Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 48. Sunrise is 6:48 and sunset is 4:30 for 9 hours 42 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 11.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1914, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens.
Catherine Rampell nicely summarizes the Trump Administration’s economic errors:
THE PARTY IN POWER just lost an election because the party out of power hammered them hard for not cutting prices. If that sounds familiar, it’s because pretty much the same thing happened last year, except the antagonists have swapped places.
Turns out it’s easy to win while running as an outsider promising “affordability.” It’s much harder to actually do anything about it.
It’s doubly hard if you insist the problem doesn’t exist in the first place and suggest voters should just shut up about it. Triply hard if your economic policy agenda (cough-cough, tariffs) cuts in the opposite direction, making life more expensive.
In short, President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have learned nothing from how badly Joe Biden and the Democrats bungled inflation. Instead they’re repeating some of the same mistakes and adopting the same useless gimmicks. Only this time, they’re also pursuing policies that make the problem worse…
In the long run the best ways to make life more “affordable” are to pass policies that boost productivity and wages; make the supply of things that are expensive—such as housing and energy—more plentiful; and perhaps provide targeted subsidies on specific expenses like health care.
A ball, two batteries and a reanimated corpse help make for a memorable presentation during this scene from Guillermo del Toro’s take on “Frankenstein.” “What is great about this scene,” del Toro said, “is that it establishes all at once Victor’s quest, Victor’s intentions, his temperament and the absolute lack of uncertainty, which every tyrant, every villain, really has.”
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 65. Sunrise is 6:47 and sunset is 4:31 for 9 hours 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 18.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Trump has threatened broad trade penalties, but said he didn’t believe economists’ predictions that added costs on those imported goods for American companies would lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers. He stopped short of a pledge that U.S. households won’t be paying more as they shop.
“I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow,” Trump said, seeming to open the door to accepting the reality of how import levies typically work as goods reach the retail market.
That’s a different approach from Trump’s typical speeches throughout the 2024 campaign, when he framed his election as a sure way to curb inflation.
In the interview, Trump defended tariffs generally, saying they are “going to make us rich.”
Higher prices and revenge prosecutions have both come to pass. (When Trump spoke about making ‘us’ rich, he was speaking about benefiting a small number of family members and cronies.)
Donald Trump moved to lower tariffs on food imports, including beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, in an executive order on Friday as the White House fights off growing concerns about rising costs.
The new exemptions take effect retroactively at midnight on Thursday and mark a sharp reversal for Trump, who has long insisted that his import duties are not fueling inflation. They come after a string of victories for Democrats in state and local elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City, where affordability was a key topic.
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 63. Sunrise is 6:46 and sunset is 4:32 for 9 hours 46 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 27.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1851, Melville’s Moby-Dick is published in the United States.
At the November 4th meeting of the Whitewater Common Council, representatives of Ehlers, a financial advising firm, explained how they could assist Whitewater in evaluating the appropriate amount of tax incremental financing, if any, for Whitewater development projects. (See relevant portion of the meeting, above.) Tax incremental financing is a public financing mechanism that designates a specific tax area (a tax incremental district) and uses the increase in property tax revenue generated by subsequent development within that district to pay for the project’s costs.
(Note well: only taxes on the increased value, the incremental tax revenue, from the development stays within the district to pay the costs of a development project. The tax revenue derived from the initial value of the district when that district is formed continues to go to a community’s general revenues.)
Whitewater has had challenges with tax incremental financing for many years. Those problems are not the consequence of plans made over the last fewyears — they are problems from the previous fewdecades. (Those contending otherwise, having produced by their own efforts only failure upon failure, are either deficient in long-term memory or dissembling in narration. They are free to pick for themselves between the two deficiencies.)
Whitewater now has a city government that seeks a financial firm to follow and evaluate proposed projects as those projects unfold. A review like this would be a pro forma review. (In Whitewater’s case, it would mean a financial assessment of a proposed tax-increment-financed project, although the Latin term — literally, for the form — has other connotations and uses.)
Yes and yes again. This local government should proceed deliberately — seeking the best, expecting the best (and doing its best). It’s right that our fifteen thousand residents should have better than they have had.
As always: Whitewater deserves the highest standards. The addition of a review like this will add to the modernization, indeed normalization, of policy in this city.
Blue Origin launched its huge New Glenn rocket Thursday with a pair of NASA spacecraft destined for Mars. For the first time, it also recovered the booster following its separation from the upper stage and the Mars orbiters.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:44 and sunset is 4:33 for 9 hours 48 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 36.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court affirms a lower court ruling in Browder v. Gayle 142 F. Supp. 707 (M.D. Ala. 1956), aff’d, 352 U.S. 903 (1956), that invalidated Alabama laws requiring segregated buses, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott:
On 13 November 1956, while [Dr. Martin Luther] King was in the courthouse being tried on the legality of the boycott’s carpools, a reporter notified him that the U.S. Supreme Court had just affirmed the District Court’s decision on Browder v. Gayle. King addressed a mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church the next evening, saying that the decision was “a reaffirmation of the principle that separate facilities are inherently unequal, and that the old Plessy Doctrine of separate but equal is no longer valid, either sociologically or legally” (Papers 3:425).
On 17 December 1956, the Supreme Court rejected city and state appeals to reconsider their decision, and three days later the order for integrated buses arrived in Montgomery. On 20 December 1956 King and the Montgomery Improvement Association voted to end the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott. In a statement that day, King said: “The year-old protest against city buses is officially called off, and the Negro citizens of Montgomery are urged to return to the buses tomorrow morning on a non-segregated basis” (Papers 3:486–487). The Montgomery buses were integrated the following day.
A leading investment bank has delivered an arresting diagnosis of the U.S. economy: the labor market, long a pillar of resilience, may be in real trouble. In their latest economic outlook, UBS economists led by Jonathan Pingle painted a picture of mounting weakness that extends well beyond headline job numbers, warning of a growing risk to households and the broader recovery….
For much of the year, top economists, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell, have said we’re in a “low hire, low fire” jobs market. For much of the year, employers were laconic in hiring, and seemed afraid to fire their workers; perhaps still wounded from the pandemic-era “Great Resignation.” UBS isn’t alone on Wall Street in worrying that, maybe the “low-fire” part of the equation isn’t quite true anymore….
Since the start of the year, household employment as measured by the main government survey has been falling by about 72,000 jobs per month through August. Such a pace is “well below” the rate required to keep up with population growth, let alone maintain a stable unemployment rate, which has now crept up to a post-2021 high. Labor force participation has slipped, and more than 800,000 people have left the labor force but say they still want a job.?
Economists note the broadest measure of underemployment, known as U-6, has jumped by 0.6 percentage points since January to 8.1%. That’s now 1.3 percentage points higher than at the end of 2019. Notably, the rise isn’t just about people out of work: more Americans are working part-time for economic reasons, another classic sign of slackening demand. “That is exactly the opposite of what should happen under a negative labor supply shock stemming from immigration,” UBS wrote, referring to the Trump administration’s argument that immigration restrictions would tighten the labor market.
The nativists were sure that if the government forcibly abducted and deported enough people, there’d be good jobs for everyone remaining. And yet, and yet, labor demand continues to fall. Removing workers won’t increase labor demand; increasing capital’s demand for labor will increase labor demand.
The local nativists of Whitewater stood at the common council lectern and — at least twice since January — insisted that federal deportations would solve the cost of housing in Whitewater. That was wrong twice over (morally and practically). The solution to the cost of housing in Whitewater is an increase in supply.
The extreme populism of the federal administration has never been about economics, except on the occasion of falsely insisting it is about economics.
Part of a recently opened bridge collapsed in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan on Tuesday, authorities said, with no casualties reported. It formed part of a national highway linking the country’s heartland with Tibet.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 52. Sunrise is 6:43 and sunset is 4:34 for 9 hours 51 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 46.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM.
On this day in 1938, Nazi Germany issues the Decree on the Elimination of Jews from Economic Life prohibiting Jews from selling goods and services or working in a trade, totally segregating Jews from the German economy.
Soybeans are a top food export for the U.S., making up 14% of the nation’s agricultural exports, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2024, China bought $12.5 billion of the $24.5 billion of soybeans the U.S. exported globally — more than 50% of U.S. exports of the crop.
In 2024, China imported approximately 26.8 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But even with China’s commitment to purchasing 12 million metric tons before the end of 2025, total U.S. soybean exports to China this year would reach only 18.2 million metric tons — a 32% decline in exports since 2024.
China’s boycott of U.S. soybeans has cost farmers billions of dollars in lost exports. While the recent deal will help make up for some lost ground, a decrease in U.S. soybean exports to China paired with high production costs and low crop prices have made 2025 a tough year for American farmers.
Additionally, the 25 million tons of U.S. soybeans China agreed to buy annually for the next three years falls short of the average amount sold to China since the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2020 through 2024, the U.S. sold an average of more than 28 million metric tons of soybeans to China annually, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Big Tech companies are spending billions on data centres to build out AI — but that’s not all cash they have on hand. Instead they are borrowing billions on public markets — and as Elena Casas explains, that is starting to make the market nervous.
Veterans Day in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 41. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset is 4:35 for 9 hours 53 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 56.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5:15 PM.
On this day in 1918, Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne.
Last evening, at a meeting of Whitewater’s Planning and Architectural Commission, the commission unanimously approved a permit for townhomes to be built through Habitat for Humanity of Walworth County. (The basis of the commission’s action was to grant a conditional use permit for first-floor residential use in the downtown business district.)
A description of the project from the zoning administrator was part of the agenda packet for the evening:
The applicant is requesting a conditional use permit for first floor residential use in the B-2 zoning district. Habitat for Humanity has partnered with the City of Whitewater to complete a residential project located at 216 Main Street. The parcel previously had a dilapidated building on the site, and in previous years had been used as a vehicle parking area. The building has since been razed, and old alleyway has been formally vacated, and the site is ready for new development.
Yes — that area did previously have a dilapidated building, and the site is now ready for new development. Habitat for Humanity is a good choice for the property in itself, with the work to be accomplished through labor equity from the homeowners. The result will be better by far than the sorry former state of the property.
It’s to our city’s credit that Whitewater has proposed and now advanced these homes. No one builds what no one tries. Whitewater is not a new city and Habitat for Humanity is not a new program. It was our current municipal government that made this possible for the community.
Animals at Brookfield Zoo Chicago got a taste of winter as the city saw its first snowfall of the season. Flurries fell on Sunday across parts of the Chicago area.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 35. Sunrise is 6:41 and sunset is 4:36 for 9 hours 55 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 67.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The return of U.S. economic data when Washington reopens may do little to clear up a macro picture that is clouded by the dash for artificial intelligence and compounded by trade distortions.
Federal Reserve officials are doing their best at the guessing game on what comes next – but it is just that. The more humble in the Fed’s ranks concede that it’s impossible to tell.
Cleveland Fed boss Beth Hammack, a known hawk and a voting member of the Fed’s policymaking council next year, said the AI investment frenzy and related stock price surges complicated matters by creating something of a dual economy, with higher earners and asset holders doing well even as cost-of-living pressures weigh on the rest.
In short, she reckons the Fed is walking a policy high wire and can’t lean much in either direction. “When you see this bifurcation, it’s really difficult for monetary policy,” Hammack told the Economic Club of New York last week.
“Bifurcated economy” is the phrase of the moment.
Consumer price inflation is still well above target and rising, and financial conditions are the loosest in years – but layoffs are rising, in part due to AI adoption.
An economy creating few jobs that is still clocking annualized GDP growth of 4% – at least with the limited data the Atlanta Fed model has to go on – is a fiendishly difficult one to navigate.
How much impact AI is having on the labor market, or how much it will have in the future, remains uncertain. But it’s conceivable that we could see job creation grind to a halt next year, while hundreds of billions of dollars in AI investment boosts top-line GDP and the mounting electricity demand puts upward pressure on prices.
These would be conditions of narrow growth, reaching some while leaving many more behind.
In an ordinary environment, of people freely choosing, an economic imbalance like this would lead to political change. Now, as our national environment is under the influence of a populist movement that willingly bears hardship to inflict hardship on others, change will be more difficult, and come only through diligent and determined effort.
Nothing is as surprising as encountering people who are surprised that we’ve a long path before us. The reasonable assumption is that we have many challenging years ahead.
For Whitewater and other communities in Wisconsin, it’s vital that we expand local opportunities, including for housing, to the greatest extent that we are able. As politics grows more nationalized, effective economic uplift will need to be increasingly local.
Sunday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 34. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset is 4:37 for 9 hours 58 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 76.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1938, the Nazis instigate Kristallnacht.
The primaries for Wisconsin’s open gubernatorial election are about nine months away and the 2026 general election is still a year out, but Democratic and Republican candidates had their first opportunity to speak at a group forum Thursday.
The forum, moderated by WISN-12 News Political Director Matt Smith, was hosted at the Wisconsin Technology Council’s annual symposium and focused mostly on the economy, especially the technology sector.
Democratic candidates at the forum included Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, state Sen. Kelda Roys, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Rep. Francesca Hong and former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) CEO Missy Hughes.
Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann was the lone Republican candidate at the forum. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is seen as the frontrunner on the GOP side, was not present.
There was a third candidate missing, too. Donald Trump wasn’t in the room.
It’s Trump who will be, figuratively, on the ballot nearly as much as either major-party candidate literally.
If Trump is doing well among Wisconsinites next year, then the WISGOP candidate will do well in the fall. If Trump is doing poorly next year among Wisconsinites next year, then the WisDems candidate will do well.
Our state politics is a proxy for national politics. There’s no evidence that this will change by next November, or for years afterward.
Scientists have captured rare footage of remoras, also known as sucker fish, hitching rides on humpback whales off the coast of Australia. Remoras use an adhesive plate on their heads to cling to whales, feeding on dead skin and sea lice.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:38 and sunset is 4:38 for 10 hours 0 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 86.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1602, the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford is opened to the public.
The River Food Pantry [Dane County] Executive Director Rhonda Adams details how higher grocery prices and SNAP funding confusion are causing growing demand for its services, including from many first-time visitors.
The National Transportation Safety Board has released drone video of the scene of the UPS plane crash in Louisville, Kentucky, which resulted in the deaths of at least 13 people.
Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 58. Sunrise is 6:37 and sunset is 4:39 for 10 hours 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1910, the first air freight shipment (from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio) is undertaken by the Wright brothers and department store owner Max Morehouse.
Gov. Tony Evers said Wisconsin is restoring benefits for nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites who receive federal food aid.
The move means the Wisconsinites who rely on food assistance “will not have to wake up tomorrow worried about when or whether they are going to eat next,” Evers said in a Thursday evening statement.
Evers’ announcement came hours after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as FoodShare in Wisconsin.
See Staff, Evers: FoodShare assistance restored to Wisconsinites (‘Gov. Tony Evers’ order came hours after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund food assistance’), Wisconsin Public Radio, November 7, 2025.
Full FoodShare payments should be made to nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites who depend on them. FoodShare members should see the full November amount on their QUEST card.
Folks can check their benefit balances by calling 877-415-5164.
The Trump administration is asking a federal appeals court to pause a judge’s order that requires the government to fully cover food stamp benefits for tens of millions of Americans in November.
The emergency request made Friday morning to the First Circuit Court of Appeals comes a day after a federal judge in Rhode Island said the US Department of Agriculture must find additional money to make the payments, rejecting the administration’s decision to only partially fund the food benefits program this month.
Someone once said something about culpability in situations like this:
For I was hungry and you did not give me anything to eat, I was thirsty and you did not give me drink, I was a stranger and you did not give me hospitality, naked and you did not clothe me, ill and in prison and you did not look after me.’ Then they too will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and did not attend to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Amen, I tell you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these my brothers, neither did you do it to me.’
Cats have also adapted their communication for humans. For instance, adult cats don’t usually meow at each other. But when around people, cats meow a lot, suggesting they have adapted this vocalisation for communicating with humans.
And it’s not just the meow. Cats have a wide vocal repertoire for conveying different meanings, even for specific people. Bonded cats and humans often develop their own communication repertoires, similar to having a unique dialect.
Despite all this, humans still routinely misunderstand cats. Our new study, published in Frontiers in Ethology, shows just how little people understand the cues cats give. Try the quiz below to see how well you speak cat.
Tuesday, November 11th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of The Lost Bus @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Drama/History/Thriller Rated R (language)
2 hour, 9 minutes (2025)
A wayward school bus driver ( Matthew McConaughey) and a dedicated school teacher (America Ferrera) battle to save 22 children from a terrifying inferno, the 2018 Camp Fire, in Paradise, CA, that state’s deadliest wildfire in history. A true story.
