Good morning. 
Valentine’s Day in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 0. Sunrise is 6:51 AM and sunset 5:26 PM, for 10h 34m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.
Recommended for reading in full —
Hope Kirwan reports UW-Platteville Receives Approval For What Will Be Wisconsin’s Largest State-Owned Solar Array:
The university received approval from the State Building Commission this week to build a 2.4-megawatt solar array. The array will be located on 5 acres in the campus’ Memorial Park.
Amy Seeboth-Wilson, UW-Platteville’s sustainability coordinator, said construction will begin this spring, and the project is scheduled to be operational by October.
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The project is expected to offset campus electricity use by 17 percent, saving the university $217,000 annually and reducing carbon emissions by 2,300 tons per year.
Seeboth-Wilson said the current largest state-owned solar project is a 47.1-kilowatt array at UW-Oshkosh’s Sage Hall. The new array at UW-Platteville will be 50 times larger than that project.
Sam Levin and Lauren Gambino report Trump acquittal: Biden urges vigilance to defend ‘fragile’ democracy after impeachment trial:
US president Joe Biden has urged Americans to defend democracy following the acquittal of Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial, saying: “This sad chapter in our history has reminded us that democracy is fragile.”
In a statement on Saturday night, Biden said the substance of the charge against his predecessor over the Capitol riot on 6 January in which five people died was not in dispute, and noted the seven Republicans who voted guilty.
“Even those opposed to the conviction, like Senate minority leader McConnell, believe Donald Trump was guilty of a ‘disgraceful dereliction of duty’ and ‘practically and morally responsible for provoking’ the violence unleashed on the Capitol,” he said.
Remembering those who fought to protect democratic institutions that day, he added: “This sad chapter in our history has reminded us that democracy is fragile. That it must always be defended. That we must be ever vigilant … Each of us has a duty and responsibility as Americans, and especially as leaders, to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.”
Waverly Long reports University reviewing Uline contract after CEO funded PAC that supported U.S. Capitol insurrection:
The University [Northwestern] is reviewing its contract with Uline and will make a decision on “how to best move forward” after connections surfaced between the company and the Capitol invasion, a University spokesperson told The Daily.
After seeing a WBEZ report that Uline CEO Dick Uihlein contributed over $4 million to the Tea Party Patriots, a conservative political action committee that supported the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, a Northwestern alum emailed administrators, calling on NU to end its contract with Uline.
“Northwestern competitively bids and negotiates agreements for the goods and services needed regularly by departments and schools on campus,” the University spokesperson said in a statement to The Daily. “We have a vendor screening process that we follow for each contract, and when we become aware of concerns about the social responsibility of companies we partner with, we review that information to determine what next steps may be warranted.”
Uihlein, a billionaire businessman from the Chicago area, is the single biggest donor to the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The PAC participated in the “March to Save America” rally that preceded the violent attack at the Capitol and was also part of the “Stop the Steal” coalition, according to WBEZ.
(Northwestern is a private school.)