Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty-three.  Sunrise is 7:20 AM and sunset 5:56 PM, for 10h 36m 10s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 59.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1590, John White, the governor of the second Roanoke Colony, returns to England after an unsuccessful search for the ‘lost’ colonists.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Mary Spicuzza and Molly Beck report Wisconsin Republicans have been facing an outbreak among lawmakers and aides. But they don’t want to talk about it:

Wisconsin Republican lawmakers and top GOP aides have been facing a coronavirus outbreak in recent weeks following a series of in-person events, including a retirement party for a longtime Capitol staffer, a dozen sources told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

But Republican leaders would not disclose how many or which lawmakers have contracted COVID-19, nor would they answer questions about contact tracing efforts — including whether anyone worked at the state Capitol after they were exposed to the virus.

Those affected by the COVID-19 outbreak include Jenny Toftness, chief of staff for Speaker Robin Vos, who got sick after attending the retirement party in September.

….

It’s unclear whether those who were infected notified any Capitol authorities, who could alert others who work in the statehouse.

“We are not aware of any reports from either legislators or legislative staff,” Britt Cudaback, spokeswoman for Gov. Tony Evers, said in an email in response to questions about COVID-19 policies of the Department of Administration, which oversees the Capitol.

 Roger Sollenberger reports Trump Organization renewed the TrumpTowerMoscow.com domain name — this year:

The Trump Organization reregistered the domain name TrumpTowerMoscow.com this June, internet records show, suggesting that contrary to President Trump’s claims, the company has not necessarily abandoned its pursuit of the lucrative real estate deal that figured prominently in multiple investigations into his connections with Russia.

The Trump Organization has re-upped the domain every year of his presidency. This year it renewed its ownership on June 9, under a company called DTTM Operations, which Trump’s financial disclosures show manages more than 100 company trademarks. DTTM Operations appears now to have registered a total of more than 3,000 domains, according to a whois search, including renewals for TrumpRussia.com, TrumpTowerLondon.com and DonaldTrumpSucks.com — 2,000 more than reported in 2017.

The domain was first reported in early July 2017, about two months before the Washington Post’s bombshell report that during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Trump Organization had tried to strike a deal with Russian developers to build the luxury hotel and condo tower. A series of BuzzFeed News reports starting the next year illustrated the significant progress the project had made and the extent of Donald Trump’s involvement.

Initially envisioned as the tallest building in Europe, Trump Tower Moscow was spearheaded on the Trump side by Sater and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, and included the personal involvement of Ivanka Trump. But even with a Russian developer on board, the project needed the blessing of government officials to get off the ground, a responsibility that fell to Cohen.

At one point the company proposed awarding Russian President Vladimir Putin the $50 million penthouse suite for free, a quid pro quo for the green light to break ground, and which had Trump’s approval.

(While most domain renewals are routine, a renewal of this domain is extraordinary – it shows the Trump Organization is willing to persist in visible conflicts of interest even after widespread ethical criticism. Shameless, truly.)

SpaceX Starship SN8 gets its nose cone:

SpaceX attached the nose cone to the Starship SN8 prototype at their Boca Chica, Texas facility on Oct. 22, 2020. They are prepping the rocket for an uncrewed 9 mile (15 km) hop.  

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of sixty.  Sunrise is 7:19 AM and sunset 5:58 PM, for 10h 38m 52s of daytime.  The moon is in its first quarter with 49.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Planning Commission and some city employees will meet today via audiovisual conferencing at 9 AM to discuss amendments to Whitewater’s sign ordinance.

 On this day in 1956, secret police shoot several anti-communist protesters, igniting the Hungarian Revolution.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Julian E. Barnes, Nicole Perlroth, and David E. Sanger report Russia Poses Greater Election Threat Than Iran, Many U.S. Officials Say (‘Russia’s hackers appeared to be preparing to sow chaos amid any uncertainty around election results, officials said’):

While senior Trump administration officials said this week that Iran has been actively interfering in the presidential election, many intelligence officials said they remained far more concerned about Russia, which in recent days has hacked into state and local computer networks in breaches that could allow Moscow broader access to American voting infrastructure.

The discovery of the hacks came as American intelligence agencies, infiltrating Russian networks themselves, have pieced together details of what they believe are Russia’s plans to interfere in the presidential race in its final days or immediately after the election on Nov. 3. Officials did not make clear what Russia planned to do, but they said its operations would be intended to help President Trump, potentially by exacerbating disputes around the results, especially if the race is too close to call.

F.B.I. and Homeland Security officials also announced on Thursday that Russia’s state hackers had targeted dozens of state and local governments and aviation networks starting in September. They stole data from the computer servers of at least two unidentified targets and continued to crawl through some of the affected networks, the agencies said.

Nick Miroff reports Study finds no crime increase in cities that adopted ‘sanctuary’ policies, despite Trump claims:

Cities that have adopted “sanctuary” policies did not record an increase in crime as a result of their decision to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, according to a new Stanford University report. The findings appear to rebut the Trump administration’s rhetoric about the policies’ dire effects on public safety.

The study is one of the first to measure those effects by looking at data on violent crime and property crime. Researcher David K. Hausman compared statistics across more than 200 sanctuary counties and jurisdictions between 2010 and 2015, when the policies were adopted in many U.S. cities with a large number of residents living in the country illegally.

The data show that the policies were effective at limiting deportations of nonviolent offenders but did not result in higher crime rates in those cities. And Hausman found that violent criminals continued to be deported at the same pace because the sanctuary policies do little to prevent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from taking those offenders into custody.

“Sanctuary policies do serve a protective role, but there’s not the cost to public safety that critics claim,” Hausman said in an interview. His findings were published in the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

ICE has targeted sanctuary jurisdictions in recent weeks with a campaign called “Operation Rise” that has led to more than 300 arrests and dovetailed with the president’s campaign attacks on Democratic mayors.

Cities and police departments that have adopted the sanctuary measures say they preserve trust between local police officers and immigrants who might be reluctant to report crimes if they fear they could be deported.

 Australian wildlife: 2019 and 2020 bush fires caused unprecedented damage to local fauna:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of sixty-five.  Sunrise is 7:18 AM and sunset 5:59 PM, for 10h 41m 35s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 38.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets via audiovisual conferencing at 5:30 PM.

 On this day in 1962, President Kennedy announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval “quarantine” of the Communist nation.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Devlin Barrett and Josh Dawsey report Trump weighs firing FBI director after election as frustration with Wray, Barr grows:

President Trump and his advisers have repeatedly discussed whether to fire FBI Director Christopher A. Wray after Election Day — a scenario that also could imperil the tenure of Attorney General William P. Barr as the president grows increasingly frustrated that federal law enforcement has not delivered his campaign the kind of last-minute boost that the FBI provided in 2016, according to people familiar with the matter.

The conversations among the president and senior aides stem in part from their disappointment that Wray in particular but Barr as well have not done what Trump had hoped — indicate that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden or other Biden associates are under investigation, these people say. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal discussions.

In the campaign’s closing weeks, the president has intensified public calls for jailing his challenger, much as he did for Hillary Clinton, his opponent in 2016. Trump has called Biden a “criminal” without articulating what laws he believes the former vice president has broken.

Adam Goldman and Mark Mazzetti report Ex-Spy Was Central to Project Veritas Hiring Effort, Testimony Shows:

A British former spy recruited by Erik Prince, the security contractor close to the Trump administration, played a central role in a secretive effort to hire dozens of operatives for the conservative group Project Veritas, deposition testimony shows.

Job applicants traveled to Wyoming in 2017 for interviews with the former intelligence officer, Richard Seddon, as Project Veritas sought to expand its operations early in the Trump administration, according to a lawsuit deposition reviewed by The New York Times. The interviews conducted by Mr. Seddon and his colleagues took place near the airport in the small town of Cody, not far from Mr. Prince’s family ranch.

The new details about Project Veritas show the extent of the group’s ambitions to build an intelligence-gathering apparatus to infiltrate Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations, news media and other groups. Project Veritas is known for its sting operations aimed at such groups, which have prompted allegations that it has published deceptively edited videos.

Why There Are No Megatall Skyscrapers in New York?:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy a high of fifty-three.  Sunrise is 7:17 AM and sunset 6:01 PM, for 10h 44m 19s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 28.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets via audiovisual conferencing at 5:30 PM.

 On this day in 1897, Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay is dedicated.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Mike McIntire, Russ Buettner, and Susanne Craig report Trump Records Shed New Light on Chinese Business Pursuits (‘As he raises questions about his opponent’s standing with China, President Trump’s taxes reveal details about his own activities there, including a previously unknown bank account’):

But Mr. Trump’s own business history is filled with overseas financial deals, and some have involved the Chinese state. He spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company.

And it turns out that China is one of only three foreign nations — the others are Britain and Ireland — where Mr. Trump maintains a bank account, according to an analysis of the president’s tax records, which were obtained by The New York Times. The foreign accounts do not show up on Mr. Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he must list personal assets, because they are held under corporate names. The identities of the financial institutions are not clear.

The Chinese account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management L.L.C., which the tax records show paid $188,561 in taxes in China while pursuing licensing deals there from 2013 to 2015.

(Trump has paid far more in taxes to China than on many years of his United States federal income tax return.)

Isaac Stanley-Becker and Craig Timberg report Threatening emails reportedly sent to Democratic voters in three swing states, sparking investigations:

Authorities in Florida and Alaska on Tuesday were investigating threatening emails sent to Democratic voters that claimed to be from the Proud Boys, a far-right group supportive of President Trump, but appeared instead to be a deceptive campaign making use of a vulnerability in the organization’s online network.

The emails, which appeared to target Democrats using data from digital databases known as “voter files,” told recipients the group was “in possession of all your information” and instructed voters to change their party registration and cast their ballots for Trump.

“You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you,” warned the emails, which by Tuesday night were said to have reached voters in four states, three of them hotly contested swing states in the coming presidential election.

The emails were reported in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida and Alaska. Only Alaska is not a major focus of the presidential campaign, but it does have a closely watched race for the U.S. Senate.

How Amazon Prime Day drove record numbers for third-party sellers:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will mostly cloudy a high of forty-nine.  Sunrise is 7:15 AM and sunset 6:02 PM, for 10h 47m 03s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 18.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

 The Whitewater Common Council meets via audiovisual conferencing at 6:30 PM.

 On this day in 1856, Frederick Douglass speaks in Beaver Dam on the brutality and immorality of slavery.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Timothy O’Brien writes Trump’s Taxes Show He’s a National Security Threat:

Due to his indebtedness, his reliance on income from overseas and his refusal to authentically distance himself from his hodgepodge of business, Trump represents a profound national security threat – a threat that will only escalate if he’s re-elected. The tax returns also show the extent to which Trump has repeatedly betrayed the interests of many of the average Americans who elected him and remain his most loyal supporters.

I have some history with Trump and his taxes. Trump sued me for libel in 2006 for a biography I wrote, “TrumpNation,” claiming the book misrepresented his track record as a businessman and lowballed the size of his fortune. He lost the suit in 2011. During the litigation, Trump resisted releasing his tax returns and other financial records. My lawyers got the returns, and while I can’t disclose specifics of what I saw, I imagine that Trump has always refused to release them because they would reveal how robust his businesses and finances actually are and shine a light on some of his foreign sources of income. The Times has now solved that problem for us.

….

If Trump was still just a reality TV oddity, that wouldn’t be earthshaking. But he’s president, and the trade-offs someone like him would be willing to make to save his face and his wallet taint every public policy decision he makes – including issues around national security. If Vladimir Putin, for example, can backchannel a loan or a handout to the president, how hard is Trump going to be on Russia?

 Amy Qin reports In China, the Formidable Prosecutor Turned Lonely Rights Defender (‘After sheltering a prominent dissident, Yang Bin, a former prosecutor, is now under the scrutiny of the police. But she has no regrets’):

Yang Bin was at home when two dozen Chinese police surrounded her house and entered, searching for the man she had recently taken in as a houseguest. Filing in quickly, the officers found their suspect upstairs and arrested him, ending a weekslong manhunt.

The police also detained Ms. Yang for questioning. They wanted to know how Xu Zhiyong, one of China’s most outspoken government critics, had come to find refuge with her, a Communist Party member and former government prosecutor.

For Ms. Yang, the turn of events came with no small irony. In her old job, she had escorted death row prisoners to a police station near the one in which she was being interrogated, in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. This time she was regarded as a suspect, and the police had also taken her husband and 20-year-old son.

“Even though I was being questioned like a criminal, I knew in my heart I hadn’t done anything wrong,” Ms. Yang, 50, who was later released with her family, said in a recent telephone interview from her home on Seagull Island, a rural area on the outskirts of Guangzhou. “When many people look at the system, they see its strength. When I look at it, I see only its fragility.”

France’s famous monument, Mont-Saint-Michel is cut off from the world: