Good morning. 
Thursday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon thundershowers with a high of 91. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 17m 16s of daytime. The moon is new with none of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1999, NATO suspends its airstrikes after Slobodan Milosevic agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.
Recommended for reading in full —
Molly Beck reports Lost federal aid for Wisconsin schools under GOP budget action now pegged at $2.3 billion:
Wisconsin schools could lose $2.3 billion in federal funding under budget action by the Legislature’s Republican-controlled finance committee — nearly $1 billion more that could be lost in pandemic relief aid than previously believed.
Republican lawmakers writing the state’s next two-year state spending plan last month allocated an additional $128 million for K-12 schools, far below a state spending threshold required under federal relief laws that provide schools with funding to recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Until Wednesday, lawmakers were under the impression $1.5 billion was at risk but a new memo shows the money in jeopardy surpasses $2 billion. The news comes at a time when state officials have learned the state has an additional $4.4 billion in revenue to use in spending decisions.
Rep. Mark Born and Sen. Howard Marklein, co-chairmen of the finance committee, have said the ultimate state budget plan they intend to send Gov. Tony Evers will address the issue and preserve the funding but have not yet said how they plan to tackle it.
Phillip Inman reports G7 leaders will call for fresh WHO inquiry into Covid origins, leaked communique suggests:
Leaders at the G7 summit will call for a new, transparent investigation by the World Health Organization into the origins of the coronavirus, according to a leaked draft communique for the meeting.
The call was initiated by Joe Biden’s administration and follows the US president’s decision to expand the American investigation into the origins of the pandemic, with one intelligence agency leaning towards the theory that it escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.
The broad consensus among scientific experts remains that the most likely explanation is that Covid-19 jumped to humans from an animal host in a natural event. An on-the-ground investigation by WHO experts earlier this year concluded t it was “extremely unlikely” the pandemic began in a laboratory.
Jonathan Chait writes Telling the Truth About Lab-Leak Theory Wouldn’t Help Trump:
Last night [6.8], Lindsey Graham told Sean Hannity’s audience that the news media’s dismissal of the lab-leak hypothesis “changed the course of this election.” Graham’s argument is that, had the media acknowledged the theory, “the election would have been about holding China accountable,” and hence Trump would have won.
This analysis makes about as much sense as anything else said on Hannity’s show. First, the lab leak was and is a hypothesis, so the extent of China’s culpability, if any, would never have been proven in any case. Second, Trump himself repeatedly praised the Chinese government’s handling of the virus — “China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus,” he tweeted on January 24. “The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency” — at a time Biden was raising questions about the lab leak. And third, Trump’s efforts to hold China’s government “accountable” would have simply failed, merely highlighting once again Trump’s total inability to handle the pandemic.
However the virus originated, Trump’s responsibility was to protect the country. Whether he failed to prepare, while repeatedly lying about it, after the virus came from a wet market or a lab seems unlikely to have made much of a difference.
(Emphasis added.)
Chocolatier Dips Cicadas in Chocolate for a Once in 17-Years Treat: