Morning Headlines - Thursday, Mar. 27, 2025 | Recent News

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

Trump Announces 25% Tariffs On Foreign-Made Cars

President Trump on Wednesday said he will put a 25% tariff on automobiles and light trucks imported into the U.S., escalating his administration's use of aggressive trade measures in an effort to boost domestic manufacturers.

"This will continue to spur growth like you haven't seen before," Mr. Trump said from the Oval Office Wednesday afternoon. "We'll effectively be charging a 25% tariff. But if you build your car in the United States, there is no tariff."

Mr. Trump said the new auto tariffs will take effect on April 2 and that the U.S. would start collecting the duties the following day. The president added he believes the new import duty could raise between $600 billion and $1 trillion in revenue for the U.S. over the next two years.

Former Intel Officials Not Buying White House Dismissals Of Signal Chat Risks

The White House doubled down Wednesday on its insistence that its top national security officials did nothing wrong when they discussed a pending military strike in Yemen over a commercial messaging app known as Signal.

Former military and intelligence officials, though, say there's little doubt such exchanges never should have happened that way and warned that U.S. troops could have been put at risk.

Here's what to know about White House claims on the Signal flap:

5 Takeaways From House Hearing On NPR, PBS

The heads of the nation’s top public broadcasters faced an intense grilling from lawmakers Wednesday on Capitol Hill over their outlets’ funding and editorial objectivity.

The House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing came as Republicans and allies of President Trump have assailed public media organizations NPR and PBS as too liberal in news coverage, while the broadcast networks have come under heavy scrutiny from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over their journalism and fundraising practices.

Here are five takeaways from the hearing.

Scientists Record First Known Shark Sounds

Thanks to Jaws’ pulse-pounding theme, sharks are synonymous with a spine-chilling sound. In reality, they silently swim and scarf down prey without making a peep—until now, that is.

These fish have just broken their silence. A team of researchers recently recorded sharks of one species making short, high-frequency clicks when the animals were handled underwater.

The Big Bats And Live Arms Poised To Dictate The 2025 MLB Season

The 2025 Major League Baseball season is here, kicking off a six-month regular season running from Opening Day through the dog days of summer and into the postseason.

Such a long season affords any number of storylines to follow. Here are 10 players who could become the most interesting to watch:

Wisconsin Provides A Critical Test For Democrats' Anti-Elon Musk Playbook

Next week’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race is emerging as the first big test of Democrats’ anti-Elon Musk strategy as the party searches for a winning message following its loss to President Donald Trump last November.

Trump’s billionaire adviser has been a major player in the technically nonpartisan judicial race: Musk’s super PAC has emerged as the top spender in the contest and has offered $100 to Wisconsin voters to sign a petition to oppose “activist judges,” while he often posts about the election on his X feed.

Despite SCOTUS Ruling, 'Ghost Guns' Still Pose A Challenge To Law Enforcement

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld federal regulations on privately-made firearms, also known as ‘ghost guns.’ Those are self-assembled firearm kits that produce untraceable weapons.

The justices ruled in a 7-2 decision, explaining that regulations requiring ghost gun makers to include serial numbers on kits and perform background checks on people buying them are acceptable. The court's opinion acknowledges the recent problems ghost guns have caused for law enforcement agencies nationwide.

Though, there are still ghost guns circulating without identifiers. Because some don't have serial numbers, they're nearly impossible for police to trace.

“We can’t stop the flow of them because we don’t know where they come from,” said Madison Police Detective Nick Cleary.

Nearly 408K Absentee Ballots Cast Ahead Of Election With Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

Nearly 408,000 people have already cast their ballots ahead of next week’s election, which includes the high-profile Wisconsin Supreme Court race. The number of people choosing early, in-person voting is nearly double what it was during the state’s last Supreme Court race — with Waukesha County currently leading Milwaukee and Dane counties in early votes.

As of Tuesday, clerks across Wisconsin had received about 140,000 more absentee ballots than they did ahead of the 2023 state Supreme Court election, according to data from the state’s elections commission. That works out to an increase of more than 52 percent year to year.

Building Commission Deadlocks On Evers’ $4.3 Billion Capital Budget

The state Building Commission again deadlocked on the Gov. Tony Evers’ capital budget, sending it to the GOP-run Joint Finance Committee with no recommendation as Republican lawmakers argued more discussion was needed.

Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, told Evers at the outset of yesterday’s meeting that a lot of worthy projects had been proposed. But she raised concerns about the more than $3.8 billion in new bonding he had proposed, noting it was more than what the Legislature had approved in the past five capital budgets combined.

“I think to get to a more appropriate level, further discussion is needed, and we need to hear from stakeholders and the public, and that just hasn’t happened,” Felzkowski said.

Report: Charter Schools Outperform Public Schools

There’s another report that shows the success of school choice in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on Wednesday released its Apples to Apples report on charter and public school performance.

“Demographic factors have historically played a significant role in student performance. Any honest assessment of how schools and school sectors are performing must take these factors into account. However, much of the existing reporting on school performance ignores this reality,” the report states.

WILL said the idea is to compare counterpart schools, and “put schools on a level playing field to fairly assess education.”