Summer does not turn downtown Madison into a ghost town, but it does reshape the city.
With fewer UW-Madison students on campus and no Badgers football games, the area is more relaxed. It is also easier to find a seat at a restaurant or bar.
Sam Haegele, a bartender and manager at Vintage Spirits & Grill on University Avenue, said the business sees a significant demographic shift.
As visitors walk through the renovated Chazen Museum of Art this fall, their eyes might wander from a contemporary abstract painting on one wall to a 16th century ceramic dish and a Renaissance-era oil painting on another. Soon, they may notice that the art around them lacks a clear-cut organization that separates each gallery by time period, medium or geographic location. Rather, these artworks are organized by an innovative technique allowing for countless connections between items.
It’s not just for college students, but the timing coincides with the annual weekend in which UW-Madison students move out of one rental and into another, leaving Downtown curbs piled high with discarded couches, electronics and knick-knacks in the process.
UW-Madison political science professor emeritus Howard Schweber considers protest encampments in Madison and responses by authorities given the breadth of and limits to freedom of speech and assembly.
At the UW Arboretum, Melanie Tallmadge Sainz and Lightning the Earth New Rider created “Hazac Mąą,” which translates to Earth Shelter. The three-dimensional sculpture uses a frame of foraged saplings covered with bark and hand-made cattail mats.
The district is partnering with the YWCA and UW-Extension on some programming for Family University, starting with the Extension’s Fathers in Focus conference in October, which the district will encourage families to attend. Additional Family University sessions will begin rolling out after that conference.
When a Madison police officer fatally shot Corey Ruiz on July 22, his death sparked outrage — and questions.
Among them: Why was Ruiz killed, and what kind of training or rules could have prevented his death?
Ion Meyn, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, has studied exactly that. For a 2021 paper, he and his team interviewed police officers across the country and watched dozens of training videos to understand how police think about use of force and what guidelines they learn — even as departments argue that such situations can never be governed by hard and fast rules.
After nearly two decades without a permanent regional bus station, Madison is preparing to open a facility this fall as part of the redevelopment of the former State Street Campus Garage.
The site at 415 N. Lake St. is now home to Theory Madison, a 15-story student housing development built above a new public parking garage and regional bus terminal that will provide service to destinations including Milwaukee and Chicago.
A vehicle hit a mother and a 1-year-old child in a crosswalk on Madison’s north side Thursday afternoon.
While this was not fatal, there have been five pedestrian deaths from similar crashes in the area this year.
Traffic engineers study road structure and pedestrian safety for a living. Designing crosswalks and bike lanes with an extreme amount of caution for those using them.
Although, unfortunately, safety can never be completely guaranteed.
“You just can’t assume the vehicles are going to stop. You can’t assume the bikes [going to] stop you can’t assume the pedestrians is aware of the crosswalks,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Engineering, Transportation Engineering professor David Noyce.
Madison continues to grapple with the aftermath of a fatal police shooting. Today, Ion Meyn, an associate professor of law at UW-Madison who specializes in civil rights and criminal procedure, joins host Bianca Martin and executive producer Hayley Sperling to talk about the legal ramifications of the case. Plus, we look at what comes next for the controversial Act 10 law following a recent court ruling. And if you’re a Neighbor, you’ll hear our takes and gripes about the flood of trolls invading our comments section in our exclusive members-only segment.
Tom Jones, a Native American artist, curator and recently retired professor of photography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has four portraits from his “Strong Unrelenting Spirits” series on display at Arts + Literature Laboratory through Aug. 29.
Realta, which got its start at UW-Madison, picked the site after a nationwide search, and Gov. Tony Evers and other elected officials and business leaders heralded the company’s decision to stay in Madison as a win for the entire state.
IV hydration businesses have emerged at the intersection of several consumer trends that have accelerated over the last decade, particularly the growth of the health and wellness industry, said Dan Olszewski, director of UW-Madison’s Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship.
Nuclear fusion startup Realta Fusion will begin construction on their research and development facility and corporate headquarters in OM Station, a former Oscar Mayer plant on Madison’s north side, by the end of this year. The project will receive up to $55 million in financial incentives from the city and state.
Realta plans to create over 600 new jobs and will look to UW-Madison as a major “talent pipeline,” Kieran Furlong, CEO and co-founder of Realta Fusion, told The Daily Cardinal.
The recent shooting of Corey Ruiz, a 38-year-old Black man in Madison, is another example of police unnecessarily taking a life. Yet police will likely find that taking his life was consistent with officer training and justified.
Ion Meyn, a UW Law professor who teaches civil and criminal procedure, told News 3 Now that the investigation protocol is “not as independent as it may seem.”
Meyn explained that investigators often follow different procedures when examining police-involved shootings compared to standard criminal investigations. One significant difference involves the timing of officer interviews.
As Madison reels from the deadly shooting of Corey Ruiz by a police officer this week, two professors who study police use of force say many questions remain unanswered about how officers responded.
After two decades of hosting the camp, Morgridge Institute researchers are now studying its long-term impact, such as whether earlier exposure to research influences a student’s academic interests and career goals.
Madison-based Realta Fusion plans to build a nuclear fusion research facility at the former Oscar Mayer plant in a move that company executives and government leaders say could boost the local economy and make the state capital a hub for green energy development.
Every Phish show generates its own mythology. In Madison that mythology dates back to 1998, when the band’s last appearance at the Kohl Center was nearly upstaged by an onstage streaker.
This week, some 28 years later, the Vermont-based jam band icons returned to Madison and the Kohl Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to open their summer tour. They delivered another performance fans are likely to be talking about for years — an expansive, 18-song marathon spanning two sets and an encore over more than three hours.
Additionally, the University of Wisconsin-Madison was awarded $322,500 for 36 projects, including a $48,000 grant to the Odyssey Project, which offers adults who never had a chance to attend college the opportunity to take college-level classes. Among the university’s grants was one that includes students from the Madison school district’s Shabazz City High School in a project monitoring chlorine in the east side’s Starkweather Creek.
UW-Madison is home to dozens of historic and archaeological sites that have national recognition.
As the horticulture outreach specialist with UW-Madison Extension Dane County, Johnson, 62, should have all the gardening answers you seek, and if not, she can surely find the right expert who does.
The genesis of Space Place — the education and public outreach center of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Astronomy — dates to the fall of 1989, at the Memorial Union’s Play Circle.
Within the next five years, Wisconsin should have more workers who can help run clinical trials for important research.
That’s the aim of a new program that Madison Area Technical College and the UW-Madison School of Medicine are launching in 2027.
Casey Brown and his father spoke at the May Parks Commission meeting. Aaron Bird Bear, a former UW-Madison director of tribal relations who created the university’s Indigenous land landscape tour, also appeared and spoke about mounds in Madison more broadly.
Brown, who graduated from UW-Madison and is familiar with local politics, said he has never seen a meeting turn around the way this one did.
“The University of Wisconsin-Madison has done a great job of research and finding a path to help and hopefully someday cure Alzheimer’s,” Lenz said. “So we’re here supporting that initiative to raise funds for everyone so that the research can continue and so that we can find an end to Alzheimer’s.”
The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) is seeking state approval to change how it ranks high school students for the Wisconsin Guarantee program, potentially affecting how many students are automatically admitted into University of Wisconsin-system schools.
Students who place in the top 10% of their class at the end of the 11th grade are automatically admitted to all UW universities, save for UW-Madison, under a state program known as the Wisconsin Guarantee, provided they apply by the regular deadlines. Students who apply by the early deadline and rank in the top 5% of their class are automatically admitted to UW-Madison.
From bus routes to a new train service, University of Wisconsin-Madison students are fueling alternative transportation options in Madison.
A 2023 UW Transportation Services survey showed 70% of students walk or ride the bus on good weather days and 80% on bad weather days.
A plant in one of UW-Madison’s greenhouses is making a dramatic exit.
The Botany Garden and Greenhouse’s Agave victoriae-reginae plant, which is about 30 years old, has erected a towering 15-foot “death bloom,” which looks like a spikey, oversized stalk of asparagus, as a finale to its multigenerational lifespan.
The Joint Committee on Finance approved the $10 million sale of the state’s former Human Services building to Landmark Development Tuesday, bringing Madison one step closer to getting Amtrak service.
A key part of the company’s plan is to bridge gaps between Madison and other Midwestern cities.
“Madison is ideally situated amongst the sort of arc of bigger cities within the Midwest. We really can play a key position economically, culturally, politically, by the location we have,” Jason Ilstrup, the president of Downtown Madison Inc., said.
Almost 20 years ago, a green, shiny beetle arrived in southern Wisconsin and started eating ash trees to death.
Originally from Asia and known as the emerald ash borer, the bug is smaller than a dime and quickly spread like wildfire, largely fueled by firewood and tree nursery transports.
Dr. Gregory DeMuri, pediatric infectious disease doctor at UW Health Kids and professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, said Lyme disease can cause the rash, and then it can cause arthritis, heart problems and sometimes central nervous system issues.
The two are also concerned that the district could ignore some of the equity and teacher well-being issues raised in a report led by a group of students from UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs, which found that teachers felt burnt out by monitoring phone use and want more district support, and that low-income Black and Latino students in the Madison School District face disproportionate levels of device-related discipline.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department is asking for the public’s help in solving the 58-year-old murder of freshman Christine “Chris” Rothschild, who was found stabbed to death on campus next to Sterling Hall on May 26, 1968. She was only 18.
A resident of Mansfield Hall, a private dorm for college students that offers support and community for diverse learners, provides a tour of the building located on fraternity row near UW-Madison.
Runners from all parts of the state gathered at the UW-Madison Library Mall for the annual Run Madtown half marathon and 10k run. Runners took off at 7 a.m. and ran through several parts of the city, including the State Capitol, Arboretum and Camp Randall.
When Charity Alfred stepped off the elevator onto the third floor of Witte Residence Hall for the first time, she wasn’t just entering a dorm.
She was entering Essence, a community which she would come to describe as “its own little neighborhood,” carved out of an isolating predominantly white campus.
A teenager knows something isn’t right. They want to talk to a therapist but don’t want their parents to know everything they say. In Wisconsin, whether the teen can control that decision depends on a set of laws, hinging on the age of the minor, that most teens and many parents do not fully understand.
For more than a half-century, Madison has been considered one of the most desirable places to live in the United States. Since 2020, Dane County has added nearly 30,000 residents.
The engine driving much of that growth is in the heart of Madison.
“You can’t discuss housing in Madison without first understanding the impact of the university,” said Paul Soglin, who served as Madison mayor for nearly a quarter-century.
On Monday, April 20, 2026, the German+ Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison hosted its 34th “German Day” in Union South on the UW–Madison campus. Since 1990, students of German from high schools and middle schools have been showcasing their knowledge of German through poetry, spelling, skits, Pictionary, charades, solo and ensemble music performances, posters, and memes.
On Feb. 4, 1951, Max Otto delivered the inaugural sermon at the new Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Unitarian Meeting House. The UW-Madison philosophy professor and congregation member said that the striking building on Madison’s near west side, distinguished by a soaring glass and wood “prow,” “will truly be our own if our religious undertaking, ennobled by the beauty of its new home, has vitality and meaning enough to transcend the fame of the building in which it is housed.”
A nuclear fusion company that got its start at UW-Madison is nearing the end of a nationwide search for the right place to advance the technology it hopes will power the future.
It didn’t have to look far.
After some promising successes using powerful magnets to shape plasmas, Realta Fusion is ready to build a prototype fusion device, which it will use to test whether the plasma inside will perform as expected at a commercial scale.
Run Madtown’s Charity Chaser Runner beneficiary will be the Badger Challenge during a 5K race this month.
The Badger Challenge is a fundraising initiative supporting cancer research at UW-Madison.
A designated runner representing the Badger Challenge will start the Run Madtown Twilight 5K on May 23. Once the final participant crosses the start line, they will try to pass as many athletes as possible before reaching the finish line. For every 5K athlete passed, Run Madtown will donate $1 to the Badger Challenge.
Harm reduction tools like fentanyl and xylazine test strips have years of evidence behind their use, according to Dr. Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and an addiction medicine specialist.
The Madison school district unveiled its proposal for a new cell phone policy at a School Board meeting Monday, recommending an all-day ban for students in grades K-8 while allowing more leniency for high school students to use their phones during passing time and lunch periods.
At the meeting, some School Board members expressed trepidations about a full-day ban for K-8 students, while others questioned different aspects of the proposed policy.
The Universities of Wisconsin has launched a national search to identify UW-Madison’s next chancellor.
Acting UW system head Chris Patton and UW Board of Regents President Amy Bogost appointed a group of 23 faculty, staff, students and people from the Madison area to identify UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin’s successor.
The center can also serve as a place of mentorship and for networking for staff and students at UW-Madison, MATC and Edgewood University. It’s a welcoming idea for Christy Clark-Pujara, the chair of the Department of African American Studies at UW-Madison.
Many Madison drivers are paying more than $4 at the pump and say they are feeling the impact.
Average gas prices have increased more than a dollar since the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran two months ago.
Jon Pevehouse, a political science professor at UW-Madison explained why prices are on the rise.
“In large part because Iran is a central producer, as are the countries around Iran, are central producers of oil, which of course goes into gas,” Pevehouse said.
Particularly with the growth of social media, reports of coyotes have become more common in and around Madison.
That may be due to coyotes getting more familiar with humans rather than a growing population or territorial expansion, said David Drake, leader of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Urban Canid Project.
Law enforcement agencies in Dane County have been using AI-enhanced cameras to help investigate crimes over the past few years, but the Sheriff’s Office must now shift its strategy following a County Board vote.
The board removed $80,000 in funding from the sheriff’s budget for Flock Safety cameras, following concerns over the Atlanta-based company and how local law enforcement use surveillance software. The sheriff had contracted with Flock years ago for two dozen automatic license plate readers, which are scattered around the county.
Saturday is setting up to be one of the most crowded days of the year in downtown Madison, and several streets will be closed because of different events.
The annual Mifflin Street Block Party will take over the area just outside the UW-Madison campus. The event is unpermitted, but Madison police will close some streets to keep things safe.
Also on the panel was Parnia Serjooei, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student with plans to apply to medical school this May. She is the vice president of the UW Persian Students Society and has visited Iran.
Several Downtown and UW-Madison campus-area streets will be closed for a time on Saturday to make way for the annual UW Athletics fundraiser known as the Crazylegs Classic.
More than 9,000 people are expected to participate in the event’s 8K wheelchair race, 8K run or 2-mile walk, with the wheelchair race starting at 9:50 a.m., the run at 10 a.m. and the walk at 10:20 a.m.
The police are assigned and the balconies inspected. All that’s left — as much as city leaders might wish otherwise — is for the drinking to begin.
With the Mifflin Street Block Party scheduled for Saturday, Madison officials on Wednesday laid out a series of warnings and plans pertaining to the annual and unsanctioned bacchanalia that traditionally occurs near the end of the UW-Madison spring semester.
UW Madison hosting Family Gardening Day in May.
Spirited school pride, interactive games and opportunities to double donations are all part of this year’s Day of the Badger, a two-day fundraising effort supporting the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Sponsored by the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association, the annual event brings together alumni, students and supporters through both virtual and in-person activities aimed at raising critical funds for campus programs and initiatives.
Organizers say more than 150 areas across campus are participating this year, including schools, colleges, departments and other causes. Donors can choose where to direct their contributions through the event’s website.
The University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center welcomed the public this weekend for its annual open house, giving visitors a closer look at cancer research and prevention efforts.
The event featured lab tours, interactive exhibits and family-friendly activities, including appearances by Bucky Badger.
This spring, Kennedy Elementary School music teacher Christian Bonner became one of six educators in the state to win a $1,000 grant to study original art by Wisconsin artists.
Bonner is also a clarinet player pursuing his second master’s degree from UW-Madison to get his principal’s license. He said exploring unique music relevant to his young students is key to getting them excited about it.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is inviting the community to explore science up close this weekend during its annual UW Science Expeditions.
The free, campus-wide open house runs Friday through Sunday, April 10–12, across UW–Madison. Organizers say the event is designed to connect the public with scientists, students and research spaces through hands-on experiences.
UW Science Expeditions features dozens of venues and activities spanning disciplines from astronomy to zoology. Visitors can take part in interactive exploration stations, attend live science shows and tour labs, museums and greenhouses across campus.
Throughout the weekend, participants can visit locations such as Washburn Observatory, campus greenhouses, and research centers, while meeting scientists and learning about ongoing work at the university.
