Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of seventy-three.  Sunrise is 5:37 AM and sunset 8:04 PM, for 14h 27m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent, with 35.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Police & Fire Commission is scheduled to meet at 7:45 PM.

On this day in 1864, the Battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia rages:

The Battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia, lasted from May 8-21, 1864, and pitted 100,000 Union troops against 52,000 Confederates. When the two weeks were over, about 11,000 Union soldiers had been killed or wounded without any clear victory for either side. The 2nd, 5th, 6th and 7th Wisconsin Infantry regiments fought at Spotsylvania on May 8, 1864, and during the entire Spotsylvania Campaign (May 8-21, 1864). The 36th Infantry fought at Spotsylvania May 18-21, 1864.

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Mike McIntire, Ben Protess, and Jim Rutenberg report Firm Tied to Russian Oligarch Made Payments to Michael Cohen:

A shell company that Michael D. Cohen used to pay hush money to a pornographic film actress received payments totaling more than $1 million from an American company linked to a Russian oligarch and several corporations with business before the Trump administration, according to documents and interviews.

Financial records reviewed by The New York Times show that Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer and longtime fixer, used the shell company, Essential Consultants L.L.C., for an array of business activities that went far beyond what was publicly known. Transactions adding up to at least $4.4 million flowed through Essential Consultants starting shortly before Mr. Trump was elected president and continuing to this January, the records show.

Among the previously unreported transactions were payments last year of about $500,000 from Columbus Nova, an investment firm in New York whose biggest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian oligarch. A lawyer for Columbus Nova, in a statement on Tuesday, described the money as a consulting fee that had nothing to do with Mr. Vekselberg.

Other transactions described in the financial records include hundreds of thousands of dollars Mr. Cohen received from Fortune 500 companies with business before the Trump administration, as well as smaller amounts he paid for luxury expenses like a Mercedes-Benz and private club dues.

➤ On November 27th, Damian Paletta reported that Trump had hundreds of limited liability companies like Essential Consultants L.L.C. See Trump could personally benefit from last-minute change to Senate tax bill:

Trump has become the first president in 40 years to refuse to release his tax returns, making it hard to know exactly how much he would gain from his tax policy. But a letter from Trump’s lawyers last year said nearly all his companies count as pass-through entities.

“You hold interests as the sole or principal owner in approximately 500 separate entities,” Morgan Lewis attorneys Sheri Dillon and William Nelson wrote in a letter released by the Trump campaign. “Because you operate these businesses almost exclusively through sole proprietorships and/or closely held partnerships, your personal federal income tax returns are inordinately large and complex for an individual.”

➤ Alexis C. Madrigal considers The Strange Case of AT&T’s Payments to Michael Cohen (“Why did AT&T pay the same company used to funnel hush money to Stormy Daniels?”):

If AT&T paid a monthly fee of $50,000, Essential Consultants would have received more money in the year than AT&T’s highest-paid lobbying firms, Mayer Brown and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer, and Feld, which were paid $420,000 and $400,000 respectively. In 2017, AT&T paid 14 firms at least $200,000 to work Washington for the telecommunications giant. AT&T didn’t immediately respond to a request about the total amount they paid Essential Consultants.

Essential Consultants does not appear in the public disclosures that AT&T filed about who they paid for lobbying, and AT&T says Essential did no lobbying or legal work for the telecom giant—but AT&T certainly had important issues before the government. Not only was net neutrality under reconsideration, but the company has a prospective merger with Time Warnerbefore the Department of Justice’s antitrust division. Net neutrality was repealed in December 2017; the merger has had a rockier path.

Among the more charitable interpretations of AT&T’s payments to Essential Consultants is that they were a pay-for-play scheme to get access to the newly elected president. Less charitable interpretations go well beyond the baseline level of corruption that Americans have come to expect from their government. People know that powerful interests pay for access to American politicians, but they likely do not expect the president’s personal lawyer to commingle the money of corporations, adult-film actresses, and Russian oligarchs.

➤ Ricardo Torres reports [Racine] County to borrow $68 million for Foxconn land purchases:

RACINE COUNTY — Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave said when he was elected three years ago, asking to borrow $3 million “would keep me up at night,” and now the county is talking about a $68 million loan.

“The world has changed quite a bit in three years,” Delagrave said to the county Finance and Human Resources Committee on Tuesday.

The county plans to borrow $68 million to help finance the land purchases in Area I and II related to the Foxconn Technology Group project in Mount Pleasant. In December, the county borrowed $79.2 million to help buy the land in Area I.

The committee recommended approval of three resolutions that would allow the county to borrow the money. The proposal to borrow the money is scheduled to go to the full County Board for consideration on May 8.

(Even after billions in public money from the state, local and county governments spill tens of millions more red ink. See also 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers,  Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, and A Sham News Story on Foxconn, and Another Pig at the Trough. )

➤ Titan’s Oceans Are Made of Super Cold Methane, and NASA Re-Created Them on Earth:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-two.  Sunrise is 5:38 AM and sunset 8:03 PM, for 14h 25m 13s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent, with 45.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1945, President Truman speaks to the nation to announce the surrender of Nazi Germany:

This is a solemn but a glorious hour. I only wish that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day. General Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly over all Europe.
For this victory, we join in offering our thanks to the Providence which has guided and sustained us through the dark days of adversity. Our rejoicing is sobered and subdued by a supreme consciousness of the terrible price we have paid to rid the world of Hitler and his evil band. Let us not forget, my fellow Americans, the sorrow and the heartache, which today abide in the homes of so many of our neighbors–neighbors whose most priceless possession has been rendered as a sacrifice to redeem our liberty.

We can repay the debt which we owe to our God, to our dead and to our children only by work–by ceaseless devotion to the responsibilities which lie ahead of us. If I could give you a single watchword for the coming months, that word is–work, work, and more work.

We must work to finish the war. Our victory is but half-won. The West is free, but the East is still in bondage to the treacherous tyranny of the Japanese. When the last Japanese division has surrendered unconditionally, then only will our fighting be done.

We must seek to bind up the wounds of a suffering world–to build an abiding peace, a peace rooted in justice and in law. We can build such a peace only by hard, toilsome, painstaking work–by understanding and working with our allies in peace as we have in war.

The job ahead is no less important, no less urgent, no less difficult than the task which now happily is done.

I call upon every American to stick to his post until the last battle is won. Until that day, let no man abandon his post or slacken his efforts.

And now, I want to read to you my formal proclamation of this occasion:

“A proclamation–The Allied armies, through sacrifice and devotion and with God’s help have wrung from Germany a final and unconditional surrender. The western world has been freed of the evil forces which for five years and longer have imprisoned the bodies and broken the lives of millions upon millions of free-born men. They have violated their churches, destroyed their homes, corrupted their children, and murdered their loved ones. Our Armies of Liberation have restored freedom to these suffering peoples, whose spirit and will the oppressors could never enslave.

“Much remains to be done. The victory won in the West must now be won in the East. The whole world must be cleansed of the evil from which half the world has been freed. United, the peace-loving nations have demonstrated in the West that their arms are stronger by far than the might of the dictators or the tyranny of military cliques that once called us soft and weak. The power of our peoples to defend themselves against all enemies will be proved in the Pacific war as it has been proved in Europe.

“For the triumph of spirit and of arms which we have won, and for its promise to the peoples everywhere who join us in the love of freedom, it is fitting that we, as a nation, give thanks to Almighty God, who has strengthened us and given us the victory.

“Now, therefore, I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of America, do hereby appoint Sunday, May 13, 1945, to be a day of prayer.

“I call upon the people of the United States, whatever their faith, to unite in offering joyful thanks to God for the victory we have won, and to pray that He will support us to the end of our present struggle and guide us into the ways of peace.

“I also call upon my countrymen to dedicate the day of prayer to the memory of those who have given their lives to make possible our victory.

“In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.”

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Sari Horwitz and Maria Sacchetti report Sessions vows to prosecute all illegal border crossers and separate children from their parents:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that the Justice Department will begin prosecuting every person who illegally crosses into the United States along the Southwest border, a hard-line policy shift focusing in particular on migrants traveling with children.

In separate speeches — one in Scottsdale, Ariz., the other in San Diego — Sessions said the Department of Homeland Security will begin referring such cases to the Justice Department for prosecution. Federal prosecutors will “take on as many of those cases as humanly possible until we get to 100 percent,” he said.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that the Justice Department will begin prosecuting every person who illegally crosses into the United States along the Southwest border, a hard-line policy shift focusing in particular on migrants traveling with children.

In separate speeches — one in Scottsdale, Ariz., the other in San Diego — Sessions said the Department of Homeland Security will begin referring such cases to the Justice Department for prosecution. Federal prosecutors will “take on as many of those cases as humanly possible until we get to 100 percent,” he said.

(Of course this is the Trump policy: it’s designed both for hardship against migrants and satisfaction – indeed, the sheer delight – of Trump’s nativist base.)

➤ The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities writes that House Farm Bill’s SNAP Cuts, Work Requirements Would Hurt Children:

The House Agriculture Committee farm bill (H.R. 2) would end or cut SNAP (formerly food stamp) benefits for a substantial number of households with children, increasing food insecurity and hardship.

SNAP is the country’s most effective anti-hunger program, helping 1 in 8 Americans afford a basic diet.  Despite providing modest benefits averaging about $1.40 per person per meal, it combats food insecurity, alleviates poverty, and has long-term positive impacts on health as well as on children’s educational attainment.  In 2016, some 19 million children received SNAP each month, accounting for 44 percent of all SNAP participants.

For more than 15 years, state and federal policymakers have worked on a bipartisan basis to strengthen SNAP.  This bill would take a large step backward, reducing or eliminating benefits for more than 1 million households with more than 2 million people.  It would make significant overall cuts to SNAP and put in place unworkable, expanded work requirements that would take benefits away from people who don’t meet them, despite the evidence that such requirements do little to improve employment.  When parents lose SNAP, there is less money for food for everyone in the household.  This increases the risk that children will face food insecurity, which is particularly harmful in early childhood when children experience rapid growth in their bodies and brains.  Studies have shown that children raised in households without enough nutritious food are more likely to suffer poor health, face deficits in cognitive development, and exhibit behavioral and emotional problems.

➤ Jay Rosen writes When the President’s own lawyer pictures him a grifter (“We should resist the term “strategy” for Trump’s egoistic maneuvering. There is none. But there may be a new fact pattern”):

By normal criteria, Giuliani’s recent television appearances have been at best puzzling and at worst disasters for his client. “Normal criteria” means common sense propositions like these…

• the President doesn’t want to be seen as a liar in front of the whole world;
• the President doesn’t want to do anything that would put him at greater legal risk;
• the President doesn’t want to prolong an investigation that is time-consuming and emotionally-draining;
• the President doesn’t want to strengthen the case for his own impeachment, the ultimate humiliation for any commander-in-chief.

What if none of these any longer apply? We need to be alert to the possibilities Jon Karl outlined [here]. I think we should resist the term “strategy” for Trump’s egoistic maneuvering. There is no strategy. But there may be a new fact pattern, the outcome of his lawyers attempting to manage their client’s malignant narcissism by accepting its most bizarre constraint: any managing will have to be done through semi-regular television appearances that explode the news cycle. Nothing else will the big boss trust.

Plug in those factors and the crazy machine spits out widgets like these…

• prolong the special counsel’s investigation as long as possible so as not to relinquish a potent source of resentment;
• add to the chances that impeachable offenses will be found— by, for example, making the Comey firing sound sketchier and sketchier;
• instead of building a case for the President’s basic innocence, confuse the case by constantly shifting your explanations and by spicing them up with trace elements of guilt;
• instead of steering away from sources of legal danger, like the Stormy Daniels case and lawyer Michael Avenatti, sail right into them so as to thicken the atmosphere of crisis and guarantee non-stop news coverage;
• instead of minimizing evidence that the President lies in his public statements, dangle additional proof and let the press pounce on it;
• instead of projecting lawyerly competence and command of the case, let Giuliani admit that he still doesn’t know the facts, even though he’s on TV arguing about them.
• instead of denying that worse news is yet to come, flip it around: it may well be that more damaging stuff about the president will come out… so stay tuned!
• raise the psychological price that core supporters would have to pay for abandoning Trump by making them swallow bigger and more blatant falsehoods, and then hint around that this is indeed what you have done.

➤ David Corn reports The Pentagon Considers This Russian Sniper Rifle a Big Threat to US Soldiers. The NRA Helped Promote It. (“So much for patriotism”):

In late 2016, the US Army released a report noting that the Russian military, through experience gained during fighting in Ukraine, was undergoing a transformation and becoming a more potent battlefield threat to American forces. One troublesome development identified by the report’s authors was the increased proficiency of Russian snipers. “The capabilities of a sniper in a Russian contingent is far more advanced than the precision shooters U.S. formations have encountered over the last 15 years,” the study noted. One reason for this was the Russian military’s recent adoption of the ORSIS T-5000, a relatively new Russian-made firearm that the report called “one of the most capable bolt action sniper rifles in the world.” As one military technology expert noted, after reviewing this report, the US Army faced “being outgunned” by foes armed with the T-5000—which can be accurate at a distance of 2,000 yards—and these Russian rifles were showing up in Iraq and Ukraine. That is, this weapon posed a threat to US troops and those of its allies. Yet the National Rifle Association—which boasts it is identified with American patriotism—has helped promote Moscow-based ORSIS and its sniper rifle.

…

While the NRA delegation was in Moscow, it visited the ORSIS offices and facilities. The group, accompanied by Butina, watched a video extolling the T-5000, toured the company’s manufacturing plant, and observed rifles being made. Then members of the delegation test-fired ORSIS rifles at an on-site shooting range. The company presented the NRAers with swanky watches bearing the company’s logo.

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-four.  Sunrise is 5:39 AM and sunset 8:02 PM, for 14h 22m 54s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous, with 55.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, Battle of the Wilderness ends: “The fighting on May 5-7, 1864, produced nearly 30,000 casualties without giving either side a clear victory. The 2nd, 5th, 6th and 7th Wisconsin Infantry regiments fought at the Battle of the Wilderness.”

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Nathalie Baptiste writes Rudy Giuliani Definitely Did Not Make Things Better for Trump in this ABC Interview (“Who keeps letting him go on TV?”):

Rudy Giuliani has successfully completed another bewildering  interview.

The most interesting parts of his appearance with ABC’s This Week fall into two categories: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and, of course, Stormy Daniels.

On the first point, Giuliani told host George Stephanopoulos that Trump didn’t have to comply with a subpoena from Mueller. “He’s the president of the United States,” he said. He also said wasn’t sure that Trump wouldn’t exercise his right to remain silent during questioning from Mueller—never mind that in the past Trump has basically said that only guilty people plead the Fifth.

The interview came on the heels of quite an interesting week for the former mayor of New York. After telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity that Trump had not violated campaign finance law because he had in fact reimbursed Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels, he had to walk back the claim when legal experts said it probably did. Then, on Sunday, Giuliani tried to downplay the whole thing, attempting to make it seem like pocket change. He specifically called it “a nuisance payment.” He added, “People don’t go away for $130,000.”

He also didn’t rule out that Cohen had paid for the silence of other women on behalf of Trump.

…

➤ Cynthia Sewell reports Crapo campaign used D.C. condo 81 times at no cost:

U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, has admitted to federal election officials that he used a lobbyist-owned Washington, D.C., townhouse 81 times over a four-year period at no cost, including as recently as February.

The new details from Crapo’s re-election and leadership committees came in a response to a Federal Election Commission inquiry.

The committees conducted an internal review of use of the townhouse and “fully disclosed to the FEC the date and purpose of each use of the space – not just those named in the FEC complaint filed last month – as well as the corresponding reimbursements,” said Sam Neel, counsel for the committees.

“Senator Crapo strives to adhere to all FEC laws and regulations and has worked quickly to correct the oversight that occurred regarding the use of the townhouse,” Neel said, in a statement provided on behalf of Crapo.

(It’s a paltry striving that somehow misses 81 times.)

➤ Carol D. Leonnig, Shane Harris, and Josh Dawsey report Gina Haspel, nominee to head CIA, sought to withdraw over questions about her role in agency interrogation program:

Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to become the next CIA director, sought to withdraw her nomination Friday after some White House officials worried that her role in the interrogation of terrorist suspects could prevent her confirmation by the Senate, according to four senior U.S. officials.

Haspel told the White House she was interested in stepping aside if it avoided the spectacle of a brutal confirmation hearing on Wednesday and potential damage to the CIA’s reputation and her own, the officials said. She was summoned to the White House on Friday for a meeting on her history in the CIA’s controversial interrogation program — which employed techniques such as waterboarding that are widely seen as torture — and signaled that she was going to withdraw her nomination. She then returned to CIA headquarters, the officials said.

Taken aback at her stance, senior White House aides, including legislative affairs head Marc Short and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, rushed to Langley, Va., to meet with Haspel at her office late Friday afternoon. Discussions stretched several hours, officials said, and the White House was not entirely sure she would stick with her nomination until Saturday afternoon, according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

(Haspel never should have been nominated.)

➤ William K. Rashbaum, Danny Hakim, Brian M. Rosenthal, Emily Flitter, and Jesse Drucker report How Michael Cohen, Trump’s Fixer, Built a Shadowy Business Empire:

He was a personal-injury lawyer who often worked out of taxi offices scattered around New York City.

There was the one above the run-down auto repair garage on West 16th Street in Manhattan, on the edge of the Meatpacking District before it turned trendy. There was the single-story building with the garish yellow awning in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge. There was the tan brick place on a scruffy Manhattan side street often choked with double-parked taxis.

And then there was his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower overlooking Fifth Avenue, right next to the one belonging to Donald J. Trump.

Before he joined the Trump Organization and became Mr. Trump’s lawyer and do-it-all fixer, Michael D. Cohen was a hard-edge personal-injury attorney and businessman. Now a significant portion of his quarter-century business record is under the microscope of federal prosecutors — posing a potential threat not just to Mr. Cohen but also to the president.

➤ Jessica Taylor reports Republican Fears About Holding The Senate Start To Sink In:

Democrats are going into the 2018 elections with the wind at their backs, which could even be enough to flip a Senate map heavily stacked for Republicans come November.

In conversations with several top GOP strategists, nearly all conceded that the overwhelming Democratic enthusiasm they’re facing this November is incredibly worrisome. Most still think it’s a better than even chance that they do keep the Senate — albeit narrowly — but it’s no longer out of the realm of possibility that the upper chamber could change hands, especially given the volatility of the GOP’s two-seat majority.

“Generally speaking, close races aren’t won by the party with the wind in their face. That’s not the way it works,” said one top GOP Senate race veteran. “If we lose 40 to 50 seats in the House, you can’t pick up three to four Senate seats.”

➤ These Prosthetics Make Everyday Tasks Easier:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of sixty-nine.  Sunrise is 5:41 AM and sunset 8:01 PM, for 14h 20m 34s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous, with 64.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1936, the German airship Hindenburg catches fire and crashes while trying to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey.  Thirty-five of the 97 people on board were killed along with a crewman on the ground.

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Jonathan O’Connell, David A. Fahrenthold, and Jack Gillum report As the ‘King of Debt,’ Trump borrowed to build his empire. Then he began spending hundreds of millions in cash:

In the nine years before he ran for president, Donald Trump’s company spent more than $400 million in cash on new properties — including 14 transactions paid for in full, without borrowing from banks — during a buying binge that defied real estate industry practices and Trump’s own history as the self-described “King of Debt.”

Trump’s vast outlay of cash, tracked through public records and totaled publicly here for the first time, provides a new window into the president’s private company, which discloses few details about its finances.

It shows that Trump had access to far more cash than previously known, despite his string of commercial bankruptcies and the Great Recession’s hammering of the real estate industry.

Why did the “King of Debt,” as he has called himself in interviews, turn away from that strategy, defying the real estate wisdom that it’s unwise to risk so much of one’s own money in a few projects?

And how did Trump — who had money tied up in golf courses and buildings — raise enough liquid assets to go on this cash buying spree?

(Trump may prove to be one of the largest launderers in American history.)

➤ Michael Daly writes Rudy Giuliani, the Mob-Buster, Now Sounds Like a Mob Mouthpiece (“The prosecutor who liked to leak to the press is now the Trump enabler who says former FBI Director James Comey should face jail time for supposed leaks”):

Giuliani now calls the FBI agents “stormtroopers” even though he knows they must have offered a judge considerable probable cause to believe Cohen had committed what the court papers term “many crimes.”

Investigators had to do that to secure a warrant to put a bug in the Jaguar owned by Sal Avellino, Mafia capo. FBI agents certainly would have to do at least that and probably much more to secure a search warrant for the home and office of Michael Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer.

In interviews and in his book, Comey has said that Trump’s demand for loyalty reminded him of a mob boss. Giuliani, the onetime mob-buster, has now ended up speaking like a mob mouthpiece.

As Giuliani should have learned when he did not get the job he wanted, Trump’s notion of loyalty is indeed enough like that of a mob boss that it carries no obligation for the Big Guy to be reciprocal.

Some people are a one-way street. Trump is a one-way boulevard.

And on this Bigger than Big Boulevard of Lies, Trump and Giuliani may end up proving anew the truth of an old expression:

“With friends like these…”

➤ Doug Stanglin reports Opposition leader Alexei Navalny among more than 1,600 arrested in Russia in anti-Putin protests:

More than 1,600 people — including prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny — were arrested Saturday in Russia during a day of nationwide protests of the upcoming inauguration of Vladimir Putin for a new six-year term as president, according to a group that monitors political repression.

Navalny, a long-time Putin nemesis and anti-corruption campaigner, organized the nationwide rallies under the slogan “He is not our czar” in response to the president’s re-election in March.

In Moscow, where thousands crowded into Moscow Pushkin Square, police in riot gear waded into the crowd and were seen grabbing some demonstrators and leading them away, but there were no immediate moves to disperse the crowd. A helicopter hovered overhead to monitor the crowd.

“Let my son go!” Iraida Nikolaeva screamed, running after police in Moscow when they detained her son. “He did not do anything! Are you a human or not? Do you live in Russia or not?”

(The time will come – perhaps not long from now – when protests in America will dwarf anything seen before in America or Russia.  When they do, we will be wise to remember these brave Russian protesters, who are worthy examples for any and all.)

➤ Avik Selk reports One space between each sentence, they said. Science just proved them wrong:

Enter three psychology researchers from Skidmore College, who decided it’s time for modern science to sort this out once and for all.

“Professionals and amateurs in a variety of fields have passionately argued for either one or two spaces following this punctuation mark,” they wrote in a paper published last week in the journal Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.

They cite dozens of theories and previous research, arguing for one space or two.  A 2005 study that found two spaces reduced lateral interference in the eye and helped reading.  A 2015 study that found the opposite.  A 1998 experiment that suggested it didn’t matter.

“However,” they wrote, “to date, there has been no direct empirical evidence in support of these claims, nor in favor of the one-space convention.”

So the researchers,  Rebecca L. Johnson,  Becky Bui  and Lindsay L. Schmitt,  rounded up 60 students and some eye tracking equipment,  and set out to heal the divide.

…

And the verdict was: two spaces after the period is better.  It makes reading slightly easier.  Congratulations, Yale University professor Nicholas A. Christakis.  Sorry, Lifehacker.

Hurray! Science vindicates my longstanding practice, learned at age 12, of using TWO SPACES after periods in text. NOT ONE SPACE. Text is easier to read that way. Of course, on twitter, I use one space, given 280 characters. https://t.co/4xI6sVbF88 Will arm-wrestle @Neuro_Skeptic pic.twitter.com/XpEr4KFR4x

— Nicholas A. Christakis (@NAChristakis) April 28, 2018

😉

➤ NASA’s InSight Probe Will Plumb the Depths of Mars:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty. Sunrise is 5:42 AM and sunset 8:00 PM, for 14h 18m 12s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 73.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862 at the Battle of the Puebla, now celebrated as Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican Army is victorious over occupying French soldiers.

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Michael D. Shear, Maggie Haberman, Jim Rutenberg, and Matt Apuzzo report Trump Is Said to Know of Stormy Daniels Payment Months Before He Denied It:

WASHINGTON — President Trump knew about a six-figure payment that Michael D. Cohen, his personal lawyer, made to a pornographic film actress several months before he denied any knowledge of it to reporters aboard Air Force One in April, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.

How much Mr. Trump knew about the payment to Stephanie Clifford, the actress, and who else was aware of it have been at the center of a swirling controversy for the past 48 hours touched off by a television interview with Rudolph W. Giuliani, a new addition to the president’s legal team. The interview was the first time a lawyer for the president had acknowledged that Mr. Trump had reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payments to Ms. Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels.

It was not immediately clear when Mr. Trump learned of the payment, which Mr. Cohen made in October 2016, at a time when news media outlets were poised to pay her for her story about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump in 2006. But three people close to the matter said that Mr. Trump knew that Mr. Cohen had succeeded in keeping the allegations from becoming public at the time the president denied it.

(He knew months before he denied it – again, Trump proved to be the liar we always knew him to be.)

➤ Michael Hawthorne reports EPA chief Pruitt overrules staff, gives Wisconsin’s Walker, Foxconn big break on smog:

The Trump administration on Tuesday exempted most of southeast Wisconsin from the latest federal limits on lung-damaging smog pollution, delivering a political victory to Gov. Scott Walkeras he makes a new Foxconn Technology Group factory the centerpiece of his re-election campaign.

By dramatically reducing the size of the areas required to crack down on smog, Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt overruled the agency’s career staff, a move that will save Foxconn from having to make expensive improvements as it builds a sprawling new electronics plant in Racine County, just north of the Illinois border in an area with some of the state’s dirtiest air.

Pruitt also pared back the list of counties with dirty air in Illinois and Indiana, a decision that could add to Chicago’s chronic problems with pollution linked to asthma attacks, heart disease and early deaths.

Tweaking the list of counties in violation of federal smog standards is the latest attempt by Pruitt to roll back or delay environmental regulations enacted during the Obama administration. It comes as a new peer-reviewed study found that improvements in air quality across the U.S. have slowed significantly in recent years.

➤ Charles Pierce writes Scott Walker and Scott Pruitt Have Teamed Up on Something. Buckle Up:

Skipping on up to Wisconsin, well, any story in which we can mention both Scott Pruitt and Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to run this particular midwest subsidiary, is a good one. Walker has hung his legacy on the massive giveaway to Taiwanese giant FoxConn in the southeastern part of the state, and Pruitt overruled his own people to give Walker and FoxConn a break on turning Racine into a poisonous fog bank. From the Chicago Tribune:

By dramatically reducing the size of the areas required to crack down on smog, Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt overruled the agency’s career staff, a move that will save Foxconn from having to make expensive improvements as it builds a sprawling new electronics plant in Racine County, just north of the Illinois border in an area with some of the state’s dirtiest air.

Is this a bag job? It’s Scott Pruitt. What do you think?

The EPA did not address the last-minute changes in a news release that quoted Pruitt as saying he was “following the data and the law.” But the areas removed from the list were suggested by Republican elected officials who have sought to curb the EPA’s authority to force industries to clean up the air.

“We are working with the EPA to implement a plan that continues to look out for the best interest of Wisconsin,” Walker, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, said Tuesday in a Twitter post. “We continue to search for ways to balance between environmental stewardship and a positive, pro-jobs business environment.”

Walker blames Chicago for making the air unhealthy to breathe in parts of Wisconsin. [Ed. Note: Scott Walker Discovers The Wind. Breaking!] However, an EPA staff analysis of industrial pollution, traffic patterns and weather patterns concluded Wisconsin is at least partially responsible for its own smog problems, and documentsfiled with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources show Foxconn would be a major new source of smog-forming pollution.

➤ Jacob Bogage writes Justify? Solomini? How the Kentucky Derby horses get their names:

Every thoroughbred racehorse, no matter its actual birth date, becomes a 2-year-old on the second Jan. 1 of its life, and as 2-year-olds, racehorses need names. Before that age, trainers and grooms usually give the horses nicknames, or refer to them by their mother’s name and the year they born.

American Pharaoh, for example, was once “Littleprincessemma 2012.” To choose his permanent name, the Zayat family convened in January 2014 around good food, and called out their best suggestions for the nearly 50 new horses joining their stable.

The rules for naming a racehorse are as byzantine as the horse’s job is simple. You may not:

• Name a horse using initials or numbers
• End a name with “filly,” “colt,” “stud,” “mare,” “stallion,” or any other horse-related term
• Name a horse after a living person without written permission
• Use the name of a deceased person, unless approved by the Jockey Club, one of American horse racing’s governing bodies
• Use the name of a track or stakes race
• Use names with clear commercial or artistic value
• Use names that are “obscene,” “vulgar” or “in poor taste.”
• Use names identical or nearly identical to horses within certain time frames, depending upon what the original horse accomplished

After that, you get 18 characters. Spaces and punctuation count.

➤ It’s the 2018 Kentucky Derby this afternoon:

See 2018 Kentucky Derby: Everything you need to know.

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see gradual clearing and high of seventy-three. Sunrise is 5:43 AM and sunset 7:59 PM, for 14h 15m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 80.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1961, the first Freedom Riders leave Washington, D.C. for the South.

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Laurel White reports Memo: Proposed Farm Bill Would Push Thousands Of Wisconsin Children Off Food Stamps (“Nonpartisan Budget Office Estimates 8 Percent Drop In Eligibility For Wisconsin Children”):

Thousands of children in Wisconsin would lose access to food stamps under the proposed federal farm bill, according to a memo released by the Wisconsin Legislature’s nonpartisan budget office.

The GOP-backed bill has passed a House committee and is expected to come up for a vote in Washington later this month.

Under the proposal, Wisconsin and a number of other states would be barred from offering automatic food stamp benefits to families that are eligible for other support programs, including cash assistance and initiatives funded by the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

According to the memo from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state Department of Health Services estimated in 2017 that if those standards were applied, about 11 percent of Wisconsin food stamp recipients, or roughly 76,000 people, would lose eligibility for the program. About 23,000 of those would be children.

➤ Jennifer Rubin reminds readers of Paul Ryan’s unintended hilarity:

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s political obliviousness might be unrivaled. Running on a tax bill that voters dislike? Check! Hanging the party out to dry by announcing his retirement in April? Check! Nothing, however, quite beats his remarks on Wednesday. Warning against a Democratic majority in the House, the Wisconsin Republican declared: “You’ll have subpoenas, you’ll have just the system shutting down.” Thunk.

Actually, the system will work just fine — as it is supposed tounder the Constitution — if a Democratic majority takes its oversight responsibilities seriously, in contrast to the GOP-controlled House, which hasn’t lifted a finger to stop President Trump’s conflicts of interest or his unconstitutional receipt of foreign emoluments, nor to demand that he disclose his tax returns (which every modern president has done). House Republicans have not issued a single subpoena to investigate a plethora of financial concerns involving Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, and they have not called on secretaries of Treasury, Interior or Housing and Urban Development to testify under oath about their abuses of taxpayer funds.

The House Intelligence Committee ran a Mickey Mouse investigation of the Russia matter that failed to called dozens of relevant witnesses and did not look for collusion, thereby allowing it to claim there was no collusion. Ryan sat silently as Republican committee members cooked up a misleading memo and conducted a smear campaign against the FBI. The speaker also objected to a select committee or an independent commission on Russian interference in our election, and will not consider legislation to protect special counsel Robert S. Mueller III or Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

➤ Matt Zapotosky, Devlin Barrett, Carol D. Leonnig and Michelle Ye Hee Lee report Analysts: Giuliani’s media blitz gives investigators new leads, new evidence:

Rudolph W. Giuliani’s media blitz to convince the public that neither Donald Trump nor his lawyer had violated the law by paying a porn star to keep quiet about an alleged affair might have backfired, giving investigators new leads to chase and new evidence of potential crimes, legal analysts said.

Giuliani made statements that speak to Trump and lawyer Michael Cohen’s intent — an important aspect of some crimes — and he made assertions that investigators can now check against what they have already learned from documents and witnesses, legal analysts said. His comments to media outlets underscore a growing tension for the White House: The FBI investigation of Cohen presents a legal problem for the president that his own lawyer might have exacerbated.

➤ Harry Litman, former United States attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, writes Too Bad Rudy Doesn’t Lie as Well as TrumpToo Bad Rudy Doesn’t Lie as Well as Trump:

Just last month, President Trump told the American people that he knew nothing about how Stormy Daniels received $130,000 in hush money. His lawyer, Michael Cohen, has insisted for months that he had kept Mr. Trump completely in the dark and that he had handled the entire matter on his own as a personal favor to the man for whom he would “take a bullet.”

Enter Rudy Giuliani. On Wednesday night, the former mayor of New York and Mr. Trump’s latest legal fixer went on Fox News — where else? — to offer a new version of the Stormy Daniels affair. The president, Mr. Giuliani insisted, had in fact reimbursed Mr. Cohen the $130,000. Even the show’s host, Sean Hannity — another Cohen client — appeared stunned.

What in the world was going on?

The most generous read of Wednesday night’s showpiece is that Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump have made a calculated decision that Mr. Cohen faces real legal peril for having given an illegal campaign contribution in the form of the Stormy Daniels payment, and that Mr. Trump might be subject to co-conspirator liability. The best defense against a Cohen conviction — or worse, a plea deal — on these grounds would be for Mr. Trump to take credit for the payment, since the candidate can give as much money as he wants to his own campaign.

But whatever the plan, Mr. Giuliani’s comments have turned the heat up on the president.

Judging from Mr. Giuliani’s contrived and ham-handed delivery, it seems likely that this was a highly coordinated affair. Indeed, according to Robert Costa of The Washington Post, Mr. Giuliani said the president was “very pleased” with his remarks.

(It’s astonishing how much these attorneys, and their clients, talk, talk, talk.)

➤ May the 4th Be With You:

Exciting new route launches for @HeathrowAirport today. Fantastic opportunity for intergalactic tourism and trade. #Maythe4thbewithyou #StarWarsIsGREAT #StarWarsDay pic.twitter.com/M691MbLYKg

— GREAT Britain (@GREATBritain) May 4, 2018