Good morning.

Whitewater’s midweek will be sunny and windy with a high of forty-five. Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 5:53 PM, for 11h 37m 19s of daytime. The moon is a waxing waxing gibbous with 72% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1947, Wisconsin defeats Purdue in a continuation of a game postponed after a tragedy: “UW defeated Purdue, 72-60, at an Evanston high school gym to win the Big Ten Conference basketball championship. The game was a continuation of one commenced on February 24 at Purdue. The game was postponed when the stands collapsed, killing three spectators and injuring close to 200.”

Recommended for reading in full —

Patrick Marley reports that the Cost of I-39 expansion south of Madison balloons to nearly $2 billion: “MADISON – A plan to rebuild I-39 from Madison to the Illinois state line will approach $2 billion — nearly two and a half times as much as the Department of Transportation said the project would cost six years ago. The latest figures underscore the challenges lawmakers face in funding roads. Republicans who control state government are split on whether to funnel more money toward roads. In 2011, lawmakers approved rebuilding I-39 with added lanes after the state Department of Transportation determined the job could be done for $715 million. But an updated estimate puts the cost of the project at $1.75 billion. The full cost wasn’t clear until recently because of how Gov. Scott Walker’s DOT had been tabulating the costs.”

Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman report that After Tweet Storm, a Quiet Washes Over Trump’s Staff: “WASHINGTON — President Trump has no regrets. His staff has no defense. After weeks of assailing reporters and critics in diligent defense of their boss, Mr. Trump’s team has been uncharacteristically muted this week when pressed about his explosive — and so far proof-free — Twitter posts on Saturday accusing President Barack Obama of tapping phones in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. The accusation — and the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and the former national intelligence director, James R. Clapper Jr., emphatically deny that any such wiretap was requested or issued — constitutes one of the most consequential accusations made by one president against another in American history. So for Mr. Trump’s allies inside the West Wing and beyond, the tweetstorm spawned the mother of all messaging migraines. Over the past few days, they have executed what amounts to a strategic political retreat — trying to publicly validate Mr. Trump’s suspicions without overtly endorsing a claim some of them believe might have been generated by Breitbart News and other far-right outlets.”

Dan Lamothe, Ashley Halsey III and Lisa Rein report that To fund border wall, Trump administration weighs cuts to Coast Guard, airport security: “The plan puts the administration in the unusual position of trading spending on security programs for other security priorities at the southern border, raising questions among Republican lawmakers and homeland-security experts. The Coast Guard cuts include deactivating Maritime Security Response Teams, which carry out counterterrorism patrols in ports and sensitive waterways, and canceling a contract with Huntington Ingalls Industries to build a ninth national security cutter, with a potential savings of $500 million….Rick “Ozzie” Nelson, a former Navy helicopter pilot and national security expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the decisions would effectively sideline the service in missions in which it could be the most effective.”

Mekado Murphy describes The Five Ages of King Kong: “Ever since the first “King Kong” movie in 1933, the giant, chest-pounding, helicopter-smacking, no-nonsense primate has meant different things to different generations, embodying both his science and his fiction. Kong has been a kind of canvas on which to paint the economic and political issues of the time. He’s hovering larger than ever (along with a starry cast) in “Kong: Skull Island” (in theaters March 10). Here is a look back at versions of Kong and the themes that went with the roars….”

One bulldog, one iguana – two pals:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a one-third chance of isolated thunderstorms, on a day with a high of fifty-one. Sunrise is 6:18 AM and sunset 5:52 PM, for 11h 34m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred nineteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for the telephone. On this day in 1811, Wisconsin naturalist Increase Allen Lapham is born.

Recommended for reading in full —

Julian Sanchez considers the discussion of surveillance in Tapping Trump: “Taking all these claims with the appropriate sodium chloride seasoning, what can we infer?  First, contrary to what many on social media—and even a few reporters for reputable outlets—have asserted, the issuance of a FISA order does not imply that the FBI established probable cause to believe that any Trump associate was acting as an “agent of a foreign power” or engaged in criminal wrongdoing.  That would be necessary only if the court had authorized direct electronic surveillance of a United States person, which (if we credit the BBC report) the FISC apparently declined to do.  Assuming the initial applications were indeed for full-blown electronic surveillance orders, then the fact that the FBI supposedly did name the Trump associates at first would suggest they may have thought they had such evidence, but one would expect the FISC to apply particularly exacting scrutiny to an application naming persons associated with an ongoing presidential campaign.  An application targeting only foreign corporate entities—especially entities openly controlled or directed by the Russian government—would require no such showing, even if the FBI’s ultimate interest were in communications concerning those U.S. persons.”

Max Boot contends that Trump Knows the Feds Are Closing In On Him: “But why would Sessions’ recusal make Trump so unhinged? The president must have felt relatively confident that the “Kremlingate” probe would go nowhere as long as it was in the hands of Trump partisans such as Sessions, Rep. Devin Nunes of the House Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Richard Burr of the Senate Intelligence Committee. But with Sessions out of the picture, the way is now clear for the deputy attorney general — either the current placeholder, career Justice Department attorney Dana Boente, or Trump’s nominee to replace him, Rod Rosenstein, another career government lawyer — to appoint a special counsel because of the “extraordinary circumstances” surrounding this case.”

Michael Birnbaum reports that Ahead of pivotal European elections, rightist websites grow in influence: “AMSTERDAM — On the brand-new political news website, the headlines could have been ripped from a speech by President Trump: Immigrants commit more crime, Syrian refugees are raping girls, and Muslim education is taking over the school system. But the two-month-old Gatestone Europe website is based in the Netherlands; the contributors are Dutch. And their aim, their editor says, is to swing the debate ahead of European elections this year to deliver a tide of anti-immigrant leaders to office in the Netherlands, France, Germany and elsewhere. Websites that focus on the perils of open borders, immigration and international alliances are expanding in scope and ambition in Europe, seeing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to harness the energy from Trump’s win to drive deep into a continent where traditional political parties are struggling. Some of the websites are registered in Russia. Others, like Gatestone Europe, are being supported by Americans with ties to Trump.”

Annysa Johnson reports that, statewide, Wisconsin school districts’ debt soars after $1.35 billion in new borrowing: “New and remodeled school buildings, performance centers and swimming pools. Upgrades for technology, security and energy efficiency. And just plain old general maintenance  — new roofs and boilers — work that has been delayed by years of razor-thin budgets. Public school districts in Wisconsin are in the midst of a building boom, financed by a surge in new debt not seen since the 1990s, a new analysis by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance has found. According to the report, voters in districts across the state approved through referendums borrowing $1.35 billion last year, 10 times more than in 2011 and the most since the alliance began keeping records in 1993. The previous high, adjusted for inflation, was $1.04 billion in 1996. In per-pupil terms, the report says, borrowing has more than tripled from $2,313 in 2010 to $9,733 last year. And it shows no signs of abating. This spring, 23 districts have asked or will ask voters to approve nearly $708 million in new debt.”

Right now, NASA’s Juno spacecraft is orbiting Jupiter. It’s the second spacecraft in history to do so, and its orbit is taking it over Jupiter’s north and south pole. During its latest pass over Jupiter’s south pole, Juno snapped a series of images that reveal Jupiter like never before. Most notably, you can see over a dozen giant, white storms called anticyclones, swirling across the region.

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of sixty, with a likelihood of thunder showers later in the day. Sunrise is 6:20 AM and sunset 5:51 PM, for 11h 31m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.4% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred eighteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1912, the first Oreo cookie is sold to a grocer in Hoboken, New Jersey. On this day in 1862, the 4th Wisconsin Cavalry (then an infantry unit) embarks to join the “Army of the Gulf.” It later arrives below New Orleans on March 12th, and lands in New Orleans on May 1st.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Philip Rucker, Robert Costa and Ashley Parker report Inside Trump’s fury: The president rages at leaks, setbacks and accusations: “Trump’s young presidency has existed in a perpetual state of chaos. The issue of Russia has distracted from what was meant to be his most triumphant moment: his address last Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. And now his latest unfounded accusation — that Barack Obama tapped Trump’s phones during last fall’s campaign — had been denied by the former president and doubted by both allies and fellow Republicans.”

Michael Schmidt and Michael Shear report that Comey Asks Justice Dept. to Reject Trump’s Wiretapping Claim: “WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement. Mr. Comey, who made the request on Saturday after Mr. Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter, has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down the claim because it falsely insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law, the officials said. A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Sarah Isgur Flores, the spokeswoman for the Justice Department, also declined to comment. Mr. Comey’s request is a remarkable rebuke of a sitting president, putting the nation’s top law enforcement official in the position of questioning Mr. Trump’s truthfulness.”

Jennifer Rubin asks of Trump: Bonkers, paranoid or trapped?: “There are several explanations — not necessarily mutually exclusive — for the latest outburst from the president. First, he is increasingly out of touch with reality. Just as he obsessed over the crowd size at his inauguration and the fictional illegal voters upward of 3 million, Trump’s mammoth ego cannot take the daily drumbeat of attacks and accusations. When adversity strikes — as it did with new allegations concerning Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was forced to recuse himself from any campaign-related investigation — he becomes unhinged and paranoid. He can stick to a teleprompter speech for an hour, but soon reverts to form. A variation on the first possibility would be that Trump correctly realizes the intelligence community has a good deal more information on what contacts his associates had with Russians than he does. A New York Times story last week confirmed that the intelligence community also has intercepts of Russian officials discussing their contacts with Trump associates. Trump, under this theory, is panicked.”

Jeff Potrykus reports on UW 66, Minnesota 49: Koenig leads second-half surge: “UW, having lost five of its last six games, had just capped off its second consecutive solid practice. Gard believed if the Badgers took that energy and execution to the court Sunday against Minnesota, they would have an outstanding chance to close the regular season with a critical victory. Gard’s assessment was spot on as the Badgers stayed within striking distance over the first 20 minutes and then, led by senior guard Bronson Koenig, dominated the second half en route to an impressive 66-49 victory in front of a roaring crowd of 17,287. “As I told the team, it’s been a rough two weeks,” Gard said. “But I couldn’t be more proud of a group of 17 young men that stuck together, circled the wagons, had each other’s back and had to come through some tough times.”

It’s not just a model of a fruit bat, it’s a Lego Bat:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty-two. Sunrise is 6:21 AM and sunset 5:50 PM, for 11h 28m 35s of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred seventeenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1946, Winston Churchill delivers his Sinews of Peace (“Iron Curtain”) speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.

Recommended for reading in full —

Lee Bergquist reports that Private green energy deal did not mean gold for UW-Oshkosh: “More than $4 million in university funds that were used to convert livestock waste into electricity play a key role in exposing the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Foundation to potential bankruptcy as rapidly changing markets have dulled the allure for some sectors of renewable power. The lessons for Wisconsin’s third-largest university: Green doesn’t necessarily turn to gold, and spending by UW-Oshkosh on private projects could leave taxpayers at risk. UW-Oshkosh’s foundation has spent heavily in recent years on technology that converts manure and other organic material into electricity — a strategy that is both legal and mirrors a trend among colleges of using private foundations to generate revenue….Citing excessive costs and an untested infrastructure to procure organic material such as waste from farm fields, Walker killed a $250 million project at UW-Madison in 2011 that would have burned biomass to generate electricity. In another case, a Dane County biodigester that received a $3.3 million state water quality grant to process manure from three farms near Waunakee suffered an array of operational problems, including manure spills and a methane gas explosion in 2014 before the business was taken over by new owners. Wisconsin leads the country in the number of farm-based facilities, with 35 in operation today, according to the State Energy Office. The office has estimated that seven other sites have shut down, or are no longer operating at full capacity, as biodigesters struggle with lower electricity prices.”

Chris Buckley and Keith Bradsher write that Xi Jinping’s Failed Promises Dim Hopes for Economic Change in 2nd Term: “The problem, critics say, is that Mr. Xi’s demands for centralized control, stability and political conformity have often drowned out hesitant steps toward economic liberalization. And his second term is likely to bring more of the same, they say. “I’m highly skeptical, since I don’t think it’s a lack of authority or the opposition of special interests that have kept him from moving in that direction so far,” said Scott Kennedy, the director of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Rather, he’s operated according to his instincts in the face of economic challenges. And I don’t expect his instincts or those challenges to change much.” Many economists, executives and policy advisers in Beijing do not disguise their disappointment about what has happened to Mr. Xi’s promises of an audacious overhaul of the economy.”

Emily Rauhala reports on a ‘False prophet’: Duterte, the Catholic Church and the fight for the soul of the Philippines: “Since coming to power last summer, President Rodrigo Duterte has used biblical language to build a case for mass killings, vowing to sacrifice himself, even his son, to cleanse the nation of crime. Conjuring a world in which evil stalks the innocent, Duterte launched a wave of violence that has claimed at least 7,000 lives. With his critics cursed and shamed, and with public support for the president running high, the establishment, including the Roman Catholic Church, has for the most part stayed quiet. But now, more than seven months into Duterte’s tenure, with the death toll climbing night by night, the country’s Catholic hierarchy is finding its voice. In a pastoral letter published in February, church leaders denounced Duterte’s campaign as a “reign of terror” against the poor. Emboldened by their bishops’ stance, priests, nuns and missionaries are also taking a stand, offering sanctuary to fearful witnesses, paying for funerals and organizing rallies. Religious leaders who once supported the president are turning their backs on him, potentially hurting his political appeal.”

Ellen Nakishima considers How hard is it to get an intelligence wiretap? Pretty hard: “Senior officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because such matters are classified, said that there had been no wiretap on Trump. Under the law governing foreign-intelligence surveillance inside the United States, an FBI agent would need to show a federal judge that there is probable cause that the target is an “agent of a foreign power” — and that requires more than just talking to, say, the Russian ambassador. “Both criminal and foreign intelligence wiretaps have onerous and strict processes of approval that require not only multiple levels of internal Justice Department review, but also require court review and approval,” said Matthew Waxman, an expert on national security law at Columbia University. The law authorizing wiretaps in terrorism and espionage cases is known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, passed out of reforms recommended by the Church Committee in the wake of spying abuses by the FBI and the National Security Agency. The law bars targeted electronic surveillance on U.S. soil unless the government can show that the target was a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, and that the “facility” — the phone number or email address in question — is being used by the foreign power or agent. The law authorizing criminal intercepts — in cases such as murder, drug dealing or racketeering — is Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. Like FISA, the law requires probable cause, but in this instance that the target is about to or has committed a crime.”

Great Big Story describes The 100% Real, No BS, Absolutely Honest and True Story Behind Snake Oil:

The 100% Real, No BS, Absolutely Honest and True Story Behind Snake Oil from Great Big Story on Vimeo.

 

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with a high of forty degrees. Sunrise is 6:23 and sunset 5:49 PM, for 11h 25m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 39.8% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred sixteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1861, Lincoln becomes America’s sixteenth president. On this day in 1917, Republican Jeanette Rankin of Montana takes office as the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Sarah Kendzior writes that Some call this America’s resistance. Really, we are helping one another: “What is now called resisting is often Americans simply helping others: a concept so alien to the Trump administration that it is labelled as subversive. Lawyers volunteer to aid unjustly detained immigrants; clergy hold interfaith rallies when one religion is attacked; citizens look out for their neighbours and lobby officials on their behalf. Unlike previous administrations, when assaults on freedom and safety were usually couched as incidental, Mr. Trump’s policies are explicitly aimed at hurting vulnerable people. This means the resistance is unlikely to burn out or fade away, as it is a fight for survival. Citizens will not blithely acquiesce to the loss of their health care, public schools and civil rights. Many Americans have expressed longing for things to go back to normal: an understandable impulse because of the exhaustion the administration causes. But if Americans have learned anything over the past month, it is that rights need to be fought for in order to be preserved. Accepting injustice as normal was part of how we got here. Refusing to accept even greater injustice as normal is the only way we will get out.”

Rosalind Helderman reports that Despite early denials, growing list of Trump camp contacts with Russians haunts White House: “Two days after the presidential election, a Russian official speaking to a reporter in Moscow offered a surprising acknowledgment: The Kremlin had been in contact with Donald Trump’s campaign. The claim, coming amid allegations that Russia had interfered with the election, was met with an immediate no-wiggle-room, blanket denial from Trump’s spokeswoman. “It never happened,” Hope Hicks told the Associated Press at the time. “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.” In fact, it is now clear it did happen. The past few days have brought a growing list of confirmed communications between Trump campaign aides and Russian officials, with each new revelation adding to a cloud of suspicion that hangs over the White House as critics demand an independent investigation. Trump’s team has offered various explanations for the meetings: Some encounters, they have said, were brief, no more than casual, polite introductions. Others involved the routine diplomacy common for officials surrounding a candidate for the nation’s highest office.”

Anemona Hartocollis and Noah Weiland describe Campus Backlash After Leaders of Black Colleges Meet With Trump: “A photograph of the black leaders smiling and chatting with Mr. Trump around his desk was widely circulated and instantly became a flash point for students who believe the administration has been insensitive to the needs of black Americans. “Is it a photo op, is it an opportunity for Trump to put himself next to black people and smile?” Llewellyn Robinson, a Howard sophomore, said, after the graffiti had been wiped clean. “Is that the situation we’re dealing with? Or is it truly a seat at the table?” Howard protesters said they had heard echoes of support — in the form of tweets, student organizations reaching out and the exchange of information on group messaging apps — from students at other prominent black institutions like Spelman, Morehouse, Hampton and North Carolina A&T. An aide to one college president said that concerns about how to deal with the protesters had been a topic of intense phone conversations among the leaders.”

(Note – This website advocates a clear approach toward Trump: cooperation is humiliation, collaboration is degradation.)

Chelsey Lewis offers 5 tips for beginner backpackers: “A few summers back I took my sister to Devil’s Lake for a little introduction to backpacking. Since she had never been, and my own experience is pretty limited, we did a mock outing, car-camping at Devil’s Lake and hiking with our packs throughout the park during the day. But we packed and planned as if we would were in the backcountry so that when we did eventually take on a real backpacking trip (at Big Bend National Park in Texas) we would know how many miles we could handle and how our gear would hold up. If you want to get into backpacking, it’s a good idea to do the same — practice somewhere a little closer to civilization to test your physical abilities and your gear. Here are some other tips for beginner backpackers….”

What’s Up for March 2017?:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of thirty-one. Sunrise is 6:25 AM and sunset 5:47 PM, for 11h 22m 47s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 27.9% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred fifteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Alexander Graham Bell is born on this day in 1847. On this date in 1875, industrialist, Republican politician, and Wisconsin governor Walter Jodok Kohler is born in Sheboygan.

Recommended for reading in full —

Margaret Sullivan writes that While pundits swooned over Trump’s speech, reporters plugged away at the real story: “Tuesday night was a low point for “the media” — if such a multi-headed beast can be described in those two words — as cable-news talking heads gushed over President Trump’s address to Congress. Will Oremus of Slate put it like this: Trump “managed to speak for an entire hour without sounding like an unhinged demagogue. For that, he was hailed by TV pundits across the spectrum who acted as though he’d just single-handedly defeated the Islamic State and restored the fortunes of the American middle class”….But as if to say that not all media are created equal, along came two blockbuster stories from two longtime rival newspapers. First, on Wednesday evening, with an 8:01 news alert, the New York Times dropped its triple-byline blockbuster: that the Obama administration had scattered a trail of bread crumbs, evidently so that contacts between Trump’s associates and the Russians would not be lost to a coverup by the new administration. Then, with a 9:04 p.m. news alert, The Washington Post published a shocker on the same general subject: that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had met with the Russian ambassador to the United States twice and failed to disclose that during his Senate confirmation hearings. Because of dogged reporting, and to some extent on intelligence-community leaks that Trump has found so outrageous, both stories hit hard.”

Aaron Blake describes Jeff Sessions’s puzzling press conference: “At one point early in the news conference, Sessions said there were two senior staffers in his meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in Washington. Later, he mentioned that there might also have been a third, more junior staffer. He at one point acknowledged that Kislyak may have sought the meeting because of his ties to the Trump campaign. “Ambassadors are always out trying to find out things and advance their agenda,” he said. Sessions also left open the possibility that there might have been other contacts with Russian officials, saying only, “I meet a lot of people” when asked to account for any other possibly undisclosed meetings. That will lead to all kinds of questions about more contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.”

Tony Cook reports that Pence used personal email for state business — and was hacked: “INDIANAPOLIS — Vice President Mike Pence routinely used a private email account to conduct public business as governor of Indiana, at times discussing sensitive matters and homeland security issues. Emails released to The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network, in response to a public records request show Pence communicated via his personal AOL account with top advisers on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. In one email, Pence’s top state homeland security adviser relayed an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges….Cybersecurity experts say Pence’s emails were likely just as insecure as Clinton’s. While there has been speculation about whether Clinton’s emails were hacked, Pence’s account was actually compromised last summer by a scammer who sent an email to his contacts claiming Pence and his wife were stranded in the Philippines and in urgent need of money.”

Jeff Potrykus describes Iowa 59, UW 57: Hawkeyes shock Badgers: “MADISON – This stunning collapse could weigh heavily on Wisconsin coach Greg Gard and his players for some time. How quickly the Badgers can recover from their stunning 59-57 loss to Iowa on Thursday night at the Kohl Center could determine how long UW remains alive in the postseason. UW led by nine points with 3 minutes 46 seconds left and by five points with 2:03 left. The Badgers committed two critical turnovers against full-court pressure, however, and Iowa capitalized to outscore UW, 7-0, in the final 1:45. “Losing is depressing,” said senior Nigel Hayes, who had five of UW’s 13 turnovers. “It is extremely upsetting. Especially when we lose the way we do and the way we have been.” In the closing seconds, Iowa’s Peter Jok missed a jumper, but Hayes mistimed his jump and Iowa’s Cordell Pemsl grabbed the loose ball.

Anatomy of a Scene takes a look at Logan:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-two. Sunrise is 6:26 AM and sunset 5:36 PM, for 11h 19m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 18.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred fourteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission is scheduled to meet at 6 PM.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Matthew Rosenberg, Adam Goldman, and Michael Schmidt report that the Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking: “WASHINGTON — In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators. American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified intelligence. Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates.”

Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller report that Sessions met with Russian envoy twice last year, encounters he later did not disclose: “Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general. One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race. The previously undisclosed discussions could fuel new congressional calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election. As attorney general, Sessions oversees the Justice Department and the FBI, which have been leading investigations into Russian meddling and any links to Trump’s associates. He has so far resisted calls to recuse himself.”

Partick Markey reports that Gov. Scott Walker: Wisconsin road projects may be scaled back to save money: “MADISON – The state is reviewing whether it can scale back future road projects to save money, Gov. Scott Walker said Wednesday. Walker touted smaller-scale projects just weeks after the Department of Transportation warned in a memo that there is a “tidal wave” of costly, critical projects that cannot be delayed forever. The memo comes at a time when Walker is standing against raising the gas tax and some of his fellow Republicans who control the Legislature are calling for finding another $300 million for highways over the next two years.”

Ed Yong describes how Wild Elephants Sleep Just Two Hours a Night: “The remarkably short amount of sleep in wild elephants is a real elephant in the room for several theories for the function of sleep,” says Niels Rattenborg from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology. Some scientists have argued that sleep evolved to give animals a chance to reset their brains, ready for a new day of learning. Others suggest that sleep provides an opportunity to clear out toxins that accumulated during the day. And yet others say that sleep allows animals to consolidate the memories that they have created while they were awake. But if any of these ideas are right, how do elephants cope with such little sleep? “The hypotheses about restorative functions start to go out the window,” says Manger. “You can’t say that these are general things that apply to sleep across all mammals.” The idea about memory consolidation becomes especially shaky: it’s meant to happen during REM sleep, and Manger’s elephants only seemed to get REM sleep every three to four days. How do they remember anything at all, much less develop their apocryphally long-lasting memories?”

Biodegradable bags help save animals’ lives and reduce pollution: