Reports in 2024 and 2025 said China controls up to 90% of global drone markets.
Mediareports citing market research firm Drone Industry Insights said China controls nearly 90% of the global commercial drone market.
The U.S., reliant on Chinese-made parts, is “years behind building the manufacturing infrastructure that could come close to rivaling China’s,” Forbes reported.
MIT Technology Review reported that DJI, one China-based drone maker, has more than a 90% share of the global consumer market and that the supply chain there is “so competitive that the world can’t really use drones without it.”
The Atlantic Council think tank said China’s market dominance means Chinese-made drones operating in the U.S. can send sensitive information to China and gives China a military advantage.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former Wisconsin congressman, raised the issue Aug. 5.
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A recent law President Donald Trump signed July 24 cuts funding for public broadcast stations, including those that provide local emergency alerts.
The law rescinded $9 billion in previously approved funding – $8 billion for foreign aid and $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private nonprofit – for fiscal 2026 and 2027.
CPB, which announced it would shut down because of the rescissions, has funneled federal dollars to radio and TV networks such as NPR and PBS.
NPR, PBS and their member stations are mostly funded by private donations, but smaller stations, especially in rural areas, relied more on CPB funding. And people in those areas rely on local stations for emergency weather and other alerts.
Wisconsin stations received $8.5 million in CPB funding in fiscal 2024.
The rescissions don’t affect the Emergency Alert System, for national emergency announcements, or the Wireless Emergency Alerts.
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Aborted fetal cells are not used to manufacture the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine today, though the original rubella vaccine was made using human fetal embryo fibroblast cells obtained from two elective abortions in the 1960s.
The rubella vaccine is one of many vaccines that use the cell lines from those aborted fetuses, meaning they descend from the original fetal cells, but are not taken directly from new fetal tissue. These cells were chosen because the womb’s sterile environment does not contain the viruses often found in animal cells.
During the manufacturing of the MMR vaccine, the vaccine virus is purified and cellular debris and growth reagents are removed, breaking down trace DNA until there is none or almost none left.
Most of the major world religions that oppose abortion, including the Roman Catholic Church, have deemed vaccines permissible to prioritize the health of pregnant women, children and the wider population.
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Wisconsin doesn’t require daily exercise for students.
Physical education must be given weekly to students in kindergarten through sixth grade and, for older middle school students, with “sufficient frequency and instructional time to meet the objectives outlined in the district’s curriculum plan.”
High school students must follow a curriculum “designed to build lifelong fitness habits.”
In 2024, GOP lawmakers as part of a child obesity task force introduced legislation to require 180 minutes of weekly “physical activity” for K-8 students. One lawmaker said the aim was to require movement, such as playing tennis, rather than teaching tennis.
State revenue is projected to outpace spending during the next two years leaving a $770 million surplus as of July 1, 2027. If spending and revenue are the same over 2027-29, the state will have a deficit of -$1.4 billion in its general fund by the end of that biennium, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported.
That excludes the state’s $2.1 billion rainy day fund.
Wisconsin ended 2023 with a record $7.1 billion surplus and the last budget cycle with $4.4 billion.
The current state budget spends down $3.6 billion as Gov. Tony Evers prioritized spending increases for education and childcare while Republicans pushed tax cuts.
The state’s general fund in 2027 is projected to be at the lowest level since 2018. Wisconsin faced structural deficits from 1996-2011, with a projected $3.6 billion deficit during the 2011-13 biennium. That prompted steep public employee benefit cuts under the controversial Act 10 law.
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Violent crime, nationally and in major cities, is lower than 25 years ago.
Marquette University criminal justice professor Theodore Lentz charted rates for violent crime – murder, rape and sexual assault, robbery, and assault.
The overall rate was below 400 violent crimes per 100,000 people for the past decade, down from about 500 per 100,000 people 25 years ago.
The rates are based on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting figures, which track crimes reported to law enforcement.
The nonprofit Pew Research Center reported that between 1993 and 2022, violent crime dropped 49%, according to the FBI; and 71%, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, which surveys Americans.
In cities of 250,000 people or more, the violent crime rate was 771 per 100,000 people in 2023, down from 1,093 in 2000.
Republican U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, who represents part of eastern Wisconsin, said July 14 that major-city violent crime is much higher than 25 years ago.
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Federal law prohibits students in the country without authorization from receiving federal financial aid.
Two Clinton-era laws — the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act — require all students to provide a valid Social Security number or otherwise demonstrate lawful-presence status to receive federal aid.
The Federal Student Aid website confirms that unauthorized students — including DACA recipients — are ineligible for federal student aid. However, it notes that unauthorized immigrants can still seek financial support through other channels, such as state grant programs, institutional aid, and private scholarships.
The American Journal of Economics and Sociology points out that although there are alternative avenues, they are often limited and inconsistent. Even when available, it is last-dollar aid, covering only remaining costs after all other aid is applied. As a result, this rarely meets the total cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses.
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There has been broad agreement about the greenhouse effect for over a century.
In 1824, Joseph Fourier calculated that Earth ought to be much colder given its distance from the sun, and theorized that the atmosphere acts as a blanket, trapping heat and keeping the planet warmer than it would be otherwise.
Scientists later hypothesized that higher concentrations of greenhouse gases could raise temperatures. In 1896, Svante Arrhenius attempted to quantify this; his predictions remain on the high end of current climate models.
The basic science of the greenhouse effect is fairly simple: certain atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide trap and redirect outgoing heat; some is radiated back downward, causing heat build up and temperatures to rise.
In 2021, the IPCC concluded it is unequivocal that human emission of greenhouse gases are the primary cause of modern warming.
Pharmaceutical companies spent over $10.1 billion on drug advertising in 2024 with the top 10 drugs accounting for a third of spending. Over $5 billion of the spending was on TV ads, with the other half spent on radio, print, streaming and online ads.
The advertising for these pharmaceutical companies made up 24.4% of evening ad minutes on news programs through ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC between Jan. 1 and May 31 of this year.
Drug company AbbVie spent the most, totaling over $1 billion on ads for Skyrizi and Rinvoq, which are used to treat inflammatory conditions. AbbVie increased spending on advertisements for Skyrizi by 150%.
Between 2023 and 2024, consumer advertising of the weight management drug Wegovy increased 330%. During that period, usage among teens increased 50%.
In 2023, the average S&P 500 CEO earned $17.1 million in total compensation compared with $63,800 earned by the average worker in an S&P 500 company. For the CEO that works out to $46,849 a day.
Because average compensation rates include extreme outliers, it’s notable that median pay differences between CEOs and workers in 2023 also yielded similar results.
The median S&P 500 CEO earned $16.3 million in 2023 while the median worker for those companies earned around $81,400. Outliers notwithstanding, CEOs still earned their workers’ annual pay in a little less than two days.
This phenomenon continued in 2024 as the median S&P 500 CEO pay jumped nearly 10% and worker compensation increased by less than 1.05%.
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President Donald Trump’s recently enacted big bill removes the federal income tax on certain tips and overtime, but those tax deductions end in 2028 and have other limitations.
Under the new law, restaurant servers, barbers and other workers who typically work for tips can deduct up to $25,000 of tip income – meaning that amount isn’t taxable.
For overtime pay, the tax deduction is up to $12,500.
Both deductions generally are for people who earn less than $150,000 annually.
Federal payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare (FICA), and state and local taxes, stillapply.
The tipped income provision would affect about 2% of households, and they would receive an average tax cut of $1,800 annually, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimated.
About 8% of hourly workers and 4% of salaried workers regularly work overtime, according to the Yale Budget Lab.
The average annual savings for the overtime provision is $1,400, according to the White House.
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We’ve written more extensively about this topic in a different article. You can read more about it here.
Gov. Tony Evers’ 2023 partial veto increased K-12 public school districts’ revenue fundraising limits by $325 per student each year until 2425, but that doesn’t guarantee property tax increases each year.
Revenue limits set how much a district can increase funding through a combination of property taxes and general state aid. School districts could raise property taxes in order to reach the maximum revenue, or the Legislature and governor could provide more general aid through the biennial budget. The average limit across districts last year was $13,363.
This year, the Republican-controlled Legislature kept general state aid flat. School boards can raise property taxes up to their allowed maximum funding in their annual budgets.
In future budgets, the Legislature and governor could provide enough state aid to cover the limit increase in whole or even exceed it, which would force districts to reduce property taxes. They also could repeal the 400-year revenue limit provision.
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Wisconsin will receive an estimated $1 billion more annually in federal funds for Medicaid because the state budget includes a change that pre-empts a provision in President Donald Trump’s big bill.
Trump’s bill would have prevented Wisconsin from raising its hospital tax.
But days before Trump signed it, the Republican-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers approved a 2025-27 state budget that raises Wisconsin’s hospital tax from 1.8% to 6%.
The increase will raise some $1 billion more annually in federal matching funds that the state can use to pay hospitals for care they provide Medicaid patients.
Wisconsin’s largest Medicaid program is BadgerCare Plus, which provides health insurance to about 1 million low-income people age 64 and under.
Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin, claimed that Trump’s bill “secured” the $1 billion.
Millions of nondisabled working-age adults have enrolled in Medicaid since the Affordable Care Act expanded eligibility in 2014.
Medicaid is health insurance for low-income people.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that in 2024, average monthly Medicaid enrollment included 34 million nonelderly, nondisabled adults – 15 million made eligible by Obamacare.
Two smaller estimates used U.S. Census survey data.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers said there were 27 million nondisabled working-age (age 19-64) Medicaid recipients in 2024.
That’s similar to the 26 million for 2023 estimated by the nonpartisan health policy organization KFF. That figure includes people who are disabled.
KFF said 44% worked full time and 20% part time, many for small companies, and aren’t eligible for health insurance.
Medicaid costs nearly $900 billion annually, two-thirds from the federal government, one-third from the states.
Forty states, excluding Wisconsin, adopted the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Congress is considering President Donald Trump’s proposal adding work requirements for Medicaid.
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Spending cuts proposed in President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” would not be the largest ever, according to nonpartisan analysts.
The largest-cut claim was made by Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, who represents part of southeastern Wisconsin, ahead of the House vote. His office cited a $1.7 trillion claim made by the Trump administration.
The House-passed version of the bill nominally would have cut $1.6 trillion in spending over 10 years.
But the bill’s net decreases were $1.2 trillion, after taking spending increases into account, and $680 billion after additional interest payments on the debt.
The heaviest spending reductions don’t begin until around 2031, increasing the chances that they could be changed by future legislation.
A $1.7 trillion net cut would be second to a 2011 law that decreased spending by $2 trillion and would be the third-largest cut as a percentage of gross domestic product, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin Watch is seeking a resourceful, agile and detail-oriented executive assistant to support the executive function. Reporting to our CEO, this role will ensure smooth project execution, effective communication and timely delivery of administrative functions. This role requires exceptional organizational skills, discretion, attention to detail, and the ability to manage multiple priorities in a mission-driven environment.
About Wisconsin Watch
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit news company providing trustworthy reporting that investigates problems, explores solutions and serves the public. Our mission is to strengthen the quality of community life and self-government in Wisconsin by providing people with the knowledge they need to navigate their lives, drive forward solutions and hold those with power accountable. We pursue the truth through accurate, fair, independent, rigorous, nonpartisan reporting. We value transparency, collaboration, innovation and a spirit of public service. These priorities guide our investigations, which expose wrongdoing and deficiencies, explore solutions to problems and bear witness to those in vulnerable circumstances.
Duties and responsibilities
Executive support (50%)
Manage the executive director’s calendar, appointments, travel arrangements, and correspondence.
Prepare and edit correspondence, communications, presentations, and other documents.
Conduct research, compile data and prepare reports for internal and external audiences.
Act as a liaison between the executive director and internal/external stakeholders.
Assist with grant reporting, donor communications and event coordination as needed.
Handle confidential information with discretion and professionalism.
Board liaison (20%)
Serve as the main point of contact between the Board of Directors and the executive director.
Coordinate and schedule board and committee meetings, including logistics, venue and technology.
Track board member terms, attendance and compliance with bylaws and policies.
Support board recruitment, onboarding and orientation processes.
Maintain up-to-date records for all board-related documents.
Operational support & team development (20%)
Contribute to administrative process enhancements and participate in team-based problem-solving.
Support special projects across departments, including staff onboarding, process automation or audits.
Assist with internal initiatives that drive professional development and organizational culture.
Plan internal meeting agendas; facilitate internal meetings as needed.
Support physical and virtual mail procurement and routing.
Participate in ongoing training and knowledge sharing.
Quality assurance & process compliance (10%)
Ensure data integrity and adherence to firm standards in documentation and communication.
Monitor task queues and prioritize workflow to meet project deadlines.
Participate in internal meetings and contribute to operational improvement efforts.
Stay current on policies, procedures and compliance requirements relevant to the organization.
Qualifications
Minimum of 5 years of experience in an executive support role, preferably in a nonprofit setting.
Experience working with boards of directors or senior leadership teams.
Strong organizational and time management skills with attention to detail.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Demonstrated ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with discretion.
Commitment to the mission, values and goals of the organization.
Possesses exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
Demonstrates a proactive, problem-solving mindset with a focus on outcomes.
Is highly organized, detail-oriented and capable of juggling multiple priorities.
Is familiar and comfortable with various technologies, from Google Workspace (Sheets, Docs, etc.) and CRMs to social platforms, ensuring smooth execution of tasks and communication across different tools.
Location: The executive assistant will be located in Wisconsin, preferably in the greater Madison or Milwaukee areas.
Status, salary and benefits:
Full-time, hybrid position.
Salary range: $40,000 – $65,000.
5 weeks of vacation, retirement fund contribution, paid sick days, paid family and caregiver leave, subsidized medical and dental premiums, vision coverage, and more.
Final salary offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors, including prior experience, expertise and location.
Deadline: Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. For best consideration, apply by July 14, 2025.
To apply: Please submit your resume in this application form and answer each of these three questions in 50 words or less.
Wisconsin Watch is dedicated to improving our newsroom by better reflecting the people we cover. We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages. We encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities. We are an equal opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, or any other status protected under applicable law.
Recent presidents have repeatedly ordered military attacks on other countries despitequestions over whether congressional approval was needed.
The latest was Republican Donald Trump’s June 21 bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. His administration said he had authority to limit nuclear proliferation.
Trump in 2017 cited national security interests for a missile strike on a Syrian base that was used to launch chemical weapon attacks on Syrian civilians.
In 2021, Democrat Joe Biden ordered an airstrike on Iran-backed militia groups in Syria, citing “self-defense.”
In 2011, Democrat Barack Obama ordered “limited” airstrikes on Libya. He said he was trying to protect pro-democracy protesters targeted by Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The Constitution saysonly Congress has the power to declare war.
But that provision “has never been interpreted — by either Congress or the executive branch — to require congressional authorization for every military action that the president could initiate,” a Council on Foreign Relations legal expert wrote.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Unauthorized immigrants arenoteligible for traditional, federally funded Medicaid, which helps cover medical costs for low-income people.
They havenever been eligible. A 1996 welfare reform law signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton also requires most authorized immigrants to waitfive years for eligiblity.
President Donald Trump has proposedreducing federal Medicaid funds to those states. That would cause 1.4 million people to lose coverage, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated.
Medicaid costs nearly $900 billion annually, two-thirds from the federal government and one-third from the states.
In Wisconsin, Medicaid serves 1.28 million people, more than a third of them children. Among adults, 45% work full time, 28% part time. The annual cost is $12.1 billion, $4.2 billion of it in state spending.
While unauthorized immigrants can’t get Medicaid in Wisconsin, they can apply to receive emergency care covered by state Medicaid.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
In April, 2,004 residents of Menominee County in northeast Wisconsin received benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
SNAP, formerly known as food stamps and called FoodShare in Wisconsin, provides food assistance for low-income people.
Other reports show similar rates.
As of March 2024, 51% of residents in the Menominee tribal nation received SNAP, according to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum.
The latest U.S. Census data, for 2022, showed the rate for Menominee County was 49%.
American Indians constitute nearly 80% of the county’s population.
Menominee County’s rate was cited June 14 by U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention. He commented on President Donald Trump’s tax cut bill pending in Congress. It would remove an estimated 3.2 million people from SNAP, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The median stay in public housing in the U.S. is four years, a 2024 study of U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department data found.
Median means half the tenants in public housing projects stayed more than four years, half stayed less.
The study, by researchers from the universities of Illinois and Kansas, covered 2000 to 2022 and 1 million public housing units.
The average stay was 14 years, pulled higher by elderly and disabled residents, who tend to stay longer.
Republican U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, who represents part of eastern Wisconsin, said in May the average is 12 years.
HUD’s dataset on June 12 showed the average is 12 years. Median was not available.
President Donald Trump hasproposed a two-year limit on federal rental assistance for “able-bodied adults.”
Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers proposed more than doubling to $100 million credits available annually for Wisconsin low-income housing developments. Republicans drafting the state budget June 12 excluded that provision.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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