On April 17 a record breaking number of child care advocates marched on the Wisconsin state capital and sent a message to legislators that the state needs to invest $480 million in childcare. According to the Institute for Research on Poverty, without this investment, 1 in 4 childcare providers in the state could shut down. To shed light on these changes, host Douglas Haynes is joined by Corrine Hendrickson and Ruth Schmidt, two child care professionals and advocates.

Featured image of kids at daycare via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Hejira world music radio show host Jeff Spitzer-Resnick interview of Shivali Chandrachekar

Yasmin Ullah, Rohingya feminist, author, poet, and social justice activist is also the Founder and the Executive Director of the Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network. Born in the Northern Arakan state of Burma/Myanmar, she fled with her family to Thailand in 1995 and remained a refugee until moving to Canada in 2011.

The Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network is a women-led, Rohingya-led and refugee-led organization working on Rohingya human rights issues, sexual and gender-based violence, education and translocal solidarity. It focuses on women, peace and security in an intersectional framework.

These women have committed to carry out this work carefully, compassionately and empathetically, with the best interests of their community as a guiding principle, throughout the region of Southeast Asia. As ASEAN is their home, Rohingya people have as much stake in the systemic change of the region as others there and they aim to equip themselves to protect and inspire vulnerable groups.

Yasmin speaks about her community, threats to it, the preservation and promotion of Rohingya culture and traditions and the struggle for human rights and dignity for this targeted group.

Their website is here: http://women4rohingya.org/ and the US Holocaust Museum exhibit Yasmin mentioned is here: http://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/burma

In this week's edition of Forward Lookout, host Brenda Konkel and producer Christina Lieffring run through the week's meetings for Dane County and the City of Madison. The City is still working through the details of the process for hiring a police chief, the county has a pretty hefty Personnel and Finance Committee meeting, and the UW Extension Committee is meeting about... crops? nitrogen? If you know, let us know.

More than 2,000 attendees gathered at the Alliant Energy Center last month for the Wisconsin Cheese Makers annual convention.

Bert and Pete talk about their anger, frustration, and confusion regarding the federal tariffs...and the winners of the cheese competitions in this week's episode of The Milkweed.

Photo by Dennis Zhang on Unsplash

Aired on 2025-03-06

Unexpected maintenance-related shutdown at the Beacon cut off essential services for Madison's unhoused. Matvei Mozhaev surveyed how the homeless community and city resources adapted to the situation.

Full transcript on https://www.wortfm.org/homeless-shelters-single-day-closure-strains-unhoused-community/

This week on Mel & Floyd: The WORT Zeppelin brings the funk; Pope Francis in retrospect; Police state reaches Milwaukee judge; Ironically named Department of “Justice” investigating Act Blue; Tax increase for millionaires? Not so much!; Distracting from the bone spurs; Resurrecting 9/11 conspiracy theories; And other random topics; Notice something missing? For the complete “Mel and Floyd Experience,” buy the CD “The Very Best of James Brown” and play it on your Hi-fi while listening to this podcast!

Photo courtesy Scottsdale Mint on Unsplash

The reported number of unhoused students in Wisconsin’s public schools hit a record high last year. Also on the rise: the number of children who are unhoused and unaccompanied by an adult.

More than 20,000 students in Wisconsin public schools reported being homeless at some point in the 2023 to 2024 academic year. That’s according to a new report from Wisconsin Policy Forum, a nonpartisan research organization.

In late March, the climate advocacy group Greenpeace was ordered to pay $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the oil company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The grassroots protests against DAPL in 2016 and 2017 were organized by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Indigenous water protectors. Greenpeace peacefully supported the protests but was charged with defamation by Energy Transfer.

On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is joined by Cody Hall who reminds listeners of what happened at the Standing Rock protests and No DAPL movement against the incursion of the Energy Transfer oil pipeline.

Featured image of a pipeline protest via Leslie Peterson on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).