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July 9, 2025

Top Stories

Universities of Wisconsin system is planning a 5 percent tuition increase

Wisconsin Public Radio

Tuition at Wisconsin’s public universities could increase up to 5 percent under a new plan released Tuesday.

Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman will ask the Board of Regents on July 10 to increase tuition for undergraduate residents by 4 percent, with individual campuses able to add an optional additional 1 percent increase.

University of Wisconsin students would pay hundreds more in tuition under proposal

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Pending an upcoming vote, tuition for University of Wisconsin System students is set to rise in the upcoming school year.

The Board of Regents is expected to vote July 10 on a proposed 5% increase to resident undergraduate tuition for most UW campuses. At UW-Madison, that 5% tuition increase would add an additional $500, bringing the 2025-26 annual resident undergraduate tuition to $10,506.

Research

Just how harmful is vaping? More evidence is emerging

The New York Times

Data on the long-term health effects is limited, because vapes are relatively new and constantly evolving. Many people who use them are in their teens or 20s; it might take a while before further effects become apparent.

Even so, “common sense tells you — your mom would tell you — that a superheated chemical inhaling right into your lungs isn’t going to be good,” said Dr. James H. Stein, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. Increasingly, research is pointing to the reality that while vapes do not contain the same dangerous chemicals as cigarettes, they come with their own harms.

Measles reported in Wisconsin’s neighboring states as outbreak surpasses 2019 levels

Wisconsin Public Radio

Jim Conway, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, says health providers in the state are watching the situation closely.

“We continue to sort of be on eggshells, and nervous, because obviously we’ve got some pretty substantial areas of the state that kids are under-immunized,” he said.

Madison Tibetans celebrate the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday

The Cap Times

Richard J. Davidson, founder of the University of Wisconsin Center for Healthy Minds, reflected on the Dalai Lama’s influence on neuroscience.

“When I first met His Holiness in 1992, there were three scientific papers published on the effects of meditation,” he said. “Now there are thousands. This has been a legacy that will live on for many, many years and has transformed our understanding of the human mind and the human heart.”

Why it’s so hard to warn people about flash floods

The Verge

The shape of a cloud, where water accumulates in the cloud, and how dry the air is between the cloud and the ground in different locations, are all factors that might influence how much rain hits the ground in a certain location, according to Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist and manager of the Wisconsin Environmental Mesonet at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Getting those very precise measurements at those very precise locations is something that we’re still working on, improving that science,” Vagasky says. Progress hinges on more advanced computer modeling and a better understanding of how precipitation forms in clouds.

 

The millennial dad paradox

Business Insider

Jessica Calarco, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin Madison whose research focuses on inequalities in family structures, says the disconnect between millennial dads’ intention and reality can be attributed to two things: “A mismatch of socialization and a mismatch in structure.”

As a society, we haven’t socialized fathers to be caregivers, she says. “We’ve only allowed gender to bend one way. We’ve told young girls they can be anything they want to be. But we’re not encouraging boys to embrace care identities. We’re not giving them baby boys dolls and tea sets.” As a result, “dads can feel underprepared or crowded out, like they don’t belong in caring roles.”

State news

Wisconsin Supreme Court sides with Evers in dispute over conversion therapy ban, rulemaking power

Wisconsin Public Radio

“Is rulemaking more a legislative power? Is it more an executive power? And depending on how you answer that, is it constitutional?” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney for the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. The research hub filed an amicus brief in the case, supporting Evers.

What to know about how Medicaid cuts will affect health care coverage in Wisconsin

Wisconsin Public Radio

Donna Friedsam is distinguished researcher emerita and the former health policy programs director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that 1 in 5 Wisconsin residents use Medicaid, which includes programs like BadgerCare Plus and Forward Health.

“About 40 percent of all births in Wisconsin and 40 percent of children are covered by Medicaid, and 60 percent of people in nursing homes on long-term care, or elderly and disabled people,” she added.

‘You can see the steam off the ground’: Wisconsin slow to add cooling system in prisons despite rising heat

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Steve Wright, clinical law professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and founding director of the Constitutional Litigation, Appeals, and Sentencing Project, which includes, in part, getting people in Wisconsin prisons needed legal representation.

Wright said lockdowns are likely the cheapest way to prevent catastrophes, but it also means prisoners are unable to venture out of their cells to find relief from the heat without being escorted by correctional officers.

“I’ve been to some of the prisons. On a hot day, you can literally see the steam coming off the ground,” Wright said.

Arts & Humanities

Column: Where are the shows about regular people fighting back?

Chicago Tribune

Author Kashana Cauley began her career as an attorney before shifting to writing for TV (including the animated Fox series “The Great North” and “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”) and as a novelist.

“I’m a first-generation college student, so nobody in my family really knew what college was for, how to get there or what it is you might do with such a degree. I don’t think that’s uncommon among Black American families; only two or three generations of us have been going to college. So I did my undergrad in economics and political science at the University of Wisconsin, but I had no idea how you got a job because I didn’t know you were supposed to get jobs through your friends’ parents; my parents sent me to college so I didn’t have to work on the assembly line at General Motors like my dad, so I was completely confused.”

Health

Burning of fossil fuels caused 1,500 deaths in recent European heat wave, study estimates

Associated Press

Studies like Wednesday’s are “ending the guessing game on the health harms from continued burning of fossil fuels,” said Dr. Jonathan Patz, director of the Center for Health, Energy and Environmental Research at the University of Wisconsin. He was not part of the research but said it “combined the most up-to-date climate and health methods and found that every fraction of a degree of warming matters regarding extreme heat waves.”

Athletics

Business/Technology