Grateful dog owner thanks UW vet school with multimillion dollar Super Bowl ad buy

UW-Madison will make its Super Bowl debut thanks to a canine cancer survivor and his appreciative owner.

A 30-second commercial featuring UW-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine will air Sunday during the game’s second quarter. WeatherTech, an automotive accessories, home and pet care products manufacturer, is footing the $6 million bill and also supplying the star talent — company founder and CEO David MacNeil’s dog, Scout.

The ad has all of the elements needed for an uplifting, feel-good commercial: a furry friend confronted with a grim diagnosis, hard-working heroes, a happy ending and a plug to donate to the cause...

Wisconsin officials confirm nearly 2,700 new COVID-19 cases

Wisconsin health officials on Sunday confirmed 2,676 new positive tests of the coronavirus, lifting the number of cases over the weekend to more than 5,400 and the overall total to more than 150,000.

More than 50,000 new cases have been confirmed in the last three weeks, according to Wisconsin Department of Health Services data.

The update shows that about 29,000 of the cases, or more than 19% of the total, remain active. Officials confirmed seven more deaths in the last day, for a total of 1,465 since the pandemic began.

The state reached a new all-time high in its seven-day average of the percent of positive tests at 18.6%, officials said. Hospitalizations rose by 79 in the last day...

Matthew McConaughey Wrote the Book on Matthew McConaughey

In his memoir, "Greenlights", the star of "Dazed and Confused" and "Dallas Buyers Club" shares lessons from a life in which he turned out all right, all right, all right.

For the Navajo Nation, ‘Everything Takes Time,’ Including Voting

Post offices are few and far between on the reservation, and mail can take a week and a half to reach the county seat. In this year’s election, that has more profound implications than ever before.

Fires on Slopes of Kilimanjaro Threaten a Diverse Ecosystem

As fires swept up the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain, for the fifth day on Thursday, hundreds of volunteers from local villages joined firefighters racing to stop a blaze threatening to ravage one of the world’s richest and most diverse ecosystems.

The fires, which first started to burn at a rest stop for climbers, have been raging for five days with dry grass and strong winds hampering efforts to bring the flames under control.

“This devastating fire is cutting through the most prestigious natural space in the whole of Tanzania,” Padili Mikomangwa, an environmentalist based in the port city of Dar es Salaam, said in a telephone interview. “The nation at large is following this seriously and shocked.”

Nearly Half of the U.S. Is in Drought. It May Get Worse.

The most widespread drought in the continental United States since 2013 covers more than 45 percent of the Lower 48 states, federal scientists said.

Nearly half of the continental United States is gripped by drought, government forecasters said Thursday, and conditions are expected to worsen this winter across much of the Southwest and South.

Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said a lack of late-summer rain in the Southwest had expanded “extreme and exceptional” dry conditions from West Texas into Colorado and Utah, “with significant drought also prevailing westward through Nevada, Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.”

With Nowhere to Go, Teens Flock to Among Us

When an indie game company created Among Us in 2018, it was greeted with little fanfare. The multiplayer game remained under the radar as many games do — until the summer of the pandemic.

Eager to keep viewers entertained during quarantine, Chance Morris, known online as Sodapoppin, began streaming the game, created by InnerSloth, to his 2.8 million followers on Twitch in July.

By mid-September, Among Us caught on like wildfire. Suddenly major YouTube stars, TikTok influencers and streamers were playing it. PewDiePie, James Charles and Dr. Lupo have all played the game for millions.