You're listening to Civic Media. You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app. Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.
This is your WFHR Daily News Roundup for locally grown radio 97.5 FM and 13.20 AM and Whisk Country 105.5 FM WIRI in Wisconsin Rapids.
For WFHR and WIRI News, I'm Melissa K.
A group of legislators gathered in Toma late last week to discuss expanding rail services between Minneapolis and Chicago.
Toma Mayor Paul Twyer said the group discussed both cargo and passenger rail with the focus being more on increasing the ability to move people.
The focus was on passenger rail mostly. There was people from Fort McCoy who were very supportive of rail service because that's how they're looking at moving a lot of their troops now.
Fort McCoy is the largest military base in the state and Toma sits between Fort McCoy and the Air National Guard base just a few miles to the east.
So this is this is huge for Toma being right between two major military installations being Volkfield in Camp Douglas and Fort McCoy at Sparta.
Toma had been selected to receive grant funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act back in 2009.
That project was suspended in 2010 by former Governor Jim Doyle before he left office.
If this rail project goes through this time, I think it can be a great catalyst for being able to promote our downtown, bring more people into our downtown.
We've seen other communities that have benefited from, you know, more rail activity in their community.
That's Tina Thompson. She's president and CEO of the Toma Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center.
The nice thing about our downtown being so close to the Amtrak station is that it makes it walkable.
Everything is within all of our shops are within like a mile.
The alternative of relying on a car for transportation is something Steven's point representative Vinny Morecci is on board for.
He told the Wisconsin Examiner he would like to see rail service connecting Steven's point and other central Wisconsin communities to other major cities already on the route.
Average gas prices fell 8 cents per gallon over the last week.
The average price in the state on Monday, being 288, means prices are 3.9 cents higher than a month ago.
However, this is still 8.5 cents per gallon lower than this time last year.
More states saw decreases than increases last week and there's good news on the horizon.
The transition to cheaper winter gasoline begins on Tuesday across most of the country.
Officials at gas buddy expect average gas prices to continue to decline in the weeks ahead as long as hurricane season remains quiet.
Prices in central Wisconsin range from 271 to 281 per gallon.
Legislation that would require state employees return to office work passes the state assembly. Joanne Kulotz reports.
The bill's author Pleasant Prairie Republican Amanda Ned Westky says it simply does what Democratic governor Tony Evers should have required and that the administration has failed to provide sufficient oversight of state employees who began to work remotely during the COVID pandemic.
The measure will need to pass the state Senate before going to Evers who would likely veto it.
The chamber also passed legislation aimed at combating sex torsion by providing a penalty for sharing representations depicting nudity, restricting the sorts of flags that would be allowed to be displayed at government buildings in Wisconsin and exempting tobacco bars from the public smoking ban.
Archery and crossbow deer hunting seasons opened on Saturday. These two seasons run through January 4, though certain counties and metro subunits have extended seasons until January 31, reminder that all harvested deer must be registered by 5 p.m. that day after recovery.
There's another candidate in the race for governor Madison state senator KELDA Royce is throwing her hat in the ring. Savannah tommy Olsen reports.
Royce first entered Wisconsin politics more than 15 years ago. She served two terms in the assembly and was elected to the state Senate in 2021.
In office, she's championed women's health care rights, criminal justice reform and fixing income inequality in a campaign video released this morning. She focused on those issues.
In the assembly, I helped 80,000 Wisconsinites finally get affordable health care in the Senate. I worked with nurses to pass a bipartisan law repealing outdated regulations and expanding health care options for rural communities.
As a woman, I know what it's like to experience a physical examination to go to a gynecologist office. I know what that's like. And if you guys want to regulate this in this body, then you can stand here and listen to me speak about it.
Here's what Royce told civic media news director, Shally Pittman just after governor Tony Evers announced he'd retire.
My whole goal is to think about what we can do to best serve Wisconsin. To me, that means making sure that we elect Democrats up and down the ticket because the stakes are just incredibly high.
We have to protect our people from what the Republican regime is doing in Washington. And we have to help build a state where there's opportunity and fairness for everyone no matter who you are or where you're from.
This is not her first time running for governor Royce first attempt was in 2018 so far. She's up against lieutenant governor Sarah Rodriguez Milwaukee County executive David Crowley and Milwaukee Businessman Ryan Sternat.
That's on the Democratic side to Republicans have declared their candidacy, Washington County executive Josh Showman and businessman Bill Barian.
We've got 11 months until the primary next August and the election is over a year away in November, 2026. For civic media news, I'm Savannah Tomay Olsen.
And I'm Melissa K for WFHR and WIRI news.
Bruce baseball tonight. Hi, I'm Mike Clemens with sports. The Brewers open a three game series tonight against the Los Angeles Angels at American Family Field. Milwaukee with a five game lead over the Cubs in the NL Central.
The Angels are in last place in the American League West 13 games behind the Mariners NFL. Matt Luflur says the Packers 10 penalties last Thursday night were far too many.
We went into the game. We knew that the penalties were going to be a big part of the game and we had far too many.
So obviously the first drive indicated a touchdown and then we had pre snap penalties. You don't want any of those. We had a couple pre snap penalties.
We had a couple penalties on special teams that really played a big impact on field position.
The Packers play the Browns in Cleveland on Sunday. The Minnesota Vikings will be without their quarterback JJ McCarthy.
The next two to four weeks McCarthy suffering a high ankle sprain during their loss to the Falcons on Sunday night.
Carson Wentz will take over a quarterback with sports on Mike Clemens.
On your entertainment beat, I'm Peach Waba. The 77th Emmy Awards are in the books and there was big news from the event.
Probably the biggest story was HBO's The Pit, winning outstanding drama series.
Star of the show Noah Wiley also took home a Best Actor Award and the Pit's Catherine Lanassa won Best Supporting Actress.
Another big story of the night was the Netflix show Adolescence, which won six Emmy Awards, three of which went to Steven Graham for acting, writing and producing.
Apple TV's The Studio won four Emmys, including Best Comedy Series, Brit Lower of Apple TV's Severance got her first Emmy offer first nomination and took home the Best Actress in a drama series.
Jean Smart took home her fourth Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for her role on Hacks.
Smart has picked up a total of 14 Emmy nominations over her impressive career.
15-year-old Owen Cooper became the youngest recipient ever for his role in Adolescence. He was excellent.
Rain Wilson appeared on the last laugh podcast last week and said he felt that at times the show The Office went too far with racial and sexist jokes.
Wilson, who played Dwight Schrute, said they could never get away with some of the jokes now.
Wilson also said that NBC ultimately passed on a spin-off which would have starred the Dwight Schrute character and would have been set on his character's beat farm, the show would have been called The Farm.
News from the Emmys, Steven Colbert, present to the Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.
Before hand, Colbert jokingly asked when he got behind the mic if anyone was hiring.
Colbert will exit the late show in May of 2026.
Colbert also joked that he brought his resume and showed the crowd his old headshot.
The late show host was visibly moved when the crowd started chanting Stephen.
Great guy. And by the way, Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series went to Seth Rogen for the studio.
If this past weekend box office earnings are any indication, anime has completely arrived.
Demon Slayer Infinity Castle found itself at the top of the box office with a $70 million opening weekend.
Its opening daytake of $33 million was the highest opening ever for an anime film.
Last week's number one film, The Conjuring Last Rites, held off three challengers for the number two spot and a take of $26 million.
The three new releases include Downton Abbey, which brought in 18 million big ones in its first week of release to finish at number three.
The Stephen King inspired The Long Walk, pulled in $11.5 million over the weekend.
The film is based on King's first novel of the same title.
And in fifth place was sort of a new release, or more accurately, a new re-release as Toy Story brought in over $3 million on over 200 screens,
giving it a massive haul of $195 million dating back about 30 years.
For more showbiz fun, tune in to Nightlight with me, Peach Waba, weeknights from 6 to 8 p.m. on the Civic Media Radio Network.
We have a slight chance of an isolated shower or thunderstorm today.
Otherwise, mostly sunny with a high in the upper 80s this afternoon.
Tonight, partly cloudy, we're going to drop to 61 for a load tomorrow and other sunny, warm day with a high right around 85.
I'm meteorologist Sean Cable. Right now, it's 64.
That's your WFHR and WIRI Daily News Roundup from Civic Media.
Subscribe to this podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you find your podcasts.
Find more news at WFHR.com or Whiskcountry. That's WISCountry.com.
The National News Cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.