Wisconsin's Weekend Morning News
Wisconsin's Weekend Morning News 7-7-24
This is Wisconsin's weekend morning news with Libby Collins. It's a beautiful morning today. I mean, I just, I, I wanted to put the top down on the drive-in, but a 94 that doesn't always work on driving. Or that the sunroof, the moonroof that way. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Yeah, but it is a beautiful morning. But you know, Jessica, you had those stories about the motorcyclists. The one passed away and the other was severely injured. Both were injured. We don't know the status of, we don't know the condition of either motorcyclists, but they, it was two separate crashes in Dodge County. Yeah, and I think this is a good time to go back to our conversation that we had with Phillip Billups. He's a motorcycle safety expert with CycleTrader magazine. Well, I think if you don't ride, you know, obviously keeping an eye out, making sure you're checking your mirrors all the time, every time, making sure that, you know, you're looking for that headlight that may just be a single headlight for sure, for sure. So if you're not riding, but if you are riding, one of the top considerations is definitely safety, right? It's always crucial to wear protective gear, helmets, jackets, gloves, you know, definitely can reduce any injury in case you do get into a situation. And that's in a good, well-fitting jacket and a nice DOT approved, Department of Transportation approved, helmet is just massive, right? And then also staying visible to those other motorists, like I mentioned earlier, you know, asking for folks who are in cars to keep their eyes out. It's also been coming on the rider, right? To make sure that you're wearing something bright and reflective, using your headlights, adhering to traffic laws, paying close attention to road conditions, then, you know, ensuring you ride within your skill level, right? If you're a starter, don't ride too fast, don't take curves too quick. And just being diligent and smart and prepared is the key to a safe riding experience. Well, sometimes I've talked with people and they are concerned because they feel that some people on their cycles take a lot of chances, particularly on the interstate, they're kind of swerving in and out of traffic and at a high rate of speed. Drivers in cars and trucks don't always see them correctly. Yeah, and you know, well, you're kind of increasing your odds of being in a bad situation on a motorcycle if you just aren't behaving, to be honest with you, right? I think that when it comes to riding, you have to be responsible for your safety as much as you want somebody else in a car to be responsible for safety. And hey, let's be honest, now we've got this smartphone thing, right? We also have all these cars with screens, so you have to be even more vigilant in making sure that you don't take chances and do anything that, you know, will put you in a situation where, hey, look, if you're going too fast and you're heating up on somebody that's getting ready to merge into a different lane, well, you know, you're kind of putting yourself at a disadvantage and you're actually kind of putting them at a disadvantage of seeing you. Phillip, I know you're a third generation rider. I'm going to ask you a question and it's controversial among a lot of cycle riders and that is why do a lot of them not want to wear helmets? Yeah, this is interesting. When I've tried it one time in my life, you know, like you said, third generation, I've been riding about 10 years myself and, you know, close to us, I believe it's in South Carolina that's closing up here in Virginia and they allow you to ride without a helmet and it felt so strange and I think it's one of those where some people just like to take chances and, you know, the reality is there are so many different helmets down these days that if you don't want something big in bulky, you can find something small. So I think it boils down to, do you just like to take chances? And I'm a ball headed guy, so I don't have any hair, any wind before through my hair, but yeah, helmet is key. You got to wear a helmet. What's the most exciting part for you when you get on your bike? You know, I've got a Harley rider, 2010 out of '48 and honestly, these days, finishing a work day and just taking a ride, it clears your mind and it keeps you sharp, right? As we've been talking about safety and being attentive, when you're riding, you have to have your eyes on the road looking at what everybody's doing. You can be relaxed in doing that, but it does kind of get you going, right? It's a freedom that's there and then also, again, being very attentive and understanding what's going around you and sometimes I like to ride with my friend, right? That's also exciting and fun, too, where I'm located. The beach is about 30 minutes away and then I've also got some country roads. So for me, the exciting part of this stage in riding is being able to clear my mind and just enjoy something that's fun and just not sitting behind a steering wheel. Well, I know you've got a couple of young kids. Do you ever take them out? Yeah, they're a little too young. You know, my daughter is five, my son is nine. Now, in the garage, they love to sit on it, which used to not be the case. You know, we've got a Harley that's got a couple of mods to it, so it's a little loud, but it's kind of loud for a reason, right? And also, make sure that riders can not only see me, but also hear me, but they're getting there. You know, my grandfather rides, my grandfather's no longer with us. We've got his old bike, so my son is taking a feet on all of them and he's ridden around the yard with my dad. So there may be some future riders. Right now, they're just a little young. Well, fellow Phillips from Cycle Trader Magazine, thank you so much for joining us today and safe riding to you, sir. Thank you, Lady. Boy, if he doesn't sound like a guy you'd expect to be on a motorcycle, I don't know who does. It's 812. Well, we've got a busy show ahead, Matt Miller is going to be reflecting on this year's summer fast. Also, you know, next up this week, it's pastel days and we're going to hear all about it from the head of Alliance Falsays, like my accent. Rich Kirchman is also here. He's from the Milwaukee Business Journal and he's going to talk about that unexpected retirement of UWM's Chancellor. We'll also look back at the week in review. Isaac Mark Hork is here pushing buttons in in just two minutes. It's Isaac's with sports right here on WTMJ. We have 71 degrees at 813. Time for a WTMJ sports update from the Gruber Law Office's one call that's all sports desk to two pitch fly ball center field. This is deep. I went back at the track by my baseball Christian Yellich. Ties it up on the eighth with a solo shot out to center. But that was just not going to be enough. The Brewers fell to the Dodgers yesterday five to three. They get back on the field on the third of three games today in LA. Brewers warm up with Dominic Catronio starts at two o'clock on WTMJ. I'm Isaac Mark Whart WTMJ sports. Thanks a lot, Margaret. Nice job. See, we're not going to call you Isaac when you do sports. We're just going to call you Mark Hart. That's a sports name. All right. It's 8 16. As we said before, it's a beautiful morning. Maybe not going to stick that way all day. We'll tell you that forecast in just a couple minutes. And also we've got Rich Kurchin from the Milwaukee Business Journal. He's going to be talking a little bit about the unexpected retirement of the Chancellor of UWM. It's all ahead on Wisconsin Weekend Morning News. Well, it's a pretty nice morning. That's a sunshine out there. The kind of day you want to go out for a nice walk, get you, you know, get motivated. But later on today, we're expecting some scattered rain and storms with a high of 80 degrees. Tonight, more storms on the way, mostly cloudy down to 67. Tomorrow looks like we do have another chance of those scattered showers, mostly cloudy, 80 for a high. It's getting redundant. Tuesday, isolated showers as storms partly cloudy, 78. Guess what Wednesday? Chance of storms. Yep. Okay. Mainly south of 94. It's going to be cloudy with a high of 76. And then Thursday, sunshine and 78 as we wake up around Wisconsin. On this Sunday morning, looks like Butler. You've got 69 degrees in Hartfield. It is 68 Port Washington's at 67. We have 71 degrees at 8 19 and WTMJ. We've got Rich Kurchin here from the Milwaukee Business Journal. Did you have a nice fourth? Yeah, it was great. Did you do anything special? Part of the neighborhood 4th of July parade, which was fun. And caught part of the fireworks had a little family time around lunch. She has some relatives from out of town. So that was great. Oh, good for you. Well, there was a big story that broke on Wednesday about Mark Monney retiring as the chancellor at UWM. Were you surprised? You know, I have to be honest and say it was not on my radar. That being said, Mark had been the chancellor for 11 years, which turns out that makes him the second longest tenured chancellor at UWM. Jay Martin Clachey, who was the original chancellor way back when, in the 60s and early 70s, was the longest tenured. So yeah, he's cut a fairly high profile in the Milwaukee area. He definitely reached out a lot to the business community and to potential funders of projects and the university's endowment. I go to UWM basketball games as an alum, men's basketball games, and he would be there. So yeah, he was obviously dealt with controversy over the years. Most recently with some of the protests on the Warren Gaza, UWM has had its issues getting the kind of funding it would like to for projects and just in general from the UW Board of Regents. But they've built a couple or three large buildings or new buildings on the campus during his tenure. So it's been a pretty positive period, I would say. Any idea who's going to replace him? I have no idea. He was someone who came up through the ranks at the university. He's been there for a long time as a business professor. So certainly that'd be one place they would look. But I don't know enough about the university structure or politics as to whether they would look internally. I'm sure they would invite candidates from around the country. With the death of Mike Lovell, I mean, this is changing the landscape of our two biggest universities right here in the city. Right. And Mike had been the chancellor at UWM before Mark Moniz. So yeah, those two guys have been leading the two largest universities in the metro Milwaukee area. And they do. They play an important role in the local economy and obviously in educating our future workforce. So those are going to be some big shoes to fill in both cases. Well, speaking about the economy here in Wisconsin, tell us about this biotech. 49 million dollar federal grant. Yes. So this is part of the chips act, the federal chips act that Congress and President Biden approved sometime back. And yeah, probably not a lot of people even know that there is a biotech health hub in this primarily Milwaukee and Madison. And it's aims to develop new technologies in the in the healthcare space, including what they call personalized healthcare. They're personalized medicine, UW Madison is involved M A T C in Milwaukee area, GE health care, Rockwell automation, exact sciences in Madison, the Milwaukee seven. So it's a pretty high powered group. And they want to leverage some of the existing healthcare technology and research for products to commercialize that research and get some new products come in here out of Wisconsin. They're predicting significant economic impact. And I think in the neighborhood of 11,000 new jobs over 10 years. Now, of course, that remains to be seen. But you do have some pretty prominent companies involved here. Well, a lot of those people are going to be looking for a place to live. And so a lot of eyes are on the couture. Yes, you were able to talk to the developer and find out who's leasing those high end units. Yeah, you can't hardly miss it, especially if you want to summer fest in recent weeks. It's right there on the lake front has been planned for a long, long time. And finally, does have some tenants 10% occupied right now, 23% least surprising to me, the top four or five floors are all but one of the units are least out. And those are the penthouse. And those are running for how much? 8,000 to 10,000 a month. That's high rent for Milwaukee. Very high rent for Milwaukee. Who's in those units? Well, their target demographics are young professionals. Now they have some some less expensive units for that as small as 576 square feet for 2,000 a month, which again, very high for Milwaukee. Can't put a king size bed in there. Two bedroom two bedroom units go for 4,000 to 5,000 a month. They're also looking at empty nesters couples with two incomes and no kids. So it's yeah, obviously people who can afford this kind of thing. And again, there is, if you do, if you are interested, Libby in that one unit that's left in the penthouse area, 1700 square feet, 8,100 a month. Well, well, of course, 8,100. See, you know, yeah, okay. Check your penny jar. I better check my check book is what I better check. Listen, if you're living downtown though, there is a new vinyl record listening cafe. I kind of like this idea. Yeah, it's it's not open yet. It's opening, I believe in October. It's called the deep groove, which I guess read great names to the grooves in a record. I love that. And it's going to be on Brady Street, 1200 East Brady, the former Brady Street food tons. And yeah, they're going to have food and beverages, both alcoholic and not, you know, coffee type beverages. And they're saying a pretty amazing collection of music records that they'll be playing jazz blues country heavy metal rock pop 70s, 80s. So now, of course, forever, you've been able to go to a bar or a restaurant and there's music playing. Yeah, but it's all that digital stuff. Yeah. And they subscribe to services. True. This puts a human element in it. It does. And, you know, I'm not entirely sure if you can go in there and request something. You know, if you want to hear Tommy James and the chandeles, or anything else, Billy, I don't land or whatever. Yeah. So, uh, and it seems to be a trend here. There's a place called the Wiggle room on Kinna Connect in Bayview, which is a record centric bar that wiggle room. I haven't heard of that one. Yeah, 2900 South KK. If you want to check it out. And then even Discourse Coffee, which has a location in Walker's points at the Radio Milwaukee building is featuring vinyl albums also that have grooves in them. I love it. I love that that's coming back. All right. Speed coming back. You've got a report on passengers from that Chicago to Milwaukee to Minneapolis Amtrak. And a lot of people are writing it. Right. Well, for a very long time, we've had the empire builder between Milwaukee and the Twin Cities. And we've had the Hiawatha between Milwaukee and Chicago. This goes that whole route. And it's called the Borealis. And they only had 11 days. We've got numbers from the first 11 days of operation in May. And they said there were about 6,600 riders during that time, which is, which is a good number considering it's, it's just running a couple times a day. And it's, you know, one Amtrak train set. Well, finally, there's a new rental car that's coming out of Mitchell International. We see it at a lot of other airports. But first time here in Milwaukee. Yeah, it's, it they're from, it's a company from Germany that is called SIXT, S-I-X-T. And it's the 10th rental car company operating out of Mitchell and just started this month. So another option there at the airport. They're at the rental car center on Howell Avenue. We look forward to it. Rich Kirchen from the Milwaukee Business Journal. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for coming in. Great to be here. It's 71 degrees at A28 on WTMJ. What a great song on a beautiful day like this. Except watch out. Looks like we might give some showers as the afternoon rolls on. Well, as we look back at this week, there was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court. There was an explosion that rocked Walworth County. Plus we celebrated the nation's 248th birthday. There was so much more. It's the week a review brought to you by Outdoor Living Unlimited. What we do here is go back, back, back, back, back. An escalator malfunction at American Family Field led to 11 people being injured Saturday. We got about halfway down the slope of the escalator and the entire thing shook. The U.S. Supreme Court has just handed down its decision on absolute immunity. Presidents are immune for core constitutional powers that they have while serving as president. What the Supreme Court kind of said yesterday is the president is not king, but he thought it is. So as the kids might say, king adjacent. Justice Sotomayor, direct quote, this action by the Supreme Court mocks the notion that no man is above the law. In both cases, the kayaks flipped over due to the fast-moving Milwaukee River and downed trees in the water. Once their kayaks hit those trees, they pretty much go sideways right away. And then the current pretty much pushes that kayak underwater. And you had a look at the north reach lately. Where once stood shoe stores, jewelry shops and sporting goods outlets now sits smashed glass. There's a strong smell of mold, standing water all over the place, as well as remnants of those past fires. Jamaica and the Cayman Islands now are on high alert this morning when a night barrel intensified into a monster category five hurricane. Breaking news and explosion just leveled a home in the town of Lafayette. It looked like the house when it when the house exploded, most of it laid down in the one side of the basement. And that's where the gentleman was found was on the one side of the basement for the majority of the rubber ones. After careful consideration with my family, friends and colleagues, I'm announcing today that I will step down as chancellor at the end of the next academic year. Don't do that, baby, don't do that. Inside into a chaotic scene outside a downtown Milwaukee hotel, a man identified as Devontae Mitchell was pinned down by security guards outside the Hyatt Regency. Mitchell did eventually die watching that video. It reminds me of George Floyd. You do it think in 2024 that we would be a beyond the two two pitch. And hit him in Henry's Hoskins and the Brewers take the lead. I guess he'll be happy when he comes to these are the recent draft picks for the Milwaukee Bucks. Where do you think you're the biggest adjustment to be? Cold. Have you experienced snow before? No. Have you? Never. Never. Never in my life. I ain't seen this. It is knowing and it sucks. State Representative Lakeisha Myers and Dora Drake running to finish the term for former state Senator Lena Taylor. Police removed some election observers from the Bavarian Beer House and Good Hope Elementary School polling locations. These are known actors who are instigators who want to cause problems. And I think we're going to see a lot more of these come November. The Dodge County Sheriff's Office says their investigation into the disappearance of Crystal Rush is no longer a missing persons case. It is officially a death investigation. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled to reinstate the use of most ballot drop boxes across the state. The four three ruling along ideological lines overturns a decision the court made in 2022 that banned the use of most of the boxes. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bans which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separation and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature is God entitled them a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impelled them to the separation. It's a fairly good start. I'm sorry what I was dosed off. Okay thanks for spending a couple hours with us on our salute to serve a special meeting the great greats honorees of the 2024 class. What a week. I see this room. Take care and goodbye. Ladies and gentlemen the weekend. See now I was rather moved when Vince read the Declaration of Independence. I I'm all in on that one. All right the weekend review is sponsored by Outdoor Living Unlimited. If you are a small business person we've got some warnings for you it's all ahead on Wisconsin weekend morning news. You know it's difficult to be a small business person and it really can get even more difficult especially if you're getting notices from the government telling you that you owe money. Well they're not always legitimate and joining us on our Tri-County Contracting Hotline is Michelle Rynan our consumer expert from DadCap and you've been getting a lot of these complaints in the last couple months Michelle. Yeah we've received several reports of male solicitations being sent to Wisconsin business owners typically small business owners that look like invoices or even tax documents and claim to require payment for things like labor posters annual reports articles of incorporation and those other beneficial ownership documents and information. The amount that these solicitations request is often significantly higher than the real filing fees that you would have to pay in order to obtain the documents directly from the agency. So what do you do if you get one of these invoices that looks official and you're not sure if it's actually legitimate? Yeah the first thing is is to hit the pause button check things out try to remember that business owners can get federal documents related to their business filings without fees typically and that all state documents can be acquired through the websites of their respective agencies or by contacting them. So that's the first step check it out with that appropriate agency to see if you even have to have a copy of that document and if so how do you obtain it directly from the agency whether in response to this postcard or mailing that you've received. And what do you do if you have employees who are in charge of things like that and they're the ones who are getting these invoices what do you need to instruct them to do? Well first try and train you know have internal controls and verification processes for pain invoices that can prevent your business from falling victim to these scams. If you train the employees to review the invoices thoroughly before authorizing payment and look at those internal controls then they'll note a question any invoice that doesn't look familiar or that asks for more money than if you just do it yourself with the agency. And finally if you're in doubt or if you think you've been scammed who do we call? Please contact dadcaps consumer protection hotline at 1-800-422-7128. It's 845 coming up in just one minutes it's marc court and sports on WTMJ. Time for a WTMJ sports update from the Gruber law offices one call that's all sports desk. 2-2 pitch fly ball center field this is deep outwind back at the track by my baseball Christian Yellich ties it up on the eighth with a solo shout out to center. And that's the last we would hear from the Brewers they fell to the Dodgers yesterday 5-3 they get back on the field at the third of three games today in LA. Brewers warm up with Dominic Catronio begins at 2 o'clock here on WTMJ. I'm Isaac Mark Whart WTMJ sports. Thanks a lot it's 847 coming up in just a couple minutes. Matt Miller is going to be joining us and he has final thoughts about summer fest it's all ahead on Wisconsin weekend morning news. We're starting out with a beautiful morning sunny and just perfect temperatures but we are expecting some scattered rain and storms later on today we're only going to get up to about 80 degrees and tonight more showers and storms mostly cloudy and high of 67 and tomorrow more at the same we're going to have 80 degrees for a high but we've got a chance of some scattered showers and storms under mostly cloudy skies. Currently in River Hills we've got 70 degrees Piwaki's at 70 St Francis has 72 and we have 71 degrees at WTMJ at 850. And we've got Matt Miller here from of course I'm Milwaukee.com. He's their media critic and pop culture editor. You've been going to summer fest for what 20 years longer? I mean yes working wise I've been going to summer fest for over for a decade now. How does it change in terms of the vibe on the grounds where we're now doing just three three three-day weekends versus when it was a straight ten days through? Yeah I think for me personally I love it because I'm not beaten to death by day nine and ten from going to every show and writing up reviews the next day. So they did this just for you Matt. They did and you know what I appreciate it summer fest you're you're doing wonderful. But I do think it is an interesting vibe because they're trying I think summer fest is trying to figure out how to make the most of those nine days as well. They're putting a lot more kind of notable acts in the four and six o'clock hours so that way you get people who were there a little bit earlier. I also think they're doing a good job of bringing in younger audiences with the Aurora Pavilion and kind of turning summer fest into kind of an electronic dance club as the night goes along because at the end of the night you're seeing people gather right there and that's kind of how people end their nights now. So I think that's really cool as well but I do think you know people always talk about you know oh I like going on Tuesdays because Tuesdays we're slow days and stuff like that and I think you still get a little bit of that kind of older more people just kind of enjoying the lakefront and enjoying the vibes during the early day and then that transitions at night to kind of the more const festival music festival vibes of the kind of summer fest the younger vibe. How do you rate the food this year? I think it's great. I mean you've got a top chef on the ground this year you always have the sazza sampler platter which is an even summer fest if you don't have a sampler sampler platter from saziz. I think their drink selection has gotten a lot more vast as well they're no longer just you know beer and you know maybe the occasional you know Celts or something like that they've got a lot of different kind of drinks they've got a lot of different NA options. I think they've done a really good job of kind of diversifying their beverage lineup on the obviously not compared to like state fair where you can find anything deep fried on the stick obviously state fair still has summer fest beat in terms of the wild eclecticness of food but I think you can eat now at summer fest and not feel like you're just getting you know festival food you're getting really good festival food now at this point. Okay so you'd give this if we're doing an A through F rating what rating do you give summer fest 2024? As of right now I give it a solid B plus I've had a really good time maybe it doesn't have the big kind of viral big name kind of hip acts that kind of break summer fest and stuff like that your imagine dragons from several years ago your Noah con last year but I think it's been a really good year for entertaining shows and for discovery I think if you just wanted to go down there and walk around and see what music was good I think you started a lot of really good music kind of at random and I think that can be part of the fun of a festival yes you can have your wallows and your bottle ruse and your Coachella's where you know every single second is filled with a top 40 or a massive viral tick tock star but I think summer fest really does you know do good job of balancing you know we're got something for families we got something for younger audiences we got something for your parents we've got something for you know people who just want to come down and enjoy the lakefront they they really do try to balance everything and I think this year is still achieving that and Matt it's over it's back to watching movies so tell us about the summer box office so far yeah there's a lot of it it's finally cooking now it got to a slow start with the fall guy and Furiosa being good movies but not doing great at the box office but now you've had a lot of hits you've had bad boys uh writer die making money and being a very fun sequel inside out too is already made a billion dollars it is a smash hit right now really did a good job of playing to older audiences and younger audiences I think Despicable Me4 this weekend is going to play similarly in that you know that's a big cross-generational hit a movie that young audiences love as their franchise not a hand me down like you know Indiana Jones or some of these other kind of rehashes that have under performed in recent years and it's nice to see stuff like a quiet place day one be a really good movie you know clearly a movie made by a director with vision and with an idea for that not just a journey man um but still delivering the scares that you want and that movie's doing well as well and obviously we've got Deadpool and Wolverine to end the month that's gonna be maybe our another billion-dollar grocery I was gonna say that looks like that is going to really be the movie of the summer yeah in part because you know Deadpool and Wolverine beloved characters but also it's been a while since we've had a comic book movie which is kind of silly to say it's probably been less than half a year um but by recent Hollywood standard that's quite a while so I think people are going to be excited to see something like that again on the big screen and I also am really bullish on twisters being a hit this summer I think every time that trailer shows when I met the theaters the audience has a little pop I think those disaster movies on the big screen are really fun and the kind of reason people want to go to movies to see something big and scary and crazy you've got Glenn Powell an up-and-coming star in that I I think twisters is going to be another surprise hit though you know it was all doom and gloom two months ago from the box office traits being like oh are people going to movies anymore is streaming the only answer the answer is no people want to see movies they just need to be convinced that there's good movies to see and right now there's some interesting stuff out there to see well Matt Miller it is always great to hear from you and of course we can follow your columns at on milwaukee.com thanks for joining us today thanks for having me it's 857 and coming up after the news with Jessica um I did have the opportunity this week to talk with independent presidential candidate our fk junior and uh we're gonna play a couple excerpts from that we're gonna play the entire interview next sunday on conversations but we'll share a little bit with you it's all I had on wisconsin weekend morning news this is wisconsin's weekend morning news with litty collins and welcome back to our two a little bit later on we're going to be talking with the head about steel days about what's happening this week kind of exciting uh a lot of people Jessica of course on friday were wondering how president biden was going to do with his appearance in madison and there's still mixed reviews about that and of course that's where they recorded the conversation he had with george stuff monopolist and that's still being dissected and debated as well as far as how he did but I found this kind of interesting because um about the same time they they came out and they said there was a radio host here in wisconsin who had done an interview with president biden and it came out yesterday he told abc news a surlingram that he was given questions to ask the president now I don't think that george stuff monopolist would have taken questions and said yes i'll ask that I think he asked his own questions but i just found that very interesting right and i think biden's team well they said they were suggested questions but then i think early engram also said well he didn't feel like he got to ask everything he wanted to and then i believe i also said biden's team afterwards said they would not be providing suggested questions in future interviews so i'm assuming that also did apply to the george stuff monopolist interview um as far as stopping those suggested questions and you wonder how many more interviews he's going to do too um that's true we've got a long ways to go yeah yeah yeah and of course donald tufts wisely at this point isn't talking to anybody i mean if if i were in his position i wouldn't either i would just stay quiet and stay back but there is one other candidate and that's rfk jr and no i didn't talk to president biden didn't talk to former president trump but i did get to talk to rfk jr this past week and we're going to be playing that whole interview next sunday on wtmj conversations but uh i asked him a couple things including um if he's really going to be on the ballot in all 50 states will you be on the ballot in all 50 states including wisconsin yes i will be we we started wisconsin with a late opener and it just started uh this week and we've been uh i i think yesterday was the first day and we've been on the ground there and we will have all of our signatures we are already have enough signatures to get on the ballot in more than half the states and then by the end of this month we will have enough signatures to get on the ballot in every state and of course i also asked him his opinion of president biden's performance at the debate last week and he brought up something else that um a lot of people aren't talking about robert we've all had a couple days to absorb what happened with the debate last week as you're looking back who do you think is running this country i don't know you know i had misgivings about that beforehand because i've known president biden for 40 years and um he's always been a decent man and a good friend and one and i don't want to make this personal because this is a minor issue compared to the other crises our country's going through but his decision to deny me secret service protection during this campaign was uncorrect risk again consistent with anything that i know i mean even if he understood i was his adversary you know one of my uncle dead kennedy ran against jimmy carter they were they were just sworn enemies in 1980 and carter gave him a secret service protection 540 days out as soon as he started started talking about announcing and president biden has a bust of my father behind him at the oho office he knows what happened to my father he knows i'm entitled to the secret service protection i'm the first candidate in history that has since my father's death when they gave first gave secret service protection to uh to all the presidential candidates the first one to ask for it and to be denied so and it always occurred to me that you know maybe president biden is not making these decisions and i've had family members who've talked to the president about it and uh it seemed those discussions seem to go nowhere so it occurred to me then that the decision making at the white house over important issues may not be with the president and um i think after the debate performance last week um i think a lot of americans are having the same misgivings you know the interesting thing about that is looking at the landscape of politics today versus what they were in october of 2023 when rfk said no i'm not going to run as a democrat in the primaries i'm going to run independently um you have to wonder if as he looks back if he regrets that decision originally you filed to run in the democratic primary in light of all of this are you regretting that decision no because the the democratic primaries were rigged by the dnc the way that the delegates were selected i would have had to win between 70 and 80 percent of the delegates to win the nomination and that was just mathematically impossible and then when i started looking like i was my performance was strong they began canceling primaries so there were some 60 different rule changes that they initiated to make sure that nobody could challenge this president you know i give you an example of one of them i was campaigning in new hampshire very early and they adopted a new rule that said that any candidate who stepped into the state of new hampshire following you know to pursue a presidential nomination that any so cast for them in that primary would count for president piden so i even if i won a hundred percent vote in new hampshire all of my delegates would have gone to president piden and i think a lot of many many of these really crazy uh policies that the dnc adopted in order to keep any adversary from challenging this president they were it was really like the the old soviet system where you know they have elections the soviet union they have them in our ran they have them in you know a vladimir boot runs them in in rush today just one 88 percent of the vote because his adversaries aren't a lot of the ballot and because the president controlled well as it turns out we're doing the same thing in this country we are going to have that entire conversation with rfk jr next sunday on wtmj conversations we get into a lot of different things including his relationship with his family which you know i mean if you've ever read anything about the kennedy family first of all it's vast there's dozens and dozens and dozens of them but uh you know there's a question as to whether or not and why his family is not supporting him and we talk about that as well as his dad and a lot of other things that's going to be next sunday on wtmj conversations i'm levi collins uh coming up in just a couple minutes we've got sports with marc court it's all i had almost constant weekend morning news time for a wtmj sports update from the Gruber law offices one call that's all sports desk to two pitch fly ball center field this is deep outman back at the track by my baseball christian yelich ties it up in the eighth with a solo shout out to center and unfortunately that was not going to help the brewers too much they fell to the Dodgers yesterday five to three they get back on the field for the third of three games today in l.a. brewers warm up with dominant katronio starts at two o'clock on wtmj i am is a marc war wtmj sports nice job on sports marc court now get back to pushing buttons is like it's nine seventeen so the morning started up pretty nice we have lots of sunshine but be careful there's probably some scattered rain and storms later on today we're going to get up to about 80 degrees then tonight a chance of showers and storms mostly cloudy 67 for your high tomorrow looks like more of the same scattered showers and storms cloudy 80 degrees on Tuesday this is just repetitious isn't it uh Tuesday more isolated showers and storms uh temperatures come off just a little bit 78 Wednesday looks like we've got 76 and more of the same chance of some showers but guess what Thursday they're telling us it's going to be mostly sunny in a high of 78 degrees temperatures are really quite mild this morning in elkart lake we have 71 degrees mosquito 73 like Geneva 73 and we have 71 degrees at 9 21 on wtmj the following is a paid presentation advice and opinions expressed during the sunday sip are solely that of the hosts or guests and not wtmj radio or good karma brands milwaukee llc welcome to the sunday sip i am jon rick here joined by my friend john evert road america elkart lakes road america's communication director john thank you so much for spending some time with us john thanks for having me as always we always love doing these it's wonderful i love road america it's one of the very special places in the state of wisconsin so let's start with an overview for people who aren't that familiar tell us what makes road america so special and its simplest form as four miles and 14 turns of awesomeness it's called america's national park of speed for a reason because once you come through the gate you're not dedicated to a seat you can move around the facility watch from all sorts of different locations and we even have the mission foods too fast too tasty beach so we like to say you can sit under a shade tree put your feet in green grass and watch the world class racing but now you can also sit at the beach and actually watch the world class racing we've even got a taco truck over there too so you don't have to stray very far from your favorite seating location your favorite turn for clean restrooms and amazing concessions i love it there's so much to do there it's not just the racing we're going to get into that in a second but we never really spent enough time talking about we talk about what a cool place it is but what a big a deal is for the economy road america injects a ton of money into the local economy don't they yeah we're very proud of that as a matter of fact in 2023 we earned an economic driver award from the shaborgon county economic development corporation and a lot of people don't know this but around 254 million dollars annually helps boost shaborgon county's economy but over wow 400 million dollars for the state economy so we're super proud that we're creating jobs we're keeping money here in the state and also shaborgon county and also having a great time showing people from all over the world what Wisconsin means and and how Wisconsin's a great entertainment location road america's john ebert with us on the sunday sip let's talk about the racing a little bit just when you think it can't get any better up there at road america there are new prime viewing spots you mentioned the beach tell us about some of the other cool spots to check out the racing well we're super proud that we're always investing funds back into the facility so we'd like to tell people that definitely get your tickets early at road america.com come check out all sorts of great viewing locations and we have a blast at turn 11 the new mission too fast to tasty beach we also have a trail going down to turn 12 which makes it easier for golf carts and for people walking that love to watch in turn 12 so there's lots of elevated viewing locations there's lots of track side viewing locations there's lots of turns and unique hillsides to you know pitch a tent or put your chair out there your canopy and sit in the shade with your cooler and watch some incredible racing and let the kids play in the grass there's also disc golf there's also go carting at the bricks and strap motorplex there's also the wonderful paddock shop where people can't get souvenirs yeah jackets hats various things of the like so there's always something to see and do and move around when you're here and that's what people really love about it you alluded to the food a little bit earlier tell us about the variety of food options there at road america well you know what i got to tell you it's always fun to hear fans and racers wanting to come here because of the food we're very lucky that we have a lot of local organizations that run concession stands here so you can get everything from your classic wisconsin broads deep fried cheese curds but also truffled mac and cheese roasted chicken walking tacos i even had a sconnie stuffer for people who don't know what that is that the baked potato stuffed with cheese curds bacon macaroni and cheese pulled pork you name it all inside of a baked potato so if you're used to like kind of things you only see maybe at the state fair we got it all summer long here at road america what about the beverage selection john every kind of beverage you can kind of imagine you know from mixed cocktails to favorite adult beverages to diet sodas and things of the like a homemade lemonade as a matter of fact here is a popular uh fan favorite plus also lots of wonderful pepsi products so uh you're always looking for something to cool yourself off or give yourself something to kick back with we've got that at any one of our 14 concession stands as well john people like to get up close and personal with the racers are there the opportunities for autograph sessions or other events that the racers are involved in absolutely we're very fortunate that our paddock is always open for major events so when you think about people who are shutter bugs with their phones their smartphones they can get up and close personal to the teams and also autograph sessions and meet the drivers learn about the cars learn about the motorcycles while you're here move about the paddock find your favorites and really get to see all of the action up close in the panic and pit area so we encourage people to put on some comfortable walking shoes you're ready to cruise through the paddock find your favorite drivers get some autographs and just enjoy the day road america's john ever with us for a couple of more minutes here on the sunday sieve tell me about the four miles of fitness program well we were very proud of that as well because what's great is that a lot of people love to exercise or get out with their families whether it be strollers or bicycles or training wheels things like that but you know streets and sidewalks are sometimes tough and difficult in neighborhoods so we have every monday and wednesday night for six to eight p.m. you can walk by to run the facility for only five dollars and it's a great way for families to come we have a lot of cycling groups that love to come host their own little sprint races so if you're a cyclist and you want to ride with friends and you don't want to have to worry about trucks or cars you can definitely come do that at road america as well so everything from mountain bikes to strollers and everything can be on track from six to eight p.m great way to get your exercise on a wonderful sunny warm evening and enjoy time with family and friends yeah that time with family and friends and some absolutely stunning grounds right we're gonna give out the website in a second but first tell us about the road america app that's a great way to stay connected we always encourage people to either go to the google play store or an apple store and download the road america app because not only can you get event schedules but you can figure out concessions you can figure out campsites you can figure out what's going on for the weekend and learn how to navigate around the facility so we encourage people to check that out look at the fan schedules look at the good times guide and then uh you can get ready and come on up here and enjoy a weekend enjoy four miles of fitness or enjoy a sunset cruise with family and friends there's all sorts of things to see and do the app has live cameras interactive maps the website also has a lot of this great stuff john what is the website if people want to check out more information about road america super simple road america dot com it's a great way to go on their surf around figure out what you want to do with your family and friends for the weekend as i said before kids 16 and under getting free so it's very affordable for for families all mom and dad have to do is buy a ticket tickets can start sometimes as low as 25 dollars so we just tell people go to road america dot com pick the weekend pick the day look at our event calendar and figure out what you want to do and then you can click your tickets and print them at home and breeze right through the gate with a quick scan and just enjoy the wonderful grounds here at america's national park speed it is such a great website it's such a great gem in our state it is elkhart lakes road america make a weekend out of it with your family john ever communication director there elkhart lakes road america thanks for being with us on the sunday sift john thank you john is always and look forward to seeing everybody here all summer it is nine twenty nine and coming up we've got just in the newsroom and then after that if you're looking for even more things to do this week basteel days gets underway on thursday we'll tell you all about it on wisconsin weekend morning news and welcome back to the final half hour of wisconsin weekend morning news and will be collins well we look forward to it every year and that's basteel days right here in milwaukee and joining us on our try kind of contracting hotline is and leplay she is the executive director at alliance française which apparently has been uh educating local residents on everything french for over one hundred years in will zoom and bonjour thank you for calling that's that's about all i know uh it's uh but a hundred years alliance française has has really been been delving deep into french culture yes we've been here since uh 1918 so since the last pandemic which is a interesting sort of circle of event well this year basteel days gets underway on thursday and tell us a little bit about what to expect this year well we're bringing back all the the favorites um the five k-run on thursday night the eiffel tower and of course so it's a wonderful beignets there's fantastic food um we uh do the beignets but there's also um like park bistro laniap um in these african food like um and uh craw daddies um so there'll be uh over 25 um food vendors um and a lot of um market place um uh french items and um just it's going to be so much fun and the entertainment on five stages um during the whole four days it's it's going to be a non-stop party and i know that you have a lot of groups that aren't necessarily french or you've got the cancan dancers and and some some french expert oh you've got some other ones too right there's the extra crispy brass band that's coming that's gonna launch the the race um and uh it's playing just about every day um our good friend kevin susie has a french song uh the front uh you mentioned the cancan dancers and some norlin's music um it it is definitely going to be um just really fun kind of danceable music just to to make a really fun party well i say you've got ben mill we'll want to who we've featured on wtmj conversations a while back he's going to be one of the performers as well so it's it is a good variety now here's what a lot of people are wondering next sunday is the start of the rnc uh cathedral square park is right there in the center of where some of that security zone is is that going to affect anything on your end um no the security zone is actually starting a little bit west of uh best field days um let's start that about the river so it shouldn't affect the event i do think it might affect um parking and you know driving around but um as far as the event is concerned it it it'll have a the benefit of having a few more people at the party so we're we're excited about it what would you suggest in terms of parking and and getting there because obviously there i think they started at five a.m. on sunday as far as the the soft zone and the hard zone and all of that do you have any recommendations uh yes um so east town suggest uh visiting secure parking usa.com uh just to to get um ideas for parking but we also you know recommend that people come either by public transportation the hop uh maybe by by bike um you know just to plan ahead because um parking will be it's it's always an issue it's it's uh it's an issue because of the run uh just because it's a popular downtown um festival but um if you plan ahead you'll be fine and obviously you've got the rnc delegates who are going to be arriving next weekend are you planning anything special to welcome them to milwaukee i think we just plan on having the best event possible um making for us making the best vignettes and making maybe a few extras um we just want to you know encourage uh all the visitors both the delegates and and all the media and everyone that's coming around to to what you know see how wonderful milwaukee is and um our our festival tradition is is fantastic uh Bastille days in milwaukee is the biggest Bastille celebration in north america bigger than the new york sicago and anywhere in sycana so we're really um proud of what we do and and excited to show it to out of towners is there a large french community in the city and southeastern wisconsin well uh i don't know if you knew this but um the first mayor of milwaukee um salamentino was a french french man from canada we have a very deep uh french history uh there's a lot of french names um um from that uh there's not a huge french population but there's a growing francophone population so uh french people from obviously france canada but also from uh uh african countries that speak french um ad uh the caribbean etc so so we're seeing a growing population of of people who speak french but not who are not necessarily from print well i think a lot of people are looking forward to bastille days one of the most fun events in milwaukee during the summer and the play from alliance faunceles thank you so much for joining us today thank you it was a pleasure talking with you it's 941 coming up next what do we have on wtmj conversations well if you come from a family who either you've adopted someone into the family or maybe you're an adoptee yourself you're going to find our conversation today fascinating we'll tell you all about it right after this on wisconsin weekend morning news 944 it's difficult to grasp that anxiety that adoptees face during their search for their birth parents and diana hagenbagen and an estopolis uh talk to me about the shock she experienced when the agency told her they found her birth mother were you able to find out immediately who your parents were no at the age of 18 at that time i was only allowed non-identifying information what does that mean that means they would give you everything in the file but anything that would identify the parents they would white out that had to be frustrating it was then at 21 you can go through the same process but now you can request to meet them and of course i had some questions so after seeing all the good stories and happy reunions you know the talk show circuits back in the day i was like ready for my happy ending nothing could ever have prepared me for when they called me back within a few days they found her relatively quick and when they had said she doesn't want to meet you and i just honestly couldn't believe it diana's story is told in the award-winning documentary love differently and she's she's uh spoken before state the state legislature about her problems finding her birth parents it is a riveting story and we're going to have it for you this morning at 11 on wtmj conversations it's uh sunny right now but expect uh maybe some scattered showers throughout the day 70 we're gonna have 80 degrees for high it is 72 at wtmj at 945 and coming up in just a minute it's mark court and sports on wisconsin weekend morning news time for a wtmj sports update from the groover law offices one call that's all sports desk to to pitch fly ball center field this is deep outwind back back to track by my baseball christian yelich ties it up on the eighth with a solo shout out to center and that was as good as it was going to get for the brewers last night they fell to the dodgers five to three they'll be back on the field for the third of three games today in l.a. and our coverage starts with brewers warm up with domina katronio at two o'clock on wtmj i'm isak mark wart wtmj sports thank you so much mark court great job on sports uh let's see coming up you know what if you missed the the lakefront fireworks the other night you know i think a lot of us were sad that didn't happen this year this week you can see something else on the lakefront and it's a drone show we're going to tell you where and what it's all about it's all coming up on wisconsin weekend morning news nine forty eight and we have 73 degrees at wtmj let's start it out sunny this morning this is going to get a little cloudy in some areas we're even starting to see a little bit of that scattered rain that you'll see throughout the day we're going to get up to about 80 degrees and tonight another chance of showers and storms it's going to be cloudy down to 67 tomorrow more the same with those chances of some rain and a high of 80 Tuesday we got isolated showers and storms partly cloudy and a high of 78 right now in oak creek at 75 degrees uh ceterburg has 73 new berlands at 74 and uh we have 73 degrees at wtmj at 951 i love spotlighting places that we don't think about on a regular basis and joining us today is jamie harvey wombs she is the executive director of the charles allis and villa terris museum and that's not on everybody's radar is it you know i don't think so we're also a really really unique non-profit we're one non-profit with two museums and that's not really a common thing you know amongst museums typically they're kind of on their own but milwaukee has been supporting both of these institutions one of them since 1945 and the villa since 1966 what makes them special oh gosh everything the charles allis art museum is fascinating because the house was actually built as a museum even while the allisas lived there and so charles died in 1917 and sarah went on to live like about another 20 to 30 years and she continued to collect and fill the house with these incredible art historical pieces we have a Rembrandt etching we have one of napoleon's death masks it's shocking and i would argue the allis is one of those cultural gems that's a really good hidden secret the villa terris on the other hand was built by the smith family and really is that kind of breath of fresh air getaway experience on the lake side if you don't have a mansion in milwaukee guess what taxpayers now you do come and visit the villa all right when is this open to the public we are open to the public wednesday through sunday wednesday and thursday we are open ten to five and then on friday saturday sunday ten to two and what else can we see there we do some pretty incredible exhibitions so today we have a rug hooking survey or retrospective of the work of emmy robertson who's a milwaukee based rug hooker and she does these rugs that almost look like paintings they have personal narrative some of them have really strong themes of feminism and identity and storytelling and those exhibitions like emmys rotate all the time we also have an artist in residence and so celeste contraras has an exhibition opening up here at the end of june and then we have some pretty spectacular permanent collection so you get to a little bit of house museum but you also get some contemporary art and decorative art at the villa what's your favorite part of it oh you know what i think that my own favorite part and it's the thing that even today kind of took my breath away is that lakefront you walk through our doors and suddenly you can't see a skyscraper even though there is one just a few blocks away you're transported to italy and lake michigan suddenly looks like the mediterranean and you're not quite sure where you are exactly so i think it's that water to building experience that just takes your breath away we're talking with jamie harvey wilms the executive director of the charles allis and villa terrace museums villa terrace is going to be having some events coming up here in july yeah you know what we're a hundred years old so this italian renaissance style house was completed in 1924 so we are celebrating our hundredth year this year and so we're doing a hundred events in our hundredth year which includes free yoga every sunday our sunday concert series that's also free and open to the public and then our friends group which is an incredible group of volunteers that cares for our gardens they're throwing a gala on july 13th and it's going to be for lack of a better term a banger it should be it should be super fun music incredible food some pretty fun fashion i think and then if we work our way backwards we have an artist day on july 11th and we are actually giving a gift to mawakhi in the form of mawakhi's second drone show it should be able to light up the entire lakefront with i think it's 300 drones tell us about that now that's going to be on the evening of july 10 yes so at the villa there'll be some premium seating because the drone show will be centered on the villa although i believe you'll be able to see it from most of the lakefront and so we're throwing a glow in the dark party our friends group is and it should be a super great time for family and friends will be a bar set up and i believe some food trucks and then the drone show itself has been designed by mawakhi artist ray qi and it's just going to light up the sky with themes of the villa terrace is 100 years as well as a little bit of mawakhi now how can you get tickets for that because i know there is a charge yes you can go to the friends of villa terrace's website and if you just google friends of villa terrace or villa terrace you'll it'll come up and you can get your tickets that way i know we don't want this to happen but if it rains on the 10th there is a rain day there is a rain day believe it's actually the next night which is the 11th it won't rain right though no figures cross yeah yeah it's not going to rain so jamie if anybody wants to learn more about the villa terrace art museum and of course the alice house how can they do it and find out about some of the events and also i know that you host a lot of private events oh my gosh we do so much you can visit c-a-v-t c-a-v is in victor or villa t museziams.org and our websites for both museums will have a ton of information on history as well as current events also follow us on instagram facebook we create events and fun graphics and give you some behind the scenes on all of those social media accounts and happy hundredth anniversary you know what i haven't been around the whole time but i'll take it thank you it is going to be a fun week around milwaukee in between basteel days the lake villa terrace a drone show i mean if you're close to that area that's going to be pretty cool hopefully it won't rain on wednesday but you know what we've got sunshine on thursday so you should be okay coming up we've got a lot going on today uh right after the news is brian and david wicked on the acting at mortgage and realty show it was job numbers came out this week how's it going to affect your chance to buy your sell your home they're going to talk about that also i'll be back at 11 with our conversation with a woman who's search for her uh birth parents it's just it's unbelievable what she went through and she's going to tell about it and as a matter of fact they've got a documentary called love differently that was uh put together about her story so you want to hear that and then at two o'clock it's bruise warm up with domina katronio it's all i had on w t m j