Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of sixty-three.  Sunrise is 5:53 AM and sunset 7:50 PM, for 13h 57m 08s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 10.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1865, Union soldiers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth.

Recommended for reading in full —

Beth McMurtrie writes The Next Casualty of the Coronavirus Crisis May Be the Academic Calendar:

As the novel coronavirus rolled across the country in early March, Beloit College scrambled to keep up. Like virtually every other campus in the United States, it sent students home and moved instruction online. But what about the future?

“All we were doing was triage,” says Eric Boynton, provost of the small liberal-arts college in Wisconsin, remembering the days after Covid-19 hit. “I had this sinking feeling that this wasn’t enough.”

So Boynton brought an idea to a committee at Beloit that had spent nearly eight months crafting a new academic plan to differentiate itself from its peers: What if, come fall, Beloit broke the semester into 3.5-week increments, so students and professors could focus on one course at a time? That, he argued, would allow for greater flexibility to respond to what many public-health experts anticipate will be a flare-up in infections in the coming months if social-distancing orders are lifted too soon. And it would, he said, give “solidity” to the fall calendar.

The committee rejected that idea but two days later suggested another: a later start date and two seven-week modules instead of a full semester. That way, if the college needed to move everyone online either early or late in the fall, it could do so with fewer disruptions. The deal was ratified and publicly rolled out within two weeks, giving Beloit a leg up at a time when families are struggling to make sense of what the next academic year will look like.

 Douglas N. Harris asks How will COVID-19 change our schools in the long run?:

Use of online tools? It should be clear from my arguments above that schools will make much greater use of online tools. Most students in the country will soon have laptops and some type of internet access (though the digital divide will remain a significant concern). Teachers are going to like many of the tools out there, and they will have an easier time using them now that students have some experience with them. As Dave Deming recently pointed out, online tools can be helpful complements to in-person instruction—instead of a replacement for it—allowing teachers to focus more on engaging students and mentoring them.

A shift to homeschooling and fully virtual instruction? There may be some shift in this direction. Families will get more accustomed to online learning. However, this approach has the significant disadvantage that families have to play the role of hall monitor and teacher. Few families want or can afford that, given their work schedules and other responsibilities. Moreover, research consistently suggests that students learn less in fully virtual environments. In-person, teacher-led instruction simply has too many advantages.

(Note: Harris’s perspective rests primarily on his study of K-12 education in New Orleans after Katrina.)

Why These Grandmas Swim With Venomous Sea Snakes:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty-five.  Sunrise is 5:55 AM and sunset 7:49 PM, for 13h 54m 32s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1898, Congress declares that a state of war between the U.S. and Spain had de facto existed since April 21, the day an American blockade of Cuba had begun.

Recommended for reading in full —

Daphne Chen and Rory Linnane report As residents at two Milwaukee nursing homes contracted and died of coronavirus, administrators and local officials kept it to themselves:

On April 9, as paramedics rushed to a nursing home in West Allis to assist a 79-year-old COVID-positive resident found without a pulse, police did not join them.

The officers had a reason: “Due to the high volume of COVID positive cases, police are no longer physically responding to the facility,” read a Milwaukee County medical examiner’s report about the man’s death.

West Allis police had long known about the severity of the coronavirus outbreak among residents and staff at Allis Care Center, a 152-bed skilled nursing facility in West Allis.

But many members of the public — and family members of residents — did not.

All told, in a span of less than three weeks this month, at least eight residents of Allis Care Center died from coronavirus complications, according to medical examiner reports.

Meanwhile, eight residents of BRIA of Trinity Village, a nursing home on the northwest side of Milwaukee, died of coronavirus complications in the same period.

Family members of residents at both homes said administrators have not been open about the number of cases or deaths, even as the fatalities mounted.

  Jin Wu, Allison McCann, Josh Katz, and Elian Peltier report 36,000 Missing Deaths: Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus Crisis:

At least 36,000 more people have died during the coronavirus pandemic over the last month than the official Covid-19 death counts report, a review of mortality data in 12 countries shows — providing a clearer, if still incomplete, picture of the toll of the crisis.

In the last month, far more people died in these countries than in previous years, The New York Times found. The totals include deaths from Covid-19 as well as those from other causes, likely including people who could not be treated as hospitals became overwhelmed.

These numbers undermine the notion that many people who have died from the virus may soon have died anyway. In Paris, more than twice the usual number of people have died each day, far more than the peak of a bad flu season. In New York City, the number is now four times the normal amount.

  Brenna Houck reports For Restaurants, Masks Could Be the New Normal:

A few months ago, at the beginning of cold and flu season, Erica Pietrzyk decided to have employees wear face masks while working at her Polish food stand Pietrzyk Pierogi in Detroit. In her mind, the masks were the best way to protect customers and her employees from getting sick. The patrons, however, were put off by the practice. “We determined that we would just stop it for the time being, because people are very uncomfortable with it,” Pietrzyk says.

Now, amid the novel coronavirus epidemic, when employees don a mask, it barely gets a second glance.

United While in Isolation:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty-three.  Sunrise is 5:56 AM and sunset 7:48 PM, for 13h 51m 56s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1977, the Morris Pratt Institute moves from Whitewater to Waukesha.

Recommended for reading in full —

Allyson Chiu and Katie Shepherd report Trump asked if disinfectants could be injected to kill coronavirus inside the body. Doctors answered: ‘People will die’:

After a presentation Thursday that touched on the disinfectants that can kill the novel coronaviruson surfaces and in the air, President Trump pondered whether those chemicals could be used to fight the virus inside the human body.

“I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute,” Trump said during Thursday’s coronavirus press briefing. “And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets inside the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”

The question, which Trump offered unprompted, immediately spurred doctors to respond with incredulity and warnings against injecting or otherwise ingesting disinfectants, which are highly toxic.

“My concern is that people will die. People will think this is a good idea,” Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, told The Washington Post. “This is not willy-nilly, off-the-cuff, maybe-this-will-work advice. This is dangerous.”

Cara Giaimo reports 5 Rules for Rooming With Lab Animals During Coronavirus:

Last month, the coronavirus pandemic prompted universities and museums around the world to dial down their operations, leaving scientists to make difficult decisions about the animals they work with. While some released or culled their specimens — or set up a visitation schedule — others decided to take theirs home, embarking on a different sort of relationship. We checked in with half a dozen scientists about how they’re making it work with their new roommates in this time of social distancing.

Rule #1: No cockroaches in the common area

As a postdoctoral fellow in a University of California, San Diego, lab that studies small-scale locomotion, Glenna Clifton is used to observing insects quite closely. But since the lab moved to remote work in March, she has forged a new intimacy with some of her research subjects: nine cockroaches that now live about two feet from her bed.

Dr. Clifton wanted to take the roaches home so she could continue working with them. (Plus, her supervisor has a cat with a taste for bugs.) But like many young academics, she shares housing, and her housemates were “a little hesitant,” she said. So she promised she would keep them in her bedroom.

SpaceX previews Demo-2 and Crew-1 launches:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with areas of drizzle and a high of fifty-five.  Sunrise is 5:58 AM and sunset 7:47 PM, for 13h 49m 17s of daytime.  The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s school board meets in closed session at 5:45 PM to consider its two finalists for district administrator.

 On this day in 1954, Hank Aaron, playing for the Milwaukee Braves, hit his first major league home run.

Recommended for reading in full —

 The Washington Post editorial board writes The Russia hoax was never a hoax. An encouraging bipartisan report confirms it:

THE SENATE Intelligence Committee has released a bipartisan report with a stark bottom line: What President Trump calls the “Russia hoax” isn’t a hoax at all.

The fourth and latest installment in lawmakers’ review of Moscow’s meddling examines a January 2017 assessment by the nation’s spy agencies that Mr. Trump has repeatedly attempted to discredit — and confirms it, unanimously. Russia sought to subvert Americans’ belief in our democracy, bring down Hillary Clinton and bolster her rival. That these legislators from both sides of the aisle are willing to say as much after three years of thorough investigation is an encouraging sign of some independent thinking still left in government. It’s also a reminder of the peril this independence is in today.

The committee members conclude that the intelligence community produced a “coherent and well-constructed …basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election” despite a tight time frame.

Will Sommer and Jackie Kucinich report Anti-Vaxxers and Lockdown Protesters Form an Unholy Alliance:

Bigtree [Del Bigtree, notorious anti-vaccination activist] isn’t the only drawing connections between the anti-vaccine movement—which advocates for the fallacious notion that vaccines cause autism or other ailments—and the movements against the stay-at-home orders. Anti-vaccine activists have pushed a hashtag calling for President Donald Trump to fire the government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci—a message that evolved into a “Fire Fauci” chant at the Texas rally Bigtree attended. Some participants in the reopening rallies have also adopted “I Do Not Consent” as their go-to sign formulation, which is the same language that’s become a popular phrase for anti-vaccination activists.

“That’s one of their biggest slogans,” said Amy Pisani, the executive director of pro-vaccine group Vaccinate Your Family.

The predominantly right-wing activists calling for states to reopen businesses amid the pandemic have also criticized vaccines in their online communities. On “Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine,” a Facebook group with more than 350,000 members that has become a hotbed for anti-social distancing protests in the state, thousands of members said they wouldn’t take any future vaccine. Some posters pushed conspiracy theories that the vaccine would be the “mark of the Beast” or a tracking device used by billionaire Bill Gates.

Shake Shack Returns $10M Loan from COVID-19 Stimulus Bill:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with scattered showers and a high of fifty-eight.  Sunrise is 5:59 AM and sunset 7:46 PM, for 13h 46m 38s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 0.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1970, Earth Day is first celebrated.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Brian Stelter writes Fox quietly abandons hydroxychloroquine:

Fox News has fallen out of love with hydroxychloroquine. After weeks of unrelenting coverage hyping the antimalarial drug as a potential game-changing treatment for the coronavirus, the network has all but stopped mentioning it on its airwaves. So has President Donald Trump.

The quite abandonment of hydroxychloroquine comes as studies indicate it is not an effective treatment against the coronavirus. A French study found last week that the drug does not help patients with the virus. And on Tuesday, a study of hundreds of patents at US Veterans Health Administration medical centers found that patients who took hydroxychloroquine were no less likely to need ventilation and had higher death rates than those who didn’t take the drug.

“Will anyone who breathlessly pitched hydroxychloroquine as a miracle drug show a modicum of regret or even self-awareness over this? Doubtful,” The Daily Beast’s Sam Stein predicted. “More likely is they’ll ignore the study entirely.” Stein appears to have been right on the money.

Despite having previously pushed the drug as a possible treatment, neither Tucker Carlson nor Sean Hannity mentioned the study on their Fox News shows Tuesday night. I didn’t see Laura Ingraham, who reportedly visited the White House to promote the drug, discuss it either. Fox published a digital story on the Tuesday study, but it fell off the website’s homepage after a few hours.

(Emphasis in original.)

 The Associated Press reports ‘Small Business’ Loans Went to Big Businesses & Failing Ones:

Companies with thousands of employees, penalties from government investigations and risks of financial failure even before the coronavirus walloped the economy were among those receiving millions of dollars from a so-called “small business” relief fund that Congress created, an Associated Press investigation found.

The Paycheck Protection Program was supposed to infuse small businesses, which typically have less access to quick cash and credit, with $349 billion in emergency loans that could help keep workers on the job and bills paid on time.

But at least 75 companies that received the aid were publicly traded, the AP found, and some had market values well over $100 million. And 25% of the companies had warned investors months ago — while the economy was humming along — that their ability to remain viable was in question.

By combing through thousands of regulatory filings, the AP identified the 75 companies as recipients of a combined $300 million in low-interest, taxpayer-backed loans.

Eight companies, or their subsidiaries, received the maximum $10 million possible, including a California software company that settled a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation late last year of accounting errors that overstated its revenue.

The eight firms getting maximum loans are likely just a tip of the iceberg: Statistics released last week by the U.S. Small Business Administration showed that 4,400 of the approved loans exceeded $5 million. Overall, the size of the typical loan nationally was $206,000, according to the statistics. The SBA will forgive the loans if companies meet certain benchmarks, such as keeping employees on payroll for eight weeks.

Cracking the antimatter mystery?:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of sixty-one.  Sunrise is 6:01 AM and sunset 7:45 PM, for 13h 43m 58s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 2.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Unified School District will hold an electronic public forum for the finalists for district administrator (Dr. Caroline Pate-Hefty, Ms. Kellie Bohn). The forum, from 6 – 8:30 PM, is available via Zoom or phone. Whitewater’s common council also meets electronically tonight, at 6:30 PM.

 Naturalist John Muir is born on this day in 1838.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Catherine Rampell writes Trump has almost nothing to lose. That’s why he wants to reopen the economy:

Public health experts worry that “reopening” the country too soon will be bad for public health. Economists worry it will be bad for the economy. The general public worries it will bad for, well, everyone.

So why is President Trump agitating to do so anyway, even encouraging insurrection against his own administration’s stay-at-home guidance?

Because it’s the only Hail Mary chance he has at reelection. And, sure, it probably won’t pay off. But just as he’s done his entire life, Trump has no problem gambling with other people’s money and well-being — even if the stakes could be fatal.

Andrew Romano reports Most Americans reject anti-lockdown protests:

An overwhelming majority of Americans, Republicans included, are rejecting right-wing protests — encouraged by President Trump — to immediately “reopen” the country in the midst of the world’s largest and deadliest coronavirus outbreak, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

The survey, conducted April 17 to April 19, found that a full 60 percent of the public opposes the largely pro-Trump protesters whose calls for governors to “liberate” their states by lifting lockdown measures have attracted intense media attention in recent days — and whose message the president amplified Friday in a series of all-caps “LIBERATE” tweets about three swing states: Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia.

Only 22 percent of Americans say they support the protesters. Despite Trump’s messaging, even Republicans oppose the protests 47 percent to 36 percent. Asked whether they agree or disagree with Trump’s “LIBERATE” tweets, only a quarter of Americans say they agree.

Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins report Conservative activist family behind ‘grassroots’ anti-quarantine Facebook events:

A family-run network of pro-gun groups is behind five of the largest Facebook groups dedicated to protesting the shelter-in-place restrictions, according to an NBC News analysis of Facebook groups and website registration information.

The groups were set up by four brothers — Chris, Ben, Aaron and Matthew Dorr — and have amassed more than 200,000 members collectively, including in states where they don’t reside, according to an NBC News analysis based on public records searches and Facebook group registrations.

The Dorr brothers are known in conservative circles for running pro-gun and anti-abortion rights Facebook groups that bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually by antagonizing establishment conservative leaders and activists.

Their usual method is to attack established conservative groups from the right, including the National Rifle Association, and then make money by selling memberships in their groups or selling mailing lists of those who sign up, according to some conservative politicians and activists who have labeled the efforts as scams.

How ‘Trolls World Tour’ Lets the Dogs Out: