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Choose your own journalism adventure: Teaching media literacy with ‘Headlines and High Water’

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Wisconsin Life

We live in a time when fake news permeates social media feeds and partisan coverage blasts through some cable news channels. Teaching media literacy can help people wade through the disinformation and become critical news consumers. As Christina Lieffring tells us, a video game created by UW-Madison’s Field Day Labs aims to teach students to become more media literate and what it takes to be a journalist.

Fact-check: Claim that eclipse-watchers in Madison were protesting Biden is Pants on Fire

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Brandon Maly, chair of the Republican Party of Dane County, posted a photo on X of a large crowd of people gathered on UW-Madison’s Library Mall. Those people were “out in full force at UW Madison today protesting Biden,” he claimed.

Multiple news reports confirm that the people were in fact there to watch the eclipse.

New scarecrows: Lasers aim to deter wild birds and reduce disease on Wisconsin farms

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Avian flu remains prevalent in Wisconsin’s wild bird populations and the risk to farms this year is about the same as recent years, said Ron Kean, a poultry specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension. Kean said lasers are a great option to reduce spread of the disease.

“Keeping the wild birds away from our domestic birds seems to be a big part of biosecurity,” he said.

Replay: 2024 solar eclipse in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, highlights from historic celestial event

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Ken Knobel of San Francisco traveled to Wisconsin to visit his son at UW-Madison over the weekend and decided to watch the eclipse from Milwaukee because of the clear skies.

“I think the most exciting part of it is that it’s, for some people, once in a lifetime,” said Knobel, who said it’s the first eclipse he’s ever watched.

Voter enthusiasm, Popularity of online videos, Social connections

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Nielsen data shows that the top streaming service on home televisions is not Netflix or Hulu but YouTube. UW–Madison media studies professors Jonathan Gray and Derek Johnson weigh in on how the video social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok are becoming the top competition for the television and movie industries.

Evangelicals in American politics

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Ever since the days of Puritan New England, American governments have struggled to define the relationship between religion and a secular nation. In recent years, that struggle has become increasingly strident with the rise of the Christian Right. What is the relationship between the Christian Right and traditional evangelicals? At what point did the Christian Right become an influence in US presidential elections? And who were the key players in that development? Historian Dan Hummel of UW-Madison will take us into the world of the Christian Right and its influence in American politics.

With mental health system under strain, more patients being transferred to facility for sex offenders

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

University of Wisconsin-Madison criminal justice professor Kenneth Streit said the new unit will allow people on the waitlist for Mendota and other state mental hospitals to get treatment at a civil facility sooner, with more access to personal space and state-trained medical professionals. Many are currently languishing in county jails.

“A person’s going to have much more contact with people who are aware of what their symptoms are and aware of how that person should be behaving,” Streit said

Now that the 2 Wisconsin referendums passed, what’s next and what don’t we know about them yet?

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School also examined the referendum language and found that Wisconsin didn’t lay out some exceptions that other states have.

“Even states that have restricted the use of private funding or resources have often included exceptions for common donations, such as private spaces for use as polling locations or food and beverages for poll workers,” staff attorney Emily Lau wrote in an analysis of the referendums.

Trump attacks immigration in return to Wisconsin

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Samantha Crowley, a medical student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said during the Biden campaign’s press conference that a national abortion ban would “take away the reproductive freedoms” of over 1 million Wisconsin women. She said Trump’s largely taken credit for the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision getting overturned.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson wins reelection in landslide victory

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Johnson grew up in the city’s troubled 53206 zip code and attended Milwaukee Public Schools. He was one of 10 siblings — his father worked as a janitor for the Milwaukee Public School District and his mother as a certified nursing assistant. After attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he returned to his hometown to work for the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board, now Employ Milwaukee.

Why a Wisconsin voting site in Madison stayed open 90 minutes past the closing of polls

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

As polls closed throughout most of Wisconsin for this battleground state’s spring primary election, one voting site’s hours were extended by 90 minutes. The court-ordered adjustment was a response to what officials have chalked up to a mistake made by University of Wisconsin-Madison Memorial Union employees.

UW Health Transplant Center marks 20,000 organ transplants

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Spectrum News

This April, which marks Donate Life Month, the UW Health Transplant Center is reflecting on a major milestone. In Feb. 2024, surgeons completed the 20,000th organ transplant in the program’s history.

“Kind of top of mind is the fact that, how many people have helped that many people receive the gift of life,” Dr. Dixon Kaufman, UW Health Transplant Center’s medical director, said. “At the top of that list are all the organ donors [and] their families — the vast majority from our community and the state of Wisconsin. That … allows us to give the gift of life to so many people.”

Once near extinction, cranes are featured in a symposium at a Door County sanctuary

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Green Bay Press-Gazette

The symposium kicks off at 6 p.m. April 12 with a keynote presentation (via Zoom) by Stanley Temple of the University of Wisconsin-Madison on “The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Then and Now: Is it Still Working?” Temple will talk about the first century of migratory bird protection and speculate about its future, given ongoing challenges from loss and degradation of habitat, collisions with human-made structures, predation by cats, pesticide poisoning and oil spills.

Learning about WisconsinEye, More evictions, Advancements in kidney disease research

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Wisconsin Public Radio

The Massachusetts General Hospital recently completed the world’s first successful transplant of a genetically altered pig kidney. A pair of Wisconsin kidney specialists share their insights on this milestone. Then, we dive further into chronic kidney disease, including transplantation and dialysis. Includes interview with Dr. Didier Mandelbrot, the medical director of the UW Health Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation Program

Wisconsin dairy farms closely watching avian flu cases in cattle

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, said the case highlights the importance of immediate action by dairy farmers if they see disease symptoms in their animals, which can include decreased lactation and low appetite. He said the people working on a farm with sick animals should be monitored closely.

“We don’t think that it’s a significant public health threat at this point,” Poulsen said. “But just like in our farms with poultry (highly pathogenic) avian influenza, they’re getting a large challenge, so we need to watch them very closely, and make sure that everyone is provided with the best public health care that we have available.”

Zolper Properties warns tenants of potential rent increases if MPS referendum passes

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

University of Wisconsin-Madison public affairs assistant professor and property tax expert Ross Milton said it is hard to find academic literature with “real world evidence” of how higher property taxes are shared between tenants and landlords.

He said renters voting Tuesday should be aware that landlords can decide to make them bear the brunt of higher property taxes. However, Milton added that property companies can raise rent whenever they want in Wisconsin, regardless of a new tax. “We don’t have rent control in Wisconsin,” Milton said.

Gov. Evers vetoes bill to curb road salt use, citing broad immunity to salters from slip-and-fall suits

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Potential solutions to the problem are ongoing across the state. Brining, where salt is mixed with water before being applied to roads, cleared Wisconsin highways faster and resulted in a 23% reduction in salt use on average, a study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found. Some counties even use beet juice as a brining agent to allow the solution to work at colder temperatures, since standard road salt won’t work if it’s colder than 15 degrees.

Up to 40 percent of dementia cases are preventable, geriatrician says

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Wisconsin Public Radio

One of the most common myths about dementia — a general impairment in thinking and memory — is that it’s a normal part of aging. But Dr. Nathaniel Chin, an assistant professor and geriatrician at UW Health, wants to bust that myth.

“There are plenty of people who live a really long and healthy life that never develop advanced thinking changes,” said Chin, the director of medical services with the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and host of the “Dementia Matters” podcast.

Wisconsin experienced its warmest winter on record. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to plant your garden yet.

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

For the most part, the winter season was downright balmy, with only one small stretch of negative temperatures in January, making it the warmest on record for Wisconsin, said Steve Vavrus, Wisconsin’s state climatologist and the assistant director at the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Center for Climatic Research. The El Nino effect — which carries warm air from the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean across the U.S. — is largely to blame for the warmth.

“It was a full two degrees warmer than the previous record, which is a huge amount,” he said. “We had the warmest December on record. We had the warmest February on record and we had the 10th warmest January on record. So that really is extreme in terms of consistent warmth over a whole season.”

Political divides, declining population are causing fewer people to run in rural local elections

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Appleton Post-Crescent

Reasons for the lack of candidates include the time commitment matched with lack of monetary compensation as well as declining participation in local government, according to Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The positions often entail significant time commitments, do not provide much if any monetary compensation, and subject people to complaints, criticism, and even harassment,” Burden told The Post-Crescent.

University of Wisconsin campuses seek to increase in-state tuition by 3.75% next year

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The University of Wisconsin System wants to increase tuition for in-state undergraduates by 3.75% next school year, UW System President Jay Rothman said Thursday.

If approved, it would be the second consecutive increase for resident students after a decade of seeing their base tuition rate frozen. Tuition increased by an average of 5% this school year.

RNC may again adopt a party platform this year after not having one in 2020, Lara Trump says

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Party platforms have internal and external purposes, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center.

Internally, the platform serves to get all party faithful around the country on the same page, he said. The document is worked out in the lead-up to the convention and adopted by delegates at the event itself.

Innovative research into cover crops is helping Oneida white corn co-op restore depleted soil

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

For the members of Ohe·láku, a co-op of Oneida Nation families growing their traditional white corn together, what started as an experiment has become a success story.

A few years ago, they partnered with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to test different cover crop mixes to restore soil they grow on, which had been depleted under prior ownership. Cover crops are left in the soil after the primary crop is harvested. The idea is to make sure the fields are never bare, increasing soil fertility, limiting runoff and keeping the soil moist.

Milwaukee Bucks, Deer District community benefit deal seen as model for more development

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Wisconsin Examiner

“From Community Benefits, to Collective Bargaining, and Back” was written by researchers Pablo Aquiles-Sanchez and Laura Dresser of the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The center describes itself as a “think-and-do tank” promoting solutions to social problems that focus on shared growth and opportunity, environmental sustainability and resilient democratic institutions as “necessary and achievable complements in human development.”

Here is a look inside the former home of the UW-Milwaukee chancellor on Milwaukee’s east side

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

UWM is selling the former home of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee chancellor on Milwaukee’s east side. Here is a look inside the residence at 3435 N. Lake Drive, listed for $1,295,000. The stone Tudor mansion has six bedrooms, four baths and close to 5,000 square feet. It was built in 1926, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. The listing states the home was designed by architect Charles Valentine.

What are the fastest growing counties in Wisconsin? Here’s what census data shows

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The official U.S. Census is only taken every 10 years, so estimates like these are “ballpark figures” determined by “symptomatic indicators of population change,” including births, deaths, and domestic and international migration, said David Egan-Robertson, a demographer with the University of Wisconsin’s Applied Population Laboratory. Still, they’re likely to closely reflect reality.

The new estimates reveal that, in the 2020s, some Wisconsin counties have seen significant population growth while others have seen steep declines.

What the ‘uninstructed’ movement means for Wisconsin voters, Biden’s chances

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

El-Hassan, a 24-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison law student, first heard about uninstructed voting on a trip to Michigan. Among a group of law students and professors, conversation swirled around the subject of Michigan’s uncommitted movement, led by a cohort of Arab Americans and Muslim activists.

El-Hassan, who’s Muslim, hoped to find a similar initiative in Wisconsin. Then, Listen to Wisconsin, a group encouraging Wisconsin voters to cast uninstructed votes, emerged. On Monday, 20 state and local elected officials endorsed the campaign.

You can own the UWM chancellor’s former home on Milwaukee’s east side for $1.2 million

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The former home of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee chancellor is for sale on Milwaukee’s east side.

UWM announced in January that it planned to seek permission from the UW Board of Regents to sell the residence at 3435 N. Lake Drive. The UW Board of Regents approved the sale last month. It was listed on Friday for $1,295,000.

Wisconsin eclipse chasers plan to drive a thousand miles for total solar eclipse

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Wisconsin Public Radio

James Lattis, director of the UW Space Place, said a partial eclipse is a rare site. They are an opportunity for scientific discovery. Lattis said people can watch the progression by facing away from the sun and looking at the image of the sun made by a pinhole, leaves on a tree or holes in a kitchen colander.

“You see the distant shadow of the moon rushing up on you,” Lattis said. “The crescent of sunlight that’s left is getting gradually thinner and thinner. You start seeing lighting effects in the environment around you.”

Madison building bus rapid transit system

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Spectrum News

Douglas Meier has been using city buses since starting as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison five years ago.

“It was just the most convenient option,” he said. “Parking is really, really expensive on campus, if not impossible, and it was just a really convenient way to get around.”

Older Wisconsinites have the highest suicide rate of any age group. Why don’t we talk about it?

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Green Bay Press-Gazette

There’s a disconnect in how we respond to older people struggling with their mental health, said Dr. Sarah Endicott, a clinical professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on geriatrics. Some of that, she suspects, may be chalked up to ageism, which the World Health Organization defines as the stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination toward others based on age.

“I don’t think it’s intentional, but the lower value we place on older adults in general, especially when it comes to end-of-life, I’m guessing that’s part of the cause,” said Endicott, who also works as a geriatric psychiatrist at Stoughton Hospital in Dane County.

It’s America’s ‘most hated tax’ but not the one Wisconsinites fret most about

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Written by Ross Milton ,an assistant professor with the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. His research focuses on the political economy and public finance of state and local taxes and includes studies of tax limitation policies and the effects of local taxes on alternative revenue sources.