Good morning. 
Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-six. Sunrise is 6:55 AM and sunset 7:08 PM, for 12h 13m 06s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 13.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the one thousand two hundred twenty-eighth day.
On this day in 1958, an angry mob burns serial killer Ed Gein’s home in Plainfield, WI “in response to rumors that it would be purchased at an auction and reopened for tourism.”
Recommended for reading in full —
Tim Mak reports Intelligence Chairman Raised Virus Alarms Weeks Ago, Secret Recording Shows:
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee warned a small group of well-connected constituents three weeks ago to prepare for dire economic and societal effects of the coronavirus, according to a secret recording obtained by NPR.
The remarks from U.S. Sen. Richard Burr were more stark than any he had delivered in more public forums.
On Feb. 27, when the United States had 15 confirmed cases of COVID-19, President Trump was tamping down fears and suggesting that the virus could be seasonal.
“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle. It will disappear,” the president said then, before adding, “it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens.”
On that same day, Burr attended a luncheon held at a social club called the Capitol Hill Club. And he delivered a much more alarming message.
“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,” he said, according to a secret recording of the remarks obtained by NPR. “It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
Robert Faturechi and Derek Willis report Senator Dumped Up to $1.7 Million of Stock After Reassuring Public About Coronavirus Preparedness (‘Intelligence Chair Richard Burr’s selloff came around the time he was receiving daily briefings on the health threat’):
Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions.
As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story.
A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline and has lost about 30% since.
The luncheon had been organized by the Tar Heel Circle, a nonpartisan group whose membership consists of businesses and organizations in North Carolina, the state Burr represents. Membership to join the Tar Heel Circle costs between $500 and $10,000 and promises that members “enjoy interaction with top leaders and staff from Congress, the administration, and the private sector,” according to the group’s website.
Lachlan Markay, William Bredderman, Sam Brodey report Sen. Kelly Loeffler Dumped Millions in Stock After Coronavirus Briefing:
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on the coronavirus.