Is Presidents Day a federal holiday? See what's open and closed in Wisconsin today
Presidents Day is the third Monday in February, this year falling on Monday, Feb. 17.
Officially known as Washington's Birthday, Presidents Day was originally established in honor of the first president, George Washington. It unofficially was dubbed Presidents Day in the "late 20th century," according to mountvernon.org.
The day also celebrates the 16th president Abraham Lincoln's birthday, the National Archives says.
Yes, Presidents Day is a federal holiday, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
More: What is President's Day? Upcoming holiday started with Washington, now for all presidents
Federal government offices will be closed since Presidents Day is a federal holiday, according to OPM.
Wisconsin state government and Milwaukee city offices will be open.
Post offices will be closed on Presidents Day, according to the U.S. Postal Service. Mail will not be delivered.
UPS pickup and delivery services will be available on Presidents Day, according to its website.
FedEx pickup and delivery services will be also available and locations will be open, according to the company's website.
Most banks follow the Federal Reserve holiday schedule and will be closed on Presidents Day, according to Bankrate.
Most businesses and stores throughout Wisconsin will likely be open or have modified hours.
Milwaukee Public Schools will be closed for a mid-semester break on Feb. 17, according to its districtwide calendar.
Milwaukee Public Libraries will be open on Presidents Day, according to the library system's website.
More: When is Easter? Key dates for the 2025 season in Wisconsin
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Presidents Day 2025: What's open and closed in Wisconsin today
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Yahoo
10 hours ago
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Nursery parents win closure review but concerns remain
Aberdeenshire Council has agreed to pause the mothballing of four rural nurseries. Parents were told in April that Ballogie, Crossroads, Glass and Sandhaven nurseries would close at the end of term. Councillors have now agreed to put those decisions on hold while it reviews its guidance around how it consults with families. Campaigners have welcomed the move, but said they had lost confidence in the local authority. At a special meeting of the full council, councillors agreed to pause all future mothballing - which means closing premises but keeping them in a condition ready for future use - while a review of guidance was carried out. During the meeting, councillors on the local authority's ruling administration decided not to allow members of the public to give their views. Campaigner and parent Lindsay Love told BBC Scotland News: ''We all came hoping to speak on behalf of our communities and we were silenced.''' She said she had mixed emotions about the decision to pause mothballing. Ms Love said: ''I'm nervous that they are actually going to move forward with integrity. I feel like they're trying to control the narrative now. "We just need to make sure that we're protecting our nurseries and our rural communities as best as we can." She added: "Whilst is it a good thing that they've decided to pause the mothballing, I don't have a huge amount of confidence in them as an institution to do the right thing.'' More stories from North East Scotland, Orkney and Shetland Listen to news from North East Scotland on BBC Sounds Council leader Gillian Owen said the council had carefully reflected on what parents had been calling for. No timescale was given for the review. Ms Owen said: ''I think we're looking at doing a review quite swiftly but we've got to wait for the Scottish government guidelines.'' She denied families had been "silenced" by not being allowed to speak at the meeting. The councillor added: "We've actually made the changes that they want. ''They must look at that as an actual celebration, not as a slight.'' When the move to mothball the nurseries was announced at the start of the Easter school holidays, it sparked a backlash from local communities. Since then, families have been campaigning to keep them open, arguing the decision was made without proper consultation. The Scottish government also wrote to Aberdeenshire Council to highlight the need to consult parents in such cases. Last week, the local authority's ruling administration said it wanted to pause the controversial plans. Aberdeenshire Council Tory leader stands down Nursery mothballing move taking 'extreme toll' Officials mothballing school branded undemocratic Aberdeenshire Council
Atlantic
2 days ago
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Where Is Barack Obama?
Last month, while Donald Trump was in the Middle East being gifted a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar, Barack Obama headed off on his own foreign excursion: a trip to Norway, in a much smaller and more tasteful jet, to visit the summer estate of his old friend King Harald V. Together, they would savor the genteel glories of Bygdøyveien in May. They chewed over global affairs and the freshest local salmon, which had been smoked on the premises and seasoned with herbs from the royal garden. Trump has begun his second term with a continuous spree of democracy-shaking, economy-quaking, norm-obliterating action. And Obama, true to form, has remained carefully above it all. He picks his spots, which seldom involve Trump. In March, he celebrated the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and posted his annual NCAA basketball brackets. In April, he sent out an Easter message and mourned the death of the pope. In May, he welcomed His Holiness Pope Leo XIV ('a fellow Chicagoan') and sent prayers to Joe Biden following his prostate-cancer diagnosis. No matter how brazen Trump becomes, the most effective communicator in the Democratic Party continues to opt for minimal communication. His 'audacity of hope' presidency has given way to the fierce lethargy of semi-retirement. Obama occasionally dips into politics with brief and unmemorable statements, or sporadic fundraising emails (subject: 'Barack Obama wants to meet you. Yes you.'). He praised his law-school alma mater, Harvard, for 'rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt' by the White House 'to stifle academic freedom.' He criticized a Republican bill that would threaten health care for millions. He touted a liberal judge who was running for a crucial seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. When called upon, he can still deliver a top-notch campaign spiel, donor pitch, convention speech, or eulogy. Beyond that, Obama pops in with summer and year-end book, music, and film recommendations. He recently highlighted a few articles about AI and retweeted a promotional spot for Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds, a new Netflix documentary from his and Michelle's production company. (Michelle also has a fashion book coming out later this year: 'a celebration of confidence, identity, and authenticity,' she calls it.) Apparently, Barack is a devoted listener of The Ringer 's Bill Simmons Podcast, or so he told Jimmy Kimmel over dinner. In normal times, no one would deny Obama these diversions. He performed the world's most stressful job for eight years, served his country, made his history, and deserved to kick back and do the usual ex-president things: start a foundation, build a library, make unspeakable amounts of money. But the inevitable Trump-era counterpoint is that these are not normal times. And Obama's detachment feels jarringly incongruous with the desperation of his longtime admirers—even more so given Trump's assaults on what Obama achieved in office. It would be one thing if Obama had disappeared after leaving the White House, maybe taking up painting like George W. Bush. The problem is that Obama still very much has a public profile—one that screams comfort and nonchalance at a time when so many other Americans are terrified. 'There are many grandmas and Rachel Maddow viewers who have been more vocal in this moment than Barack Obama has,' Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Institute, told me. 'It is heartbreaking,' he added, 'to see him sacrificing that megaphone when nobody else quite has it.' People who have worked with Obama since he left office say that he is extremely judicious about when he weighs in. 'We try to preserve his voice so that when he does speak, it has impact,' Eric Schultz, a close adviser to Obama in his post-presidency, told me. 'There is a dilution factor that we're very aware of.' 'The thing you don't want to do is, you don't want to regularize him,' former Attorney General Eric Holder, a close Obama friend and collaborator, told me. When I asked Holder what he meant by 'regularize,' he explained that there was a danger of turning Obama into just another hack commentator—' Tuesdays With Barack, or something like that,' Holder said. Like many of Obama's confidants, Holder bristles at suggestions that the former president has somehow deserted the Trump opposition. 'Should he do more? Everybody can have their opinions,' Holder said. 'The one thing that always kind of pisses me off is when people say he's not out there, or that he's not doing things, that he's just retired and we never hear from him. If you fucking look, folks, you would see that he's out there.' From the April 2016 issue: The Obama doctrine Obama's aides also say that he is loath to overshadow the next generation of Democratic leaders. They emphasize that he spends a great deal of time speaking privately with candidates and officials who seek his advice. But unfortunately for Democrats, they have not found their next fresh generational sensation since Obama was elected 17 years ago (Joe Biden obviously doesn't count). Until a new leader emerges, Obama could certainly take on a more vocal role without 'regularizing' himself in the lowlands of Trump-era politics. Obama remains the most popular Democrat alive at a time of historic unpopularity for his party. Unlike Biden, he appears not to have lost a step, or three. Unlike with Bill Clinton, his voice remains strong and his baggage minimal. Unlike both Biden and Clinton, he is relatively young and has a large constituency of Americans who still want to hear from him, including Black Americans, young voters, and other longtime Democratic blocs that gravitated toward Trump in November. 'Should Obama get out and do more? Yes, please,' Tracy Sefl, a Democratic media consultant in Chicago, told me. 'Help us,' she added. 'We're sinking over here.' Obama's conspicuous scarcity while Trump inflicts such damage isn't just a bad look. It's a dereliction of the message that he built his career on. When Obama first ran for president in 2008, his former life as a community organizer was central to his message. His campaign was not merely for him, but for civic action itself—the idea of Americans being invested in their own change. Throughout his time in the White House, he emphasized that 'citizen' was his most important title. After he left office in 2017, Obama said that he would work to inspire and develop the next cohort of leaders, which is essentially the mission of his foundation. It would seem a contradiction for him to say that he's devoting much of his post-presidency to promoting civic engagement when he himself seems so disengaged. To some degree, patience with Obama began wearing thin when he was still in office. His approval ratings sagged partway through his second term (before rebounding at the end). The rollout of the Affordable Care Act in 2013 was a fiasco, and the midterm elections of 2014 were a massacre. Obama looked powerless as Republicans in Congress ensured that he would pass no major legislation in his second term and blocked his nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. 'Obama, out,' the president said in the denouement of his last comedy routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, in 2016. In Obama lore, this mic-drop moment would instantly become famous—and prophetic. After Trump's first victory, Obama tried to reassure supporters that this was merely a setback. 'I don't believe in apocalyptic—until the apocalypse comes,' he said in an interview with The New Yorker. Insofar as Obama talked about how he imagined his post-presidency, he was inclined to disengage from day-to-day politics. At a press conference in November 2016, Obama said that he planned to 'take Michelle on vacation, get some rest, spend time with my girls, and do some writing, do some thinking.' He promised to give Trump the chance to do his job 'without somebody popping off in every instance.' But in that same press conference, he also allowed that if something arose that raised 'core questions about our values and our ideals, and if I think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then I'll examine it when it comes.' That happened almost immediately. A few days after vowing in his inaugural address to end the 'American carnage' that he was inheriting, Trump signed an executive order banning foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days. The so-called Muslim travel ban would quickly be blocked by the courts, but not before sowing chaos at U.S. points of entry. Obama put out a brief statement through a spokesperson ('the president fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion'), and went on vacation. Trump's early onslaught made clear that Obama's ex-presidency would prove far more complicated than previous ones. And Obama's taste for glamorous settings and famous company—Richard Branson, David Geffen, George Clooney—made for a grating contrast with the turmoil back home. 'Just tone it down with the kitesurfing pictures,' John Oliver, the host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, said of Obama in an interview with Seth Meyers less than a month after the president left office. 'America is on fire,' Oliver added. 'I know that people accused him of being out of touch with the American people during his presidency. I'm not sure he's ever been more out of touch than he is now.' Oliver's spasm foreshadowed a rolling annoyance that continued as Trump's presidency wore on: that Obama was squandering his power and influence. 'Oh, Obama is still tweeting good tweets. That's very nice of him,' the anti-Trump writer Drew Magary wrote in a Medium column titled 'Where the Hell Is Barack Obama?' in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. 'I'm sick of Obama staying above the fray while that fray is swallowing us whole.' Obama did insert himself in the 2024 election, reportedly taking an aggressive behind-the-scenes role last summer in trying to nudge Biden out of the race. He delivered a showstopper speech at the Democratic National Convention and campaigned several times for Kamala Harris in the fall. But among longtime Obama admirers I've spoken with, frustration with the former president has built since Trump returned to office. While campaigning for Harris last year, Obama framed the stakes of the election in terms of a looming catastrophe. 'These aren't ordinary times, and these are not ordinary elections,' he said at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh. Yet now that the impact is unfolding in the most pernicious ways, Obama seems to be resuming his ordinary chill and same old bits. Green, of the Progressive Change Institute, told me that when Obama put out his March Madness picks this year, he texted Schultz, the Obama adviser. 'Have I missed him speaking up in other places recently?' Green asked him. 'He did not respond to that.' (Schultz confirmed to me that he ignored the message but vowed to be 'more responsive to Adam Green's texts in the future.') Being a former president is inherently tricky: The role is ill-defined, and peripheral by definition. Part of the trickiness is how an ex-president can remain relevant, if he wants to. This is especially so given the current president. 'I don't know that anybody is relevant in the Trump era,' Mark Updegrove, a presidential historian and head of the LBJ Foundation, told me. Updegrove, who wrote a book called Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House, said that Trump has succeeded in creating a reality in which every president who came before is suspect. 'All the standard rules of being an ex-president are no longer applicable,' he said. Still, Obama never presented himself as a 'standard rules' leader. This was the idea that his political rise was predicated on—that change required bold, against-the-grain thinking and uncomfortable action. Clearly, Obama still views himself this way, or at least still wants to be perceived this way. (A few years ago, he hosted a podcast with Bruce Springsteen called Renegades.) From the July 1973 issue: The last days of the president Stepping into the current political melee would not be an easy or comfortable role for Obama. He represents a figure of the past, which seems more and more like the ancient past as the Trump era crushes on. He is a notably long-view guy, who has spent a great deal of time composing a meticulous account of his own narrative. 'We're part of a long-running story,' Obama said in 2014. 'We just try to get our paragraph right.' Or thousands of paragraphs, in his case: The first installment of Obama's presidential memoir, A Promised Land, covered 768 pages and 29 hours of audio. No release date has been set for the second volume. But this might be one of those times for Obama to take a break from the long arc of the moral universe and tend to the immediate crisis. Several Democrats I've spoken with said they wish that Obama would stop worrying so much about the 'dilution factor.' While Democrats struggle to find their next phenom, Obama could be their interim boss. He could engage regularly, pointing out Trump's latest abuses. He did so earlier this spring, during an onstage conversation at Hamilton College. He was thoughtful, funny, and sounded genuinely aghast, even angry. He could do these public dialogues much more often, and even make them thematic. Focus on Trump's serial violations of the Constitution one week (recall that Obama once taught constitutional law), the latest instance of Trump's naked corruption the next. Blast out the most scathing lines on social media. Yes, it might trigger Trump, and create more attention than Obama evidently wants. But Trump has shown that ubiquity can be a superpower, just as Biden showed that obscurity can be ruinous. People would notice. Democrats love nothing more than to hold up Obama as their monument to Republican bad faith. Can you imagine if Obama did this? some Democrat will inevitably say whenever Trump does something tacky, cruel, or blatantly unethical (usually before breakfast). Obama could lean into this hypocrisy—tape recurring five-minute video clips highlighting Trump's latest scurrilous act and title the series 'Can You Imagine If I Did This?' Or another idea—an admittedly far-fetched one. Trump has decreed that a massive military parade be held through the streets of Washington on June 14. This will ostensibly celebrate the Army's 250th anniversary, but it also happens to fall on Trump's 79th birthday. The parade will cost an estimated $45 million, including $16 million in damage to the streets. (Can you imagine if Obama did this?) The spectacle cries out for counterprogramming. Obama could hold his own event, in Washington or somewhere nearby. It would get tons of attention and drive Trump crazy, especially if it draws a bigger crowd. Better yet, make it a parade, or 'citizen's march,' something that builds momentum as it goes, the former president and community organizer leading on foot. This would be the renegade move. Few things would fire up Democrats like a head-to-head matchup between Trump and Obama. If nothing else, it would be fun to contemplate while Democrats keep casting about for their long-delayed future. 'The party needs new rising stars, and they need the room to figure out how to meet this moment, just like Obama figured out how to meet the moment 20 years ago,' Jon Favreau, a co-host of Pod Save America and former director of speechwriting for the 44th president, told me. 'Unless, of course, Trump tries to run for a third term, in which case I'll be begging Obama to come out of retirement.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
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Musk was Trump's tweeter-in-chief. Now he's using X against him
Elon Musk's X profile is like a window into his psyche: an inescapable stream of consciousness where impulsive tweets reveal his unfiltered thoughts and shifting moods. Musk harnessed his social media platform to propel Donald Trump to the White House, feeding anti-Democrat content and election conspiracy theories to his followers. Now Musk is turning that same platform – home to nearly 600 million monthly users – against him. After posting earlier in the week that Trump's signature budget policy was a 'disgusting abomination' that will 'drive America into debt slavery', the billionaire is openly taunting Trump on X, even calling for his impeachment. An analysis of Musk's tweets by The Independent shows that Musk has undergone a dramatic shift in both the tone and volume of his posts since his initial support of Trump in mid-2024 to when he began distancing himself from his governmental duties earlier this year – weeks before the White House announced his Washington tenure had finished. And now the platform has chronicled the rise and fall of the world's most powerful bromance. Musk began tweeting incessantly after he publicly endorsed Trump in July last year following the first attempt on the president's life in Butler, Pennsylvania. Then, once Musk was tapped in November to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, he emerged as Trump's tweeter-in-chief. Despite his new White House commitments, not to mention running six companies – including SpaceX, Tesla, and X itself – Musk appeared more glued to his keyboard than ever, using the platform as his primary news source, and place to share his views and stir up controversy. The first 50 days of the Trump administration arguably marked Musk's most fervent display of support for the president, both in terms of tweet content and frequency. On February 7, he mused that, 'I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man.' Take President's Day, February 17, his most prolific 24-hour posting spell to date. Musk posted 262 times, according to The Independent's analysis, with messages ranging from single emojis to lengthy missives attacking Democrats. All told, the posting spree equated to one message every five-and-a-half minutes, with no breaks. Musk had a busy Q1 — between January 20 and March 10, he posted 6,778 times – averaging more than 135 X posts per day. And he stayed on message, tweeting about his government-slashing force DOGE more than any other topic in that period, quickly followed by 'Trump' and 'president.' Social media analytics firms like Social Blade were forced to stop tracking tweets after X said these businesses had to pay for an Enterprise subscription, at $42,000 to $210,000 a month. The resulting gap has made transparency on X murkier than ever; and is also why The Independent could only analyze Musk's posts until mid-March. In early spring, Musk's public pledges of MAGA allegiance and trollish squibs began to slow down, and the subjects of his posts moved from Trump administration duties to his own commercial interests. Buyers of his electric vehicles protested against his shift to right-wing politics and efforts to dismantle federal departments, with Tesla's stock price plummeting, and a Rome dealership set ablaze. In April, Musk announced plans to significantly reduce his involvement with DOGE, opting to work remotely and allocate more time to Tesla. A month later, Musk's X daily posts at points reached single figures. In hindsight, it might be considered the calm before the storm. By the end of May, Musk came off the platform to deliver a gut punch to the Trump administration. He told NBC News that Trump's showpiece tax bill 'undermines' the work done by DOGE, without directly mentioning the president. Musk landed a heavy blow on Tuesday, blasting the president's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' as an 'outrageous, pork-filled, disgusting abomination.' But it was after a press conference with the German Chancellor where Trump said he was 'disappointed' with Musk's comments, that Musk went on his most destructive X rampage yet — calling Trump ungrateful, calling for his impeachment and saying he's linked to Jeffrey Epstein. And these claims get read and spread by a wide audience: his Thursday post declaring 'Trump would have lost the election' if it weren't for his support garnered nearly 15 million views in a single day. This is more than just a playground spat between the two rich powerful men, because Musk's ownership of X allows him to reach a vast audience, some of whom are skeptical of mainstream media, and control a narrative — and his posts have been known to set off market reactions, media cycles, and political waves. Those who have stuck with X, whether they are one of Musk's 220 million followers or not, have been inundated with his musings and attacks morning, noon, and night. Musk is believed to selectively issue suspensions and use algorithms to throttle foes that are critical of both him and his ventures. According to the tech news site Platformer, the self-styled 'free speech absolutist' directed a team of 80 engineers to amplify his own tweets over others, ensuring they reach vast audiences (he allegedly did the same for Trump in November). Musk has subsequently blurred the line between platform owner, political provocateur and propagandist. How will he next use X to punish the social media-reliant, legacy media-averse president?
