Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of nine.  Sunrise is 6:24 AM and sunset 5:48 PM, for 11h 24m 17s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 4.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Downtown Whitewater, Inc.’s board meets tonight at 5 PM.

On this day in 1863, the 22nd Wisconsin Infantry fights in the Battle of Thompson’s Station, also known as the Battle of Spring Hill, about 30 miles south of Nashville, Tennessee.

Recommended for reading in full:

Jane Mayer reports The Making of the Fox News White House (“Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?”):

In January, during the longest government shutdown in America’s history, President Donald Trump rode in a motorcade through Hidalgo County, Texas, eventually stopping on a grassy bluff overlooking the Rio Grande. The White House wanted to dramatize what Trump was portraying as a national emergency: the need to build a wall along the Mexican border. The presence of armored vehicles, bales of confiscated marijuana, and federal agents in flak jackets underscored the message.

But the photo op dramatized something else about the Administration. After members of the press pool got out of vans and headed over to where the President was about to speak, they noticed that Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, was already on location. Unlike them, he hadn’t been confined by the Secret Service, and was mingling with Administration officials, at one point hugging Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security. The pool report noted that Hannity was seen “huddling” with the White House communications director, Bill Shine. After the photo op, Hannity had an exclusive on-air interview with Trump. Politico later reported that it was Hannity’s seventh interview with the President, and Fox’s forty-second. Since then, Trump has given Fox two more. He has granted only ten to the three other main television networks combined, and none to CNN, which he denounces as “fake news.”

Hannity was treated in Texas like a member of the Administration because he virtually is one. The same can be said of Fox’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch. Fox has long been a bane of liberals, but in the past two years many people who watch the network closely, including some Fox alumni, say that it has evolved into something that hasn’t existed before in the United States. Nicole Hemmer, an assistant professor of Presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and the author of “Messengers of the Right,” a history of the conservative media’s impact on American politics, says of Fox, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.”

Hemmer argues that Fox—which, as the most watched cable news network, generates about $2.7 billion a year for its parent company, 21st Century Fox—acts as a force multiplier for Trump, solidifying his hold over the Republican Party and intensifying his support.

How Did the Practice of Having Sports Mascots Start?:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of fifteen.  Sunrise is 6:25 AM and sunset 5:47 PM, for 11h 21m 23s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 8.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, the Siege of New Madrid, Missouri begins: “Union General John Pope began the siege of New Madrid, Missouri. The 8th and 15th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 5th, 6th and 7th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries took part in this effort to open the Mississippi River to Union shipping.”

Recommended for reading in full:

Sarah Whites-Koditschek and Coburn Dukehart report Most nitrate, coliform in Kewaunee County wells tied to animal waste (“The latest findings from a study of drinking water wells and their surroundings finds manure from cows that is stored or spread on farm fields poses the highest risk for certain contaminants”):

Scientists are one step closer to understanding how dangerous contaminants from fecal matter are entering private wells in Kewaunee County. New research by U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist Mark Borchardt shows nitrate and coliform in the water mostly comes from agriculture — and not human waste.

“Where we see the strong relationships, the strong linkages, those are with agricultural factors. So that would suggest that agriculture is primarily responsible for those two contaminants,” he said in an interview.

Borchardt presented his updated findings on the risk factors associated with contamination in wells at the Midwest Manure Summit in Green Bay on Wednesday. In 2017, his research found over 60 percent of wells sampled in Kewaunee County were contaminated with fecal microbes, which can come from both septic systems or animal waste.

The new study aims to understand the precise sources of contamination and how certain factors can reduce or increase the risk of tainted drinking water. Borchardt used models to predict how those factors — like the distance of a well from a manure lagoon or agricultural field, weather and the quality of well construction — can impact contamination levels.

Borchardt’s study found that the No. 1 risk factor for contamination was the proximity of a well to a manure storage pit. Borchardt said the closest well in the study was 150 feet from a manure pit, but even wells three miles away still have some risk of being contaminated with coliform.

SpaceX had both a successful launch and docking of the Crew Dragon capsule (unmanned on this flight).  The capsule is designed to take up to seven astronauts into low Earth orbit:

Launch:

Docking with International Space Station:

See SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule successfully docks to the ISS for the first time and SpaceX Crew Demo-1 Press Kit.

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of twenty-nine.  Sunrise is 6:27 AM and sunset 5:46 PM, for 11h 18m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 14.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1904, Theodor Seuss Geisel is born.

Recommended for reading in full:

  John Gurda writes Milwaukee’s front door is open again. Harbor District leaves its machine shop past to history:

You could see it coming from a mile away. To the north, the Third Ward had emerged from a long period of torpor to become one of hottest destinations in the state for nightlife, shopping and luxury living. The Third Ward’s wave of transforming energy was so powerful that it jumped the Milwaukee River and turned Walker’s Point, the city’s oldest neighborhood, into another showcase for 21st-century development.

To the south, Bay View, which began as a company town built around a long-gone iron mill, was experiencing a transformation of its own. Sleepy Kinnickinnic Ave. had awakened to become one of the city’s busiest restaurant rows, and homes built for mill workers were attracting scores of millennials.

Between these two poles — the resurrected Third Ward and the reinvented Bay View —lay a burned-out, post-industrial landscape that only a graffiti artist could have loved. Shuttered factories, scruffy nightspots, and weed-choked vacant lots marked both sides of Milwaukee’s inner harbor.

It was only a matter of time before the developers arrived. The ripples of energy spreading outward from the neighborhoods both north and south began to converge not even a decade ago, creating a new hot spot known as the Harbor District. It covers a thousand acres of waterfront east of S. First St. between Walker’s Point and Bay View, including Jones Island. Projects underway and on the way will change its landscape so radically that, in another decade or two, older Milwaukeeans won’t recognize the place.

….

Progress since then has been so rapid than even the optimists are surprised. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences has transformed an old tile factory at the east end of Greenfield Ave. Michels Inc., a Wisconsin utility contractor, is hard at work on a mixed-use development at a bend of the Kinnickinnic River west of S. First St. Komatsu, the successor to the Harnischfeger line of mining equipment, is moving to the Solvay Coke site — lock, stock, and turret lathes. These projects will boost the inner harbor’s economy, while others — a gateway park, an expanded Riverwalk, a restored wetland, kayak and canoe launches — will ensure permanent public access to the waterfront.

 Jessica Boddy reports These mice sing their little hearts out—and that’s good for neuroscience:

Some mice squeak out tunes to woo females, though they aren’t always audible to human ears. But Scotinomys teguina, more commonly known as Alston’s singing mouse, scurries through Central American cloud forests and breaks into audible song to communicate and find mates.

Good morning.

March in Whitewater begins with cloudy skies and a high of thirty-two.  Sunrise is 6:29 AM and sunset 5:44 PM, for 11h 15m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 22.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1985, Herb Kohl purchases the Milwaukee Bucks.

Recommended for reading in full:

Maggie Haberman, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, and Annie Karni report Trump Ordered Officials to Give Jared Kushner a Security Clearance:

President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been “ordered” to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance.

The White House counsel at the time, Donald F. McGahn II, also wrote an internal memo outlining the concerns that had been raised about Mr. Kushner — including by the C.I.A. — and how Mr. McGahn had recommended that he not be given a top-secret clearance.

The disclosure of the memos contradicts statements made by the president, who told The New York Times in January in an Oval Office interview that he had no role in his son-in-law receiving his clearance.

Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell, also said that at the time the clearance was granted last year that his client went through a standard process. Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and Mr. Kushner’s wife, said the same thing three weeks ago.

Asked on Thursday about the memos contradicting the president’s account, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said, “We don’t comment on security clearances.”

Ken White observes Republicans Committed the Classic Cross-Examination Blunder:

House Republicans needed a trial lawyer—or even a moderately bright junior-high mock-trial participant—to tell them how to do anything. Cross-examination is hard. It’s not just barking at the witness. It takes meticulous planning and patience. Republicans could have marshaled Cohen’s many sins of the past to undermine his statements today. Instead, they returned repeatedly to lies and misdeeds he’s already admitted, wallowed in silly trivialities such as the “Women for Cohen” Twitter account, and yelled. The effect was to make an unsympathetic man modestly more sympathetic. Republicans committed the classic cross-examination blunder: They gave the witness the opportunity to further explain his harmful direct testimony. They provided Cohen with one slow pitch up the middle after another, letting him repeat the cooperating witness’s go-to explanation like a mantra: I did these bad things so often and so long because that’s what it took to work for your guy. I have seldom seen a cross-examination go worse.

Tonight’s Sky for March 2019:

Good morning.

February in Whitewater ends with cloudy skies and a high of twenty-two.  Sunrise is 6:30 AM and sunset 5:43 PM, for 11h 12m 44s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 30.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1862, Battle of Island No. Ten, Missouri, begins (the 8th and 15th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 5th, 6th and 7th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries fought in the battle):

The Union victory marked the first time the Confederate Army lost a position on the Mississippi River in battle. The river was now open to the Union Navy as far as Fort Pillow, a short distance above Memphis. Only three weeks later, New Orleans fell to a Union fleet led by David G. Farragut, and the Confederacy was in danger of being cut in two along the line of the river.

Recommended for reading in full:

The Committee to Investigate Russia writes Cohen Hearing: The Aftermath:

Here are some of the day’s big takeaways related to the Russia probe:

The Associated Press:

TRUMP SPOKE IN CODE

At least when it came to covering up a business deal in Russia.

Cohen testified that Trump “in his way” communicated that he wanted his former lawyer to lie to Congress about a Trump Tower Moscow deal he was negotiating during the 2016 presidential campaign.

But Cohen said the president was careful not to directly tell him to do so.

(…)

NO ‘DIRECT’ EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION

Cohen says he isn’t aware of direct evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. But he does have “suspicions” about it.

Cohen testified that Trump was told in advance that WikiLeaks planned to release emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 White House campaign. Cohen recounted a phone call in Trump’s office days before the Democratic National Convention when Trump adviser Roger Stone told Trump that WikiLeaks would be releasing a “massive dump” of emails harmful to the Clinton campaign in the coming days.

(…)

THERE’S MORE TO COME

Cohen says prosecutors in New York are investigating conversations that Trump or his advisers had with Cohen after the FBI raided his hotel room and office in April 2018.

About two months later, Cohen says he had contact with Trump or one of his representatives. But Cohen declined to say more because he says the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York is investigating the matter.

(…)

ENTANGLING THE TRUMP CHILDREN

Trump’s children emerged as key figures in a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and as their father’s top defenders.

Cohen said he had briefed Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. approximately 10 times about the business deal. Cohen’s testimony may pose a problem for Trump Jr., who told Congress in 2017 that was only “peripherally aware” of the proposal.

How Amazon Makes Money:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of twenty-four.  Sunrise is 6:32 AM and sunset 5:42 PM, for 11h 09m 52s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 38.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s  Tech Park Board meets at 8 AM.

On this day in 1904, Wisconsin’s second state capitol burns down:

On the evening of the 26th, the generator was turned off for the night. The only lights visible were two gas jets serving the night watchman. At approximately 2 a.m., night watchman Nat Crampton smelled smoke and followed the odor to a recently varnished ceiling, already in flames. A second watchman arrived to assist, but there was no water pressure with which to operate a hose. The fire department encountered a similar situation upon arrival. Governor Robert M. La Follette telegraphed fire departments in Janesville and Milwaukee for assistance. La Follette was at the capitol, directing efforts to douse the fire and entering the burning building to retrieve valuable papers. The fire was completly extinguished by 10 p.m. the next day. Losses were estimated to be close to $1 million.

Recommended for reading in full:

Livestream: Cohen Testimony Before House Oversight Committee:

See also full prepared testimony:

Molly Beck reports Tony Evers seeks to end gerrymandering with state budget provision to create nonpartisan commission:

Gov. Tony Evers will propose in his state budget a process aimed at drawing legislative boundaries in a way that favors neither political party.

The move would put election maps in the hands of a nonpartisan state agency instead of with Republicans who control the Legislature and drew the state’s current legislative boundaries that are being challenged in federal court.

“The people should get to choose their elected officials, not the other way around,” Evers said in a statement. “By creating a nonpartisan redistricting commission in Wisconsin, we’re making sure that when we’re redrawing district maps in 2021, we’re putting people before politics.”

But Republican lawmakers are sure to block the proposal that is the latest in a series of measures to be included in Evers’ first state budget set for release Thursday.

  Laura Meckler reports Report finds $23 billion racial funding gap for schools:

Overwhelmingly white school districts received $23 billion more than predominantly nonwhite school districts in state and local funding in 2016, despite serving roughly the same number of children, a new report finds.

The funding gap is largely the result of the reliance on property taxes as a primary source of funding for schools. Communities in overwhelmingly white areas tend to be wealthier, and school districts’ ability to raise money depends on the value of local property and the ability of residents to pay higher taxes.

And while state budgets gave heavily nonwhite districts slightly more money per student than they gave overwhelmingly white districts, in many states it was not enough to erase the local gaps.

See EdBuild report.

Inside The SpaceX Moon Launch That Just Made History: