Presidential town hall debate tonight
The second presidential debate between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is set to take place tonight at 8 p.m. CDT at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.
The debate, which will be in a town hall format and will allow audience members to ask questions, comes five days after the vice presidential debate and less than two weeks since the last presidential debate, of which many pundits and polls declared Romney the winner.
Romney supporter Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said he thinks Obama will be more aggressive this time around.
“I think President Obama is going to come out swinging,” Portman said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Obama, leading the RealClearPolitics.com average of polls by 3.1 points the day of the first debate, now trails Romney by 0.1 percentage point on average. The website has also relabeled eight states that were formerly “lean Obama” as “toss ups” since the first debate.
MUSG and the Les Aspin Center for Government are going to cosponsor a non-partisan viewing party in Johnston Hall’s jPad from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., the duration of the debate.
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Obama out-raises Romney
President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party raised about $11 million more than Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee last month, according to USA Today.
The president raised $181 million from contributions from about 1.8 million people. Mitt Romney’s campaign raised nearly $170.5 million. The campaign said 93.1 percent of its donations came in payments of $250 or less from more than one million contributors.
According to Opensecrets.org, the top three contributors to the Obama campaign are the University of California, Microsoft and Google. The top three contributors to the Romney campaign are Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to the site.
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Skydive of 24 miles sets record
Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner broke the sound barrier Sunday while making the highest jump ever.
The skydiver jumped from more than 24 miles above the earth and became the first person to travel at supersonic speed without the help of a jet or spacecraft.
Preliminary data said Baumgartner was falling at 833.9 mph, faster than the speed of sound. The 43-year-old Austrian had spectators following along on a live stream sponsored by Red Bull. He landed safely in the New Mexico desert after just more than nine minutes of falling.
Baumgartner broke the record set by Air Force Colonel Joe Kittinger, who made a 102,800 foot (19.4 mile) jump in 1960.
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MKE Archdiocese returns to court
Court-ordered mediation between the Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee and sexual abuse victims failed, forcing the two parties back to U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting.
Jeffrey Anderson, the attorney for the victims, said the victims are hoping for the disclosure of thousands of pages of documents currently under court seal and for scrutiny of the transfer of millions of dollars off the church’s books into trusts in the years before bankruptcy.
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January and faces more than a dozen civil fraud lawsuits over its handling of clergy sex abuse cases. The two sides were in the court-ordered mediation since July 20.
The archdiocese had spent about $7.2 million on attorneys and consultants for both sides as of Aug. 1.
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Japanese firm to buy stake in Sprint
Japanese telecommunications corporation Softbank will acquire 70 percent of cellphone service provider Sprint Nextel as part of a $20.1 billion deal, the two companies announced yesterday in Tokyo. The acquisition, which has yet to receive the approval of federal regulation officials, is expected to be finalized by mid-2013.
In a statement, Softbank said it would purchase $8 billion worth of newly released Sprint stock while also paying $12.1 billion to purchase existing stock from other investors.
Sprint, the nation’s third largest wireless carrier, has struggled to compete against larger carriers AT&T and Verizon since its merger with Nextel in 2005. The company has incurred $21 billion in debt while expanding its data network, which still lags behind those of its larger rivals.
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September 2012 the hottest ever
According to a report released Monday by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency, September 2012 has tied for the hottest September since recording began in 1880. Last month’s average global temperature was 1.21 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 20th-century average of 60.1 degrees Fahrenheit, a record also held by September 2005.
Despite this, southern Wisconsin experienced its first month of below-average temperatures of the year in September, ending an 11-month streak of higher temperatures. So far, 2012 has been the warmest year on record for the United States and the eighth hottest globally.