Good morning.

Memorial Day in Whitewater will see morning thundershowers with a high of eighty-three.  Sunrise is 5:22 AM and sunset 8:21 PM, for 14h 59m 31s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1655, Saturn‘s largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.

Recommended for reading in full —

Reis Thebault and Abigail Hauslohner report A deadly ‘checkerboard’: Covid-19’s new surge across rural America:

The novel coronavirus arrived in an Indiana farm town mid-planting season and took root faster than the fields of seed corn, infecting hundreds and killing dozens. It tore though a pork processing plant and spread outward in a desolate stretch of the Oklahoma Panhandle. And in Colorado’s sparsely populated eastern plains, the virus erupted in a nursing home and a pair of factories, burning through the crowded quarters of immigrant workers and a vulnerable elderly population.

As the death toll nears 100,000, the disease caused by the virus has made a fundamental shift in who it touches and where it reaches in America, according to a Washington Post analysis of case data and interviews with public health professionals in several states. The pandemic that first struck in major metropolises is now increasingly finding its front line in the country’s rural areas; counties with acres of farmland, cramped meatpacking plants, out-of-the-way prisons and few hospital beds.

In these areas, where 60 million Americans live, populations are poorer, older and more prone to health problems such as diabetes and obesity than those of urban areas. They include immigrants and the undocumented — the “essential” workers who have kept the country’s sprawling food industry running, but who rarely have the luxury of taking time off for illness.

Many of these communities are isolated and hard to reach. They were largely spared from the disease shutting down their states — until, suddenly, they weren’t. Rural counties now have some of the highest rates of covid-19 cases and deaths in the country, topping even the hardest-hit New York City boroughs and signaling a new phase of the pandemic — one of halting, scattered outbreaks that could devastate still more of America’s most vulnerable towns as states lift stay-at-home orders.

“It is coming, and it’s going to be more of a checkerboard,” said Tara Smith, a professor of epidemiology at Kent State University in Ohio. “It’s not going to be a wave that spreads out uniformly over all of rural America; it’s going to be hot spots that come and go. And I don’t know how well they’re going to be managed.”

Russ Choma writes Trump Brag-Tweets that COVID-19 “Numbers” Are Declining. The Numbers Don’t Say That:

According to data compiled by the Washington Post, while some moderation of new cases is being reported, numbers have remained fairly flat for the past two weeks, with the seven-day average number of new cases remaining well over 20,000. Yesterday, for instance, there were 22,520 new cases, which is lower than the previous two days, but more than other days in the last two weeks. And according to the Post’s numbers, there were 1,071 new COVID deaths yesterday, which is less than the previous days, but slightly more than the previous Saturday.

Unsold wine could be converted to hand sanitizing gel:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of eighty-three.  Sunrise is 5:22 AM and sunset 8:20 PM, for 14h 57m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge opens to traffic after 14 years of construction.

Recommended for reading in full —

Greg Miller, Josh Dawsey, and Aaron C. Davis report Trump’s move to block travel from Europe triggered chaos and a surge of passengers from the outbreak’s center:

Epidemiologists contend the U.S. outbreak was driven overwhelmingly by viral strains from Europe rather than China. More than 1.8 million travelers entered the United States from Europe in February alone as that continent became the center of the pandemic. Infections reached critical mass in New York and other cities well before the White House took action, according to studies mapping the virus’s spread. The crush of travelers triggered by Trump’s announcement only added to that viral load.

Trump has repeatedly touted his decision in January to restrict travel from China as evidence that he acted decisively to contain the coronavirus, often claiming that doing so saved more than a million lives. But it was his administration’s response to the threat from Europe that proved more consequential to the majority of the more than 94,000 people who have died and the 1.6 million now infected in the United States

 Alec MacGillis reports Rent Is Still Due in Kushnerville:

Here, there is nary a telecommuting professional to be found. Here, there is no escaping the upheaval. The need in the complexes is so great that one of them, Cove Village, has become a main distribution spot for free food from the Baltimore County school department: Every Monday through Thursday, a truck arrives at Cove Village and parks on Driftwood Court from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Families line up for a breakfast, lunch and snack, with an extra set given out on Thursday to tide kids over on Friday.

There is another reason to track the upheaval in these complexes. It happens that they are owned by the company led until not long ago by the person now tasked with overseeing the federal government’s response to the crisis: Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Donald Trump. The Kushner Companies, in which Jared still holds a large financial stake, has come under scrutiny in recent years for its litigious pursuit of tenants who allegedly owed back rent or broke leases, and for the poor conditions of many of the units. It was even the subject of a Netflix television documentary that aired just as the lockdowns first went into effect.

But the pandemic has now thrust Kushnerville, which consists of nine complexes in inner-suburban Baltimore County, some with as many as 1,000 units each, into unfamiliar territory. For years, tenants have learned to dread the aggressive tactics of their landlord: late-payment notices and court summons slapped on their doors, late fees and “court costs” and attorney fees added to bills, and, in some cases, even threats of jail time. Disclosure of those tactics led to a class-action lawsuit and a lawsuit by the state attorney general. The Kushner entities have denied wrongdoing. (A judge this year denied the plaintiffs’ bid to form a class, which is on appeal; the attorney general’s suit is ongoing.)

How Australians Are Trading Solar Energy With Their Neighbors:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with scattered afternoon thunderstorms, and a high of seventy-three.  Sunrise is 5:23 AM and sunset 8:19 PM, for 14h 56m 17s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1934, infamous American bank robbers and murderers Bonnie and Clyde meet their end in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

Recommended for reading in full —

Anna Nemtsova writes Vladimir Putin Is in Deep Trouble:

Russian President Vladimir Putin is suddenly seen to be weaker than he has been in years, and economic pain from COVID-19 is one big reason, but not the only one.

“Putin’s approval rating began to decline even before the coronavirus crisis, with oil prices collapsing and the economy deteriorating—and I don’t see what can stop this perfect storm this year,” says Denis Volkov, deputy director of the Levada Center, which does independent polling.

“We see the public mood is changing the way we saw it during the crisis of 2008. (About 25 percent of our respondents say their salaries have been cut.),” Volkov told The Daily Beast. But Putin, like U.S. President Donald Trump, has die-hard fans, and “there is still a big group of people who say there is no alternative [to him].”

Putin’s biggest challenge is poverty, that old Russian disease. During his best years, when oil prices were astronomical and revenues were very high indeed, the Russian president was able to provide people with money—and with pride. He was building the armed forces, sending them abroad, overtly or covertly, to Ukraine, Syria, and Africa, and developing very expensive new weapons systems. Putin seemed able to provide, as economists say, both guns and butter.

But this year the nation’s rapidly shrinking economy has pushed millions below the poverty line, and Putin—whose approval rating was 80 percent in 2014, has seen his numbers, already in decline, drop precipitously. The current number of 59 percent would be positive in the West, but here in Russia, Putin has been used to nearly complete control over television news coverage, and he’s been losing that grip.

Susan Svrluga reports With colleges shuttered, more students consider gap years. But those may be disrupted, too:

Colleges are usually happy to let students take a year off, Hartle said, with evidence suggesting that time off is often valuable for students. But that’s in a typical year, when the number of requests is low and administrators can predict how many students will enroll in the fall. This year, he said, “the concern is what happens if 20 percent of your students request a gap year?”

Some college counselors predict students and families talking about deferring will ultimately go forward with college plans. That’s partly because the pandemic is upending gap year programs just like it’s upending the traditional college path.

Typical gap years include travel, volunteer work, paid work, some career exploration and “a free radical,” said Ethan Knight, executive director of the Gap Year Association. “Don’t over-structure your time — leave a little space for the unknown.”

But this year, international travel and hands-on volunteer work seem unlikely, and good jobs will be harder than ever to find, said Emmi Harward, executive director of the Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools.

Video from Space – Weekly Highlights:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see a mix of clouds and sun with a high of seventy-two.  Sunrise is 5:24 AM and sunset 8:18 PM, for 14h 54m 34s of daytime.  The moon is new with none of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1968, “Milwaukee Bucks” is selected as the franchise name after 14,000 fans participated in a team-naming contest.

Recommended for reading in full —

Alison Durkee writes The Mike Pompeo Scandals Just Keep Piling Up:

President Donald Trump’s recent firing of State Department inspector general Steve Linick at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s request has set off a cascade of damning stories about the secretary of state’s behavior in office. And the news just keeps getting worse. Days after NBC News reported Pompeo’s frequent taxpayer-funded “Madison” dinners, which appear to be more of a political opportunity for the secretary’s presidential ambitions than official diplomatic affairs, the New York Times reports Pompeo has done even more politicking under the guise of official business. Per the Times, Pompeo has on multiple occasions used his official State trips to visit conservative donors and politicians—without putting them on his public schedule or informing reporters of the trips.

Pompeo’s reported secret visits included a dinner meeting with Republican donors while in London for a NATO meeting, and a visit with Republican billionaire Charles Koch aboard a government aircraft while on an official trip to Kansas. On an official visit to Florida in January, the secretary of state also made a mysterious detour to the Villages, a retirement community chock-full of Republican donors. The Tampa Bay Times reported in February that based on the address Pompeo visited, he was likely visiting GOP donor Mark Morse, whose family developed the Villages and has donated more than $100,000 to Republicans since January 2019. The secretary and former CIA director has also made trips to major gatherings of business leaders—which were branded as official business but prime for political schmoozing—including visiting the annual Bilderberg Meeting in Switzerland last year and the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in 2017 and 2019. (These visits are all on top of Pompeo’s repeated trips to Kansas while he was considering running for Senate there, which were so frequent that the Kansas City Star issued an op-ed proclaiming, “Mike Pompeo, either quit and run for U.S. Senate in Kansas or focus on your day job.”)

Robert Tracinski writes You Will Never Be #MAGA Enough:

It is pretty obvious that Fox News has done more to boost Donald Trump and carry water for him than any other institution. But that isn’t enough to save them. Only the most unblinkingly slavish devotion, with never a hint of even accidental criticism, will do. And so the president has been preparing to put the skids under his previous favorite media organization.

No, scratch that, his second favorite media organization. His favorite is and always will be Twitter, which is the platform he used to slide the knife between Fox’s ribs, declaring, “Fox News is no longer the same. We miss the great Roger Ailes. You have more anti-Trump people, by far, than ever before. Looking for a new outlet!”

He said this in response to a random Twitter fan who complained to Laura Ingraham, “Your colleagues at @FoxNews might as well be on @cnn because all they do is spew #FakeNews.”

….

If you stay on the Trump Train long enough you will discover—as Fox News has and OANN eventually will—that you will find that the demands for conformity are endless, capricious, and unforgiving.

 What Would It Mean If U.S. States Went Bankrupt?:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see partly cloudy skies with a high of sixty-nine.  Sunrise is 5:25 AM and sunset 8:17 PM, for 14h 52m 50s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 1.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1856, Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery fanatics.

Recommended for reading in full —

Sheera Frenkel, Ben Decker, and Davey Alba report How the ‘Plandemic’ Movie and Its Falsehoods Spread Widely Online (‘Conspiracy theories about the pandemic have gained more traction than mainstream online events. Here’s how’):

There have been plenty of jaw-dropping digital moments during the coronavirus pandemic.

There was the time this month when Taylor Swift announced she would air her “City of Lover” concert on television. The time that the cast of “The Office” reunited for an 18-minute-long Zoom wedding. And the time last month that the Pentagon posted three videos that showed unexplained “aerial phenomena.”

Yet none of those went as viral as a 26-minute video called “Plandemic,” a slickly produced narration that wrongly claimed a shadowy cabal of elites was using the virus and a potential vaccine to profit and gain power. The video featured a discredited scientist, Judy Mikovits, who said her research about the harm from vaccines had been buried.

“Plandemic” went online on May 4 when its maker, Mikki Willis, a little-known film producer, posted it to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and a separate website set up to share the video. For three days, it gathered steam in Facebook pages dedicated to conspiracy theories and the anti-vaccine movement, most of which linked to the video hosted on YouTube. Then it tipped into the mainstream and exploded.

Just over a week after “Plandemic” was released, it had been viewed more than eight million times on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and had generated countless other posts.

William Haseltine writes Moderna’s claim of favorable results in its vaccine trial is an example of ‘publication by press release’:

The most recent example is Moderna’s claim Monday of favorable results in its vaccine trial, which it announced without revealing any of the underlying data. The announcement added billions of dollars to the value of the company, with its shares jumping almost 20 percent. Many analysts believe it contributed to a 900-point gain in the Dow Jones industrial average.

The Moderna announcement described a safety trial of its vaccine based on eight healthy participants. The claim was that in all eight people, the vaccine raised the levels of neutralizing antibodies equivalent to those found in convalescent serum of those who recovered from covid-19. What to make of that claim? Hard to say, because we have no sense of what those levels were. This is the equivalent of a chief executive of a public company announcing a favorable earnings report without supplying supporting financial data, which the Securities and Exchange Commission would never allow.

There is a legitimate question regarding what Moderna’s unsupported assertion means. The scientific and medical literature reports that some people who have recovered have little to no detectable neutralizing antibodies. There is even existing scientific literature that suggests it is possible neutralizing antibodies may not protect animals or humans from infection or reinfection by coronaviruses.

Michigan Dams Fail Forcing Evacuations Amid “Historic” Flooding:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see clouds giving way to some sun with a high of sixty-six.  Sunrise is 5:25 AM and sunset 8:16 PM, for 14h 51m 03s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 4.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets via audiovisual conferencing at 7 PM.

 On this day in 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

Recommended for reading in full —

Michael Biesecker and Jason Dearden report Trump allies lining up doctors to prescribe rapid reopening:

Republican political operatives are recruiting “extremely pro-Trump” doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.

The plan was discussed in a May 11 conference call with a senior staffer for the Trump reelection campaign organized by CNP Action, an affiliate of the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy. A leaked recording of the hourlong call was provided to The Associated Press by the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog group.

….

Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign communications director, confirmed to AP that an effort to recruit doctors to publicly support the president is underway, but declined to say when the initiative would be rolled out.

“Anybody who joins one of our coalitions is vetted,” Murtaugh said Monday. “And so quite obviously, all of our coalitions espouse policies and say things that are, of course, exactly simpatico with what the president believes. … The president has been outspoken about the fact that he wants to get the country back open as soon as possible.”

Dana Milbank writes If Trump likes hydroxychloroquine, he’ll love camel urine:

The president has botched the pandemic response, and he is now botching the economic recovery. But he could put his talents to use by serving as a full-time lab animal, a national guinea pig, a cavy-in-chief. He probably won’t find a cure, but Trump, by acting as a one-man FDA, would do something almost as helpful: Distract himself from doing yet more damage to the country.

He’ll quaff a bitterroot tonic from Madagascar called Covid Organics, together with a blend of “purgative” herbal extracts from China said to combat the “noxious dampness” responsible for the pandemic.

And of course, he’ll go through a couple of bottles of his favorite quarterback Tom Brady’s “immunity blend supplement,” out this week, featuring larch tree extract and elderberry. “You’re gonna love it,” Brady says.

You know what else Trump will love? Covering himself in cow dung and drinking cow urine. Some in India believe this to be particularly effective if done while performing a ritual in front of a fire.

However, some in the Middle East believe camel urine to be more effective as an antiviral; Trump will be able to settle this dispute conclusively.

Wikipedia, my main medical source for unproven remedies, also lists cures involving: getting vaccinated against the virus by touching your television; a $400 “spiritual vaccine”; the use of “Namaste” as a greeting; and the application of a cotton ball soaked in violet oil to one’s posterior.

Mt. Saint Helens from space. Before and after eruption – 1973 to 2019:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of sixty-two.  Sunrise is 5:26 AM and sunset 8:16 PM, for 14h 49m 13s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 9.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s common council meets via audiovisual conferencing at 6:30 PM.

 On this day in 1942, after the Battle of the Coral Sea, Task Force 16 heads to Pearl Harbor.

Recommended for reading in full —

Juliet Linderman and Martha Mendoza report Counterfeit Masks Reaching Frontline Health Workers in U.S.:

On a day when COVID-19 cases soared, healthcare supplies were scarce and an anguished doctor warned he was being sent to war without bullets, a cargo plane landed at the Los Angeles International Airport, supposedly loaded with the ammo doctors and nurses were begging for: some of the first N95 medical masks to reach the U.S. in almost six weeks.

Already healthcare workers who lacked the crucial protection had caught COVID-19 after treating patients infected with the highly contagious new coronavirus. That very day an emergency room doctor who earlier texted a friend that he felt unsafe without protective supplies or an N95 mask, died of the infection. It was the first such death reported in the U.S., according to the American College of Emergency Physicians.

….

But the day before they arrived, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a very specific warning: all Shanghai Dasheng N95 masks with ear loops were counterfeit.

Ear loop masks are less expensive to manufacture because the straps are attached with glue to the face covering, while headbands on genuine N95s, also called respirators, must be stitched, stapled or soldered to establish a tighter seal over the nose and mouth.

Jason Wilson reports US lockdown protests may have spread virus widely, cellphone data suggests:

The anonymized location data was captured from opt-in cellphone apps, and data scientists at the firm VoteMap used it to determine the movements of devices present at protests in late April and early May in five states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado and Florida.

They then created visualizations that tracked the movements of those devices up to 48 hours after the conclusion of protests. The visualizations only show movements within states, due to the queries analysts made in creating them. But the data scientist Jeremy Fair, executive-vice president of VoteMap, says that many of the devices that are seen to reach state borders are seen to continue across them in the underlying raw data.

One visualization shows that in Lansing, Michigan, after a 30 April protest in which armed protesters stormed the capitol building and state police were forced to physically block access to Governor Gretchen Whitmer, devices which had been present at the protest site can be seen returning to all parts of the state, from Detroit to remote towns in the state’s north.

One device visible in the data traveled to and from Afton, which is over 180 miles from the capital. Others reached, and some crossed, the Indiana border.

In the 48 hours following a 19 April “Operation Gridlock” protest in Denver, devices reached the borders of neighboring states including Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Utah.

Is it Time for the U.S. to Make the Switch to Mail-In Voting?: