Dan Chavas and Eli Persky just want to chew the fat, not ban it.
The two UW-Madison grads on Wednesday unveiled an awards system that seeks to “start a dialogue” about trans fat, not outlaw it as other cities, like Philadelphia, have done. The “Low Trans Fat Awards” honor local restaurants that serve a no or low trans fat menu.
Colleges and financial institutions were justly criticized for their dubious links in student loan programs around the country, and now, it turns out, similar, questionable ties also exist in the issuance of bank cards.
The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh has given U.S. Bank exclusive dibs on student ID cards, which can double as debit and ATM cards.
By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vetoing a stem cell bill for the second time, President Bush on Wednesday sought to placate those who disagree with him by signing an executive order urging scientists toward what he termed “ethically responsible” research in the field.
Bush announced no new federal dollars for stem cell research, which supporters say holds the promise of disease cures, and his order would not allow researchers to do anything they couldn’t do under existing restrictions.
Announcing his veto to a roomful of supporters, Bush said, “If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos. I made it clear to Congress and to the American people that I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line.”
Surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings and cushy fraternity houses, the Emma Goldman Cooperative at 625 N. Frances St. might be seen as a throwback to the Madison of the 1960s.
The three-story wood and stucco house is home to activism and casually dressed, relatively young people, who eat communal vegetarian meals and pay low rents near the shore of Lake Mendota.
Don’t look now but Wisconsin’s once beleaguered College Savings Program is suddenly a hot commodity.
The state’s “529” savings plans — EdVest and Tomorrow’s Scholar — now boast nearly 228,000 accounts. That’s up about 7 percent from a year ago and 45 percent over the past four years.
The growth is even more impressive when you consider the history of the Wisconsin 529 program, named after its section number in the IRS code that allows earnings to grow tax-free.
The University of Wisconsin football team will play its first game on the Big Ten Network on Sept. 15 when the Badgers host The Citadel at Camp Randall Stadium at 11 a.m.
The Big Ten Network, which will debut in August, is currently available only in Madison only on some satellite services. Negotiations with Charter Communications, the primary cable provider in the Madison market, are ongoing.
….This remains the great state University of Wisconsin, not some rinky-dink outfit on the Internet. We have standards and a great history. Are we willing to drop “the great state university” moniker and just call the UW “a university with state and corporate support”?
Maybe U.S. Bank could help with admissions. Those with their bank card oh, let’s not go there.
Entering into contracts that harm students but profit the university without transparency and open bidding is an outrage….
….In 1992, facing budget deficits and gender equity issues, the University of California-Irvine eliminated its baseball program. This was just one year after the University of Wisconsin-Madison, facing budget deficits and gender equity issues, eliminated its baseball program.
Now, Cal-Irvine has not only resurrected its baseball team, but the Anteaters have moved up from Division II to Division I and this year have reached the semifinals of the College World Series.
Question: If Cal-Irvine can do it, why can’t UW-Madison?
While she was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the mid-1970s, artist Jane Hammond worked in just about every medium. Except paper.
Yet ironically, now it is her works on paper — not her sculpture or painting — that have brought her national and international critical acclaim and are bringing her back to Madison in a triumphant homecoming.
NimbleGen incorporated in 1999 after being spun out of technology developed by four researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and after a license agreement with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
University Theatre is trimming its summer season from the usual three productions to just one because of equipment repairs and major outside construction involving the Mitchell Theatre in Vilas Hall, 820 University Ave.
“There are many things that need to be done,” said Michele Traband, the theater’s general manager for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The UW will also perform maintenance and upkeep on some of the Mitchell’s lighting and sound equipment, which is showing wear and tear from years of constant use.”
Additional delays are likely as criticism mounts on a plan, in the works since last fall, to freeze the number of bars in downtown Madison.
The city’s Alcohol License Review Committee was to consider the proposal, known as the Alcohol Beverage License Density Plan, at its meeting Wednesday night.
But council President Mike Verveer, one of the sponsors of the ordinance, now predicts that, due to proposed changes and concerns, the committee won’t take action on it until July.
Madison-based gene chip maker NimbleGen Systems, which in March filed for an initial public offering of stock, instead has been acquired by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche Holding AG in a $272.5 million deal announced today.
NimbleGen, a UW-Madison spin-off founded in 1999, had filed for a proposed IPO of up to $75 million in common stock.
CINCINNATI (AP) – Federal investigators overstepped constitutional bounds by searching e-mails without a warrant during a fraud investigation related to an herbal supplement company known for its “Smiling Bob” ads, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
….”The district court correctly determined that e-mail users maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in the content of their e-mails,” Judge Boyce Martin said in a case closely watched by civil-liberties advocates in the still-emerging field of Internet privacy.
Dear Editor: Recently the University of Wisconsin’s Charter Street power plant has come under public scrutiny due to notices of Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act violations….they symbolize the broader environmental problem of dirty coal plants in Madison and throughout Wisconsin.
….Yet Wisconsin citizens can make a difference, and help to reduce the state’s carbon footprint. Households can increase energy efficiency with simple, cost-effective actions.
The University of Wisconsin’s national championship women’s hockey and men’s indoor track teams will travel to Washington, D.C., and be honored at the White House during a championship reception with President Bush on Monday (6/18).
The two UW squads will be honored in a ceremony with more than 20 national championship teams at the White House NCAA Champions Day.
When Jolene Anderson stepped foot on the University of Wisconsin campus in the fall of 2004, she brought with her a rather impressive high school resume.
….On Friday, Anderson joined an elite contingent of the nation’s best collegiate players when she was named to USA Basketball’s Under-21 World Championship roster.
The former chairman of the biology department at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point was removed from his post in March after having sexual relationships with two students.
A university report made public today (6/16) shows Robert Bell started one of the relationships with an undergraduate student at a time when he was her adviser. The report says their first kiss was in his university office and the woman later sneaked Bell into her dorm room.
How about comparing Charles Dickens with Mos Def?
Madison area teachers may doubt it can be done. But they can learn the technique at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in a new summer program that demonstrates hip-hop in the classroom.
The UW’s Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives will team up with Urban Word NYC and the Hip-Hop Association to instruct community leaders and teachers on the dynamics of using spoken word and hip-hop in the classroom.
Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, considers global warming a bunch of hooey.
The UW-Madison professor emeritus, who stands against the scientific consensus on this issue, is referred to as a global warming skeptic. But he is not skeptical that global warming exists, he is just doubtful that humans are the cause of it.
One barometer for classic sports conflict in the Big Ten is Ohio State and Michigan at the Big House in Ann Arbor. But a percolating fight between the conference and Comcast is evolving into a battle that Keith Jackson, in his rumbling baritone, might call one between two â??big uglies.â?
The two powerhouses are headed for a clash over the newly created Big Ten Network, which the conference vows will satiate its universitiesâ?? fans and alumni as the YES Network has become a TV clubhouse for Yankee fans.
It is, in essence, the Wolverines, the Badgers, the Nittany Lions, the Buckeyes, the Spartans, et al., versus Comcast, which recently won an early court fight against the NFL Network and settled a battle with the MLB Channel, receiving a minority stake in the network partly in exchange for giving millions of its subscribers access to the channel when it starts in 2009.
Defensive end Jamal Cooper and wide receiver Xavier Harris, whose roles on the University of Wisconsin football program were uncertain when spring practice closed April 21, are expected to be with the team in 2007.
Coach Bret Bielema confirmed their status Saturday but said that reserve wide receiver Jarvis Minton would not return for his senior season.
Gov. Jim Doyle appeared Friday in the U.S. Capitol to tout biofuels, saying the U.S. is poised to become the “the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy,” with Wisconsin playing a key role.
Doyle said Wisconsin’s $51 billion agriculture industry, its manufacturing sector and the University of Wisconsin’s research capacity made the state poised to take a leading role in energy independence.
In April, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh sent letters to the parents of incoming freshmen promoting a special feature of its student IDs.
The TitanCard, the letter said, could double as a debit and ATM card if the student opened an account with U.S. Bank. Attached was a bank application.
What the university did not say was that U.S. Bank pays the university a cut of its revenue in exchange for the exclusive right to target students through campus IDs.
Or that Chancellor Richard Wells sits on U.S. Bank’s local advisory board. (This story also quotes UW-Madison Vice Chancellor Darrell Bazzell).
Former U-W Madison Vice Chancellor Paul Barrows, who was forced to resign after he was accused of sexual harassment has settled his legal claims with the university.
A settlement made public today says Paul Barrows will receive 135-thousand dollars in return for dropping several legal claims.
UW-System spokesperson David Giroux told 27 News system attornies recommended the settlement to Board of Regent members as in the best interest of everyone involved.
In 2005, 27 News revealed that during Barrows’ eight month leave from absence from his $190,000 university position, he became a finalist for a similar post at the University of Texas. Much of Barrows’ absence was supported by sick leave.
MADISON, Wis. — A former University of Wisconsin-Madison vice chancellor forced to resign after he was accused of sexual harassment has settled his legal claims with the university.
A settlement made public on Friday said that Paul Barrows will receive $135,000 in return for dropping several legal claims.
The agreement ends a messy case that rocked the state’s flagship university and forced the regents to review their personnel policies.
MADISON — A former University of Wisconsin-Madison vice chancellor forced to resign after he was accused of sexual harassment will receive a $135,000 payment in return for dropping several legal claims against the university, according to a settlement made public Friday.
The UW System Board of Regents and Paul Barrows agreed to the settlement earlier this week, ending a messy case that had rocked the state’s flagship university and forced the regents to review their personnel policies.
Despite pressure from supporters of a bill that would require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch says he is reluctant to move the bill forward because of constitutional concerns.
“There’s no protection for those who would not do this and who are exercising their constitutional right to not do this on religious and moral grounds,” Huebsch told The Capital Times.
Huebsch, R-West Salem, said the bill, if passed, would usher in a “radical change” in state policy.
Offering a glimpse of a policy debate to come on the future of the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha, County Board members on Thursday homed in for the first time on the question of campus expansion or preservation.
Brian Fleishman, the former women’s tennis head coach at Wake Forest, has been named head women’s tennis coach at the University of Wisconsin.
The state Supreme Court strengthened the open meetings law Wednesday, ordering governmental bodies to be more specific in notifying the public about the subject matter of upcoming meetings.
The court said governments at all levels should be “reasonably specific” in meeting notices about the topics they will discuss and most specific when matters of great public interest are on the agenda.
They are part-time artists or craftspeople with full-time jobs of another kind — typically Caucasian women with bachelor’s degrees who are over age 50, producing their arts/crafts from home.
Their impact usually remains under the radar, because they work in isolation and independently, but these creative endeavors pump more than $31 million per year into northwestern Wisconsin economies.
Stem cell research holds out so much promise for addressing devastating diseases and conditions that support for it extends beyond lines of party and ideology.
Indeed, it can safely be said that opposition to federal research for embryonic stem cell research is now limited to an extremist fringe and the politically cynical.
A commitment by Assembly Republicans to block any tax increases could mean a new two-year budget wouldnt pass the full Legislature, Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch R-West Salem said Wednesday.
It would be the first time ever that Wisconsin legislators didn’t agree on and pass a two-year budget.
The enterprising Big Ten Network signals a beginning, and an ending. The network, scheduled to launch this fall, is offering a comprehensive package of televised events and a new funding source for financially strapped athletic departments.
But, locally, it will come at the expense of WHA-TV, which no longer will be allowed to carry tape-delay broadcasts of University of Wisconsin football and men’s basketball games, thereby ending a long sports relationship between public television and Badger fans throughout the state.
Emily Blankenheim knows what the best-dressed Badger fans will be wearing next fall.
She’s forecasting trends for the Insignia brand as part of her internship this summer with University Book Store. The internship grew out of her studies in retailing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She hopes her consumer science degree will earn her a top retail job after graduation next year.
A $4 million gift from John and Tashia Morgridge toward a new outdoor swimming pool at Hoyt Park in Wauwatosa was hailed Tuesday as a great example of a public-private partnership.
The donation also should free up scarce county money to build a new pool at Lincoln Park or pools in other, less affluent parts of the county, county supervisors said.
John Morgridge is chairman emeritus of Cisco Systems, a California-based high-tech firm. He and his wife grew up in Wauwatosa. They also have made huge donations to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, including $50 million last year for the Institutes for Discovery and $31 million in 2004 to renovate the School of Education.
Quoted: Stephen Snow, a professor of dermatology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Key legislators vowed Tuesday to keep a program that waives tuition for military veterans in graduate programs, reversing a money-saving recommendation by the Legislature’s budget committee.
Instead of the Joint Finance Committee’s plan to charge veterans in graduate programs full tuition after Jan. 1, lawmakers said Tuesday they want to find a way to give them some tuition help – maybe at the same level as undergraduates and for up to two years.
When Jerry Kelly isn’t busy trying to win tournaments on the PGA Tour, he may be busy over the next several months raising money for a Nationwide Tour event being touted for Madison.
….It is expected that the new American Family Children’s Hospital at the UW Hospital and Clinics will be the major benefactor of the tournament’s charities.
The University of Wisconsin football team will kick off its Sept. 1 season opener against Washington State at 2:30 p.m. at Camp Randall Stadium, a game that will be televised regionally on ABC.
Marquette University’s Mike Van Sickle and the University of Wisconsin’s Dan Woltman were recently named honorable mention Ping Division I All-Americans by the Golf Coaches Association of America, an extremely rare feat for either cold-weather program.
Libraries have long struggled with a stuffy reputation, but on the UW-Madison campus and in some public branches, librarians are taking a decidedly fresh approach to attracting patrons by using social networking sites.
The Dairy State has one up on its California competitors.
Though California has stolen the lead in cow milk production from Wisconsin, we outrank California and — apparently — all other states in sheep milk.
Quoted: UW-Madison professor of animal science Dave Thomas
….Sun Microsystems has just named a 1980s Madison West grad, Jeff Kesselman, as one of the company’s “contrarian minds of 2007.” Kesselman also graduated UW-Madison in 1987. He serves as chief architect on Project Darkstar, a server platform for massive-scale online games, a new arena for Sun.
If University of Wisconsin fullback Chris Pressley thought Michigan had an impenetrable defensive line, maybe akin to the Wall of China, he has since learned that nothing compares to the real thing. And if he thought winning a Big Ten championship was an uphill climb; maybe akin to scaling the Himalayas, he also since learned that nothing compares to the real thing. But if he thought Pasadena was paradise, maybe akin to Shangri-La, he knew all along that nothing compares to real thing — the Rose Bowl — even after seeing Shangri-La in northwest Yunnan province.
To this end, the 20-year-old Pressley has shared his awakening with fellow classmates during an ongoing three-week field trip to China arranged by the UW Business School.
….More than 50 million Americans suffer from allergies, and the numbers continue to grow despite advances in antihistamines and other drugs. So why have we failed to reverse this trend?
“It’s time to look at the underlying causes of asthma and hay fever instead of only treating the symptoms,” says Gregg Mitman, a professor of medical history and history of science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Following his own advice, Mitman wrote the book “Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes.” In it, he traces the impact allergic disease has had on American life, culture and landscape since the 19th century.
The University of Wisconsin football team is slotted at No. 4 in the Athlon Sports preseason college football rankings, and draws top-10 merit from two other major publications.
American Transmission Company is sponsoring three public information sessions starting tonight to discuss the idea of burying at least part of a controversial 345-kilovolt power line stretching from Rockdale to west of Middleton. But an activist group questions why the sessions are being held when ATC has already proclaimed underground construction as unfeasible.
Annita Wozniak, co-chair of Citizens for Responsible Energy, told The Capital Times today the three open houses tonight, Tuesday and Wednesday night are “just another opportunity for ATC to promote their own motives” on the need for the new line.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The University of Wisconsin men put the wraps on another outstanding track and field season Saturday, but coach Ed Nuttycombe says he’s still waiting at the finish line for sprinter Demi Omole.
Nuttycombe said he plans to meet this week with Omole to discuss a Trackshark.com blog item, credited to Omole, which indicated the standout senior was held out of the NCAA meet due to an unspecified “incident at home.”
A UW news release said Omole was academically ineligible. Nuttycombe declined to go into details about Omole’s academic standing, citing privacy laws.
The UW System Board of Regents today approved new rules designed to eliminate ties between private lenders and campus financial aid officials.
Among other things, the rules bar campuses from accepting payments from companies offering student loans. They also prohibit UW employees from receiving compensation for serving on company advisory boards.
The regents approved the rules with no discussion today during their meeting at UW-Milwaukee.
More than 300 hulking, refrigerator-size “graffiti magnets” could soon sprout in Madison yards if state lawmakers pass a controversial cable TV deregulation bill, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz is warning.
Quoted: UW-Madison telecommunications professor Barry Orton.
The Internet world is overflowing with entrepreneurs these days but few local start-ups have made a quicker splash than Anthony David Adams.
Armed with little more than a laptop computer and a concept, Adams has created a national buzz over his Madison-based company CreditCovers.
Prosecutors secured a major victory in the upcoming second trial of convicted killer and rapist Ralph Armstrong today when Dane County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Moeser ruled they could present evidence of Armstrong’s previous rape convictions in New Mexico as well as certain things he told other women in Madison in the weeks before he is accused of raping and murdering a University of Wisconsin student.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — University of Wisconsin seniors Chris Solinsky and Joe Detmer are talented, personable, charming young men. But don’t let that stop you from hating ’em.
Track and field rivals hate Solinsky and Detmer for beating their brains out.
….Solinsky (5,000 meters) and Detmer (decathlon) made it look ever-so easy with impressive first-day performances that eased the sting of senior sprinter Demi Omole’s stunning absence Wednesday at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
Badgers coach Ed Nuttycombe said he was shocked to learn Monday that Omole was academically ineligible for the meet. Omole, the Big Ten Conference Athlete of the Year, was unbeaten in the 100 meters this year.
TWO EXCITED groups of Madison students — one from Cherokee Middle School and one from Memorial High School — left Wednesday for Las Vegas and the national finals of the African American History Challenge sponsored by the national organization of the 100 Black Men of America.
The competition is today and Friday at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas and is part of the 100 Black Men annual conference.
(The book that inspired the students was “The Negro in the Making of America,” written by UW-Madison alumnus Benjamin Quarles.)
The Greater Milwaukee Foundation has awarded its annual Shaw Scientist prizes of $200,000 each to two young Wisconsin scientists whose work has shown promise for groundbreaking research.
Scott Kennedy, 38, an assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is using worms to study RNA interference, a mechanism that can turn off any gene in the genome. His research could lead to technology that could allow better treatment of human diseases.
Dazhong “Dave” Zhao, 38, an assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is researching the male reproductive cells in mustard weed plants, work that eventually could help create more robust crops.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has prepared a fund-raising plan to acquire land for its proposed $143 million engineering campus, which civic leaders see as a driver of the region’s economic future.
Demi Omole’s run never got out of the blocks.
The University of Wisconsin senior sprinter was ruled academically ineligible to compete in the NCAA outdoor track and field championships, which began Wednesday at Sacramento State University, putting an unceremonious end to the college career of one of the most successful Badgers track athletes of all-time.
The new experiments reveal the remarkable degree of control that scientists have recently gained over the highly complex inner workings of living cells.
Stem cell research is a big endeavor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where James Thomson first isolated human embryonic stem cells.
Thomson’s work fueled a research effort on the UW campus that cuts across a wide range of departments and spurred the creation of WiCell Research Institute, which has trained scientists from around the world to work with the cells. Thomson’s work also led the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation to secure three basic patents – the type that can be the underpinnings of whole new industries.
