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This is your WFHR Daily News Roundup for locally grown radio 97.5 FM and 13.20 AM and WISC country 105.5 FM WIRI in Wisconsin Rapids.
WFHR and WIRI News. I'm Melissa Kaye.
Students are back in school in the area. This means more kids walking and biking and more yellow buses on the road.
Joanne Croulott has some important reminders.
According to a recent AAA survey, more than half of Wisconsinites regularly drive through school zones or by school bus stops during their daily routes.
In the survey, 46% of drivers admitted to speeding in an active school zone. While 29% admitted to using their handheld cell phone, motor vehicle crashes are the greatest threat for children.
Nationwide, nearly one out of every five children, 14 and younger, killed in traffic crashes are pedestrians. While drivers must remain vigilant, pedestrian safety is a shared responsibility.
The ABCs of school zone safety for drivers are A, avoid distractions. Stay focused on the road, note texting, eating or multitasking while driving.
B, break for safety, slow down and stay alert. School zones are unpredictable so be ready to stop at a moment's notice.
C, check for pedestrians and bicyclists. Watch for school zone signs, crossing guards and anyone walking or biking.
Pedestrian should also stay alert. Be aware of your surroundings and avoid using headphones or looking down at your phone when near traffic.
The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection is warning residents to be wary of scams involving artificial intelligence.
Scammers have been using AI chatbots as part of their efforts to obtain personal information or money from potential victims.
The ability of chatbots to simulate conversations allows the scammers to target more victims.
You should be on the lookout for the usual signs of a potential scam, like the scammers trying to create a sense of urgency by threatening consequences for failing to provide personal information or payments.
Climate change. Oakley lately, it's let us to see the first-ever tornado touching down in February.
A plenty of high-heat record shattered and a 1000-year flood in Milwaukee, leaving us in the pattern to experience more intense and frequent heavy rain events in the future,
eroding soil and coastlines, washing out roads and bridges, breaking dams, overwhelming sewers and wastewater treatment plants.
We're noticing that the United States as a whole has been seeing more and more disasters over the last few years.
The number of large-scale disasters have been increasing, which is why we need more volunteers.
That's Jennifer Warren, the regional communications director for the American Red Cross of Wisconsin.
She says trained disaster responders offer immediate relief, shelter and compassion.
After things like floods, fires and other local national emergencies strike.
I think it's providing people with emotional support on their darkest day, helping them, you know, recover.
And the Red Cross has five chapters across the state.
People that have gone through the Milwaukee, the flooding, they're just, they're overwhelmed.
You know, and they're tired and they're just, they're looking for some help.
Noah reports that over the past 44 years, there have been 63 major weather disasters in Wisconsin, causing over $1 billion in damage each.
Nine were drought events, five were floods, one freeze, 44 severe storms and four winter storms.
The yearly average for our state used to be just shy of one and a half natural disasters.
However, in the most recent five years, that is now spiked to five major events annually.
For civic media news, I'm meteorologist Britney Merleau.
Who's at quarterback? Hi, I'm Mike Clemens with sports college football.
The Wisconsin Badgers host the middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders Saturday afternoon at three o'clock.
Will Danny O'Neill start at quarterback for Wisconsin or is Billy Edwards ready after suffering a spring knee last week?
Luke fickle. Don't believe that Billy will be playing. He didn't practice.
So obviously Danny would be the guy we would go with and Hunter would be the backup and we would just proceed from from there.
NFL, the Packers at practice today, they host the Lions Sunday at 325.
The Brewers play the Phillies tonight, game two of their three game series, Pat Murphy, reviewed Mondays 10-8 loss to Philadelphia.
You know, they got some of the best players in the game on the team and they did a great job of exploiting us by getting the lead off guy on base.
You can attribute to a lot of things, but you got to execute and you can't give up free bases.
But the credit goes to Phillies for their relentless offense and they did what they had to do.
As Brewers manager, Pat Murphy was sports on Mike Clemens.
On your entertainment beat, I'm Pete Schwabba.
The office executive producer Greg Daniel says at one point he was determined never to revisit a similar world to the one he created at the office.
But ultimately, he decided to dive back into the mockumentary sitcom world with Peacocks the paper.
Daniel said he changed his mind after seeing the office at number one on Netflix for four years.
The paper is now available to stream on Peacock.
Alice Rotunda gave birth to her fourth child in a McDonald's parking lot in Michigan.
Rotunda said she always planned to name her daughter Matilda and call her Tilly.
But after giving birth in the parking lot of the restaurant that served billions and billions, they added a tweak to the name and will call her Mick Tilly.
According to the New York Post, Alice insisted she was in labor, but the hospital staff disagreed and sent her home resulting in said parking lot birth.
This was a tough decision for the Rotendos because Mick Tilly was actually conceived in a Burger King parking lot.
Once again, it's McDonald's for the win.
Former wrestler Dwayne the Rock Johnson's money maker has always been action films and not even good ones really.
He's made a decent living using his physique and charm to headline very mediocre films that apparently has all changed now.
Johnson shed 60 pounds for a role in his new film The Smashing Machine, which tells the story of MMA fighter Mark Kerr.
The film stars Emily Blunt opposite Johnson as Kerr's girlfriend.
Johnson's hard work physically and mentally appears to have paid off as the film just premiered at the Venice Film Festival and received a 15-minute standing ovation making Johnson's sob uncontrollably according to variety.
It's early, but those who have seen the film are already creating Oscar buzz for Johnson.
He appears to have come a long way since San Andreas.
In a related story, I've been trying to lose 20 pounds for about three years and can't really use the I put it on for a movie role excuse much longer.
Everyone loves a comeback story and there was a big one last weekend at the box office.
The film Weapons in its fourth week of release regained first place on the big screen over the holiday weekend.
The horror film raked in 10 million bucks bringing its box office total in theaters to 132 million.
Jaws, which was first released in theaters in 1975 hit the big screen again last weekend in honor of the big anniversary and pulled in over 8 million bucks.
Not a bad haul for what is considered by many the greatest summer blockbuster film of all time.
In third place was new release caught stealing starring Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz, which pulled in just under 8 million.
Routing out the top five, freaky or friday in its fourth week of release came in at 6.6 million bucks and in fifth place was the Benedict Cumberbatch Olivia Williams, the roses at 6 million.
Last weekend put closure on the 2025 summer box office.
For more showbiz fun, tune in to Nightlight with me, Pete Schwabba, weeknights from 6 to 8 p.m. on the Civic Media Radio Network.
A few isolated showers or a thunderstorm today otherwise it is going to be mostly cloudy with a high in the low to mid 60s this afternoon.
So quite a bit cooler here today tonight partly cloudy. We're going to drop to the upper 30s to near 40 tomorrow partly cloudy with a high right around 60.
I'm a urologist on cable outside now it's 58.
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