This week in fake news... Daniel Day-Lewis preps for the role of a lifetime: himself.
March Arts Calendar The Daily Cardinal keeps you clued in to all things arts this month in Madison.
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Weekend, March 1-3, 2013
Cuts, debt, deficit: the ins and outs of the sequester By Jack Casey The Daily Cardinal
wil gibb/the daily cardinal
The Madison Fire Department responded to a fire Tuesday at a lab in the Medical Sciences building on the UW-Madison campus. No one was injured.
Medical Sciences lab catches fire By Gloria Young The Daily Cardinal
University, state and federal officials are investigating the cause of a Thursday fire on the fourth floor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical Sciences building. The Madison Fire Department reported no injuries after responding to a three-alarm fire at 1300 University Ave. around 8 a.m. The fire began in one of the building’s labs, but no bio-hazardous or flammable material was in the area. Investigators sealed off the portion of the building where the fire started, said MFD spokesperson Lori Wirth. State and federal investigators are working with the UW Police Department and MFD to determine the cause of the fire.
Wirth said the university will have to calculate potential damages, including research and specialized equipment as well as infrastructural damages. According to a UWPD press release, water, smoke and soot damaged parts of the building outside of the small portion of the building’s fourth floor where the fire was. The number of other buildings surrounding the Medical Sciences building as well as its massive size made finding the source of the fire difficult for the firefighters, according to Wirth. “The fire alarm system is older and it doesn’t really function the way the newer ones would,” Wirth said. “We had to send multiple crews in and try to [find the fire]
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The country has been abuzz in recent weeks with talk of the impending sequester set to take effect Friday, but not everyone knows exactly what the sequester does or how it might affect them, or if it even will at all. This article describes the causes and potential effects of the sequester: In simple terms, the sequester is a plan that will spread approximately $85 billion in spending cuts over a wide array of federally funded programs and initiatives. The affected areas, which include defense, education and agricultural subsidies among others, are currently supported with federal discretionary spending, which
means spending is not guaranteed and generally changes with each new federal budget. Many people ask why the sequester is even necessary or why it exists. The answer, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon, is the sequester was created during debt-reduction talks in 2011, during which federal officials decided they had to implement a plan to control the rising federal debt. The sequester plan was intentionally designed to be such a bad policy that a federal committee tasked with creating debt-reduction initiatives would be forced to think of better ones. However,
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UW could see decline in research funds The National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency promoting scientific research at universities like the University of Wisconsin-Madison, could be forced to reduce the number of new research grants provided this year as a result of sequestration, according to a recent press release. According to the Feb. 27 release, the organization will undergo a 5 percent reduction in funding if the across-the-board government cuts known as the “sequester” set in Friday.
UW-Madison received more than $104 million in research funding from the agency in 2011-’12, according to the university’s data digest. NSF Director Subra Suresh said in the release the foundation plans to maintain current funding commitments. However, Suresh said the organization is predicting a decline in the number of new research grants this year by 1,000, should the sequester go into effect. CHeyenne langkamp
SSFC hears Wisconsin Union budget proposal By Megan Stoebig The Daily Cardinal
The Student Services Finance Committee heard the budget for the Wisconsin Union Thursday, which includes an increase in student segregated fee contribution for maintenance and building upkeep. The Union proposed a budget of $45,243,000 for the 2013-’14 fiscal year, requesting a 2.2 percent increase from last
year, in addition to a $5 fee per student, to address ongoing maintenance and repairs, according to SSFC Chair Ellie Bruecker. If approved, each student would contribute $7.80 to funding the organization through segregated fees. The Wisconsin Union budget is considered non-allocable funding that is part of non-academic university departments.
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Design committee begins planning for 2014 Library Mall renovations By Sarah Olson The Daily Cardinal
The State Street Design Project Committee will work with two Madison engineering firms as it moves forward with plans to revitalize the Library Mall area. The project is part of a larger plan to update State Street that has been underway since 2003, and the Library Mall area is one of the last segments to be renovated. City officials will work with Madison engineering firms MSA Professional Services, which has done other State Street Projects, and SmithGroupJJR, which worked with the University of
Wisconsin-Madison to design East Campus Mall. The committee opted to work with local firms with whom they have worked in the past due to time constraints. Chris Petykowski, a principal engineer for the city, said the city wants to sign a contract with MSA in the third week of March. He projected they will bid on a construction plan in January 2014 and construction will begin in middle to late March 2014. Although project planning is in its early stages, Petykowski said they plan to replace the storm and sanitary water sys-
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yihan Liao/the daily cardinal
Wisconsin Union Director Mark Guthier presents the 2013-’14 budget proposal, which calls for more money to come from student fees.
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”