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Lumberjack World Championships draw competitors from more than a dozen states to northern Wisconsin

By CNN

WI: LUMBERJACK WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

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    Wisconsin (WCCO) — For 66 years, the Lumberjack World Championships have brought the world’s best to Hayward, Wisconsin.

The skills that helped shape this region have become a test of strength, speed, and balance.

More than 100 competitors from around the world are here this week, chasing world titles in chopping, sawing, speed climbing, log rolling and the boom run.

Organizers say it’s a connection of the past and present.

“We have everything here. We’ve got the full complement of events, secondly is the history. This actually was an old holding pond for the sawmill back in the 1800s,” said Samantha LaSalle, event director for the Lumberjack World Championships.

For her husband, Adam LaSalle, who grew up in central New York, that history connects him to his family’s logging business.

“The athletics side of it, with the natural resources side of it. I grew up in a rural area with a family logging business and grew up cutting trees. That’s something that I thoroughly enjoy,” said LaSalle, who has been a professional lumberjack for over 20 years.

Others grew up just down the road.

Deven Blair from the town of Winter, Wisconsin, still chases speed climbing records.

While Connor Birdsong has spent years mastering the delicate balance of log rolling and the controlled chaos of the boom run.

“Your head, your feet, your core, everything needs to be involved to really be successful at it,” said Birdsong, a professional log roller and boom runner.

For six-time Boom Run World Champion Meredith Ingbretson, who was born and raised in Hayward, it’s simply home.

“It’s just a part of my heart and so being able to share what our community in town can offer people from across the world, it’s just really special,” said Ingbretson.

That sense of community is felt by the competitors representing 16 states and nine countries.

“Everybody supports everybody. Win or lose, we’re all happy. We all love what we do,” said Deven Blair, a professional lumberjack.

For generations, these waters have been part of a Northwoods tradition. These athletes know how to navigate them.

The party starts with comedian Charlie Berens performing Wednesday night.

The festival and competition begin on Thursday with finals on Saturday.

You’ll find more information and tickets at: lumberjackworldchampionships.com

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

The Trump admin wants to test paint patches on an iconic DC building this week. Preservationists are trying to stop it.

By CNN
(CNN) — Preservationists are seeking to stop patches of an iconic Washington building from being painted as soon as on Thursday, warning that the move – billed as a test for President Donald Trump’s larger plan to turn the whole structure white – will cause irreparable damage to the landmark.In a request for an emergency injunction due to be filed on Thursday, Cultural Heritage Partners, a law firm, will argue that the proposed testing – which includes painting four 2-by-2 foot panels on the façade of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building – without the expert oversight ordinarily required risks harm to the building.It could also set a dangerous precedent for circumventing government review processes, handing free rein to the president for other projects, they argue.“I would rate this as pretty urgent,” said Greg Werkheiser, founding partner at the firm. “The testing concerns us because no one outside the White House knows who is conducting the testing or what protocols they’re following, and qualified preservation experts have had no chance to weigh in.”“The broader concern for historic sites nationwide is that this is all taking place under the auspices of the Executive Office of the President, outside the review process that Congress established for projects like this,” he added.Trump has expressed his desire to makeover the EEOB – a sprawling Gilded Age structure next to the White House that houses offices for some 1,500 federal employees – by covering its gray granite façade with a white “magic paint with silicate.” The plan had been in a holding pattern for months amid the legal challenge brought by Werkheiser, his firm and other preservationist plaintiffs.Last week, the administration disclosed in a court filing that it intends to paint panels in inconspicuous spots on the building to test “the potential effects of applying and removing a mineral silicate coating.”The intention to move forward with the paint test is a step seen by critics as an escalation in Trump’s quest to remake Washington and put his stamp on the White House complex.“The President’s personal aesthetic preferences do not outweigh congressionally mandated procedures,” the injunction request, shared exclusively with CNN, says.“President Trump follows a familiar pattern,” the plaintiffs warn. “He conceives of a project that he announces will improve a nationally beloved and historically significant resource. He directs those around him to execute his vision as quickly as possible. He disregards the strict federal standards Congress established to protect national, environmental, cultural, and historic resources. He misleads the public about both the harm his project will cause and the laws he is circumventing. And he rushes forward, irreparably damaging resources that do not belong to him.”It’s unclear how quickly US District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee who is overseeing the case, will respond to the request once it’s filed.A desired paint jobTrump has repeatedly disparaged the EEOB, which was completed in 1888 in the French Second Empire style, as “ugly,” calling its exterior gray a “really bad color” and asserting that switching to a white façade would give it more of a cohesive look with the White House building.To achieve that, the administration has proposed either painting the EEOB fully white or painting just the top part of the building while leaving the bottom as the existing gray granite.It has said it intends to use a mineral silicate paint – which Trump has privately called a “magic paint” – which, it claims, will strengthen the stone and keep water out. That claim is disputed by experts.Preservationists argue that EEOB’s monumental gray facade is a defining visual element of the building and any change to the color would bring harm to the building’s history, and that the paint could trap moisture that could damage the granite.Last year, they brought suit to the district court in DC to stop plans to paint it.And in March, the plaintiffs assembled 25 unnamed experts with experience in historical building restoration and silicate paint, who concluded that “mineral silicate paints are not suited for use on granite,” explaining that the stone does not chemically bond with this type of paint. Priming the granite, they added, would incur “permanent damage,” and the paint would “not strengthen granite or improve its structural durability.”However, in the latest filing from the government dated July 20, the administration said it would move forward with paint testing.This and potential renovations, instead of being managed by the General Services Administration (GSA) – an agency with congressionally-mandated authority over the building – a part of the Executive Office of the President called the Office of the Administration would take the lead.Shifting the responsibility from GSA to the Office of the President could allow the administration to elide the approvals and review process the GSA must adhere to under federal laws and statutes that seek to protect historic property, Werkheiser argues.The administration, in its latest court filing, says that the testing does not constitute a decision to proceed with the painting project and they remain engaged with other analyses required by environmental and historical preservation laws, as well as with two federal agencies, the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, that have authority over design and planning of public properties in Washington. Both commissions have been stacked with Trump loyalists and would have to sign off on the plans. They have asked for more details about the paint plans.In addition to painting study, the administration says it will also conduct a facade condition assessment which will include a visual and hands-on survey and then the extraction of up to ten samples of two inches in depth in diameter from the EEOB’s facade that are experiencing deterioration.The samples will be lab-tested to evaluate the condition of the stone – including microfractures, grain separation, stone mineral composition, stone condition and the presence of preexisting coatings, contaminants and weathering effects.CNN’s Betsy Klein and Devan Cole contributed to this reportThe-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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