Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of sixty-two. Sunrise is 5:50 AM and sunset 7:53 PM, for 14h 03m 28s of daytime. The moon is full, with 99.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1429, following the lifting of the Siege of Orléans, Joan of Arc enters the city in triumph.
Recommended for reading in full —
➤ Keegan Kyle reports Hundreds of rape kits untested despite Wisconsin law that required DNA analysis:
Wisconsin lawmakers took a break from their fierce fight over union bargaining rights in 2011 to craft a law with bipartisan support: They ordered police to swiftly submit rape kits for DNA tests if the evidence could help identify a suspect.
Republicans and Democrats were alarmed by reports that investigators in other states had ignored such rape kits — which contain skin, saliva and other samples collected from assault victims.
“We don’t want (untested kits) sitting at the police station or office forever,” former state Rep. Tamara Grigsby, D-Milwaukee, said at the time. “It’s a public safety measure.”
But a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin investigation has found that for years after that law took effect in 2011, police agencies all over the state shelved hundreds of untested rape kits with no known suspect. The law didn’t require police to send in DNA samples when they already had a suspect, because legislators were most concerned about rapists who were unknown and on the loose.
Testing rape kits can help investigators find or exonerate suspects by matching DNA with national offender databases. It can also help link together cases from different places, revealing serial offenders.
➤ Alan Borsuk writes Wisconsin’s achievement gap is our tragic claim to fame. Where’s the outrage?:
In 2004, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a series of stories marking the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that found racial segregation of schools to be unconstitutional. One of the pieces I worked on focused on the gaps between white and black children in academic success. I looked at results from a long-standing program called the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).
I found a chart with the percentage of black and white fourth- and eighth-graders in each state who were rated proficient in reading and math. I saw that the gap was very large in Wisconsin. I went over the chart and was pretty shocked to see that the Wisconsin gap was the largest of any state.
Furthermore, this was true of NAEP results going back years. And the average test scores for African-American children in Wisconsin were either the lowest or just above the lowest in the country, depending on the year and category.
I thought this was enormously important. For one thing, it carried ominous signals about the economic future of Wisconsin.
I wrote a story giving these facts. To my knowledge, it was the first substantial public piece describing Wisconsin’s ignominious standing on these fronts. It appeared prominently in the newspaper. I thought there would be a big reaction — look at how urgent this is, what are we going to do about it?
There was not much reaction and certainly no surge of commitment and effort.
Jump ahead to now. Everything that was true in 2004 remains true.
➤ The Committee to Investigate Russia relates Treasury Eases Sanctions on Deripaska Company:
Last Monday, President Trump rejected new Syria-related sanctions on Russia.
Today, the Treasury Department is easing up on sanctions issued earlier this month.
Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire oligarch connected to both Vladimir Putin and Paul Manafort, is a major shareholder in Rusal, one of Russia’s largest aluminum companies. The Trump administration sanctioned Deripaska and Rusal on April 6th. But workers for the company now are threatening revolt should Rusal close facilities to compensate for sanctions-related loss of revenue, and the administration is backtracking.
See also U.S. eases sanctions on aluminum firm tied to Russian oligarch (Politico).
➤ Daniel A. Effron considers Why Trump Supporters Don’t Mind His Lies:
In his first 400 days in office, President Trump made more than 2,400 false or misleading claims, according to The Washington Post. Yet a recent Gallup poll shows his approval ratings among Republicans at 82 percent. How do we square these two facts?
Some supporters no doubt believe many of the falsehoods. Others may recognize the claims as falsehoods but tolerate them as a side effect of an off-the-cuff rhetorical style they admire. Or perhaps they have become desensitized to the dishonesty by the sheer volume of it.
I suspect that there is an additional, underappreciated explanation for why Mr. Trump’s falsehoods have not generated more outrage among his supporters. Wittingly or not, Mr. Trump’s representatives have used a subtle psychological strategy to defend his falsehoods: They encourage people to reflect on how the falsehoods could have been true.
New research of mine suggests that this strategy can convince supporters that it’s not all that unethical for a political leader to tell a falsehood — even though the supporters are fully aware the claim is false.
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These results reveal a subtle hypocrisy in how we maintain our political views. We use different standards of honesty to judge falsehoods we find politically appealing versus unappealing. When judging a falsehood that maligns a favored politician, we ask, “Was it true?” and then condemn it if the answer is no.
In contrast, when judging a falsehood that makes a favored politician look good, we are willing to ask, “Could it have been true?” and then weaken our condemnation if we can imagine the answer is yes. By using a lower ethical standard for lies we like, we leave ourselves vulnerable to influence by pundits and spin doctors.
➤ Consider The Rise and Fall of Jai Alai:
For much of the 20th century, jai alai dominated the Miami sports scene, attracting crowds as large as 15,000. Today, the sport is barely hanging on in America. So what happened? Well, it’s a wild story, one involving gangs, organized crime and murder. We caught up with decorated jai alai athletes Benny Bueno and Leon Shepard to get the scoop on the meteoric rise and subsequent fall of America’s forgotten sport.