Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 70. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset is 8:26, for 15 hours, 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 24.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1859, the clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time.
This Scrabble World Champion can help you win:
The Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library:
See also Endangered Archives Programme, British Library.
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:20 and sunset is 8:25, for 15 hours, 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 16 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1899, Pearl Hart, a female outlaw of the Old West, robs a stage coach 30 miles southeast of Globe, Arizona.
There have been legion conspiracy theories besetting some Wisconsinites over the last twenty-five years: 9/11 as an inside job, Obama’s birth certificate, claims the Clintons murdered several people, QAnon, that COVID-19 was a planned pandemic, the lab leak theory about COVID-19, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, that there is in America a ‘deep state,” and that elites are replacing whites with racial minorities. I’ve likely forgotten a few.
Wisconsin now faces another crackpot theory, about the cause of measles, from Wisconsin doctor Pierre Kory:
Last month, Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary and longtime anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the funeral for the second unvaccinated child in Texas to have died in the ongoing measles outbreak. While in Texas, he met with the two grieving families — along with two local doctors promoting unproven measles treatments, whom he called “extraordinary healers.”
Following the first death, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the anti-vax organization Kennedy led until recently, pushed its own narrative claiming that the 6-year-old Mennonite girl did not actually die from the measles. In this effort, CHD has relied heavily on Pierre Kory, a Wisconsin doctor who has both amplified that assertion and claimed that the measles virus has been weaponized by unknown conspirators.
Kory is a Kennedy ally who has been widely criticized for spreading Covid misinformation during the pandemic, including pushing the use of ivermectin as a “miracle drug” for treating that virus.
For years, CHD and Kennedy have promoted the debunked claim that the standard measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine given to almost all children in the U.S. is tied to autism. With an upsurge in the pandemic-era, right-wing embrace of the anti-vax movement — and of Kennedy himself — there has been a notable decrease in routine pediatric vaccinations in the U.S.
Now that measles immunization rates have fallen below thresholds to maintain herd immunity in certain parts of the country, outbreaks such as the one in West Texas are expected to become more common. In February, Texas reported the country’s first measles death in a child in the more than two decades since the disease was classified as eradicated in the U.S.
In response to this death, CHD posted a video on March 19 featuring Kory and Ben Edwards, another Texas doctor Kennedy applauded, discussing the girl’s medical records, which her parents released to the organization.
Despite having no training in pediatric medicine and having had his board certifications in internal medicine and critical care revoked last year, Kory claimed the child’s death was due to incorrect antibiotic management of a bacterial pneumonia infection that had “little to do with measles.” Edwards — a family doctor who has been treating measles-stricken children in Texas with medications not indicated for measles and was accused of seeing pediatric patients while actively infected with measles himself — concurred with Kory.
(Emphasis added.)
See Center for Media and Democracy, Wisconsin doctor makes wild measles claims, Wisconsin Examiner, May 30, 2025.
Aerial video captures severe storm above Austin:
Cats can identify owners from strangers by scent:
The study by Tokyo University of Agriculture found cats spent significantly longer sniffing tubes containing the odours of unknown people compared to tubes containing their owner’s smell.
This suggests cats can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar humans based on their odour, the researchers say, but that it is unclear whether they can identify specific people.
….
In the study published on Wednesday, researchers presented 30 cats with plastic tubes containing either a swab containing the odour of their owner, a swab containing the odour of a person of the same sex as their owner who they had never met, or a clean swab.
The swabs containing odours had been rubbed under the armpit, behind the ear, and between the toes of the owner or stranger.
Cats spent significantly more time sniffing the odours of unknown people compared to those of their owner or the empty tube, suggesting they can discriminate between the smells of familiar and unfamiliar people, the researchers said.
….
“The odour stimuli used in this study were only those of known and unknown persons,” said one of the study’s authors, Hidehiko Uchiyama.
“Behavioural experiments in which cats are presented with multiple known-person odour stimuli would be needed, and we would need to find specific behavioural patterns in cats that appear only in response to the owner’s odour.”
See Tim Dodd, Cats distinguish owner’s smell from stranger’s, study finds, BBC, May 28, 2025.
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 70. Sunrise is 5:20 and sunset is 8:24, for 15 hours, 4 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 8.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Police & Fire Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1848, Wisconsin enters the Union:
Wisconsin was admitted to the Union by act of Congress on May 29, 1848. As soon as possible after the close of the second [state] constitutional convention, notice was given in Congress (Feb. 21, 1848), by the territorial representative, the Hon. John H. Tweedy, of his intention to introduce a second bill for the admission of Wisconsin into the Union (the first bill had not taken effect because the voters of Wisconsin rejected the first, 1846, draft constitution).
March 13, 1848, the people of the territory voted on the new constitution, and it was approved by a vote of 16,799 to 6,384. On March 16, President Polk in a special message submitted to Congress the Wisconsin constitution with accompanying documents. On March 20, Mr. Tweedy introduced his bill, which on April 13 was favorably reported from the committee on territories, read first and second times and referred to the committee of the whole. It was made a special order for May 9, and on the 11th was engrossed, read a third time and passed. The Senate at once took action, and a week later, May 19, the bill was concurred in and ten days later, May 29, was approved by the president.
How higher lumber prices will impact homebuilders:
Glacier collapses burying evacuated Swiss village in mud and rocks:
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy and cloudy with a high of 62. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset is 8:23, for 15 hours, 03 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 585 BC, a solar eclipse occurs, as predicted by the Greek philosopher and scientist Thales, while Alyattes is battling Cyaxares in the Battle of the Eclipse, leading to a truce. This is one of the cardinal dates from which other dates can be calculated. It is also the earliest event of which the precise date is known.
Ruth Conniff (always worth reading) writes in the Wisconsin Examiner that grassroots pressure on Gov. Evers reflects nationwide impatience with Dems:
More than 100 citizens from an array of grassroots groups packed the Wisconsin state Senate parlor and marched on Gov. Tony Evers’ office Tuesday, their chants bouncing off the marble walls inside the Capitol. They were there to deliver a letter — which they urged others to sign online — demanding that Evers veto the state budget if it doesn’t include key elements of the governor’s own budget proposal.
“The whole Democratic grassroots is now demanding that national leaders stand and fight,” said Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, who helped organize the effort, “and I think that spirit is now being translated down to the state level.”
Public school advocates, child care providers, teachers’ unions and advocates for criminal justice reform and health care access came to demand that Evers take a stronger stand and threaten to use his significant veto power in negotiations with Republicans.
See Ruth Conniff, Grassroots pressure on Gov. Evers reflects nationwide impatience with Dems, Wisconsin Examiner, May 28, 2025.
I’m not a Democrat, yet I understand Democrats’ justified frustration. Indeed, this libertarian blogger has encouraged collective protest. See Go Outside.
Gov. Tony Evers, however, is governor of Wisconsin, not Illinois; his political position is different from the one that J.B. Pritzker (admirably) has taken. (Without question, Pritzker’s expressed views on Trump are similar to millions of Americans, my own among them.)
Someone would do well, however, to remind activists that there is more than one path to success. Ever is a twice-elected governor, and he is almost certain to run again. Although mild-mannered, Evers has a record of political success in this state, and a strong chance of success should he run for a third term in 2026.
Tony Evers’s re-election is vital to Wisconsin’s political health. Other Democrats running in legislative races next year can take a more assertive stance. Evers needn’t — and shouldn’t — change his approach. That approach is, and will continue to be, a winning one.
SpaceX’s Starship fails mid-flight in ninth test mission:
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 69. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset is 8:23, for 15 hours, 02 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with 0.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM. The Whitewater Unified School District’s Policy Review Committee meets at 6:40 PM. The Whitewater School Board then meets in open session at 7 PM, to enter closed session and return to open session later in the evening.
On this day in 1937, in California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.
There’s all sorts of speculation about who’s running for what in Wisconsin. Molly Back and Daniel Bice at the Journal Sentinel offer Which Democrats will run for governor if Tony Evers doesn’t and answers to other questions. Let’s address some of their speculations:
Q: If Gov. Evers declines to run for a third term, who are the likely Democratic front-runners?
Molly: Here are the Democrats I hear floated when this question comes up: Attorney General Josh Kaul, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, and soon-to-be-former Democratic Party of Wisconsin chairman Ben Wikler.
Evers running again is as close to a certainty as there is.
Q: Is U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson running again in 2028?
Molly: Johnson is now in his third term (one term longer than he initially promised to stay in D.C.) and is now 70. Whether he seeks a fourth term is a good question, and I don’t think we’ll have an answer until closer to 2027.
Dan: Remember when Johnson was just a “citizen legislator,” emphasizing the fact that he was a businessman and political outsider? Things have changed. Johnson sold his business and is now a D.C. insider. Washington will do that to you. But is he ready to give up his podcast interviews and Fox News airtime for a quiet retirement in Oshkosh? Who will listen to his conspiracy theories then?
Johnson is a crackpot and a liar (he broke his pledge not to run for a third term). There’s no predicting his actions except to know that he’s a crackpot and a liar. (And holy cow, if Johnson retires, it won’t be to Oshkosh: Johnson travels along a Washington, D.C. to Florida axis.)
Q: Scott Walker is on TV a LOT. Is he running for office again?
Dan: Here’s what you need to know — his poll numbers are not good from what I hear, and he’s making more money than he ever has. In 2023, he pulled in $840,521 as president of the Young America’s Foundation, according to its financial filings. (So much for his brown bag lunches.) It’s also a job without a downside. If the number of conservative youngsters increases, then great. But if it doesn’t, what did you expect? He can blame the liberals for running the universities, the entertainment industry and the media.
So the answer is no, not anytime soon. He’s too busy counting his cash and his media appearances.
Well, that’s right: Walker isn’t running, and would lose any major race if he did run. The WISGOP isn’t Walker’s party anymore; it’s Trump’s. It’s also well-known, not scuttlebutt, what Walker makes at YAF. (There’s no ‘from what I hear’ inside knowledge required.)
See Molly Beck and Daniel Bice, Which Democrats will run for governor if Tony Evers doesn’t and answers to other questions, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 27, 2025.
Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano shoots lava fountain into air in latest eruption:
Good morning.
Memorial Day in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 66. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset is 8:22, for 15 hours, 00 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Memorial Day Parade will begin at 10:30 AM at 426 North Street and end at the Old Armory on 146 North Street.
On this day in 1969, Apollo 10 returns to Earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the forthcoming first crewed Moon landing.
Chaya Tong reports on an Arlington National Cemetery ceremony eight decades on:
More than 80 years after he died in the attack on Pearl Harbor, John Connolly was finally laid to rest – not as an unknown in a mass grave, but as a naval officer in Arlington National Cemetery.
When the Navy first called to tell his daughter, Virginia Harbison, that her father’s remains had been identified, she hung up. At 91, living in assisted care in Texas, she could hardly believe it. It was her son, Bill Ingram, who called her back to share the news again. She was silent for so long that he had to ask if she was all right. “Bill,” she said, “I hadn’t thought about that for 60 years.”
She has lived the full life her father never had the chance to. In March, Ingram pushed his mother in her wheelchair to her father’s gravesite for the burial.
“They fold the flag in this very tight, nice triangle, and then with white gloves, the commanding officer comes and takes it and kneels down and hands it to my mother,” said Ingram, who lives in San Francisco. “It was incredible.”
On Dec. 7, 1941 during the attack on Pearl Harbor, 429 service members aboard the USS Oklahoma died. Horrifyingly, men trapped below deck after the ship capsized could be heard tapping out “SOS” in Morse code as the air supply dwindled. Though 32 men were rescued, the rest were tragically not reached in time.
….
In 1944, the Navy re-commissioned one of their ships as the USS John Connolly. Though his story was a tragic one – an officer who never returned home whose remains were left unknown – history has granted him a second chance at closure. Over eight decades later, he got the hero’s burial he deserved.
See Chaya Tong, Eight decades after dying in Pearl Harbor attack, Georgia-born sailor gets Arlington farewell, Georgia Recorder, May 25, 2025.
Jupiter’s auroras captured by the James Webb Space Telescope:
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 67. Sunrise is 5:23 and sunset is 8:21, for 14 hours, 58 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 4.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1933, the Walt Disney Company cartoon Three Little Pigs premieres at Radio City Music Hall, featuring the hit song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?“
A Wisconsin school that excels at math:
See Corrinne Hess, This Wisconsin school excels at teaching math. Can its approach work statewide? (‘Nearly 80 percent of Winskill Elementary School students are advanced or meeting expectations in math, double state’s average’), Wisconsin Public Radio, May 22, 2025.
Kenya relocates endangered black rhinos in conservation bid:
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 66. Sunrise is 5:23 and sunset is 8:20, for 14 hours, 56 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 9.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1844, Samuel Morse sends the message “What hath God wrought” (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court race now has two candidates, incumbent Rebecca Bradley and challenger Chris Taylor:
The next battle for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is shaping up, with liberal state Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor announcing Tuesday that she will challenge conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley.
While the race won’t tip the balance of power on the state’s highest court like the last two Supreme Court contests, it could potentially grow liberals’ current majority.
….
The announcements by Taylor and Bradley come after Wisconsin set yet another record for campaign spending on a judicial race. All told, more than $100 million went toward supporting the Crawford and Schimel campaigns according to WisPolitics, which is nearly double the previous record set in 2023.
Liberals currently hold a 4-3 majority on the court, a split that will remain unchanged after Crawford takes office Aug. 1. A Bradley victory next year would keep that 4-3 margin intact. Should she lose, it would give liberals a 5-2 edge on the court.
See Rich Kramer, Liberal Judge Chris Taylor enters 2026 race for Wisconsin Supreme Court (‘Taylor is the first candidate to formally challenge conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley’), Wisconsin Public Radio, May 20, 2025.
Norwegian man wakes up to find grounded cargo ship narrowly missed his home:
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 61. Sunrise is 5:24 and sunset is 8:19, for 14 hours, 55 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 17.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1934, American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
What lurks beneath the oceans? These:
Several dead after small aircraft hits San Diego neighborhood:
Tuesday, May 27th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of A Complete Unknown @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
19 year old Minnesota musician Bob Dylan‘s (Timothée Chalamet) meteoric rise as a folk singer from bars, to concert halls, to top of the charts. His mystique captures the attention of icons like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Johnny Cash. Nominated for eight Oscars; winner for Best Actor (Chalamet) and Screen Actors Guild Award (SAG-AFTRA).
One can find more information about A Complete Unknown at the Internet Movie Database.
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 57. Sunrise is 5:25 and sunset is 8:18, for 14 hours, 53 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 28.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Candidates for the district’s superintendent position will hold meet-and-greet sessions from 5:30 to 8:05 PM:
On this day in 1762, Trevi Fountain is officially completed and inaugurated in Rome.
The Whitewater Unified School District issued a press release on 5.15.25 with a brief professional summary for each of its superintendent candidates:
Lost hikers were airlifted to safety from a forest:
