Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will see intermittent snowfall with a high of twenty-eight. Sunrise is 7:17 AM and sunset 4:55 PM, for 9h 37m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the eight hundred fourth day.
On this day in 1968, the NBA awards a professional basketball franchise to Milwaukee.
Recommended for reading in full:
Kenneth P. Vogel reports Deripaska and Allies Could Benefit From Sanctions Deal, Document Shows:
When the Trump administration announced last month that it was lifting sanctions against a trio of companies controlled by an influential Russian oligarch, it cast the move as tough on Russia and on the oligarch, arguing that he had to make painful concessions to get the sanctions lifted.
But a binding confidential document signed by both sides suggests that the agreement the administration negotiated with the companies controlled by the oligarch, Oleg V. Deripaska, may have been less punitive than advertised.
The deal contains provisions that free him from hundreds of millions of dollars in debt while leaving him and his allies with majority ownership of his most important company, the document shows.
With the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election continuing to shadow President Trump, the administration’s decision to lift sanctions on Mr. Deripaska’s companies has become a political flash point. House Democrats won widespread Republican support last week for their efforts to block the sanctions relief deal. Democratic hopes of blocking the administration’s decision have been stifled by the Republican-controlled Senate.
Christine Schmidt writes Nine steps for how Facebook should embrace meaningful interac— er, accountability (“There are broad concerns that Facebook continues to engage in deceptive behavior when it comes to user privacy, and that it is biased against certain groups, but outsiders currently have almost no possibilities to verify these claims.”):
What would you put on Facebook’s to-do list?
Well, a group of Oxford and Stanford researchers (Timothy Garton Ash, Robert Gorwa, and Danaë Metaxa) started with nine items, in their report released Thursday via Oxford and Stanford. (No funding for the report came from Facebook, but the company did provide “under the hood” access to them and other academics.) The focus is on ways Facebook could improve itself as a “better forum for free speech and democracy,” which, you know, the platform has had some struggles with in the past few years.
Part of the report focuses on the amends Facebook has attempted, such as broader transparency with academics and policymakers and introducing content appeal processes, but also points to the impact (and issues) that can arise from self-regulatory actions instead of external policies. (Remember, senators, he sells ads!) “A single small change to the News Feed algorithm, or to content policy, can have an impact that is both faster and wider than that of any single piece of national (or even EU-wide) legislation,” the authors write.
(Schmidt’s full article lists all nine steps.)