MC News

The last few months have not been kind to high-profile athletes. Lance Armstrong, Oscar Pistorius, Suzy Favor Hamilton — all have taken big falls. The collapse of such once-storied athletes has been painful to watch and has led to increased scrutiny and skepticism of anything said by athletes, said Casey FitzRandolph, a three-time Olympian and 2002 gold medalist in 500-meter speed skating. Read more of this story.

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The phone call came unexpectedly three months ago to Joe Schoeneman, a town of Oregon man whose kidneys were failing due to a heredity disorder. “Well, I’m just going to get right to it,” the caller said. “I had myself checked. I’m a match.” Schoeneman couldn’t believe it. He’d spent more than a year waiting for a kidney on a national transplant list, to no avail. Now, out of the blue, someone he barely knew had just offered him one of his. The caller was Paul Sever, 52, a retired deputy U.S. marshal who lives in the village of Oregon,…

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(Madison, WI) — The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has announced a briefing focused on reconciling non-discrimination policies with religious liberties. Staff and students of Madison-based InterVarsity Christian Fellowship have been invited to submit statements on incidents where universities have attempted to restrict the religious liberties of student groups in the name of non-discrimination.

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MONONA — A stop at the St. Stephen’s Food Pantry is designed to resemble a trip to the grocery store. There are shopping carts, shelves of baked goods, bags of dried pasta and cans of mandarin oranges (one of the pantry’s most popular items). There are steaks, whole chickens, and soon, catfish fillets. Two adjoining tables offer pastries from Piggly Wiggly or the nearby Copps. St. Stephen’s, located in St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Monona, is one of the larger of the county’s 45 food pantries. Read more of this story.

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A pair of development proposals can move forward despite attempts from neighbors to sway the Madison City Council’s opinion. Council members on Tuesday denied 16-1 an appeal from neighbors to rescind a conditional use permit granted to Care Net Pregnancy Center of Dane County, which wants to build a $6.4 million, 36-unit, mixed-income housing project at 1360 MacArthur Road. Read more of this story.

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FEW LIBERAL DEMOCRATS of President Obama’s first term possessed as much power and political savvy as former congressman David Obey. In the secular political world, he was the principal architect of the federal stimulus package, and he chaired the session of Congress that voted to enact the controversial health-care plan known as “Obamacare.” Perhaps less well known in that secular political world is that Obey believed his actions were rooted not in secular political philosophy but in the religious traditions of his native Wisconsin. He encountered this tradition growing up in a Roman Catholic parish in Wausau and reaffirmed it…

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