If budgets are roadmaps that lay out a course for a state’s future, then the compromise spending plan reached late Friday by Gov. Jim Doyle and legislative leaders takes Wisconsin mostly in the right direction
Linking education closely to industry can be a key component of economic development, as places such as Madison and Ireland have shown. The Waukesha County Higher Education Coalition recently launched an effort to create a closer link by conducting a survey of some businesses in the county on what education and skills they require. Now, Racine County has made that link an element of a newly launched countywide study on work force issues.
Quoted: Erica Halverson, a fantasy football player who has made fantasy baseball part of her research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The week that resolved the three-month budget impasse started with a Monday showdown that taught Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle he couldn’t club Assembly Republicans into a deal; moved to rallies at which public workers denounced those same Republicans; and ended with handshakes Friday.
Not much remains of the Carroll College that was founded here in Abe Lincolns time.
On a campus that witnessed Wisconsins very emergence into statehood, little has survived the passage of time except the Carroll College name itself. Now, that could be about to change, too.
Michael Flowers, one of the most important players returning to the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team, has decided to take a temporary leave of absence for medical reasons, coach Bo Ryan announced Thursday evening.
Now the important question, aside from the senior guard’s health: How long will he be gone?
This week, when a retired schoolteacher from New Jersey became the first baby boomer to apply online for early retirement benefits from Social Security, it was the stuff of national news.
After all, nearly 80 million Americans were born from 1946 to 1964, and they are expected to flood the Social Security system in the coming decades.
Among those who took notice of this week’s milestone was a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor named John Witte.
From the bottom of Bascom Hill, it’s easy to have positive thoughts about the upcoming sprint to the top of the University of Wisconsin campus centerpiece.
“You’re looking at it as, ‘This might not be that bad,'” Badgers hockey goaltender Shane Connelly said. “But there’s a little hump over there and you think that’s the top. That’s not the top. You’re not even halfway there.”
….Badgers center Aaron Bendickson remembers curious onlookers giving the players you’ve-got-to-be-nuts looks.
Pediatric resident Dipesh Navsaria has a novel way of measuring his young patients’ development during checkups: He puts a book in their hands and watches their reaction.
Navsaria, a resident at American Family Children’s Hospital, says the child’s response speaks volumes. If the patient shows interest and curiosity, he can tell if books are a natural part of their life. At a certain age, if the child holds the book right-side up, opens it and turns the pages, the doctor gets a quick read on motor skills.
Local hospitals have increased efforts to find and prevent the spread of a deadly drug-resistant form of a common staph bacterium.
The death of a Virginia high school student this week from an infection has sparked national concern at the same time a federal study reported that deaths tied to staph infections exceeded those caused by AIDS, with 19,000 people dying nationally in 2005.
University of Wisconsin Hospital epidemiologist Dennis Maki said hospital officials have been concerned about the bacteria — methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) — for decades.
For Kelly Meuer, the owner of State Street Brats, Halloween in downtown Madison is a fun night because he enjoys seeing all the creative costumes. But for business, the party — now dubbed Freakfest — is no bonanza.
….All in all, he concludes, “economically it’s a good night, but it is not an exceptional night by any means.”
That’s largely the same conclusion reached by those studying the annual party, which had its first peaceful ending last year after four consecutive parties ended with disorder, police action and pepperspray.
While Capitol leaders took a break from talks on the overdue budget Tuesday, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle warned he might order a “partial shutdown” of non-emergency state services by the end of the year if lawmakers don’t adopt a new spending plan soon.
The failure of Gov. Jim Doyle’s second budget proposal in the state Assembly Monday isn’t the end of the world, as Democrats seem to argue. But it’s wrong to take such a cavalier approach to the budget process, as so many Republicans have done over these past 108 days.
Henry Mason prefers not to revisit what he calls his horror story.
The longtime University of Wisconsin wide receivers coach doesn’t like thinking about the night in late June when a misstep at home left him with little movement throughout his body.
If you had looked last spring at the number of minority students accepted at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Marquette University, youd probably have thought the schools were on track to boost the ranks of minority students this fall.
More minorities applied. More minorities got in.
But when administrators tallied fall enrollment numbers at the two largest Milwaukee universities, some results didnt match expectations.
Libertarian John Stossel came to Madison on Monday to defend capitalism and condemn government regulation.
“Freedom will protect us better than government,” Stossel told a crowd of about 800 at the Union Theater during a lecture sponsored by the conservative student group Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow. He was introduced by radio talk show host Vicki McKenna of WIBA/AM 1310.
Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News’ “20/20” and the winner of 19 Emmys. His new book is called “Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel — Why Everything You Know is Wrong.”
One in eight new mothers in Wisconsin drinks excessively, putting their children’s health at risk, a study by UW-Madison researchers found.
The self-reported survey of 8,706 postpartum mothers found that 12 percent reported at-risk alcohol-related behaviors — consuming seven or more drinks per week or four or more drinks on a single occasion at least once in the past month.
“Maternal alcohol consumption has been linked to violence toward children, and the interaction of maternal alcohol use and lactation on infant development remains unclear,” the researchers reported in an article in the Wisconsin Medical Journal.
Who owns the air and sky between Langdon Street and Lake Mendota on the UW-Madison campus?
That question is delaying efforts by the UW Hillel Foundation to more than triple the size of its existing student center at 611 Langdon St.
The Jewish student organization, which traces its roots here to the 1920s and is the second oldest operating Hillel in the world, is seeking approval to tear down its existing 12,000 square-foot building and replace it with a four-story, 40,000 square-foot facility.
A day after Assembly Republicans rejected his “compromise” state budget proposal, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle today warned that “the threat of a government shutdown remains very real.”
During a press conference this afternoon, Doyle alternated between warnings of dire consequences if lawmakers don’t pass a budget soon — including the possibility of a partial government shutdown and closing University of Wisconsin campuses — to more cautious appraisals of the situation.
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s revised state budget passed the Senate but died in the Assembly late Monday, casting the Capitol impasse over taxes into a 108th day today.
American Transmission Company filed an application with the state today to build a 345-kilovolt electric transmission line across Dane County, hoping to win approval from the Public Service Commission for the controversial power line by early 2009.
The Rockdale-West Middleton line, to be built either along the Beltline freeway or through the southern part of the county, is considered by ATC to be a critical infrastructure improvement in the county, a line that will reinforce the network, reduce the threat of future system outages and eliminate the need for multiple new, lower voltage transmission lines in the future.
Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Barack Obama came to Madison today to recruit foot soldiers for what could be the make-it-or-break-it moment for his campaign — the January Iowa caucuses.
Speaking to about 4,000 supporters this morning at the Monona Terrace Convention Center, the Illinois senator and campaign organizers called on supporters — especially UW-Madison students — to go to Iowa, make phone calls, and participate in the campaign’s “sister city program to adopt Iowa caucus voters.”
Dear Editor: I have written to Rep. Steve Nass to request that he desist in his campaign against the University of Wisconsin System. I believe he should respect the competency and professionalism of his fellow state employees as well as the students.
We “leftist” students, faculty members, and administrators are one of the great symbols of Wisconsin. The last thing we need is another Joe McCarthy blacklisting people he doesn’t agree with.
Dear Editor: Our student rights are under attack, and we must defend ourselves and fight back!
Currently the segregated fee policy committee of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents is meeting to review the systemwide segregated fee policy. While the committee is composed of five administrators and five students, the administrators are marginalizing the student voice and railroading through a slew of student-unfriendly policies.
WHEN THE Pakistan secret police physically assaulted Dr. Amna Buttar on the streets of Islamabad during a protest march last spring, presumably they wanted to scare her. That worked.
….The thugs from Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s secret police presumably also thought their attack might cause Buttar to rethink her role as an activist and critic of the Musharraf regime.
That didn’t work. In fact, the opposite has happened.
….The 2007-08 season will arguably be the most anticipated of her tenure. The Badgers won a program-record 23 games last season and strung together a four-game winning streak in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament before suffering a 72-56 loss to Wyoming in the WNIT championship game.
Harold Scheub has taught African storytelling for decades, but he still has the unflagging enthusiasm that kept him walking through southern Africa decades ago to find storytellers in remote areas and learn from them.
The 76-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison professor speaks nonstop rapid-fire to the 460 students crowded into a huge lecture room in Bascom Hall. He talks about the importance of storytelling and how the same patterns of stories have developed over the years in countries on different continents.
“I love my research, I enjoy writing, but my passion is teaching. I haven’t thought of retirement yet,” he said later.
Kevin Hughes is haunted by the unsolved homicide cases he has worked on during his 24 years as a detective with the Dane County Sheriff’s Office.
Hughes, who has investigated nearly 20 homicides, guesses that roughly six remain to some degree unsolved.
Summer Boyd says that mold problems in Ingraham Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus are so bad that she has to work at home.
Numerous other workers in the 1960s-era building say they have been plagued with breathing difficulties, burning throats, itchy eyes and coughs, and that UW officials have been slow to solve the problem.
….University officials met with the workers Wednesday and say they have been trying to solve the problems. But they concede that fixes have not worked.
The state Supreme Court last week heard arguments on the seemingly endless antitrust suit against 24 campus area bars, mostly mom-and-pop taverns, underscoring just how unfair the legal system can sometimes be.
The suit, which alleges that the taverns illegally conspired to eliminate drink specials for their mostly college student clientele, has already cost these family-owned establishments more than $600,000 to pay for the lawyers who have defended them from a seemingly endless trek from circuit court to the federal courts to the appeals courts and now to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That kind of cold, hard cash undoubtedly wipes out the profits that the establishments hoped to make these past couple of years.
On Saturday, dramatic history will be made at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with the help of 100-year-old technology, a 75-year-old art form and a 30-year-old play.
But the result, say those history makers, will be as thought-provoking, fresh and relevant as the morning news.
Tony Simotes, University Theatre director, and Norman Gilliland, Wisconsin Public Radio producer, will team up to broadcast a live performance of UT’s production of David Mamet’s “The Water Engine” to WPR affiliates statewide as part of the station’s Old Time Radio Drama series.
Dear Editor: I completely agree that people are using Badger games as an excuse to drink.
When I go to big events like this I see many people act up and show they are at different levels of being drunk, and they are just ruining the fun of it for other people, when all people want to do is enjoy a football game!
When I read that the police need to bring a van to fit lots of people, it is just shocking. How embarrassing is that?
Four Dane County groups were cited for their work to improve safety during the first “BeSafe Awards” luncheon held Tuesday at the Inn on the Park.
….Dr. Frank Byrne of St. Mary’s Hospital, Margaret Van Bree of UW Hospitals and Clinics, and Jim Woodward of Meriter Hospital received the award for collaboration for their efforts to improve patient safety conditions at their hospitals.
IT HAS been 11 days since “America’s Most Wanted,” the Fox TV show, cast its national spotlight on Leo Burt, Madison’s most infamous fugitive, and the accused Sterling Hall bomber remains at large.
The segment on Burt aired Sept. 29, and when I spoke with producer Jenna Griffiths a few days later, she said it had generated more than two dozen calls to the show’s tipster hotline.
I spoke with Griffiths again Tuesday, and she said the tips are still coming in, maybe one or two a day now, and she dutifully passes them on to the FBI.
Relations between Senate Democratic and Assembly Republican leaders trying to cut a final state budget deal are becoming increasingly toxic.
During dueling press conferences Tuesday, each side accused the other of bargaining in bad faith and refusing to yield on key points, which they claimed has led to the current impasse.
The accusations marked the first time the two sides — which have sought until now to portray the negotiations as cordial but marked by serious policy differences — suggested that they no longer trust each other in the talks.
A trend in the health-care field toward turning master’s degree programs into doctorates worries UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley, who thinks degree inflation might confuse patients.
But Wiley says the University of Wisconsin has little choice because professional associations and agencies that accredit college educational programs are pushing for the change.
In a move to finally get the stalled state budget passed, Gov. Jim Doyle said today that unless lawmakers pass the spending bill by Friday, he will call them into special session on Monday to take up a compromise proposal.
Doyle, who has played host to two weeks of closed-door negotiations between Senate Democratic and Assembly Republican leaders, said he has “become convinced” that the two sides cannot reach agreement. Doyle introduced a budget plan in February, and the two houses have each passed a version of the bill, but the attempts by the two sides to reach a final compromise have dragged on since July.
The governor’s comments came this morning during a news conference on the steps of the Memorial Union, where he underscored the need for a new budget to provide more student financial aid.
UW-Madison College Republicans and a GOP state lawmaker are criticizing e-mails that were sent by UW officials to low-income students still awaiting financial aid grants, asking whether they wished to appear at a press conference with Gov. Jim Doyle today urging legislators to complete the state budget.
The 33 students contacted are among 420 at UW-Madison and 5,544 in the University of Wisconsin System who will not know whether they receive their Wisconsin Higher Education Grants until the budget is concluded.
Complete shock and devastation — that’s the only way to describe University of Wisconsin senior wide receiver Luke Swan’s season-ending injury.
….Chuck Tranberg, who works in the business office at Meriter, had for some time been a biography writer in search of a subject when he wandered into the Wisconsin Center for Film and Television Research (a cooperative effort of the Wisconsin Historical Society and UW-Madison) several years ago.
The Greek community on the UW-Madison campus is offended and worried about two cartoons in the Badger Herald that recently depicted fraternity and sorority members as receiving oral sex from pledges.
One of the cartoons also implied that the other fraternities might show the new Delta Lambda Phi fraternity — a progressive fraternity for gay, bisexual and progressive men — what real Greek life is like by smashing up their house.
The controversy comes at a time when alumni are returning to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for an Oct. 19 weekend of fraternity and sorority events honoring the Greek community’s 150th anniversary on campus.
Gov. Jim Doyle says he will call a special session of the Legislature next week to try to break a stalemate over the state budget if it is not passed by Friday.
Doyle said at a news conference today at the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus that he believes Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch and some other Republican lawmakers do not want a new budget. He said the special session is needed for moderates in both parties to strike a deal.
Luke Swan, senior wide receiver for the University of Wisconsin, tore his hamstring while making a catch during Saturday’s game against Illinois and is likely out for the season.
….The University of Wisconsin football team is on pace to finish the 12-game regular season with a most dubious statistic: eight takeaways, an all-time low. Through six games, the Badgers have recovered one fumble and intercepted three passes. Only one team in Division I-A has fewer takeaways: Marshall has two.
….Missed tackles and blown assignments were the norm once again for the Badgers Saturday. Throw in a pair of costly turnovers and a shoddy performance from the special teams and it’s not surprising UW’s 14-game winning streak came to an end with a 31-26 defeat.
While national observers see a split developing in the traditional alliance between big business and the Republican Party, leaders here say that while some of those ties may be fraying, they continue to hold for now.
“I think it’s a critical crossroads for Republicans in Wisconsin and across the country because a lot of people believe the party has lost its way,” said Mark Bugher, director of the UW Research Park and a former top aide to Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson.
UW-Madison nursing Professor Linda Baumann is among 50 of the nation’s health experts chosen to be ambassadors for an organization that works to raise awareness of the need for greater U.S. public and private investment in research to improve health worldwide.
Quoted: Jerry O’Brien, director of the UW-Madison Center for Retailing Excellence
JIM WILCOX does not hold the record for attending the most consecutive UW football games at Camp Randall Stadium, but when he attended this year’s Washington State game, it marked the 58th straight home opener he’d attended.
Wilcox, a city native who graduated from Central High School in 1947 and got his first season tickets in 1949, attended every game in between. That’s 58 straight years of never missing a home Badgers football game.
Researchers from the UW-Madison have identified a key step that the avian flu virus would have to take to be able to transmit easily from person to person — which could result in an international pandemic.
The researchers, led by internationally known virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, have identified a single change in a viral protein that facilitates the virus’ ability to infect the cells of the upper respiratory system in mammals.
By adapting to the upper respiratory system, the virus could infect a wider range of cell types and would be more easily spread.
IT TURNS out at least one prominent Madisonian did have his ashes strewn over Camp Randall Stadium. It occurred a little more than 50 years ago, in broad daylight, in what appears to have been a nice little ceremony.
The American Civil Liberties Union attempted Wednesday to move forward a more than two-year-old lawsuit over domestic partner benefits for state employees.
Arguing before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the ACLU said municipalities should not be allowed to delay the case further by becoming parties to the lawsuit.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit in April 2005 on behalf of six lesbian state employees and their partners. Filed against state agencies, but not the Legislature, the lawsuit claims the state’s prohibition against offering health insurance to the partners of gay employees violates the equal protection clause of the state Constitution.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — More than 600 self-described geeks are expected in Madison this weekend for a two-day convention that includes role playing, video games, and lots of science fiction.
Others might call it Revenge of the Geeks. The organizers call it Geek.kon, with .kon standing for convention. Like any conference, it’s a place for people with common interests to gather.
“Your average American citizen does not know what a LAN party is, nor Warhammer, nor LARP, nor cosplay,” organizer and panelist Jackie Lee said.
The convention at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is sponsored by Geek.kon, a registered student organization made up mostly of members of the university’s sci-fi and anime clubs, and the university’s East Asian studies department.
Will it be a long, hard winter? Let’s ask Mr. Woolly Bear Caterpillar.
If the cute fuzzy crawler has a big brown stripe in the middle and smaller black stripes on each end, winter will be mild. A small brown stripe in the middle and bigger black stripes, winter will be harsh. At least that’s the scoop in the bug world.
Quoted: UW-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri
By JOSHUA FREED
AP Business Writer
DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — An attorney for six major music companies urged a federal jury Thursday to find a Minnesota woman liable for damages for illegally downloading and sharing music online, activity he said has gnawed at the industry’s bottom line.
Record companies have filed some 26,000 lawsuits since 2003 claiming their music’s been misused, but the case against Jammie Thomas, a mother of two from Brainerd, is the first to go to trial. Many other defendants settled by paying the record companies a few thousand dollars.
Regardless of how the first trial of a person accused of illegally sharing music online turns out, a spokesman for a record industry group said companies plan to keep suing listeners.
Dear Editor: I moved to Wisconsin 11 years ago to work and raise my family. Having grown up in Iowa and having gone to school at the University of Iowa, I have been a lifelong Hawkeye fan, and I have an appreciation of the deep Big Ten rivalry between the UW and University of Iowa.
In Iowa there have been many stories and hard feelings historically about how the Iowa football team and sports fans have been treated when visiting the UW. We can tell you stories of the snowballs thrown at players, chants, etc.
….I know that the UW has had challenges for years controlling inappropriate chants during games from students. The behavior I experienced, however, was over the top and will only serve to harm respect from people visiting Wisconsin to support their teams in the future.
Ethan Carlson, Baraboo
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s new Surplus With a Purpose (SWAP) shop opens Friday, with a grand opening set for a week later.
The new location at 1061 Thousand Oaks Trail is in the Verona Technology Park near the intersection of County M and PB.
The SWAP shop sells quality surplus university and state government property to nonprofits and the public. The inventory changes constantly, from bowling pins to chemistry lab flasks to a TV set with a clear housing so that state prison guards could easily check it for contraband.
Downtown tavern owners who ended weekend evening drink specials in 2002 don’t have immunity from anti-trust legislation because the city of Madison never officially enacted a ban, an attorney for former University of Wisconsin students told the state Supreme Court Wednesday.
Although they may have been pressured by Ald. Tim Bruer to take measures to reduce their customers’ binge drinking, 24 tavern owners illegally conspired to fix prices when they voluntarily banned drink discounts Fridays and Saturdays after 8 p.m., said Kay Nord Hunt, attorney to the students.
Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday for Freakfest 2007, which will sport three stages of live music featuring some nationally-known acts.
Details were announced Tuesday about the revamped Freakfest, which aims to build on the success of last year’s event. As businesses complained that Halloween on State Street had become too rowdy and destructive, city and student groups created Freakfest, a more organized event featuring live bands and a cover charge to get in.
Unless he is knocked out with an injury, as he was last season against Illinois, University of Wisconsin sophomore tailback P.J. Hill should get almost all of UW’s carries when the teams meet Saturday in Champaign.
