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NO DOUBT IN ROUT: LANDRY HITS 1,000 The Badgers pummel the Hawkeyes 69-52 as Landry scores his 1,000th career point
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Thursday, February 12, 2009
Doyle announces steps toward state budget fix By Nico Savidge THE DAILY CARDINAL
Gov. Jim Doyle announced Wednesday a stimulus package he hopes will decrease the state budget deficit and put Wisconsin residents to work improving infrastructure. Flanked by state Assembly Speaker Michael Sheridan, DJanesville, state Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Schofield, and other state lawmakers, Doyle unveiled legislation he said would reduce the current deficit by $700 million through cuts in government spending and through funds from the federal stimulus package.
“This bill lays some critical groundwork for getting our state’s economy back on track, and it creates a platform for putting federal stimulus dollars to work quickly and efficiently,” Doyle said. The package, which Democrats plan to introduce later in the week, would decrease government spending by $125 million and use $300 million of the federal package to create jobs on, as Doyle said, “shovel-ready transportation projects that will modernize our infrastructure.” The bill also includes a hospital tax expected to bring in $900 deficit page 4
KYLE BURSAW/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO
Madison police have been busy this past year because of an increase in violent crime throughout the city. New police data shows homicide and attack rates have been on the rise.
Data shows increase in Madison violent crime By Abby Sears THE DAILY CARDINAL
GRACE FLANNERY/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Gov. Jim Doyle, surrounded by Legislative leaders, unveils the state stimulus plan Wednesday at the state Capitol.
Doyle, lawmakers discuss state stimulus at business conference By Grace Urban THE DAILY CARDINAL
Gov. Jim Doyle and legislative leaders spoke to state business leaders Wednesday at the annual Business Day conference at the Monona Terrace about the recently proposed state stimulus plan. According to state Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Finance, the stimulus is designed to create jobs, infrastructure improvements and credit fluidity and help balance the state budget.
“We have to make sure we’re doing what the real purpose of this bill is, which is to get people to work quickly and get people to work on projects that add long-term value to the state,” Doyle said. Both Miller and state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, emphasized the necessity of bipartisanship in the current economic climate. “We agree on what we want for Wisconsin, but we disagree on how to get there,” Miller said. business page 4
Madison Police Chief Noble Wray unveiled plans to tackle domestic abuse Wednesday after newly released crime statistics revealed an increase in violent crime in Madison. The FBI compiled the data, called a Uniform Crime Report, using reported crimes throughout Madison in 2008. Compared to UCR statistics from 2007, overall crime in the city went down 1.9 percent, but violent crime increased about six percent, according to the data. Violent crime is defined as murder, forcible rape, aggravated assault and robbery. Madison saw a 42 percent increase in citywide homicides,
THE DAILY CARDINAL
UW-Madison, constrained by state and federal regulations, must provide a student’s name, address and other personal data to any company that wants it, officials said Wednesday. Some companies use the data for scams or doubtful business practices, but the university must
legally provide it if asked. The businesses must pay a processing fee, but students do have several ways to stop it from happening, said Registrar and Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Staff Joanne Berg. Berg said the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protects data such as grades, class schedule and medical history.
Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard said prosecutors handle an average of 3,000 domestic violence cases per year, but the problem often goes unnoticed by neighbors, police and the legal system when incidents are not reported. According to Kelly Wagner of Domestic Abuse Intervention Services, only one-fourth of domestic-violence incidents are reported to law-enforcement officials nationally. “We can’t let that become the background noise in the community,” Blanchard said. In Madison, Wagner said she is seeing an increase in the number of domestic-abuse victims and the crime page 3
MADISON CRIME SCALES VARY
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435
96 80
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455 359 368
330
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463 410
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3
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MURDER/MURDER BY NEGLIGENCE
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FORCIBLE RAPE
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However, information such as email address, home address, birth date, telephone number and more is considered public or “directory” information under FERPA. “A credit-card vendor, [even one] of these big national clearinghouses of student information, [if they] ask us for data page 3
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ROBBERY
SOURCE: MADISON POLICE DEPARTMENT
UW forced to give student data to questionable businesses By Charles Brace
but that figure only represents a difference of seven homicides in 2007 to 10 in 2008. “In Madison, it doesn’t take much to get an increase in homicides,” Wray said. “We’re fortunate to have very few, and we’d like to keep it that way.” In looking at data trends, police are zoning in on the aggravated assault category of violent crime, which rose about 13 percent from 2007 to 2008. For the first time, the latest batch of statistics includes a breakdown of the aggravated assaults that are related to domestic violence. According to Wray, 40 percent of aggravated assaults and 50 percent of homicides in 2008 were related to domestic violence.
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AGGRAVATED ASSAULT JAKE VICTOR/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Personal information buyouts and lists By the numbers: Students at UW-Madison: over 45,000 Students with private e-mail address: 6,335 Students with private home addresses: 3,122 Number of requests for student data in 2008: 329 Fee company must pay for data list: $90 Making your data private: Look on the website of the registrar’s office to find safeguards. Source: Office of the Registrar
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”