially drawn 14 years ago are unconstitutional.
The process could potentially open a door to two lawsuits filed in Dane County Circuit Court aimed at overturning Wisconsin’s congressional map, which has helped Republicans win six of the state’s eight House districts.
Any decision issued by the judicial panel could only be appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The earlier filings that Wisconsin’s high court dismissed in June were filed directly with that court; these actions filed in July have both different claims and a different point of origin.
The complaints from July are embedded below:
Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2025CV002252 (Wis. Cir. Ct. Dane Cnty. July 8, 2025).
Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupted again on August 6. Located in a closed area of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes. In 2019, a string of earthquakes and a major eruption at Kilauea led to the destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:51 and sunset is 8:08, for 14 hours, 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 91.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The same type of drama enveloped Wisconsin’s Legislature 14 years ago, when Republicans were fast-tracking collective bargaining legislation that had been introduced just days earlier by then-Gov. Scott Walker.
Former Wisconsin Sen. Mark Miller, who was the Senate’s minority leader at the time, said the union language was initially included in a budget repair bill introduced by Walker. Miller said one of his staff members noted that because the bill was fiscal in nature, two-thirds of the entire Senate, which worked out to 20 members, had to be at the Wisconsin Capitol in order for the vote to happen.
“I had contacted all the Democratic senators and asked them to pack clothes and toiletries for the next day,” Miller said. “And the next day, when we gathered off-site, I proposed to them that we go to Illinois and deny a quorum.”
Miller and 13 other Democratic senators did just that, staying in Illinois for weeks. Ironically, Miller said the idea was partially inspired by yet another redistricting-related walkout by Texas Democrats in 2003.
Echoes of Wisconsin’s past, but faint ones in Walker, Miller, et al.: only 14 years ago, but so much has changed in our politics that Kremer might as well have been describing an event from 140 years ago. Changes that began with the Great Recession (2007-2009) led to a political transformation across America in the rise of populism, leaving those not wholly of or wholly against that movement as mere etchings of what they once were.
(That’s why the Journal Sentinel‘s recent reporting about whether Walker might run for governor again was silly: Walker’s unsuited to these times, the political equivalent of faded, yellowed newsprint. SeeWe Weren’t Teasing, Scott Walker Was Teasing!)
There’s an evident consequence of this distance-of-many-years-in-the-space-of-a-few: the non-aligned, the eternally bipartisan, and the middle grounders are irrelevant. Yesterday’s type of Republican or Democrat isn’t today’s Republican or Democrat. There were then types of Republicans and types of Democrats. No longer. There is only one effectual type of each, the extremism of the former compelling an assertiveness of the latter.
The Carpenters were successful as musicians but sensibly ventured no political prognostications: it is not, and will not again be, Yesterday Once More.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:50 and sunset is 8:10, for 14 hours, 19 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Alcohol & Licensing Committee meets at 5 PM, and the Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1735, New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he had published was true.
More than half of Americans (53%) see grocery prices as a major source of stress and another 33% see it as a minor source of stress, according to a new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
More people were concerned about grocery prices than any other financial concern brought up in the poll, but more than half of respondents also said they were at least somewhat stressed about their salaries, the cost of housing, the amount of money they have saved, their credit card debt and the cost of health care.
The Consumer Price Index shows the price of food has risen 3% in the last 12 months—groceries have risen 2.4% while dining out is 3.8% costlier than it was 12 months ago.
From June 2024 to June 2025, groceries got more expensive in every category tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: meats, poultry, fish and eggs rose in price by 5.6% (egg prices alone rose 27.3%); nonalcoholic beverages are 4.4% more expensive; fruits and vegetables rose in price by 0.7%; and both cereals and bakery products and the index for dairy products rose 0.9%.
At 3%, the cost of food is rising faster than the overall inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index, at 2.7%.
After groceries, the price of housing had the highest number of people reporting it as a major stressor in Monday’s poll (47%), followed by the amount of money saved (43%), salary (43%) and the cost of health care (42%).
Two boats launching fireworks caught fire in Japan on Monday during a summer festival in Yokohama, located south of Tokyo. Roughly 20 minutes in the event, the music stopped and the officials announced the event was cancelled “due to safety concerns.”
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:49 and sunset is 8:11, for 14 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 77.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1889, the Great Fire of Spokane, Washington destroys some 32 blocks of the city, prompting a mass rebuilding project.
Years of anti-vaccine claims from ignorant but insistent Facebookers1 take a toll. One reads, sadly yet expectedly, that Wisconsin sees first measles cases, with 9 confirmed in Oconto County:
Nine cases of measles have been confirmed in Oconto County, and local public health officials are working to identify and notify people who may have been exposed to the virus.
The state Department of Health Services said in a statement Saturday that those are the first confirmed cases of the virus in Wisconsin this year.
One of the cases was confirmed through testing at the state hygiene lab, and the other eight were confirmed based on exposure and symptoms, health officials say.
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Measles can be prevented by the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine. The state health department says two doses of the vaccine are 97 percent effective at preventing the disease.
“In general, people born before 1957 are considered immune and do not need a vaccine,” the state health agency said in a statement. “All other adults without laboratory evidence of immunity should have at least one dose of measles-containing vaccine, and children should have two doses.”
Wisconsin has one of the lowest Measles vaccination rates among children in the country. As of 2023, 81 percent of 2-year-olds had the vaccine, down from 88 percent in 2013. Some Wisconsin counties had vaccination rates closer to 50 percent.
We have in Wisconsin the highly flexible Assembly Speaker Robin Vos2 to advise on public health, as he did during the pandemic, reacting one way, then another within a year.
Vos is a figure of admiration among Whitewater’s special interest men: they look upon him as deservedly important, as proof that talents like theirs can take a man places. ↩︎
President Emmanuel Macron is set to bestow one of France’s most prestigious honors on 73-year-old newspaper seller Ali Akbar, who has crisscrossed Paris’ Latin Quarter selling dailies on the terraces of the capital’s cafés for more than 50 years.
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:48 and sunset is 8:12, for 14 hours, 24 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 69.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1921, Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis confirms the ban of the eight Chicago Black Sox, the day after they were acquitted by a Chicago court.
(MADISON, WI) — — A number of high-profile Democratic governors are ready to fight — ardently throwing support behind their colleagues who have said they will draw new Congressional maps to favor Democrats before the 2026 midterm elections in order to directly counter Texas Republicans’ moves to do the same for their party.
Texas GOP lawmakers just this week released their first draft of the state’s new congressional map that could flip three to five Democratic seats in next year’s midterms.
On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom promptly responded, saying he’d spoken with state legislators and members of Congress about holding a special statewide election on Nov. 4 for Californians to vote on new congressional maps — ones that would likely favor Democrats.
Convening later in the week for a summer policy retreat on the shores of Madison, Wisconsin, a number of leading Democratic governors have backed Newsom and any other blue state leaders who are taking an offensive position on redistricting.
The Democrats each did so reluctantly, calling Texas Republicans’ efforts “unconstitutional” and “un-American” with hopes that the courts intervene before any new maps steered by either party are implemented. In the meantime, they said it’s time to fight against the Trump-championed GOP redistricting, especially now that other Republican-led states, including Missouri, might follow suit.
“That is so un-American, and it’s a constant threat to our democracy,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said about Republican proposals. “So I’m really pissed, frankly, and we are going to do whatever we can do to stop this from happening.”
Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, the Chair of the Democratic Governors Association, explicitly got behind Newsom, Kathy Hochul of New York, JB Pritzker of Illinois and any other governors who are weighing counteraction through special elections, special sessions or additional means of redrawing congressional maps.
“I have never believed in unilateral disarmament, and so while I may not want to participate in certain activities, if I have to, in order to level the playing field, I would support my Democratic colleagues who decide to answer in kind,” Kelly said in an interview.
Yes, indeed. I am not a Democrat, but it should be plain by now that Democratic officeholders who do not fight are despised by the members of their own party. It is necessary, and well past time, to answer in kind.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:47 and sunset is 8:14, for 14 hours, 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 60.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
An unexpected array of life has been discovered in ocean trenches 9000m below the surface of the Pacific. The ecosystem here depends on bacteria who can get energy from methane and other chemicals which seep through the rocks of the sea floor. Read the paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158…
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 76. Sunrise is 5:46 and sunset is 8:15, for 14 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 50.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1774, British scientist Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen gas, corroborating the prior discovery of this element by German-Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
There are statewide stories this morning describing the critical reception that U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin’s First Congressional District received during his town hall in Elkhorn:
First, many partisans live within information bubbles and echo chambers where no criticism of their views is offered. When they encounter a protest in person, it’s startling to them. They’re not used to replying with an argument because those they watch and read don’t do so. In imitation they respond only with a sensory preference (what they’re seeing is disgusting, nauseating, etc.). Some supporters of Steil were surprised in that way, and reacted in that way.
Those who are insulated and cosseted approach contrary arguments not as matters of reasoning but as matters of taste. We live in an era of a stunted, scarcely literate politics.
Second, when partisans encounter opponents, their surprise sometimes leads them to believe that the opponents must be paid, must be plants, and cannot possibly be a genuine opposition. That’s not true, and certainly not true here: Walworth County opponents of Steil don’t have any political money, and, in fact, don’t have much money otherwise.
Third, it’s easier to gather and protest when you have a specific time and place to meet, clear issues, and —this is key — a definite opponent. All those conditions were present here. (Steil knew this too, of course; both sides could see each other’s preparations on social media.)
Fourth, absent an unlikely order from the Wisconsin Supreme Court for congressional redistricting before November 2026, Steil has a good chance of being re-elected. A well-funded and savvy challenger is unlikely to emerge. (Rep. Van Orden of Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District, by contrast, will face exactly that sort of challenger; even without possible redistricting he will have a rough go of it.)
Amsterdam will install special steps in its canals to prevent cats and other small critters from drowning because they can’t get out on their own. The Amsterdam city council adopted a proposal to this effect by animal party PvdD, Parool reports.
According to PvdD council member Judith Krom, figures from the Amsterdam Animal Ambulance show that 19 cats drowned in Amsterdam canals over the past six months. She proposed asking the Animal Ambulance to map out where these drownings occur most frequently and installing steps there, following the example of Amersfoord.
Officially, the steps are called wildlife exit sites, because other small animals can also use them to get out of the canals. According to Krom, the investments required for these steps are disproportionate to the suffering of the animals and their owners.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:45 and sunset is 8:16, for 14 hours, 31 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 40.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1777, the Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette “be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States.”
It’s mid-summer in Whitewater, but if one looks carefully, we’re truly in early spring, with many seasons ahead. The City of Whitewater announced yesterday a donation to Whitewater for a Whitewater Early Childhood Education and Childcare Center:
Big things are coming to Whitewater!
A $10 million donation is helping bring the Whitewater Early Childhood Education and Childcare (ECEC) Center to life!
We need your input to help shape it. Please take 10 minutes to complete this confidential survey conducted by UW–River Falls. There is a survey for community members and one for businesses.
The two survey links above will aid project leaders in crafting a center that most nicely fits Whitewater’s needs. The third of the three links presents the goals of the project:
Project goals
An attractive, centrally-located center with easy access to outside play spaces
A high-quality, play-based curriculum, similar to that of the UW-Whitewater Children’s Center
A center that enhances — and does not compete with — existing providers
A close collaboration with the Whitewater Unified School District
An inclusive fee structure that ensures access for all
ESL programming and support to help non-native English speakers become kindergarten-ready
Competitive teacher compensation to encourage retention
Stretch goals
Programming from birth through kindergarten
An optional dual-language classroom
A replicable model for other communities to follow
To begin with a survey, and then to support this work, is to nurture our youngest residents and fortify the community.
An Early Childhood Education and Childcare Center will be an extraordinary (literally so) and welcome (happily so) part of this city. Best wishes for success that will make others’ success possible.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:44 and sunset is 8:17, for 14 hours, 33 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 31.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
One of a series of images taken as a pan of the Apollo 15 landing site, taken by Commander Dave Scott. Featured is the Lunar Roving Vehicle at its final resting place after EVA-3. At the back is a rake used during the mission. Also note the red Bible atop the hand controller in the middle of the vehicle, placed there by Scott. By NASA/Dave Scott; Public Domain, Link.
For years, social media and video apps weren’t quite able to overtake good old television as Americans’ most-used source for news. That’s finally changed, according to Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) in its 2025 Digital News Report, out Monday.
RISJ has released a digital news report every year since 2012. This year it surveyed nearly 100,000 people in 48 countries (new this year: Serbia) about their news consumption, via a YouGov survey. Below, Nieman Lab’s team breaks out a few of the main findings. And stay tuned because we’ll be running two more pieces by RISJ researchers next week — one on local news, and one on AI and personalization.
Traditional news sources are losing influence in the United States.
For the first time, social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news. “The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up,” the report’s authors write, “overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.”
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Social media — and news consumption on it — continues to splinter, according to the report. There are now six platforms with weekly news reaches of 10% or more: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, X, and TikTok. A decade ago, there were just two with double-digit reach: Facebook and YouTube.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 88. Sunrise is 5:43 and sunset is 8:18, for 14 hours, 35 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
As President Donald Trump prepares to announce new tariff increases, the costs of his policies are starting to come into focus for a domestic manufacturing sector that depends on global supply chains, with a new analysis suggesting factory costs could increase by roughly 2% to 4.5%.
“There’s going to be a cash squeeze for a lot of these firms,” said Chris Bangert-Drowns, the researcher at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth who conducted the analysis. Those seemingly small changes at factories with slim profit margins, Bangert-Drowns said, “could lead to stagnation of wages, if not layoffs and closures of plants” if the costs are untenable.
The analysis, released Tuesday, points to the challenges Trump might face in trying to sell his tariffs to the public as a broader political and economic win and not just as evidence his negotiating style gets other nations to back down. The success of Trump’s policies ultimately depends on whether everyday Americans become wealthier and factory towns experience revivals, a goal outside economists say his Republican administration is unlikely to meet with tariffs.
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The Washington Center for Equitable Growth analysis shows how Trump’s devotion to tariffs carries potential economic and political costs for his agenda. In the swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin, more than 1 in 5 jobs are in the critical sectors of manufacturing, construction, mining and oil drilling and maintenance that have high exposures to his import taxes.
The artificial intelligence sector Trump last week touted as the future of the economy is dependent on imports. More than 20% of the inputs for computer and electronics manufacturing are imported, so the tariffs could ultimately magnify a hefty multitrillion-dollar price tag for building out the technology in the U.S.
It’s improbable that most Trump supporters will care about higher prices under Trump. All the excitement, all the thrill, of right-wing populism was and is, in any event, cultural. The movement was, and will always be, a cultural and ethnic revenge fantasy made real. Prices will be higher for everyone, but die-hards and dead-enders will consider those prices worth the cost of their culture war.
Thousands have been forced to evacuate their homes as firefighters battle to contain wildfires in Turkey, fanned by strong winds and searing heat. More than 1,100 firefighters were deployed to tackle at least 76 blazes that broke out within 24 hours, as the country faces a wave of heat-driven infernos.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 91. Sunrise is 5:42 and sunset is 8:19, for 14 hours, 37 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 15.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Unified School District’s board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM, and returns to open session at 7 PM.
On this day in 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution is certified.
Declining circulation and declining profits leave Wisconsin’s professional press (what’s left of it) rattled. The Journal Sentinel is the last major daily in Wisconsin (as the State Journal is roundly paywalled, and roundly paywalled in today’s environment is scarcely read). We live in Fog-Shrouded Wisconsin, a place of enfeebled journalism. In that environment, professional journalists will feel pressure to get attention, and the poorly-sourced will masquerade as seriously-reported. SeeHow Many Journal Sentinel Reporters Does It Take to Flack Unnamed WISGOP Sources? At Least Four.
There’s another example from the Journal Sentinel from last week: Scott Walker offers a feeble tease on X about a possible run for governor, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel then spends days touting Walker’s run as a genuine possibility, until reality compelled them to tell readers that, honest to goodness, a Walker candidacy was never going to happen.
Here’s the timeline:
7.24.25 @ 12:01 PM: Gov. Evers announces that he’ll retire after two full terms.
7.24.25 @ 12:52 PM: Scott Walker posts on X a photo of a red MAGA hat with the numbers 45 – 47 on the side. These are the numerical designations for Trump’s terms of office, but would also be the designations for Walker’s, too, if he were somehow returned to office after Evers. (Walker then posts another version of the photo that same day @ 7:16 PM.)
7.25.25 @ 11:32 AM: The Journal Sentinel reports Walker’s post on X as a serious possibility. See Molly Beck, Scott Walker teases interest in another run for Wisconsin governor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 25, 2025. Beck adds, again from X, Walker’s 7.25.25 post on “28 policy priorities” the next governor of Wisconsin should support. (Anyone with 28 priorities doesn’t know how to prioritize.) It’s a paywalled story relying on Walker’s freely available posts on X.
7.27.25 @ 5:25 PM: Scott Walker, on X, admits that he is not, in fact, running for governor in 2026.
1. Walker was never going to run. Never. Anyone, even Walker, knows that he’s unsuited to a right-wing populist environment. Years of insisting that he lunched on brown-bag ham sandwiches isn’t what today’s WISGOP wants to hear. Right-wing populism wants to inflict misery on its perceived cultural and ethnic enemies. (Foxconn, for example, would never have been their ambition.) It’s ethnic cleansing, closet-confining, and book banning that they’ve in mind.
2. The Journal Sentinel put Beck’s story about nothing save Walker’s tweets behind a paywall, as though someone should subscribe to read Walker’s free-to-anyone social media. This works to reduce professional reporting to nutty notions and rumors at subscribers’ expense.
Three days of nonsense is, at bottom, three days of nonsense. Professional reporting is having a rough go of it; click-bait reporting will only make their situation worse.
Expedition 73 flight engineer Jonny Kim (NASA) talks about getting kimchi fried rice ingredients to give him a little taste of home while he serving on the International Space Station. Footage is from an :in-flight interview July 24 with International Space University Space Studies Program participants in Seoul, South Korea,” according to NASA.
Take the survey now!