With the passage of the American Rescue plan, city's could be receiving some extra money to deal with covid 19. Durand Mayor Patrick Milliren says the city is hoping expenses from last year will be covered under the plan. The city will be applying to the state for reimbursement of those expenses through the American Rescue Plan.
Many are wondering if there will be local fairs, festivals, and other events this year. Pepin County Health Officer Heidi Stewart says her office is being called for many events. Stewart says that tool will help event organizers work to make their events safe for the general public.
More events continue to plan for the summer. The City of Mondovi has approved an agreement with Spielbauer Fireworks to provide a fireworks show on July 4th. Mondovi Mayor Brady Weiss told council members that the cost of the show will be the same as last year.
Nearly 250 Wisconsin organizations will be getting funding from the state this year to help clean up Wisconsin's waters. It's part of the DNR's Surface Water Grants program, and Lakes and Rivers Team Leader Alison Mikulyuk says Wisconsin's lakes and rivers need the help. This year the DNR is awarding over 6 million dollars in funding for projects that range from wetland restoration to trout stream management. Here in Western Wisconsin, the city of River Falls received a $7500 grant while the River Alliance of WI received a $150,000 grant for the St Croix AIS Coordinator and a $143000 grant for the La Crosse AIS Partnership.
Wisconsin's unemployment rate is getting back to pre-pandemic levels. The Department of Workforce Development reports the state's jobless rate fell to three-point-eight percent in January. Wisconsin employers added 11-thousand-110 total non-farm jobs and seven-thousand private sector jobs last month. The state is well below the national unemployment rate of six-point-three percent in January.
State health officials say 20 new groups of Wisconsin residents with medical conditions will be eligible for the COVID vaccine later this month. The list of conditions includes cancer, asthma, C-O-P-D, heart failure, high blood pressure, dementia, liver disease, down syndrome, and diabetes. People age 16 and over with the conditions can get the vaccine shots starting March 29th. Department of Health Services interim Secretary Karen Timberlake says all three COVID-19 vaccines available are incredibly safe and effective at preventing infection, serious illness, and death.
A group that is working to stop F-35 fighter jets from being based at Madison’s Truax Field has filed a second lawsuit. The group calling itself Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin claims the U-S Air Force and the National Guard Bureau failed to follow the law when it was considering the impact of locating the jets at the 115th Fighter Wing. The federal suit was filed Wednesday. The military plans to replace its outdated fleet of F-16 fighter jets with the F-35s starting in 2023. Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin says the impact of noise, air, and groundwater pollution wasn't factored in.
Minnesota's largest country music festival is out with its lineup for this summer. WE Fest is set for August 5th to 7th at the Soo Pass Ranch in Detroit Lakes. Florida Georgia Line, Dierks Bentley, and Blake Shelton will be headlining the main stage. Last year's WE Fest was canceled due to COVID. Live Nation took over ownership in 2019.
Three public hearings on Governor Tony Evers’ budget proposal will be held next month starting April 9th in Whitewater. The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee says the April 28th hearing will be held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. For the first time in a long time, none of the budget hearings will be held in Milwaukee. The closest one is the first one at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, about 50 miles away. An April 21st hearing will be held at the Hodag Dome in Rhinelander and an April 22nd hearing will be conducted at U-W-Stout in Menomonie. Evers’ budget plan includes 91-million dollars in state spending.
The University of Wisconsin System reports new funding in the amount of one-point-three million dollars will double the number of freshman students getting help. An additional 14-hundred students will be assisted. System President Tommy Thompson says the effort will help those incoming students have a smooth transition to college, mentally and academically. Thompson says this is even more important during the coronavirus pandemic. The on-campus programs won’t cost the students using them anything.
Officials with beer-maker Molson Coors confirm what they are calling a “cybersecurity incident” caused a system outage that is still being worked on. That announcement comes a week after Microsoft reported that Chinese government hackers had exploited a bug in their email server software to target U-S organizations. The hackers were allegedly trying to steal information from several companies. The Molson Coors announcement Wednesday didn’t indicate its incident was connected to the Microsoft breach. Molson Coors hasn’t said whether its operation in Milwaukee was affected.
Dane County Executive Joe Parisi says, with vaccinations increasing and COVID cases declining, he's confident World Dairy Expo will be held in Madison this fall. On Wednesday, Dane County offered World Dairy Expo a ten-year contract extension, which includes the county hosting the international event at no charge for the next two years, to compensate for decreased revenues from having to cancel the 2020 show due to Covid-19.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered a possible solution for the pest emerald ash borers. Scientists at the Minnesota Invasive Terrestrial Plants and Pest Center say they have found that several different fungi will attack the devastating pests that have killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in the U-S. The researchers say this is a critical first step in finding a way to control the spread of E-A-B. They used D-N-A sequencing to identify the fungi they were looking for. Emerald ask borers were first discovered almost 20 years ago in this country.
A St. John's University graduate is headed to space for a second time. Mark Vande Hei will depart for the International Space Station on April 9th as a flight engineer. The 1989 Saint John's grad will join two Russian cosmonauts. The mission called Expedition 64/65 will conduct experiments to learn more about living off of the Earth's surface. After leaving S-J-U, Vande Hei joined the Army, then got his masters degree from Stanford. He was a professor of physics at the U-S Military Academy before becoming an astronaut in 2009.
No comments:
Post a Comment