Morning Headlines - Wednesday, Jan. 8, 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 and the end for a little humor to go with your news!

U.S. and World Headlines

Trump Won't Rule Out Military Action To Take Control Of Greenland As Son Visits

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday wouldn't rule out exercising military or economic coercion to further his goal of bringing both Greenland and the Panama Canal under U.S. control, as his son, Donald Trump Jr., is in Greenland amid Trump's push to acquire the autonomous territory of Denmark.

"I can't assure you, you're talking about Panama and Greenland," Trump told reporters during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. "No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But I can say this — we need them for economic security."

What To Know About Trump’s Calls To Make Canada The ’51st State’

President-elect Trump has doubled down on his suggestion of a merged United States and Canada in the wake of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to resign.

Some have shrugged off Trump’s suggestion that Canada should “become the 51st state” as an old joke or mere posturing, while others dismiss it as a bad political idea, given Canada’s blue leanings.

But Trump on Tuesday threatened “economic force” to annex the U.S.’s neighbor to the north. Together with talks of buying Greenland and controlling the Panama Canal, the comments suggest he’s aiming to expand U.S. power after he takes office this month.

Mortgage Rates Hit Highest Level Since July, Crushing Application Demand

Mortgage rates last week moved higher for the fourth week in a row. That caused already very weak mortgage demand to drop even further.

Total mortgage application volume fell 3.7% compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index.

An additional adjustment was made for the New Year’s holiday.

How Mark Zuckerberg Pivoted Meta To The Right

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement Tuesday that he was ending professional fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram was the culmination of months of effort to position the social media giant for the conservative pressures of a second Trump administration.

Zuckerberg, once a supporter of a handful of progressive causes, including fighting mass deportations, who repeatedly met with — and sometimes criticized — Barack Obama during his presidency, began dropping hints last summer that he was preparing to politically lean in on supporting Donald Trump, a maneuver he is now in the process of pulling off.

Record 24 Million Enroll In Affordable Care Act Health Insurance As Biden's Term Ends, White House Says

A record nearly 24 million Americans enrolled in the Affordable Care Act during the final enrollment period of the Biden administration, the White House announced Wednesday, a 9% jump from the prior year, with a week left for more to enroll.

The 2025 enrollment figure is buoyed by 3.2 million new consumers compared to last year, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services said, with 20.4 million consumers insured in 2024 selecting a plan for the new year or automatically re-enrolled. About 900,000 others did not re-enroll between 2024 and 2025, according to the figures.

Wisconsin Headlines

Susan Crawford And Brad Schimel Face Off In The 2025 Election For A Wisconsin Supreme Court Seat

The 2025 race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court is shaping up to again set national records for campaign spending and will determine the ideological control of the court for at least a year.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is retiring from the court at the end of her term, leaving an open seat that will be filled in the spring election on April 1.

Brad Schimel and Susan Crawford are the only two candidates in the race, which is technically non-partisan. Voters won’t see a D or an R by their names on the ballot, but otherwise Schimel is aligned with the Republican Party and Crawford with the Democratic Party.

Republican Lawmakers Moving To Add Wisconsin's Voter ID Requirement To The State Constitution

Republicans who control the Wisconsin Legislature are moving quickly to place a measure on the April ballot that would enshrine the state’s already strict voter ID requirement into the state constitution.

The move would make it more difficult for Democrats to soften the 14-year-old law or overturn the requirement in court. Other states have taken similar steps in recent years to put voter ID requirements in the constitution. Voters approved it in Mississippi in 2011 and North Carolina voters in 2018, while Minnesota voters rejected it in 2012.

Repeat Sex Offender Sentenced To 16 Years For Receiving Child Pornography

Timothy M. O’Shea, United States Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, announced that Joshua Sherwood, 34, of Arpin, Wisconsin, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge William M. Conley to 195 months in federal prison for receiving child pornography. This term of imprisonment will be followed by 25 years of supervised release. Sherwood pleaded guilty to this charge on November 4, 2024.

Shortly after being released from state prison for possessing child pornography, Sherwood began reaching out to minor girls across the country, manipulating them into producing sexually explicit images for him by sending them money and items from their Amazon wish lists. When the girls refused to send him additional explicit images, he threatened to either send the images he had to the victims’ parents or to kill himself.

Packers Notify Customers Of Data Breach On Pro Shop Website

The Green Bay Packers are reporting a data breach on the team's pro shop website.

The team says hackers got into the website's database and inserted malicious code, but it was detected and removed the same day.

Some customers who used a debit or credit card on the pro shop website from late September through most of October could be impacted.

New Survey Shows Wisconsin Parents Struggle To Understand Public School Systems

Wisconsin parents are overestimating how well their children are doing in school while underestimating how much money school districts have to spend on education, according to a new national survey.

The State of Educational Opportunity in Wisconsin study was conducted by 50Can, a Washington D.C.-based non-partisan educational organization that surveyed 20,000 parents.

In Wisconsin, the group partnered with the conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. About 400 parents and guardians of school-aged children across the state were surveyed between July 8 and Aug. 22, 2024.