Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of seventy-five. Sunrise is 5:55 AM and sunset 7:49 PM, for 13h 53m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 1.9% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred sixty-eighth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On this day in 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller first publishes a map to use the name “America” (in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci). On this day in 1996, Thompson signs the W-2 (Wisconsin Works) program into law.
Recommended for reading in full —
Jacob Carpenter reports on the contention of Prosecutors: Inmate’s water cut off for 7 days before his death in the Milwaukee County Jail: “Terrill Thomas spent seven straight days holed up in a solitary confinement cell with no running water, slowly withering away. Thomas started the weeklong stretch at the Milwaukee County Jail belligerent and loud, the result of an untreated mental illness, prosecutors said. But as the days wore on, he grew weak and dehydrated. He lost nearly 35 pounds and turned quiet, never asking for or receiving medical attention. Barely two hours into his eighth day in solitary, jail staff found Thomas, 38, dead on his jail cell floor, the result of profound dehydration.”
Rebecca Ballhaus reports that Americans Back Immigration and Trade at Record Levels: “Six in 10 Americans said immigration helps the nation more than it hurts—up 6 points since the last sounding, in September 2016. One-third of people in the survey said immigration hurts more than it helps. The result, which marks the highest level of support for immigration dating to at least 2005, comes as Mr. Trump is asking lawmakers to fund a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and has twice signed executive orders, blocked by federal courts, suspending entry from certain countries. Support for free trade rose slightly in the latest survey, with 57% saying it is beneficial for the U.S. and 37% saying it isn’t—a gap of 20 points, and a record level of support. In July 2016, views of free trade as beneficial outweighed those who saw it as harmful by 17 percentage points.”
Amy Goldstein and Scott Clement report that the Public pans Republicans’ latest approach to replacing Affordable Care Act: “In strategy and substance, the American public disagrees with the course that President Trump and congressional Republicans are pursuing to replace the Affordable Care Act with conservative policies, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Large majorities oppose the ideas at the heart of the most recent GOP negotiations to forge a plan that could pass in the House. These would allow states to choose whether to keep the ACA’s insurance protection for people with preexisting medical problems and its guarantee of specific health benefits. Public sentiment is particularly lopsided in favor of an aspect of the current health-care law that blocks insurers from charging more or denying coverage to customers with medical conditions. Roughly 8 in 10 Democrats, 7 in 10 independents and even a slight majority of Republicans say that should continue to be a national mandate, rather than an option for states to retain or drop.”
Nadja Popovich reports that Today’s Energy Jobs Are in Solar, Not Coal: “Last year, the solar industry employed many more Americans than coal, while wind power topped 100,000 jobs. Those numbers come from a Department of Energy report published in January by the Obama administration that provides the most complete picture available of American energy employment. In 2016, 1.9 million Americans were employed in electric power generation, mining and other fuel extraction activities, according to the report – a field we’ll call power creation for short. More than 373,000 Americans worked part or full time in solar energy, and just over 260,000 of them – or about 70 percent – spent a majority of their time on solar projects.”
Great Big Story describes Preserving One Square Inch of Silence:
Preserving One Square Inch of Silence from Great Big Story on Vimeo.
Gordon Hempton is on a personal quest to preserve silence in nature. The “sound-tracker” circles the globe recording vanishing sounds, including the most elusive one of all: silence. In 2005, Hempton resolved to find the quietest place in Washington’s Hoh rainforest, itself a haven of silence. According to Hempton, the area he found is precisely one square inch. But that little area of quiet—which holds incredible value for the Earth—is endangered. Now, Hempton is determined to protect it from noise pollution like overpassing jets, lest we lose one of our country’s last remaining silent places.