Good morning. 
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 2. Sunrise is 7:00 AM and sunset 5:17 PM, for 10h 16m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 19.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1904, a the Great Baltimore Fire starts: it destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
Aftermath. Collection of historic photographs of Baltimore County at Baltimore County Public Library.
Recommended for reading in full —
Toluse Olorunnipa and Michelle Ye Hee Lee report Trump’s lie that the election was stolen has cost $519 million (and counting) as taxpayers fund enhanced security, legal fees, property repairs and more:
President Donald Trump’s onslaught of falsehoods about the November election misled millions of Americans, undermined faith in the electoral system, sparked a deadly riot — and has now left taxpayers with a large, and growing, bill.
The total so far: $519 million.
The costs have mounted daily as government agencies at all levels have been forced to devote public funds to respond to actions taken by Trump and his supporters, according to a Washington Post review of local, state and federal spending records, as well as interviews with government officials. The expenditures include legal fees prompted by dozens of fruitless lawsuits, enhanced security in response to death threats against poll workers, and costly repairs needed after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. That attack triggered the expensive massing of thousands of National Guard troops on the streets of Washington amid fears of additional extremist violence.
Although more than $480 million of the total is attributable to the military’s estimated expenses for the troop deployment through mid-March, the financial impact of the president’s refusal to concede the election is probably much higher than what has been documented thus far, and the true costs may never be known.
(Trumpism has been a pestilence on America.)
A federal judge in South Dakota was blunt last summer when she sentenced Paul Erickson, a seasoned Republican operative who had pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering.
“What comes through is that you’re a thief, and you’ve betrayed your friends, your family, pretty much everyone you know,” District Judge Karen E. Schreier told Erickson in July, before sentencing him to seven years in prison for scamming dozens of people out of $5.3 million.
But Erickson, who had advised GOP presidential campaigns and a noted conservative organization, had a way out.
He had the support of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, a member of President Donald Trump’s inner orbit. And, unrelated to his conviction, he had been caught up in the investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, an inquiry much reviled by Trump.
For years, [Susan] Holden said, Erickson lied to her on a near-daily basis about the project, guaranteeing that she would not lose money. He even traveled to North Dakota to meet her and her 80-year-old mother, showing off a parcel of land he claimed had been purchased with her money.
In fact, Erickson admitted in court that he never bought any land for the project. His pardon means he no longer has to pay her or his other victims restitution.
“I was crushed,” Holden said. “All I could think of was, ‘Goddamnit, Trump, you didn’t even look into the case. Kellyanne walked into your office and said, ‘This poor guy, Russia witch hunt’ — and you did it.’?”
Find Mars, Gemini and the Winter Circle in February 2021 skywatching: