Good morning.

February in this small town ends with thunderstorms and a high of fifty-seven. Sunrise is  6:30 AM and sunset 5:44 PM for 11h 14m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 4.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred twelfth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1972, near the conclusion of Pres. Nixon’s visit to China, the United States and China issue the Shanghai Communiqué pledging to work toward normalization of relations between the two countries. On this day in 1862, the 8th and 15th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 5th, 6th and 7th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries fight the Battle of Island No. 10, Missouri.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Drew Harwell reports that Hundreds allege sex harassment, discrimination at Kay and Jared jewelry company: “Hundreds of former employees of Sterling Jewelers, the multibillion-dollar conglomerate behind Jared the Galleria of Jewelry and Kay Jewelers, claim that its chief executive and other company leaders presided over a corporate culture that fostered rampant sexual harassment and discrimination, according to arbitration documents obtained by The Washington Post. Declarations from roughly 250 women and men who worked at Sterling, filed as part of a private class-action arbitration case, allege that female employees at the company throughout the late 1990s and 2000s were routinely groped, demeaned and urged to sexually cater to their bosses to stay employed. Sterling disputes the allegations. The arbitration was first filed in 2008 by more than a dozen women who accused the company of widespread gender discrimination. The class-action case, still unresolved, now includes 69,000 women who are current and former employees of Sterling, which operates about 1,500 stores across the country.”

Paul Kane finds An unlikely ally for President Trump: Liberal actress Jennifer Garner: “People felt like Trump really understood them, that he was going to come in and create jobs for them,” she said. “They felt like they needed something to just turn everything upside down.” It’s that level of despair that leaves Garner willing to deal with Trump when some of her friends want to offer nothing but resistance. She may even be willing to meet the president. “Send me a ticket to Mar-a-Lago. I’m ready to go down and have a steak and a good chat,” she said, only half joking about the prospect. “I really think it’s great, if he’s willing to help the poor kids who got him elected.”

Robert Pear and Kate Kelly report that Trump Concedes Health Law Overhaul Is ‘Unbelievably Complex’: “WASHINGTON — President Trump, meeting with the nation’s governors, conceded Monday that he had not been aware of the complexities of health care policy-making: “I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” The president also suggested that the struggle to replace the Affordable Care Act was creating a legislative logjam that could delay other parts of his political agenda. Many policy makers had anticipated the intricacies of changing the health care law, and Mr. Trump’s demands in the opening days of his administration to simultaneously repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement made the political calculations far more complicated. Governors of both parties added still more confusion on Monday when they called for any replacement to cover all the people already benefiting from the landmark law.”

Michael Daly describes The American Greatness of Ian Grillot: “Nobody was ever more American than was Ian Grillot when he leapt from under the table and started towards the gunman in Austins Bar & Grill on Wednesday night. Grillot had been in this sports bar in Olathe, Kansas, watching a basketball game when a decidedly un-American man was ejected for making disparaging remarks to two patrons whom he imagined to be Middle Eastern. “Get out of my country!” the man was heard to shout. Moments later, the man returned to the bar with a gun in hand and shot both patrons. Grillot ducked under a table but retained the presence of mind to count the number of shots. “I thought I heard nine,” Grillot would later say in a video released by the University of Kansas Health System. “I expected his magazine to be empty.” America was never greater than the moment that immediately followed. “So I got up and proceeded to chase him down,” Grillot would recall. “I wasn’t really thinking when I did that. It was just, it wasn’t right, and I didn’t want the gentleman to potentially go after somebody else.” Grillot would dismiss any suggestion that he was a hero.”

Tech Insider finds evolving paper art that has no end:

Good morning.

Whitewater’s Monday will be mostly sunny with a high of forty-eight. Sunrise is 6:31 AM and sunset 5:42 PM, for 11h 11m 16s of daytime. The moon is new, with just .9% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred eleventh day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM. Whitewater’s School Board meets in open session beginning at approximately 7 PM.

On this day in 1933, Germany’s Reichstag catches fire. The ruling Nazis, blaming the Communists, quickly use the fire in the parliament as a pretext to suspend civil liberties. On this day in 1949, the Kittoe Mine Fire leaves fourteen miners trapped 168 feet underground in smoke, debris and knee-deep water for seven hours.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Andrew Higgins reports that Trump Embraces ‘Enemy of the People,’ a Phrase With a Fraught History: “MOSCOW — The phrase was too toxic even for Nikita Khrushchev, a war-hardened veteran communist not known for squeamishness. As leader of the Soviet Union, he demanded an end to the use of the term “enemy of the people” because “it eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight.” “The formula ‘enemy of the people,’” Mr. Khrushchev told the Soviet Communist Party in a 1956 speech denouncing Stalin’s cult of personality, “was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals” who disagreed with the supreme leader. It is difficult to know if President Trump is aware of the historic resonance of the term, a label generally associated with despotic communist governments rather than democracies. But his decision to unleash the terminology has left some historians scratching their heads. Why would the elected leader of a democratic nation embrace a label that, after the death of Stalin, even the Soviet Union found to be too freighted with sinister connotations?

Meg Jones asks What if they held a town hall meeting and Rep. Paul Ryan didn’t come?: “KENOSHA – Lining up behind microphones Sunday evening, a few hundred of Rep. Paul Ryan’s constituents directed their wrath and disapproval toward an empty chair. “It says a lot to me that he’s not here,” said Lee Hansen of Racine, who served in the 82nd Airborne in the 1970s. “Maybe we should repeal and replace Paul Ryan.” Forward Kenosha organizers scheduled the town hall meeting Sunday evening at a union hall to give residents of the 1st Congressional District a way to get their thoughts and opinions to the Janesville Republican. Julia Kozel, a Forward Kenosha board member, said Ryan was invited to the event but didn’t respond. She said she found out he wasn’t coming through a story in the Kenosha News a few days earlier. “I don’t think he appreciates hearing things contrary to his ideology,” said Kozel.”

Jenna Johnson reports that These Iowans voted for Trump. Many of them are already disappointed: “Of the six swing states that were key to Trump’s unexpected win in November, his margin of victory was the highest in Iowa, where he beat Clinton by 9 percentage points. Yet at the dawn of his presidency, only 42 percent of Iowans approve of the job that he’s doing and 49 percent disapprove, according to a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll this month.”

Jennifer Rubin describes Trump vs. an America that works: “We don’t think it is a coincidence that in the election Trump lost the most economically productive areas of the United States. Brookings found, “The less-than-500 counties that Hillary Clinton carried nationwide encompassed a massive 64 percent of America’s economic activity as measured by total output in 2015. By contrast, the more-than-2,600 counties that Donald Trump won generated just 36 percent of the country’s output—just a little more than one-third of the nation’s economic activity.” To be clear, Clinton carried the most diverse, most cosmopolitan and most successful parts of America. (“Her base of 493 counties was heavily metropolitan. By contrast, Trumpland consists of hundreds and hundreds of tiny low-output locations that comprise the non-metropolitan hinterland of America, along with some suburban and exurban metro counties.”)

Nature on PBS shows how to Build Animatronic Animals That Go Undercover and Infiltrate the Pack:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of forty-five. Sunrise is 6:33 AM and sunset 5:41 PM, for 11h 08m 24s of daytime. We’ve a new moon today. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred tenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1815, Napoleon escapes from Elba, shortly thereafter to inflict an additional Hundred Days of violence and suffering upon Europe until his final defeat.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Daniel Dale has updated the tally for The complete list of all 99 false things Donald Trump has said as president (The [Toronto] Star’s running tally of the bald-faced lies, exaggerations and deceptions the president of the United States of America has said, so far).

One reads, from the very horse’s mouth, that Trump will not attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”) His absence is sure to make the evening twice as pleasant, and the food twice as easy to digest.

Evan Osnos, David Remnick, and Joshua Yaffa ponder Trump, Putin, and the New Cold War: “By Inauguration Day, January 20th, the evidence of a wide-scale Russian operation had prompted the formation of a joint task force, including the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the N.S.A., and the financial-crimes unit of the Treasury Department. Three Senate committees, including the Intelligence Committee, have launched inquiries; some Democrats worry that the Trump Administration will try to stifle these investigations. Although senators on the Intelligence Committee cannot reveal classified information, they have ways of signalling concern. Three weeks after the election, Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and six other members of the committee sent a public letter to Obama, declaring, “We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian Government and the U.S. election that should be declassified and released to the public.” At a hearing in January, Wyden pushed further. While questioning James Comey, the director of the F.B.I., Wyden cited media reports that some Trump associates had links to Russians who are close to Putin. Wyden asked if Comey would declassify information on that subject and “release it to the American people.” Comey said, “I can’t talk about it.” Wyden’s questioning had served its purpose.”

Glenn Thrush and Michael Grynbaum observe that Trump Ruled the Tabloid Media. Washington Is a Different Story: “New York is extremely intense and competitive, but it is actually a much smaller pond than Washington, where you have many more players with access to many more sources,” said Howard Wolfson, who has split his career between New York and Washington, advising former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. “In New York, you can create a manageable set of relationships in a smaller universe,” Mr. Wolfson said. “In Washington, that becomes a lot more complicated.” There is another fundamental difference: During his Page Six days, Mr. Trump was, by and large, trafficking in trivia. As president, he is dealing with the most serious issues of the day. They involve the nation’s safety and prosperity, and it is the role of news organizations to cover them.”

Phil Edwards contends that Minecraft isn’t just a game. It’s an art form:

Good morning.

Following a light snowfall in the morning (with little accumulation), Whitewater will have a cloudy day with a high of thirty. Sunrise is 6:34 AM and sunset 5:40 PM, for 11h 05m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 1.4% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred ninth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

It’s the 175th birthday of Ida Lewis, an American lighthouse keeper rightly honored for rescuing people at sea: “There are no definitive records of Ida’s rescues and she was too modest to recount them herself, though some were documented in local newspapers and at least one garnered national attention; in February of 1881 she ventured into the bitter winter winds to rescue two soldiers who had fallen through the ice while traveling on foot. This act of bravery caught the attention of President Grant who shortly thereafter awarded her the prestigious Gold Lifesaving Medal. Eleven years after her death, the Rhode Island legislature voted to rename her former home, Lime Rock Lighthouse, as Ida Lewis Lighthouse in her honor. It’s important to remember that being a lighthouse keeper required unwavering courage, sheer physical strength, constant diligence, and a willingness to put one’s own life on the line. Ida was so dedicated that supposedly she would rush into inclement weather without shoes or coat so as not a waste a single second. Her life and legacy were not only an honor to research and illustrate, but truly a source of inspiration.”

Recommended for reading in full — 

Steve Verburg reports that Wisconsin Senate leader’s [Scott Fitzgerald] bill would relax high-capacity well regs: “The leader of the state Senate’s Republican majority has authored a bill to further relax regulation of high-powered water wells that have been linked to dwindling lakes and rivers in some parts of the state. The bill would allow drilling of wells that pump large quantities of ground water for farms and industry without review by state regulators if the new wells replace existing permitted wells. Conservationists and groups representing waterfront property owners have fought similar proposals — including several that failed last year — because they would eliminate opportunities to adjust well operations when they cause problems for other water users. “It locks in the existing problems, especially in the central area of the state where lakes and streams are drying up,” Amber Meyer Smith of Clean Wisconsin said Wednesday.”

Rachel Abrams profiles The Anti-Trump Activist Taking On Retailers: “SAN FRANCISCO — Sitting in a basement office that she rents by the hour, Shannon Coulter ticks off the activities she gave up in defiance of President Donald J. Trump: renting movies with her husband on Amazon, and shopping at Nordstrom, Macy’s and other retailers that sell Ivanka Trump’s products. A Nordstrom bag sat on a nearby table. It represents a victory lap of sorts for Ms. Coulter, who has almost single-handedly spearheaded a retail revolt against the president and his family. She was wearing a new silver Elizabeth and James lariat necklace purchased at the department store soon after it scrubbed Ms. Trump’s name from its website. “The goal,” Ms. Coulter said, “came originally from a place of really wanting to shop the stores we loved again with a clear conscience.” It’s been a wild ride these past few months for Ms. Coulter, who runs her shoestring movement from her home, or from cheerfully decorated work spaces like this one — surrounded by bright-blue furniture, clam chairs and decorative pillows that feel more Silicon Valley than anti-administration war room….The attention has transformed Ms. Coulter, 45, a digital marketing specialist, into the unlikely general of the digital army now supporting her campaign, Grab Your Wallet.”

Danielle Lerner reports that Muhammad Ali Jr. detained by immigration officials at Fla. airport: “Muhammad Ali Jr., 44, and his mother, Khalilah Camacho-Ali, the second wife of Muhammad Ali, were arriving at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Feb. 7 after returning from speaking at a Black History Month event in Montego Bay, Jamaica. They were pulled aside while going through customs because of their Arabic-sounding names, according to family friend and lawyer Chris Mancini. Immigration officials let Camacho-Ali go after she showed them a photo of herself with her ex-husband, but her son did not have such a photo and wasn’t as lucky. Mancini said officials held and questioned Ali Jr. for nearly two hours, repeatedly asking him, “Where did you get your name from?” and “Are you Muslim?” When Ali Jr. responded that yes, he is a Muslim, the officers kept questioning him about his religion and where he was born. Ali Jr. was born in Philadelphia in 1972 and holds a U.S. passport.”

Aaron Blake offers Stephen Bannon’s nationalist call to arms, annotated: “Bannon participated in a panel discussion with White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and Matt Schlapp, the head of the American Conservative Union. And Bannon’s rhetoric was chock-full of the kind of nationalist, anti-news media rhetoric for which he has become known. He cast the next four years as a constant battle with the media. “If you think they’re going to give you your country back without a fight, you’re sadly mistaken,” he said. It was a window into the worldview of a man whose worldview very much aligns with Trump’s own. Below, we’re posting the conversation in full, with our annotations. To see an annotation, click on the yellow, highlighted text….“

Even small insects can do big things —

Good morning.

Whitewater will see morning thunder showers on an otherwise cloudy day with a high of thirty-seven. Sunrise is 6:36 AM and sunset 5:39 PM, for 11h 02m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 4.9% of its visible disk iluminated.Today is the {tooltip}one hundred eighth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1868, House of Representatives votes 126 to 47 in favor of a resolution to impeach President Andrew Johnson for high crimes and misdemeanors. (He was later acquitted in the Senate.) On this day in 1863, the 28th and 29th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and 12th Wisconsin Light Artillery take part in an expedition in Mississippi.

Recommended for reading in full —

Jeff Potrykus reports on Ohio State 83, UW 73: Slow start kills Badgers: “Wisconsin played its worst half of the season in the first 20 minutes, followed that with a slightly better effort in the second half but still suffered a humbling 83-73 loss to Ohio State on Thursday night at Value City Arena. “You’ve always got to be fearful of a team that has nothing to lose,” UW senior guard Bronson Koenig said of the unranked Buckeyes. “That’s kind of what happened tonight. They just were tougher than us. They beat us to loose balls. They played harder than us and that is something we pride ourselves on. “Hopefully, this is another wake-up call and we don’t have to have too many of these…I didn’t expect this at all.” As a result of the ugly loss, the 15th-ranked Badgers (22-6, 11-4) trail first-place Purdue (23-5, 12-3) by a full game with three games remaining.”

Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns report that An Alarmed Base Prods Democrats Into an All-Out War: “Immediately after the November election, Democrats were divided over how to handle Mr. Trump, with one camp favoring all-out confrontation and another backing a seemingly less risky approach of coaxing him to the center with offers of compromise. Now, spurred by explosive protests and a torrent of angry phone calls and emails from constituents — and outraged themselves by Mr. Trump’s swift moves to enact a hard-line agenda — Democrats have all but cast aside any notion of conciliation with the White House. Instead, they are mimicking the Republican approach of the last eight years — the “party of no” — and wagering that brash obstruction will pay similar dividends.”

Mark Berman reports Republican lawmaker who won’t hold a town hall invokes Gabby Giffords shooting. She responds: ‘Have some courage.’: “Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), in a statement released this week, blamed his decision not to hold these events in person on “the threat of violence at town hall meetings.” He also pointed to a specific violent event to bolster his case, invoking the 2011 shooting that severely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed six others. The former congresswoman responded Thursday, and she made clear that she does not agree with lawmakers shying away from meeting with members of the public. “To the politicians who have abandoned their civic obligations, I say this: Have some courage,” Giffords said in a statement. “Face your constituents. Hold town halls.”

Richard Paddock and Choe Sang-Hun report that Kim Jong-nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say: “KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The poison used to kill Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was VX nerve agent, which is listed as a chemical weapon, the Malaysian police announced Friday. In a brief statement, Khalid Abu Bakar, the national police chief, said the substance was listed as a chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Conventions of 1997 and 2005, to which North Korea is not a party. South Korea has suggested that the killing was the work of the North Korean government. The revelation that a banned weapon was used in such a high-profile killing raises the stakes over how Malaysia and the international community will respond. VX nerve agent can be delivered in two compounds that are mixed at the last moment to create a lethal dose. The police say that two women approached Mr. Kim at the airport with the poison on their hands and rubbed it on his face one after the other.”

Tech Insider unboxes the latest Nintendo console, the Switch:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of forty-seven. Sunrise is 6:38 AM and sunset 5:37 PM, for 10h 59m 51s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 10.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred seventh day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority Seed Capital Committee meets at 4 PM, the CDA Board at 5 PM, and Common Council at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1945, photographs Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, depicting six United States Marines raising a U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima. The photograph depicts the second of two flag raisings on the island. (“The photograph was first published in Sunday newspapers on February 25, 1945. It was extremely popular and was reprinted in thousands of publications. Later, it became the only photograph to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in the same year as its publication, and came to be regarded in the United States as one of the most significant and recognizable images of the war. Three Marines depicted in the photograph, Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal Harlon Block, and Private First Class Franklin Sousley were killed in action over the next few days. The three surviving flag-raisers were Corporals (then Private First Class) Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, and Harold Schultz who first received Marine Corps recognition in June 2016.^[2]“)

On this day in 1864, the 1st, 10th, 24th and 26th Wisconsin Infantry regiments continued fighting at Dalton, Georgia.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Aaron Blake reports that Donald Trump is losing his war with the media: “A new poll from Quinnipiac University suggests that while people may be broadly unhappy with the mainstream media, they still think it’s more credible than Trump. The president regularly accuses the press of “fake news,” but people see more “fake news” coming out of his own mouth. The poll asked who registered voters “trust more to tell you the truth about important issues.” A majority — 52 percent — picked the media. Just 37 percent picked Trump.”

Jon Schuppe reports that Town Hall Protests Revive Art of Bird-Dogging Politicians: “When activists needed advice on disrupting Republican lawmakers’ hometown events this month, they turned to Hugh Espey, a self-taught master in the art of political bird-dogging….The work is grinding and can go unnoticed. But there are big-game triumphs. Like the time he and fellow members of the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement hounded Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney into blurting at the Iowa State Fair in 2011 that “corporations are people” — a remark that shadowed him for the remainder of the campaign….”Bird-dogging,” Espey told them, “means you get to speak out and fight back with other like-minded folks. It’s liberating. And actually, in fact, when you bird-dog you may be called a heckler. And that’s OK.” His tips: prepare pointed questions, bring several people, spread out in the audience, ask the questions repeatedly, create tension, attract attention, take video, and talk to the media.”

Richard C. Paddock and Choe Sang-Hun explain Kim Jong-nam’s Death: A Geopolitical Whodunit: “The very public killing of Mr. Kim appears to be another remarkable episode in the annals of bizarre North Korean behavior, a whodunit with geopolitical implications. Speculation swirled that he had been killed to remove him from the line of succession in North Korea. In the days since the killing was caught on video, the drama has had an ever-expanding and multinational cast of characters — women from Indonesia and Vietnam accused of carrying out the attack, one of whom was apparently wearing a white shirt emblazoned with the letters LOL; a Malaysian boyfriend; and others believed to be North Korean agents. On Wednesday, Malaysia’s police chief, Khalid Abu Bakar, said a senior diplomat at the North Korean Embassy and an employee of the North Korean state-owned airline, Air Koryo, were also wanted for questioning. Another North Korean, who was not identified, was also being sought. Mr. Khalid also said that extra police officers had been sent to the morgue where Mr. Kim’s body was being kept after an attempt to break into the facility was detected.”

Don Behm reports that Milwaukee County pension chief loses job after overpayment error: “The head of the Milwaukee County retirement system is out of the job after public disclosure of another pension payment error, and at least one County Board supervisor is pushing for the troubled system to be turned over to the state. County retirement plan services director Marian Ninneman resigned after failing to correct an ongoing overpayment to one person that amounted to $140,000 over several years even though Ninneman was informed of the mistake nearly three years ago, County Executive Chris Abele said. “This pensioner didn’t do anything wrong” but now that person is being asked to pay it all back, Abele said in an interview.”

Philip Carlson is the talent agent who signed and represented Philip Seymour Hoffman, Claire Danes, Idris Elba, Viola Davis, and Liev Schreiber. He describes his Passion for Finding Talent: