Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:28 PM, for 15h 11m 11s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 38% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 3:30 PM.

On this day in 1965, Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew, launches. Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American spacewalk.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Maria Perez reports More than 25% of workers at a Seneca Foods plant got COVID, documents show. But the company blamed community spread:

More than a quarter of the workers at a Seneca Foods plant in Gillett tested positive for COVID-19 in a single month last year, yet a company representative told a federal inspector they believed all cases were due to community spread, according to newly released federal records.

Those records show the company refused to provide information about the workers until it faced a subpoena from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.

Eleven migrant workers at the green bean canning plant northwest of Green Bay died of COVID last fall, making the outbreak one of the deadliest in the U.S. food processing industry, a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found. Company and health officials failed to take critical measures to protect the plant’s migrant workers, most of whom lived in company-owned barracks that could house up to 30 people each.

The information provided by company representatives to an OSHA inspector also appears to contradict the accounts provided by migrant workers interviewed by the Journal Sentinel about some aspects of the company’s response to COVID-19.

Company officials also told the OSHA inspector they closed the Gillett plant for the season a few days early “out of abundance of caution,” records show. But by the time the plant closed, numerous workers had tested positive, at least seven had been hospitalized and one had died of the disease.

Silvia Foster-Frau reports Latinos are disproportionately killed by police but often left out of the debate about brutality, some advocates say: 

A review of databases that track police killings shows that while their cases have largely gone untold in the national discussion of police violence, Latinos are killed by police at nearly double the rate of White Americans. And while the national debate on police killings has focused on Black Americans, whose deaths at the hands of law enforcement have been high-profile and outnumber those of other people of color, some activists say the situation for the Latino community has become critical.

Experts cite several reasons the Latino community has often been left out of the debate about policing and reform. The historical legacy of police brutality against Black people is well-known and documented, dating back to the slave patrols. Many Americans view immigration as the primary concern of Latinos. The lack of a standardized system for reporting police killings means that Latino victims are often categorized as Black or White. In addition, Latinos as a group include a variety of cultures with different lived experiences.

“I think society has this notion that [police violence] is a Black and White issue, and not for Latinos. It’s kind of like, ‘That’s not your issue. Your issue is immigration,’ ” Rodriguez said. But the number of Latinos killed by police is “off the charts,” he said.

Escaped elephants wreak havoc in south-west China:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:28 PM, for 15h 10m 05s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 48.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1997, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in which 168 people died. He was executed four years later.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Lauren White reports Evers Says Full Budget Veto Possible:

Over the past several weeks, Republicans have removed hundreds of the governor’s priorities from the state spending plan, including major items like an expansion of Medicaid and legalization of marijuana.

The governor has the power to partially veto the state budget, as he did in 2019 to increase school spending, or to veto the entire budget outright  — a step Evers said Tuesday he hasn’t ruled out.

“That’s too early to tell, but that is always an option that’s on the table,” he said.

If the governor were to veto the entire budget, the current 2019-2021 spending plan would be extended to fund programs while Evers and lawmakers began negotiations again from square one.

 Edgar Sandoval, David Montgomery, and Manny Fernandez report ‘Contested, Heated Culture Wars’ Mark Ultraconservative Texas Session (‘This was the session that pushed Texas further to the right, at a time when it seemed least likely to do so — as the state becomes younger, less white and less Republican’):

State Representative Jarvis D. Johnson, a Democrat from Houston, said this had been a particularly partisan session. He cited but one example: the dismissive Republican response to his efforts to abolish Confederate Heroes Day, an official state holiday in Texas.

“Last session I was able to get a committee hearing on this,” Mr. Johnson said. “That’s something I could not even get this year.”

Mr. Johnson had a heated exchange on the House floor with a Republican lawmaker over the role of slavery in the Texas Revolution, one of many confrontations and arguments between Democratic and Republican legislators.

 Kate Lyon reports US secretary of state warns Pacific leaders about ‘coercion’ in veiled swipe at China:

The US secretary of state has warned leaders of Pacific countries about “threats to the rules-based international order” and “economic coercion”, in what appears to be a veiled swipe at China’s growing influence in the region.

Antony Blinken was addressing leaders and their delegates from 11 Pacific countries and territories including Fiji, Solomon Islands, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Palau and Marshall Islands as part of the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders, which is held in Hawaii.

….

But the main focus of his televised address was China’s growing influence in the region.

“Economic coercion across the region is on the rise. The US is all for more development and investment in the islands, but that investment should adhere to international standards for environmentally and socially sustainable development and should be pursued transparently, with public consultation,” he said. “And every country, no matter its size, should always be able to make choices without fear of retribution.”

Rare Black-Footed Ferret Kits Born at Phoenix Zoo:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:27 PM, for 15h 08m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 59% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1918, Allied forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord are victorious at the Battle of Belleau Wood over Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Bridgit Bowden reports District Attorney Races In Wisconsin Are Often Uncontested:

In 2020, only seven of the state’s 71 district attorney seats were contested — four in the November general election, and three in the partisan primary. (Menominee and Shawano counties share a district attorney).

In Price County, there wasn’t even anyone officially on the ballot, leaving the race to be decided by write-in votes.

The lack of competition is not a new phenomenon, and not surprising to most people who work in the legal field. However, criminal justice experts from both prosecution and defense backgrounds, as well as reform advocates told WPR that the justice system as a whole would benefit from more competition because district attorney is such an important office.

Their decisions can directly affect incarceration rates and can make or break criminal justice reform efforts in areas like low-level drug offenses, treatment court programs and parole and probation violations, according to reform advocates.

 Michael D. Shear and Zolan Kanno-Youngs report Biden Aims to Rebuild and Expand Legal Immigration:

A 46-page draft blueprint obtained by The New York Times maps out the Biden administration’s plans to significantly expand the legal immigration system, including methodically reversing the efforts to dismantle it by former President Donald J. Trump, who reduced the flow of foreign workers, families and refugees, erecting procedural barriers tougher to cross than his “big, beautiful wall.”

Because of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies, the average time it takes to approve employer-sponsored green cards has doubled. The backlog for citizenship applications is up 80 percent since 2014, to more than 900,000 cases. Approval for the U-visa program, which grants legal status for immigrants willing to help the police, has gone from five months to roughly five years.

In almost every case over the last four years, immigrating to the United States has become harder, more expensive and takes longer.

 Mike Allen writes QAnon infects churches:

QAnon conspiracy theories have burrowed so deeply into American churches that pastors are expressing alarm — and a new poll shows the bogus teachings have become as widespread as some denominations.

Why it matters: The problem with misinformation and disinformation is that people — lots of people — believe it. And they don’t believe reality coming from the media and even their ministers.

Russell Moore, one of America’s most respected evangelical Christian thinkers, told me he’s “talking literally every day to pastors, of virtually every denomination, who are exhausted by these theories blowing through their churches or communities.”

….

The poll found that Hispanic Protestants (26%) and white evangelical Protestants (25%) were more likely to agree with the QAnon philosophies than other groups. (Black Protestants were 15%, white Catholics were 11% and white mainline Protestants were 10%.)

(Not all denominations are affected equally; some are more susceptible than others.)

Tonight’s Sky for June:

Good morning.

Memorial Day in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 73. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:26 PM, for 15h 07m 40s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 68.4% 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.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Sui-Lui Wee reports China Says It Will Allow Couples to Have 3 Children, Up From 2 (‘The move is the Communist Party’s latest attempt to reverse declining birthrates and avert a population crisis, but experts say it is woefully inadequate’):

“Opening it up to three children is far from enough,” said Huang Wenzheng, a demography expert with the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing-based research center. “It should be fully liberalized, and giving birth should be strongly encouraged.”

“This should be regarded as a crisis for the survival of the Chinese nation, even beyond the pandemic and other environmental issues,” Mr. Huang added. “There should never have been a birth restriction policy in the first place. So it’s not a question of whether this is too late.”

….

“The decision makers have probably realized that the population situation is relatively severe,” said He Yafu, an independent demographer based in the southern Chinese city of Zhanjiang. “But merely opening up the policy to three children and not encouraging births as a whole, I don’t think there will be a significant increase in the fertility rate. Many people don’t want to have a second child, let alone a third child.”

 Steven Zeitchik reports Leading scientist says that without a full investigation of lab leak theory, the world will face ‘covid-26 and covid-32’:

“There’s going to be covid-26 and covid-32 unless we fully understand the origins of covid-19,” Peter Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and a leading expert on the virus, said Sunday on NBC News’s “Meet The Press.” He said coming to firm conclusions about how the virus emerged was “absolutely essential” in preventing future pandemics.

New reports suggest that China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology was at the center of the outbreak, not animal-to-human transmission elsewhere in Wuhan, which was the long-prevalent opinion. President Biden last week ordered a fresh 90-day intelligence review of the virus’s origins with the goal of examining the possibility that it accidentally leaked from the Wuhan lab instead of being spread by bats or other animals to humans in a zoonotic transmission.

 Sicily’s Mount Etna erupted again on Sunday:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 71. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:25 PM, for 15h 06m 24s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 78.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1899, Pearl Hart, a female outlaw of the Old West, robs a stagecoach 30 miles southeast of Globe, Arizona.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Corri Hess reports Village Paid Foxconn Project Manager Nearly $1 Million (‘Private contractor billed Mount Pleasant for $973,750 and has just gotten a raise’):

The project director hired to oversee the failed Foxconn development in Racine County has been paid nearly $1 million in taxpayer money since he was hired in 2017 — and he was recently given a raise, according to documents obtained by WPR.

Claude Lois is a contracted consultant with Kapur and Associates, who works in Mount Pleasant’s Village Hall. Through April, Kapur and Associates billed Mount Pleasant $973,750, according to records provided to WPR. Of that, $1,681 was for labor and overhead for employees other than Lois.

Since it was announced with much fanfare, Foxconn has repeatedly fallen short on job and building promises. One of the complaints that Racine County residents and some politicians have had with the company is they are unclear what type of work is being done in Mount Pleasant. Still, Village officials praise the work Lois has done in his role as project consultant.

In a written statement, Mount Pleasant Village Administrator Maureen Murphy said Lois “continues to provide exceptional service to the Village as Project Director.”

“Through his work, the Village has acquired and developed thousands of acres, overseen hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment in TID#5 (tax increment district) and continues to help secure and attract new business to the TID, including a $48 million investment in the North Area announced last week,” the statement said.

Lois did not respond to requests for comment from WPR.

Last month, the Mount Pleasant Village Board extended Lois’ contract by two years. He’ll be paid $175 per hour beginning Aug. 31. His salary will increase to $200 per hour on Aug. 21, 2022, according to the contract.

Lois was also hired as the Village of Saukville’s economic development consultant in January 2020.

Lois’s salary is paid using money from the special taxing district created to pay for the local portion of the Foxconn project.

When the Village of Mount Pleasant and Racine County created the $911 million tax-increment finance district, officials said the money would pay for land acquisition, infrastructure upgrades and other expenses. Local governments expect money generated by Foxconn’s projects will cover the costs. But right now, local taxpayers have already spent over $1 billion for the project.

 Sam Levine reports Republicans who embraced Trump’s big lie run to become election officials:

Republicans who have embraced baseless claims about the 2020 election being stolen are now running to serve as the chief elections officials in several states, a move that could give them significant power over election processes.

The campaigns, first detailed by Politico last week, underscore a new focus to take control of election administration. Secretaries of state, who are elected to office in partisan contests that have long been overlooked, wield enormous power over election rules in their state, are responsible for overseeing election equipment, and are a key player in certifying – making official – election results.

Winning secretary of state offices across the country would give conspiracy theorists enormous power to wreak havoc in the 2024 presidential election, including potentially blocking candidates who win the most votes from taking office.

‘Strangely lopsided’ spiral galaxy captured by Hubble:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 65. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:24 PM, for 15h 05m 03s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 87.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1848, Wisconsin enters the Union: “the 30th state to enter the Union with an area of 56,154 square miles, comprising 1/56 of the United States at the time.”

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Molly Beck reports US warns Wisconsin may lose $1.5 billion in pandemic aid under budget action:

In a letter Friday, a U.S. Department of Education official told State Superintendent Carolyn Stanford Taylor that action taken Thursday by the Legislature’s budget-writing committee puts at risk $1.5 billion in federal pandemic aid for schools.

The Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee dedicated $128 million in new funding for K-12 schools and set aside $350 million in a separate fund that GOP lawmakers said would be used for schools but was not yet appropriated as such.

That means Wisconsin has fallen short in meeting a $387 million K-12 spending threshold in order to receive the pandemic aid under federal rules that require state officials to spend about 35% of state funds on schools.

“… The $350 million that the State might transfer to the budget stabilization fund may not be considered State support for education at the time of the transfer unless it is actually appropriated for K-12 education for the applicable fiscal year and not ‘for any other purpose,'” said the letter from Ian Rosenblum, a top official at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.

 Scott Bauer reports Ex-cop hired to probe Wisconsin election has partisan ties:

One of the retired police officers hired by a top Wisconsin Republican to investigate the presidential election in the battleground state has ties to the GOP and previously led a probe into voter fraud in Milwaukee, work that prosecutors disavowed and that a federal judge said was not trustworthy.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos this week said he was hiring three retired police investigators to look into the election results. On Thursday, during an interview with conservative talk radio host Dan O’Donnell, Vos confirmed that one of those he hired is Mike Sandvick, a retired Milwaukee police detective.

“In all honesty, he has Republican leanings,” Vos told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday, without naming Sandvick. “He’s been active in the Republican Party.”

A 2008 report Sandvick wrote about the 2004 presidential election recommended that Wisconsin election laws be changed in light of what he said was voter fraud. That report has been referenced by conservatives since then as evidence there is unchecked fraud in the state. However, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI all disavowed the report.

In 2013, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman did not allow the report to be admitted as evidence in a lawsuit over Wisconsin’s voter ID law, saying it was not trustworthy.

 Gabriela Miranda reports Farmers and business owners struggle under Australia mouse plague:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 49. Sunrise is 5:20 AM and sunset 8:24 PM, for 15h 03m 38s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 94% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1987, an 18-year-old West German pilot, Mathias Rust, evades Soviet Union air defenses and lands a private plane in Red Square.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth report Russia Appears to Carry Out Hack Through System Used by U.S. Aid Agency:

Hackers linked to Russia’s main intelligence agency surreptitiously seized an email system used by the State Department’s international aid agency to burrow into the computer networks of human rights groups and other organizations of the sort that have been critical of President Vladimir V. Putin, Microsoft Corporation disclosed on Thursday.

Discovery of the breach comes only three weeks before President Biden is scheduled to meet Mr. Putin in Geneva, and at a moment of increased tension between the two nations — in part because of a series of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks emanating from Russia.

The newly disclosed attack was also particularly bold: By breaching the systems of a supplier used by the federal government, the hackers sent out genuine-looking emails to more than 3,000 accounts across more than 150 organizations that regularly receive communications from the United States Agency for International Development. Those emails went out as recently as this week, and Microsoft said it believes the attacks are ongoing.

Nate Schenkkan writes of The Authoritarian Assault on Exiles:

The main factor driving such transgressions is simple: a sense of impunity among authoritarians. Despite his clear complicity in Khashoggi’s killing, Mohammed bin Salman remains the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia. Rwandan President Paul Kagame has given interviews to international media in which he has bragged about the operation his government carried out in August 2020 to abduct the exiled dissident Paul Rusesabagina. Lukashenko and others have clearly taken note. In hijacking the Ryanair flight and seizing Pratasevich, Belarus was not setting a new precedent but merely following an existing one.

Behind all acts of transnational repression is a presumption that the targets “belong” to the state from which they hail and a bet that their host countries—the places where they live, work, raise their families, and maybe even enjoy citizenship—will not risk a fight over someone who is not “native.” The only way to put a stop to this ugly trend is to make that gamble far riskier by hitting back hard against perpetrators—including Lukashenko—and demonstrating to autocrats that they will pay a steep price for carrying out such crimes.

 David Corn writes Emails Tie Top Trump Exec Allen Weisselberg to Yet Another Trump Financial Scandal:

Assorted news reports have identified Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, as a key figure in the criminal and civil investigations of the Trump business being conducted by the New York attorney general and the Manhattan district attorney, who recently empaneled a grand jury to review evidence against the Trump company, its executives, and possibly Trump. Moreover, the New York Times recently reported that Weisselberg himself is being criminally investigated for possible tax fraud, raising the prospect that investigators are looking to flip the longtime Trump executive into a cooperating witness. Now there’s more trouble for Weisselberg and Trump World. Previously unreported emails attached to a little-noticed court document filed last year show that Weisselberg is tied to another Trump financial scandal: the Trump inauguration case, which is currently being investigated by the attorney general of Washington, DC.

Curious palates dig into cicada as Brood X emerges on East Coast:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see scattered showers with a high of 54. Sunrise is 5:21 AM and sunset 8:23 PM, for 15h 02m 12s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1969, the Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Patrick Marley reports Top Wisconsin Republican Robin Vos hires former cops to investigate November election:

Vos in a Wednesday interview said he was giving the investigators a broad mandate to spend about three months reviewing all tips and following up on the most credible ones. In addition to the grant spending, he said they may look into claims of double voting and review how clerks fixed absentee ballot credentials.

“Is there a whole lot of smoke or is there actual fire? We just don’t know yet,” Vos said.

Ann Jacobs, a Democrat who leads the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said she was worried the investigation would undermine confidence in an election that was conducted properly.

 Stephanie Mencimer writes Doctor, Lawyer, Insurrectionist: The Radicalization of Simone Gold:

When rioters broke into the US Capitol on January 6, chants of “Fuck the police!” “USA!” or “Treason!” echoed in the marble halls. When Dr. Simone Gold got inside the rotunda, she stepped over a velvet rope and announced to anyone who would listen, “I am a Stanford-educated attorney!”

Thus she distinguished herself among the motley crew of Proud Boys, MAGA types, and the QAnon shaman who paraded through the Capitol to overturn the 2020 presidential election, an event that left five people dead. Not only is Gold a Stanford-educated lawyer, she’s also a board-certified emergency room physician. Neither qualification prevented the FBI from coming to her Beverly Hills house on January 18 and arresting her. Nor did it make a federal grand jury think twice in early February before indicting her on five criminal counts, including entering a restricted building and obstructing an official proceeding.

The arrest marked the end of one chapter in her Icarian trajectory into right-wing fame. Before April 2020, Gold had been just another over-achieving Beverly Hills doctor. But with the arrival of the pandemic, she donned her white lab coat to protest lockdowns and promote President Donald Trump’s favorite unproven COVID treatment, the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. It seems that’s all it took to find an enthusiastic audience among the MAGA faithful, putting her on a glide path to a certain kind of right-wing stardom. Conservatives who love to bash educated, liberal elites as out of touch quickly embraced Gold and gleefully touted her impressive credentials to support their attacks on public health measures designed to combat the pandemic. She sailed into their well-funded ecosystem, snagging speaking gigs, appearances on cable talk shows, and robust opportunities to fundraise.

Elizabeth Dwoskin report Russia is still the biggest player in disinformation, Facebook says:

12.6 pound ice chunk crashes through Elk Mound home:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:21 AM and sunset 8:22 PM, for 15h 00m 41s of daytime.  The moon is full with 100% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee meets at 5 PM, and the Whitewater School Board meets in closed session at 6 PM and open session at 6:30 PM.

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 manned moon landing.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Patrick Marley and Molly Beck report Top Republican says Wisconsin schools shouldn’t get a general funding increase for the next two years:

The president of the Wisconsin Senate doesn’t want to increase general aid for schools in the next two years because they have received billions of dollars in federal aid since 2020.

“I think we’re good for right now,” Senate President Chris Kapenga said in an interview Tuesday. “My gut is there’s not going to be a big push in the caucus to increase funding.”

The Delafield Republican made the comment as the Legislature’s budget committee prepares to meet Thursday to consider funding for schools and the University of Wisconsin System.

….

Kapenga said school and state officials should think creatively to bring down school costs, such as by reducing the number of school districts from more than 400 to 72 — one for each county.

(The merger of dozens of districts into a one-district-per-county system would plunge Wisconsin into years of political warfare among communities over influence within the consolidated districts.)

Patrick Marley and Hope Karnopp report Republicans quickly end Evers’ special session on BadgerCare Plus without action on plan to bring $1.6 billion in aid to state:

In a matter of seconds Tuesday, Republican lawmakers shut down Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ special session that sought to expand BadgerCare Plus and draw $1.6 billion in federal aid to Wisconsin.

Three Republicans — one in the Senate and two in the Assembly — initiated the special session at 1 p.m. and ended it moments later. Most lawmakers were absent, but some Democrats urged them to keep the session alive.

It’s the latest instance of Republicans declining to take up matters prioritized by Evers. In the last two years, Republicans have passed on acting on Evers’ special sessions to require universal background checks on guns; increase school funding; ban police chokeholds and no-knock warrants; and delay the April 2020 election because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lois Henry reports The Central California Town That Keeps Sinking (‘The very ground upon which Corcoran, Calif., was built has been slowly but steadily collapsing, a situation caused primarily not by nature but agriculture’):

In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the farming town of Corcoran has a multimillion-dollar problem. It is almost impossible to see, yet so vast it takes NASA scientists using satellite technology to fully grasp.

Corcoran is sinking.

Over the past 14 years, the town has sunk as much as 11.5 feet in some places — enough to swallow the entire first floor of a two-story house and to at times make Corcoran one of the fastest-sinking areas in the country, according to experts with the United States Geological Survey.

Subsidence is the technical term for the phenomenon — the slow-motion deflation of land that occurs when large amounts of water are withdrawn from deep underground, causing underlying sediments to fall in on themselves.

Each year, Corcoran’s entire 7.47 square miles and its 21,960 residents sink just a little bit, as the soil dips anywhere from a few inches to nearly two feet.

Beekeeper rescues bees with her bare hands:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will see clouds with a stray thunderstorm and a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:22 AM and sunset 8:21 PM, for 14h 59m 08s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1977, Star Wars (retroactively titled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) is released in theaters.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Christina Larson reports Wolves scare deer and reduce auto collisions 24%, study says:

Ecologist Rolf Peterson remembers driving remote stretches of road in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and seeing areas strewn with deer carcasses. But that changed after gray wolves arrived in the region from Canada and Minnesota.

“When wolves moved in during the 1990s and 2000s, the deer-vehicle collisions went way down,” said the Michigan Tech researcher.

Recently, another team of scientists has gathered data about road collisions and wolf movements in Wisconsin to quantify how the arrival wolves there affected the frequency of deer-auto collisions. They found it created what scientists call “a landscape of fear.”

“In a pretty short period of time, once wolves colonize a county, deer vehicle collisions go down about 24%,” said Dominic Parker, a natural resources economist at UW-Madison and co-author of their new study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Both thinning of the deer population by wolves and behavior changes in fearful deer are factors in the drop-off, Parker said.

“When you have a major predator around, it impacts how the prey behave,” he said. “Wolves use linear features of a landscape as travel corridors, like roads, pipelines and stream beds. Deer learn this and can adapt by staying away.”

Gray wolves, among the first species protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1973, were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995. But in other regions of the U.S., gray wolves have dispersed naturally; the population in the lower 48 states now totals about 5,500.

 Shawn Boburg reports Commerce Department security unit evolved into counterintelligence-like operation, Washington Post examination found:

An obscure security unit tasked with protecting the Commerce Department’s officials and facilities has evolved into something more akin to a counterintelligence operation that collected information on hundreds of people inside and outside the department, a Washington Post examination found.

The Investigations and Threat Management Service (ITMS) covertly searched employees’ offices at night, ran broad keyword searches of their emails trying to surface signs of foreign influence and scoured Americans’ social media for critical comments about the census, according to documents and interviews with five former investigators.

In one instance, the unit opened a case on a 68-year-old retiree in Florida who tweeted that the census, which is run by the Commerce Department, would be manipulated “to benefit the Trump Party!” records show.

In another example, the unit searched Commerce servers for particular Chinese words, documents show. The search resulted in the monitoring of many Asian American employees over benign correspondence, according to two former investigators.

The office “has been allowed to operate far outside the bounds of federal law enforcement norms and has created an environment of paranoia and retaliation at the Department,” John Costello, a former deputy assistant secretary of intelligence and security at Commerce in the Trump administration, said in a statement for this story.

ITMS “rests on questionable legal authority and has suffered from poor management and lack of sufficient legal and managerial oversight for much of its existence,” Costello said.

Hawaii’s surprise volcanic eruption: Lessons from Kilauea 2018: