Good morning. 
Saturday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon showers with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:26 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 06m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, General Henry Atkinson’s troops begin construction of Fort Koshkonong after being forced backwards from the bog area of the “trembling lands” in their pursuit of Black Hawk: “The Fort, later known as Fort Atkinson, was described by Atkinson as “a stockade work flanked by four block houses for the security of our supplies and the accommodation of the sick.”
Recommended for reading in full —
Rich Kremer reports Search Committee Named to Find Next UW System President:
University of Wisconsin Board of Regents President Edmund Manydeeds has named a 19-member search committee charged with selecting a new UW System president. The announcement comes just more than a year after a previous search failed, with the sole finalist withdrawing his candidacy citing “process issues.”
The naming of the search committee kicks off what is expected to be a 10- to 12-month process to find a new leader to replace interim President Tommy Thompson, who has held the job since July 1, 2020.
The committee is more than twice the size of the previous presidential search committee, which drew anger and multiple resolutions from campus employee and student government groups because it didn’t include faculty, staff or non-regent students.
Regent Vice President Karen Walsh will chair the search committee, which includes four other board members, two former regents, three chancellors, two provosts and a campus vice chancellor along with professors and staff members from multiple UW campuses.
Maya Yang reports Charlottesville removes Confederate statues that helped spark deadly rally:
Work was under way on Saturday morning to remove a statue to a Confederate general that helped spark a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017.
The small Virginia city said the equestrian statue of Gen Robert E Lee and a nearby statue of Gen Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson would be removed to storage. Designated public viewing areas for the removals had been established.
A crane was moved into place and workers were preparing as the sun came up first to hoist Lee away. Just after 8am local time, the statue of the man on his horse was hoisted slowly off its plinth.
Charlottesville’s mayor, Nikuyah Walker, gave a speech in front of public and media as the lifting equipment was moved into position.
(America’s seditious enemies are unworthy of America statues.)
Philip Bump writes A third of White conservatives refuse to get vaccinated — a refusal shown in polling and the real world:
A Washington Post-ABC News poll released over the weekend shows a stark divide in vaccination hesitancy by political group. Overall, about a fifth of Americans say they definitely won’t get vaccinated. That’s about the percentage for independents and Whites overall. But among Republicans and White conservatives, the figure is more than a third.
If you’re skeptical of those results, fair enough. But there is a correlation in the real world: States that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 have almost uniformly seen lower densities of vaccinations than states that voted for Biden. About the time that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was paused, the two groups of states diverged, with blue states continuing to add vaccinations far faster than red ones.
