It takes the average Latina, 12 extra months to earn what the average White, non-Hispanic man earns. That is because Latinas are only paid .55 cents to the dollar of […]

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It was announced earlier this month that the new tech startup Realta Fusion will partner with Madison Gas and Electric and build a nuclear fusion plant in Southern Wisconsin. Realta also announced that they would be building a fusion research facility at the old Oscar Mayer location in Madison. Fusion energy scientist Stephanie Diem and Director of the Great Lakes Fusion Energy Alliance Kathleen Gallagher joined Patrick Casey to talk about what this collaboration means for Wisconsin.

UW Madison has a 50 year fusion energy program, one of the oldest programs of this type in the world, and along with MIT, is leading the way in developing this industry. There are 90 fusion companies in the world, and nearly all of them have graduates from the UW Madison, which has graduated close to 600 students from the program. It’s rare for these companies to progress to forming a partnership with an energy company; The partnership with MG&E makes Wisconsin a possible leader in this emerging industry.

Fusion is a hydrogen based energy, and it is the process of heating light elements, such as deuterium and trivium, to a temperature ten times hotter than the sun to fuse together. Fission, in contrast, is the process of heating heavy elements until they break apart. The initial heating involves using lasers and microwaves inside magnetic bottles to maintain the hot temperature, because once the bottles are heated, they must remain at this temperature to continue the reaction. Some of the energy produced is used to continue heating up the bottles to continue reactions, while the rest of the energy can be turned into usable energy.

Stephanie Diem received her PhD in Plasma Physics from Princeton University where she studied at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Prior to joining UW-Madison, Professor Diem was a Research and Development Scientist in the Fusion Energy Division at Oak Bridge National Laboratory and spent two years at the National Fusion Facility at General Atomics in San Diego. She was a speaker at the 2022 White House Summit on Commercial Fusion Energy and co-developed the US Fusion Energy website for the United States Department of Energy.

Kathleen Gallagher is Executive Director of 5 Lakes Institute, a non-profit that works to improve the Great Lakes region’s technological and entrepreneurial landscape. 5 Lakes runs the Great Lakes Fusion Energy Alliance and the Wisconsin Fusion Energy Coalition, which was launched by WEDC in January with a $778,000 Ignite Wisconsin grant. Kathleen is also a guest columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and hosts “Midwest Moxie,” a radio show/podcast that features interviews with Midwest company founders.

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Earlier this week, the Atlanta City Council approved an addition $31 million dollars for the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. This was after more than 16 hours […]

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On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow takes the bait and rages against the patriarchy. She’s joined by scholar and former midwife Annie Menzel, and they evaluate the trad wife archetype and social media empire represented in the popular new release, Yesteryear.

Yesteryear opens the door to conversations about: eugenics and the purity of the white family; nostalgic settler colonial fantasies of frontier life; the misogyny of the current MAGA movement and the drudgery of nineteenth century life; rape culture and heterosexuality; white Christian nationalism; and so much more. And on top of all that, the novel looks behind the curtain to scenes of labor and laborers that make this highly curated lifestyle popular and very visible.

Annie Menzel is a political theorist, former midwife, and Associate Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at UW-Madison. Her work focuses on understanding how white supremacy, colonization, and gender-based oppression shape human reproductive life, health, and care.

Featured image of the cover of Yesteryear.

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“The Philippines is under a new administration, but still the government’s case against de Lima hobbles along, a symbol of the country’s degradation from the Duterte years of violent populism […]

The post Timothy McLaughlin on Leila de Lima and the cost of criticism in The P... appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

The federal government–from the Justice Department to the FDA–is spending a lot of money on banning gender affirming care for trans youth. And though there is no state mandated ban, providers have stopped offering gender affirming care in Wisconsin. At the same time, Republican leaders like Pete Hegeseth are pro-hormone therapy when it comes to giving cisgender people hormones. On today’s show, host Dana Pellebon takes on the state of hormone therapy with journalist Orion Rummler and two local advocates, Skye-Gia and Venus of OutReach.

In Rummler’s latest article for The 19th, they write that the Trump administration is aligned with science when it comes to giving estrogen to cisgender women experiencing perimenopause and menopause. But the administration also mischaracterizes why this is important, saying that estrogen makes women docile and less likely to get divorced. Then there’s Pete Hegeseth who is obsessed with testing cisgender men in the military for low testosterone. That’s on top of broad cuts to Medicaid that disproportionately affect LGBTQ+ folks and new regulations that limit how states are able to provide HIV services.

Venus says that they’ve noticed more people stressed out by the shrinking options for trans healthcare, but people are organizing and planning. Community care shouldn’t have to go underground, and Venus wants to see a new system, not simply a reformed one shaped by electoral politics.

Skye-Gia is frustrated by the failure of many Democrats to speak up about trans rights. It was only three years ago that Governor Evers vetoed a bill that would have banned gender affirming care for people under 18. But campaign promises won’t change a broken system.

Skye-Gia Garcia is a community organizer who currently holds a position at OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center working with unhoused youth.

Orion Rummler covers LGBTQ+ health for The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom. They have covered this beat from Capitol Hill, the White House, inside the Supreme Court, and in states across the country.

Venus is a Black 24-year-old transexual artist, dancer, and visionary, and is also a rapid rehousing navigator for EverStrong, helping young adults obtain and maintain stable housing.

Featured image of a hypodermic needle.

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Sold in headshops and on the grey market, “spice” or K2 is a way to get high while avoiding showing up on a drug test. Whether or not they’re legal […]

The post Synthetic Cannabinoids, the Analogue Act, and an Unprecedented Prosecu... appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

There are term limits on the President of the United States, but why aren’t similar conditions placed on Congress? On today’s show, guest host Douglas Alexander has a friendly debate about the likelihood and efficacy of congressional term limits with scholar Anthony Fowler.

Congressional term limits are generally popular with US voters across the political spectrum, but Fowler says that if you look closely at the studies and academic literature, there isn’t a lot of evidence that term limits would be good or effective. In democratic elections, voters are able to choose their favorite candidate, and whoever is in office has an incentive to get reelected. Fowler argues that term limits would make these two aspects of electoral politics less effective.

One argument for term limits is that they would restrict politicians’ likelihood of pandering to voters, says Fowler. Instead of term limits, Fowler recommends other kinds of reform, like changing the nature of legislative jobs so that more competent people will run for them. But Alexander asks, would imposing term limits make it possible for more diverse candidates to run for office to begin with?

Fowler tracks political polarization and studies electoral incentives within political institutions. He works on the web series, the Democracy Reform Primer Series in which scholars break down issues like congressional term limits, filibuster reform, the electoral college, and more.

Anthony Fowler is the Sydney A. Stein, Jr. Professor in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. His research applies econometric methods for causal inference to questions in political science, with particular emphasis on elections and political representation. Specific interests include unequal political participation, electoral accountability, political polarization, and the credibility of empirical research. He is the director of the Center for Effective Government, an editor-in-chief of the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, an author of Thinking Clearly with Data, and a host of Not Another Politics Podcast.

Featured image of the House of Congress chamber from 2011 via Flickr.

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