“I think banning the use of pepper spray in juvenile detention facilities is really not a radical act,” said Zoe Engberg, clinical assistant professor at University of Wisconsin Law School. “In 2018 … 35 states had already done this – they already completely prohibited the use of pepper spray in juvenile facilities.”
On Tuesday, Coldplay announced that it’s bringing its “Music of the Spheres World Tour” — the highest-grossing and bestselling rock tour ever, according to Billboard— to the home of the Wisconsin Badgers on July 19, 2025.
The announcements feature former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and former Republican Gov. Scott McCallum, as well as Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe and former leaders of the Universities of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Technical College System.
At the beginning of September, parts of the state were experiencing highs in the mid- to upper-80s, which are between five and 15 degrees higher than normal. Near Boscobel Airport on Sept. 15, the temperature rose to 92 degrees.
“It was a very weird September,” Steve Vavrus, director of the Center for Climate Research at UW-Madison, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” He added it was also among the 10 driest, with data going back to the 1890s.
Menzie Chinn, a macroeconomist at UW-Madison, said some of the government support to consumers during the pandemic — by both the Trump and Biden administrations — coupled with jammed up supply chains when the American economy reopened helped contribute to inflation.
Earlier this year, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency tightened air quality regulations across the United States.
University of Wisconsin-Madison environmental studies professor Tracey Holloway told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that these regulations are the tightest they’ve ever been. And that means our air is the cleanest it’s ever been.
Coldplay is coming to the Wisconsin Badgers football stadium July 19, as part of its “Music of the Spheres World Tour,” the Chris Martin-led British band officially announced on its website Tuesday.
“Our primary findings reveal structural details that allow us to better understand not only how the protein regulates assembly of viral particles, but also the coordination of proteins that enable the virus to be infectious,” study leader Elizabeth Wright of the University of Wisconsin–Madison said in a statement.
Wealthy donors have turned us into a DIY Society, where people are supposed to take care of themselves rather than be helped by government.
“If the Fifth Circuit accepts the argument that the RNC is making, this would have very broad implications, and could conceivably make it up to the Supreme Court,” said Daniel Tokaji, dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Health care providers in Wisconsin require parental consent before gender-affirming care can proceed for children under the age of 18, and gender-affirming surgery for minors, especially genital surgery, is rare, according to Stephanie Budge, an associate professor in counseling psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
There’s a lot of public discussion about how much state taxpayer money the University of Wisconsin System should receive.
There’s next to none about how that money is divvied up between the universities.
Camp Randall Stadium is hosting its first ever concert in 30 years and it will most likely be Coldplay.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that they will be hosting a concert after Saturday’s blowout victory over Purdue.
Geisler is a Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame inductee and veteran television debate moderator. She refers journalists to the University of Wisconsin’s guide to less-extractive reporting.
The appearance is damaging enough, said Kathleen Bartzen Culver, a media ethics expert and director of the journalism school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
“You’ve given the source a really strong incentive to give you not just information but whatever kind of information you want,” she said. “There is a very good reason we don’t pay sources for information. The reason is the source would feel they have to please us in some way.”
Karen Holden, a professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the La Follette School of Public Affairs and Department of Consumer Science, researches Social Security and the economic status of the elderly. She maintains that the system overall benefits from receiving payroll tax payments from migrants without legal status who cannot collect benefits.
Christian Che-Castaldo, Heather Joan Lynch, Mathew Schwaller, for their use of satellite imagery to discover 1.5 million previously undocumented Adélie penguins in the Antarctic. Che-Castaldo is a quantitative ecologist affiliated with the U.S. Geological Survey, Wisconsin Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, and the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Yi Fuxian, a Chinese demographer and senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told DW that in the coming years, China may face greater challenges as an aging society than most developed countries.
“China has kept the retirement age unchanged until now, and the recent delay is still insufficient,” Yi said, emphasizing that if this policy had been implemented 20 years earlier, “the current issues might have been avoided.”
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project described the Wisconsin district lines as “some of the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the United States.”
How extreme? In 2012, while 48.6% of voters backed Republican candidates for the Wisconsin Assembly, Republicans “won” 60 of 99 seats. There was “no question — none — that the recent redistricting effort distorted the vote,” explained University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Kenneth Mayer.
The researchers, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, estimated the net value of wind and solar based on a combination of off-reservation leases paid to landowners and taxes received by local governments. They predict that tribes and their members could earn about the same either by leasing the right to wind and sun to an outside developer or by developing themselves.
“The lives of people in many countries like Venezuela and Nicaragua, their lives have become almost intolerable,” said Benjamin Marquez, a political science professor at UW-Madison, with a focus on immigration and Latino populations.
“The native-born population has always reacted very negatively to large numbers of immigrants coming to the United States,” he added.
University of Wisconsin Law School Immigration Justice Clinic Director Erin Barbato discusses detention of immigrants amid more restrictions on people coming to the United States seeking protection.
Combat Blindness International was founded by a Madison-based ophthalmologist and University of Wisconsin-Madison emeritus professor Suresh Chandra.
Executive Director Reena Chandra, Suresh Chandra’s daughter, said her father’s “aha” moment was on a medical trip to India, where roughly 50 patients received cataract surgery in the same time it took Suresh to perform one particularly difficult eye surgery on another patient.
After I went to the University of Wisconsin (in Madison) … My parents said, “What are you going to do?” And I said, “Well, you know, I want to go to Chicago and play blues.” And my mother said to me, “That’s a great idea. … Why don’t you see if you can make it? You know, you’re young, you don’t have many responsibilities. Why don’t you go?” And she gave me a $100 bill and told me to leave the next day. And I did. And that was the greatest. …
University of Wisconsin chancellors are likely to earn bonuses this school year under a new system that could add more than $40,000 to most of their compensation packages.
Cheney entered to chants of “thank you, Liz!”
She said Wisconsin was special to her because she was born here when her parents were University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate students.
Over time, hazards like these lights and windows are taking a toll. A nearly 50-year study of birds in North America found that populations have shrunk across species, by billions. Avian ecologist Anna Pidgeon has seen this in action. She’s been studying birds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for over two decades.
Black student enrollment at the state’s flagship university has never surpassed 3 percent of the student body, according to data from the Universities of Wisconsin. In 2023, 1,327 students out of 50,335 identified as Black, about 2.6 percent.
This year, the percentage of underrepresented students of color in the freshman class dropped by 3.7 percentage points from last year to 14.3 percent, according to UW-Madison data.
Crane hunting also brings political views and public sentiment into play, Spreitzer said. A 2023 study by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center found fewer than one in five Wisconsinites supports a sandhill crane hunting season in the state. The work was funded by the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo and the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
The University of Wisconsin System recently enacted a viewpoint neutrality policy, which Bean said hinders academic freedom for professors, department chairs and faculties. The policy changes came amid pro-Palestinian encampments that sprung up on college campuses nationwide, including in Wisconsin, protesting the Israel-Hamas war.
Earlier this month, Layla Merrifield formally began her role as the new president of the Wisconsin Technical College System. She replaces Morna Foy, who retired after 12 years on the job. We speak with the new president about her priorities and how the state can improve its technical colleges.
UW-Madison journalism professor Michael Wagner explains how generative artificial intelligence tools by political campaigns raise questions of honesty and transparency that are difficult to answer.
Wisconsin’s technical colleges are expecting to hand out 200 more dental credentials every year thanks to new state funding and a recent donation from the Delta Dental of Wisconsin Foundation, the new leader of the state’s tech college system said recently.
Both advancements in science and the rejection of science have been a factor in U.S. politics. UW-Madison emeritus professor of chemistry Bassam Shakhashiri returns to talk about the connection between scientific understanding, reasoning and responsible citizenship.
Interview with Howard Veregin on “Wisconsin Today.” Veregin iss Wisconsin’s state cartographer, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he’s mapping Wisconsin, real and imaginary.
Two graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are facing campus disciplinary hearings linked to an op-ed they authored in support of the student pro-Palestine encampment movement this spring. At least five other open hearings will take place over the next month.
UW Extension Educator Kevin Schoessow is back to talk about the Spooner Agriculture Research Station. And the food they have donated to local organizations. We also talk about the work being done at the Savannah Institute to integrate trees and shrubs with crops and livestock on farms.
Chuck Nicholson, ag economist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the strong survey response could signal a change for the industry, even if the state is likely to continue seeing farms exit the dairy industry.
Written by Alvin Thomas, an Associate Professor of Human Development & Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a consulting editor at the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.
U.S. News and World Report recently released its much-anticipated college rankings for 2025, and 10 Wisconsin colleges and universities made the national lists.
The UW Board of Regents fired former University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow a second time, ending a drawn-out faculty disciplinary process focused on his controversial pornographic videos.
Former University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow was fired Friday from his tenured teaching position in a unanimous Board of Regents vote.
The University of Wisconsin (UW) system has instituted two new admissions programs meant to make this process easier and encourage more Wisconsin students to attend their institutions: The Wisconsin Guarantee and Direct Admit Wisconsin.
“Bulbs are going to need a 12- to 16-week chilling period. When you put them in the ground that temperature should go down slowly, so they have the first 3 to 5 weeks developing their roots at 45 to 50 degrees, and then the next 3 weeks at 38 to 42 degrees,” said Lisa Johnson, horticulture educator for University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension.
College students can play a pivotal role in a swing state like Wisconsin, where elections are often won by razor-thin margins.
Voting rules can be confusing to navigate — and even more so for college students, most of whom live at a new address each school year. Here’s a guide on what to know, where to register and how to vote:
During an interview with WPR, UW-Madison Professor of Sociology Emerita Myra Marx Ferree said when Roe fell, “it was like this bucket of cold water poured on the public consciousness” and Americans began seeing the abortion issue as far deeper than simply having a choice.
“It’s fundamental, it’s freedom, it’s rights. It’s respect for you as a human being. It’s justice,” said Marx Ferree. “Freedom is not about buying coats or shoes or taking a vacation or not taking a vacation. Freedom is about determining the course of your life.”
Dr. Jim Gern, pediatrics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the study’s authors, said the findings could influence the current public health approach to preventing asthma.
Sluka’s agent, former University of Wisconsin football player Marcus Cromartie, told ESPN that UNLV didn’t come through on the verbal offer made by offensive coordinator Brennan Marion. Sluka’s father, Bob, also told ESPN that head coach Barry Odom later said in a conversation with Cromartie that the offer wasn’t valid because it didn’t come from Odom himself.
“If you declared an intent to become a citizen, that was sufficient for you to vote,” explained Bree Grossi Wilde, executive director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which has researched referendum questions this year.
During a recent interview with WPR, University of Wisconsin-Madison Sociology Professor Michael Light said anecdotes used by politicians don’t always reflect the broader trends related to crime and immigration.
“Yes, immigrants have committed crimes. And immigrants commit less crimes than native born U.S. citizens,” Light told “Wisconsin Today” in July. “Both (of) those can be true.”
Wisconsin students aren’t required at the state level to take a government class. Some districts may have their own requirements, or government classes may be offered as an elective, but that lack of a state requirement can prevent students from learning about government itself, much less discussing and understanding current political events, said Jeremy Stoddard, a professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a researcher in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
One report can’t always catch every issue simmering at lower levels of an organization as large and complex as SDC, said Brian Mayhew, executive director of the Center for Financial Reporting and Control at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dally’s Spring Green clinic and his fellow colleagues at Mazomanie Animal Hospital last year opened Cooperative Veterinary Care, a co-op that might be the first employee-owned veterinary cooperative in the country, according to the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives.
This year’s freshman class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — the first since the U.S. Supreme Court banned race-based admission — has fewer Black and Hispanic students.
These historic injustices continue to fuel distrust among Indigenous peoples toward Western institutions.
As a result, University of Wisconsin health officials were pleased when the leadership of one tribal community in northern Wisconsin recently agreed to meet about the possibility of signing up tribal members for clinical health trials. The entire tribal council for the Sokaogon Mole Lake Ojibwe Nation visited with health professionals at UW-Madison Sept. 11 and 12 to help build a cooperative relationship between the tribe and the UW Health system.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s incoming freshman class saw a decline in the percentage of students of color, diminishing the university’s recent progress in diversifying its student body, according to data released Monday.
Gov. Tony Evers spoke with UW-Madison students and responded to a new neutral-viewpoint policy for leadership across all Universities of Wisconsin schools after the spring 2024 campus protests.
“The last time I was in Madison, we went to the house where I lived when I was 5 years old, here in Madison,” Harris said. “Our parents taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and so we lived here for a period of time. So every time I land, the governor says, ‘Welcome home.'”
Four University of Wisconsin System branch campuses increased enrollment since last fall, while five saw student headcount decline, according to preliminary estimates released after an outcry from media organizations and a government transparency advocate.
Kathleen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it is rare for political operatives or issue advocates to become news reporters.
“As a news consumer myself, I’m questioning whether the New York Post’s reporting is fairly covering races in our critical swing state,” Culver said. “That’s not a question for this staffer alone but for the overall content and tenor of the material the Post is putting out.”
