FDL News’ David Dayen is on site at Wisconsin’s capitol building in Madison this afternoon. Reporting via Twitter, Dayen said that an announcement was made that “the Capitol is now closed” at 4:00 p.m. local time.

It was a great day for the friends and family at Firedoglake and its family of sites; we had attendees at solidarity rallies literally from coast to coast. Tomorrow we’ll front page all the coverage our community members and contributors have submitted as we countdown to 4:00 p.m. CST when the capitol police in Wisconsin may attempt to shut down the capitol building.

Rainforest Action Network’s Jenn Breckenridge posted around 8:00 p.m. EST that the Wisconsin State Police had arrived at the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, joining the protesters in solidarity against Gov. Scott Walker and his attack on state employees’ collective bargaining.

The last launch of the space shuttle Discovery is at 4:50 p.m. EST today.

You have no heart at all if you can’t feel the tremendous energy and joy of the Benghazi residents as they welcome the first foreign journalist CNN’s Ben Wederman.

More of this, please, and an extra helping for Tripoli.

My oldest child came home from school the other day with a problem from their economics class; the poor kid was frustrated and asked for some guidance to make sense of the assignment. It’s no wonder they’re confused.

Yeah. You know, the “ruin porn” and the “urban decay porn” you sent me, gloating over the death of Detroit like a ghoul over a corpse.

I’ve seen it already, thanks for sharing, though.

We had a massive solar flare this week, starting on Tuesday — the biggest since December 2006 — and the chart you see here indicates the possibility that some auroral activity may be visible tonight as far south as Indianapolis, Indiana. You might not get a spectacular light show, maybe just a shimmer you can’t define, but it will be more than I can see under this cloud cover.

Wisconsin’s state Joint Finance Committee passed a highly controversial budget bill last night, voting along party lines 12-4 in favor of the bill which includes an amendment revoking workers’ right to collective bargaining for state employees. In the mean time, pressure mounts to recall Gov. Walker; at least one Facebook page and a watch-blog have launched efforts to discuss the recall process.

Volunteers have been cleaning up Cairo’s Tahrir Square all weekend as the country’s Supreme Council of the Armed Services focused on the next steps in the reform process. Protesters remain worried about backsliding since so many issues remain in the air and unresolved. The military has been trying to move protesters out of the square, saying they are trying to restore normalcy.