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This is your WGBW Daily News Roundup for the Talk of Green Bay, 97.9 FM and 1590 AM.
For 97.9 WGBW News, I'm Lisa Hale.
We can start 2025 with some good news this morning.
A Green Bay teen who had been missing from her home since Sunday, December 22, has been found.
Green Bay police asked for the public's help in looking for 16-year-old Wayshell Edwards.
She was found safe New Year's Day.
Bondal Act police are investigating a New Year's Eve shooting incident between two vehicles.
They were called to Southbrook and Western Avenue for gunshots at about 1145 New Year's Eve night.
Bullet holes were found in a nearby residence, but no one inside the home was injured.
Police are reviewing video footage and ask anyone with information to call Bondal Act police.
Health experts are warning Wisconsin residents that they expect to see a spike in respiratory viruses this winter.
The state has already seen an elevated number of neurovirus and whooping cough cases this year,
but the flu rate has remained steady with the last year's numbers despite declining vaccination rates.
RSV cases are also low, but they're starting to increase.
Health officials say that especially after the holidays, respiratory viruses could see spikes
after residents traveled to see friends and family while remaining mostly indoors.
Starting the New Year with a new awareness of scammers and their methods can help you have a
fraud-free year in 2025. The Wisconsin Better Business Bureau has collected a group of
resolutions to help you stay fraud-free. Add these to your list of weight loss and financial goals
to make the upcoming year safer. Resolve to be cautious with email. Be wary of any
unsolicited emails. Resolve to never send money to strangers. Research before making online
payments and purchases. Resolve to never share personal information with a stranger.
Resolve to create strong, unique passwords for each account that you have,
and resolve to be social media smart. That means not sharing too much personal information.
Finally, check your financial statements regularly and educate yourself on the latest scams.
Find out more ways you can protect yourself against being scammed this year by seeing our story
at www.fm. Farmers and Wisconsin have some reassurance. After the Farm Bill was extended as part
of the package to avoid a government shutdown, Congress extended the Farm Bill that was first
implemented back in 2018 while they work on a new one to pass next year. But now farmers will
continue to get benefits from a law that was negotiated more than five years ago, so the crop
reference prices are outdated. Paul Mitchell, Agriculture and Economics Professor at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. Prices have been declining on the corn and soybeans and the process is
used to create the support in these times of the negative margins. They're out of date. Those
floors were set in 2018 and we've gone through a lot of inflation and so a thousand dollars isn't
what it used to be. Mitchell says farm organizations have been asking Congress to increase crop
reference prices and change the process to make it more relevant to current commodity markets.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is reminding anglers across the state that the
early catch and release season for inland trout will open this weekend. According to a press release,
the season will run from January 4th through May 2nd during which anglers can only use artificial
lures at musty immediately release any trout they catch. Anglers will be allowed to keep those
trout beginning May 3rd. Anyone planning to participate in the catch and release season will
need a valid fishing license and an inland trout. The Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles is
highlighting some of their new offerings from the past year, including $6 million in funding to
provide free driver training courses to low-income students. DMV officials say the program helped
nearly 10,000 students through the new driver education grant program. The agency has also updated
thousands of drivers records to include emergency contact information for authorities in case of
an accident and delivered nearly 170,000 hybrid or EV stickers for vehicles. A coalition of environmental
and citizen groups are calling on state lawmakers to invest nearly $1 billion in clean water
infrastructure in the next two-year budget. Over 30 groups signed on to the letter calling for a
$953 million investment for infrastructure improvements, the release of $125 million for PFAS
cleanup and for policy changes to protect access to safe drinking water. The letter referenced
water systems with high levels of PFAS contamination and lead service lines that need to be replaced.
The word of the year for 2024? Polarization. Miriam Webster Dictionary chose it because it
describes the state of our country right now. Jessica Fizelle is a political science professor.
She says polarization is nothing new. We've been building to this for decades. But in 2024,
she says both Democrats and Republicans were tending towards extremes rather than the center.
The parties have really exploited the American public in this way to their advantage.
People tend to vote out of fear and hatred more than they do out of support and joy.
And I think the American public is tiring of this level of hostility.
Fizelle believes polarization has become more common in the United States because people don't
interact with others who see things differently. That problem is exacerbated online by algorithms
that show users content that supports their views. Let's look at our population.
As the nation rang in the new year, the US Census Bureau this week projected the population would
reach 341,145,670 people with the start of the new year. This represents an increase of
2,640,171 people from last January 1st and 9,696,329 people from Census Day April 1st, 2020.
In January 2025, this month, the United States is expected to experience one birth every nine seconds
and one death every nine point four seconds. Meanwhile, net international migration is expected
to add one person to the United States population every 23.2 seconds. The combination of births,
deaths, and net international migration increases the US population by one person every 21.2 seconds.
The projected world population on January 1st was over 8 billion people, an increase of over 71
million from New Year's Day 2024. During January 2025, 4.2 births and two deaths are expected worldwide
every second. The Packers Organization has announced the 10 finalists for this year's Packers Fan
Hall of Fame and five of them are from Northeast Wisconsin. Fans from Bondawell combined locks,
Manawal, Pound, and Polaski are among the nominees. See our story at WGBW.FM for details on how to
vote. I'm Lisa Hale, 97.9 WGBW news. For news anytime, log on to WGBW.FM.
The Packers lose their top defensive back. Hi, I'm Mike Clemens with sports,
cornerback, Jair Alexander, suffered a knee injury back in October against the Jaguars.
Packers had coach Matt LaFour asked if there were any updates. Yeah, I would expect
most likely he's going to be done for the rest of the year. Is that the injury related? Yes.
So you have the surgery? Uh, yes. Alexander had his right knee scoped on Tuesday. A report says
he could be back by mid February. If the Packers are in the Super Bowl, I ask safety,
Xavier McKinney. Well, it's been like watching Jair struggling to come back. Yeah, um,
I mean, it's been tough. You know, he's dealt with, you know, this injury pretty much all year.
Obviously, we wanted them to be back out there, but, you know, injuries are part of the game.
So we understand that. Uh, we know that he's been working. You know, he was working to,
you know, try to get back, but it's like every time he was trying to, he was tweaking again. So,
it's a part of the game NBA, the boxing action tonight in Milwaukee. They host the Brooklyn
net with sports on Mike Clemens. On your entertainment beat, I'm Pete Schwabba. People seem to notice
the variety of well-reviewed films playing at the box office currently and headed to the big screen
over the weekend. Sonic the Hedgehog Part 3 took the top spot at the gate with $38 million
and is currently at $137 million in its first two weeks in theaters. The Lion King's Mufasa took
a close second place with $37 million in change in its second week and is showing some good word of
mouth as it is actually outperforming its haul from last week. People also wanted a little
whore over their holiday as newcomer Nosferatu, which opened on Christmas Day, surprised prognosticators
by pulling in 40 million over five days and 21 million over the weekend. Wicked in Moana 2
rounded out the top five with Wicked pulling in 19 and a half million bucks and Moana 2 pulling
in just over 18 million. Also opening on Christmas Day was the new Bob Dylan biopic, a complete
unknown which pulled in 23 million over five days and finished in sixth place last weekend with
11.6 million bucks. All I wanted was to hold on and live. Those are the words of Gail Gadot,
who recently gave birth to her fourth daughter. The drama surrounding the birth was right
out of a movie script as the actress revealed that during the eighth month of her pregnancy,
an MRI showed a massive blood clot in her brain. Gadot was rushed into surgery and during the
operation gave birth to her daughter Ori. The 39-year-old actress says the name means
My Light and that it was appropriate as Hanukkah is a celebration of light and miracles.
Golden Globes host Nikki Glazer might have a furrowed brow through this year's broadcast. You
can chalk that up to bad timing as the comedian was planning on getting plastic surgery but had to
reschedule once she got the gig. Glazer says she was planning on getting a brow lift,
but her agent advised her to wait until after the Golden Globes. Translation, instead of looking
surprised when she reads the nominees, she'll look grumpy. The Golden Globes airs Sunday January 5th
on CBS. Former President Jimmy Carter passed away this past weekend at the age of 100. Many
remember Carter for his decency, endless service to humankind which included his involvement with
habitat for humanity. But what most people don't know is that he was also related to Motown
Records founder Barry Gordy. Gordy said that in 1978 his sister Esther did some digging into
their family tree. Gordy says he was filled with shock and pride when he found out that he
and Carter were actually third cousins. There's as much drama off screen surrounding actress Blake
Lively and actor director Justin Baldoni as there was on screen for their film It Ends With Us.
Following Lively's lawsuit claiming Baldoni sexually assaulted her and launched a smear campaign
against her. Baldoni is filing a counter suit, claiming Lively and her team launched a smear
campaign against him. Does anything good ever come from a Hollywood smear campaign? Oh yeah,
publicity. For more showbiz fun. Tune in the night light with me. Peshwaba weeknights from
six to eight PM on the civic media radio network. Mostly cloudy today, although we will see a little
bit of sunshine by later this afternoon are high in the low 20s today. Tonight partly cloudy
with a low down to around 10 and then tomorrow. Mostly sunny with a high pretty close to 15 tomorrow.
I'd be the urologist Sean Cable. Temperature now at 19.
That's your WGBW Daily News Roundup from Civic Media.
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