Morning Headlines - Friday, Nov. 14, 2025

Start your day informed with today’s must-read headlines from around Wisconsin and the world. And don’t forget to check out our Meme of the Day at the end for a little humor to go with your news!

U.S. and World Headlines

Top Officials Present Trump With Military Options For Venezuela In Coming Days

Senior military officials on Wednesday presented President Trump with updated options for potential operations in Venezuela, including strikes on land, according to multiple sources familiar with the meetings at the White House.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine and other senior officials briefed the president on military options for the coming days, the sources said.

Senate GOP Deeply Divided Over Next Steps On Rising Health Care Costs

Senate Republicans are deeply divided over how to handle rising health insurance premiums now that the longest government shutdown in American history is over.

Negotiations between a group of 10 to 12 Republicans and Democrats led by retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) gained momentum last week, but many GOP senators are staunchly opposed to extending premium subsidies and view the ObamaCare marketplaces as unsalvageable.

Google Says Group Behind E-Zpass, USPS Text Scam Has Been ‘Shut Down’ After Suit

Google said it has disrupted the foreign cybercriminal group behind a text scam operation within 24 hours of filing its lawsuit.

The crime syndicate is responsible for a massive SMS phishing, or “smishing,” operation that Google said would fake E-ZPass and U.S. Postal Service messages.

Telegram messages provided by Google and purportedly from the group’s ringleader said that the “cloud server has been blocked.”

Avian Flu Wipes Out Nearly Half Of Breeding Elephant Seals At World’s Largest Colony

The beaches of South Georgia, a remote splinter of ice and rock in the South Atlantic, should be a place of deafening, chaotic life. Normally, the shores host the planet’s largest gathering of southern elephant seals, Mirounga leonina. They are the largest seals on Earth, and they come by the tens of thousands to fight, to mate, and to give birth.

In 2024, that cacophony was replaced by a chilling quiet.

A new study that used high-tech drones to survey these breeding grounds has delivered a staggering verdict. In the wake of the arrival of the deadly H5N1 avian flu, the number of breeding female elephant seals at the island’s three largest colonies has plummeted by an average of 47%.

Red Dead Redemption Coming To Netflix, iOS, Android, PS5, Xbox Series, And Nintendo Switch 2

On December 2, the epic Western adventures Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare will be available for the latest mobile devices and on current generation consoles — with free upgrades, the ability to carry over game progress, and a number of enhancements.

Step into the events immediately following the blockbuster Red Dead Redemption 2, in the critically acclaimed tale of John Marston’s journey to bury his blood-stained past. In its zombie-horror companion Undead Nightmare, fight to find a cure for the zombie plague that has overrun the frontier. All these new versions feature the complete single-player experiences of both games, and also include bonus content from the Game of the Year Edition.

Wisconsin Headlines

Anthropic, Microsoft Announce New AI Data Center Projects As Construction Continues

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced a $50 billion investment in computing infrastructure on Nov. 12 that will include new data centers in Texas and New York.

Microsoft also on Nov. 12 announced a new data center under construction in Atlanta, Georgia, describing it as connected to another in Wisconsin to form a “massive supercomputer” running on hundreds of thousands of Nvidia chips to power AI technology.

Wisconsin's Bellwether: The Role Sauk County Will Play In Next Year's Race For Governor

Wisconsin is known for being a very purple state. Democrat Barack Obama won the state in 2008, and, two years later, voters elected Republican Scott Walker as governor.

Despite being so closely divided, some parts of the state are strongholds for each party. Dane County is reliably blue, and the Northwoods is deep red. But one county isn't as easy to categorize because it frequently flips between supporting Democrats and supporting Republicans.

In the past 10 gubernatorial elections, voters in Sauk County picked the statewide winner nine times.

Weighting Criteria, Not Cut Scores, Masking Underachievement In Wisconsin Schools

How the new “cut scores” impacted Wisconsin’s 2024-25 school and district report cards was a top question in political circles after DPI released the data on Tuesday this week.

The cut scores determine which rating category schools and districts fall under, using a five-star scale. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) revised the cut scores this past August, and there was wide speculation that the revisions would result in schools and districts receiving higher ratings. A MacIver analysis found the opposite happened.

Wisconsin's Affordable Housing Programs: The 2025 Housing Package

A slew of bills were introduced in the Wisconsin legislature just a few weeks ago as part of a housing package aimed at addressing Wisconsin's housing crisis.

12 bills in all, the proposed legislation runs the gamut: from modifying WHEDA's lending and the creation of a new loan program; to rezoning and building code adjustments; from changes to occupancy rules and the allowance for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs); to the expansion of TIF districts and changes to tax crediting.

But the bottom line is this: the majority of these bills do very little to tackle the root cause of housing un-affordability. In fact, many of these bills exacerbate the problem by looking, instead, to what will benefit local units of government at the expense of current and would-be homeowners.

As we have said before, the problem with housing is not access to capital or elevated prices per se, it is due to a lack of all types of housing in places where people want to live.

Bill To Address Farm Veterinarian Shortage Would Offer New Grads Loan Repayment

A bipartisan group of state lawmakers hopes to motivate new veterinarians to work with the state’s rural farms by offering student loan repayment.

The bill would allow recently-graduated veterinarians to receive a $25,000 grant to repay their student loans for each year they practice in a rural county, up to four years. Recipients are required to spend at least 25 percent of their time treating farm animals.