97.5 W F H R and 105.5 W I R I your Wisconsin Rapids Home for locally grown radio. Here's
your Daily News Roundup.
From the Wisconsin Rapids Local Newsroom, I'm Melissa K.
On a gray snowy New Year's Day, while many Wisconsinites spent time watching football
or nursing over indulgence following New Year's Eve celebrations, a group of Haitian
immigrants in the Fox Valley came together to celebrate Haitian Independence Day. Lisa
Hale reports.
Following the only successful slave revolt in history, Haiti declared its independence
and created the world's first black republic on January 1st, 1804. Reggie Desimou is
owner of Area 509 and a Haitian immigrant himself. He said the need to hold on to the
food and the observances in the culture of his country is essential.
Every skill that we have today, we learned from Haiti, from my mother and then it's important
to carry that heritage around to show it to the community.
Hennessey Han Cho is a Haitian immigrant living in the Fox Valley. He came to the USA as
a child, settling in Florida. He moved to Wisconsin seven years ago and said events like
this help him know he's not alone.
It gives me my sense of culture because coming from Florida is more Haitians there than
coming up here. I'm like, I ain't no no Haitians out here and stuff. So when I met him and
I seemed like, okay, he's still keeping the food, the tradition and all that.
Even more important than maintaining the culture of home, Desimou said that in a time of increasing
negativity toward the immigrant community, a sense of connection and belonging is needed.
So I'm hoping like when we do today, people use that as well as a reconciliation toward
immigrants, toward people with colors, toward people Hispanic and everybody like LGBTQ and
everybody see everybody as equal because at the end of the day, we all got child and we
don't go got child. Why do we have a hits now?
For civic media news, I'm Lisa Hale.
As the Farm Bill was extended for one more year, Wisconsin farmers are able to access benefits
and programs. But for years, advocates have said it's needed updates, not extensions.
It's meant to be updated every five years to reflect current prices, priorities and challenges.
The last time it got those updates was in 2018. And that same time frame, Wisconsin has lost
at least 10% of its farms, many of them small family owned operations. But instead of updating
language and funding, Congress has simply extended it all at 2018 prices and standards.
Mike Lavender of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition says conditions are vastly
different for farmers these days, including increasing climate threats and supply chain problems.
We all know issues in rural communities, farm country, urban communities. We have to have
those conversations in the context of a full Farm Bill because that's how important they are.
We have to give them that time in these gear extensions. Do not give us the space to do that.
Before the government shut down in the fall, the White House was considering a farmer bail
out package, as it did in the first Trump administration, to counteract the impacts of tariffs.
Lavender says there are plenty of short-term needs, but he feels those solutions must be guided
by long-term thinking to keep farmers on their land now and in the future.
We have to be thinking about making sure we have a farm safety net that works for everyone.
And I think we have a farm safety net that works for a lot of people, but I think there's
improvements that we could make. As we head into 2026, many farmers could be hit by huge health
insurance premiums. Many of them rely on plans they buy on the marketplace through the Affordable
Care Act, and many of them get subsidies. That's according to the Institute for Agriculture and
Trade Policy. Democrats fought for these subsidies during the shutdown, but Republicans wouldn't
commit to extending them. They now say they're seeking alternative fixes.
For years, Wisconsin school administrators have said the state funding formula isn't fair.
Statewide teachers say they're doing the best they can with what they have at a time when kids
need more support and everything is more expensive. Rural district's face distinct challenges.
The state recently announced significant funding cuts for more than 300 school districts across
the state, many of which are rural. Those cuts stem from the state budget passed by the legislature.
Jeff Idy with the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance says more cuts only exacerbate ongoing staffing
issues, federal funding uncertainty and dwindling resources, and that can lead to hard choices.
We make decisions that have the best impact for kids and the least impact on our school district
in the end, but that becomes just incredibly challenging when we haven't received as much of
the funding. Idy says Wisconsin's established revenue limits further compound matters by creating
inequities between districts. Schools that try to be more frugal end up capped at lower rates
and they get less funding. Idy says funding from the legislature hasn't met the rate of
inflation for more than 15 years and all of us have experienced inflation hitting just about
everything, including schools, maintenance, utilities, and supplies. Idy says with the right
resources, rural districts could be unstoppable. We do a great job of connecting to the students,
the community. Once we have students and or staff come in and be a part of our rural school district,
they just love it. They love being a part of that. They feel connected. They feel like it's a
great thing. Rural school districts are the heartbeat of their community and are incredibly
important to the economy. About 40% of Wisconsin students are in rural school districts. I'm Savannah
Tomay Olsen. You're listening to Civic Media News. Local news at the top and bottom of every hour
throughout the day or on demand anytime at wfhr.com and w iri.fm from the Wisconsin Rapids local
newsroom. I'm Alyssa Kay. What's next for the Packers? Hi, I'm Mike Clemens with sports NFL.
The Packers losing to the Viking 16 to three, Clayton Tunes struggled at quarterback,
completing just six of 11 passes with no touchdowns and says that Jordan Love spoke to the team after
the loss. You know, just move past this one and get our minds ready for the playoffs and we have
an opportunity to do something special and so he was just kind of refocusing everyone's mind and
getting everyone prepared mentally for, you know, what we have ahead of us. The Packers had to
Chicago this Saturday to play the Bears in the first round of the playoffs kickoff at soldier
field seven o'clock college football UW River Falls beat the defending champs north central 24 to 14
to win their first ever division three national championship. The game played last night at the
Hall of Fame stadium in Canton, Ohio NBA, the Bucks Coast to a win over the Kings 115 to 98 to kick
off their West Coast trip. Yannis with 37 points and 11 rebounds with sports on Mike Clemens.
He is going to be mostly cloudy today with a high right around 34 this afternoon. Tonight cloudy
with a little light freezing drizzle possible. That's going to make roads a little slick overnight
our low 29 tomorrow mostly cloudy with a high right around 36. I'm meteorologist Sean Cable.