Morning Headlines - Thursday, Sep. 10, 2026

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 Promises $5,000 Payment To US Adults If GOP Wins Midterms

President Donald Trump promised to give every American adult a $5,000 'dividend' if Republicans hold both chambers of Congress in November.

He made the pledge at the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas on Wednesday evening.

'If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000,' Trump stated on stage as more than 21,000 attendees looked on. 'It will be called the Trump Dividend.'

He likened the payments to a corporation's distributions to shareholders, citing 'our tremendous strength and success economically.'

CBS News Poll: 25 Years After 9/11, Most See A Changed Country And Some Success Fighting Terrorism

Twenty-five years later, Americans view the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as a defining event — one that fundamentally changed the country and that needs to be remembered.

As people look back, they see a different country today in some ways. Most feel there is less unity now than at the time of the attacks, though many think that the U.S. would unify as it did 25 years ago if another terror attack from overseas were to happen today.

Global Temperatures Hit Record Highs As El Niño Strengthens: Report

Global temperatures are once again reaching new records as potentially historic El Niño conditions continue to unfold across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, according to a report released Wednesday.

Last month was the warmest August on record globally, surpassing 2023 and 2024, according to new data analyzed by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). The planet's average surface air temperature was 62.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Public Anger Over AI Boom Triggers GOP Midterm Worries

The spread of Flock cameras and AI data centers have become big issues in the midterm elections, with lawmakers calling for curbs on Flock’s surveillance network and more than 700 candidates mentioning data centers in their political ads, according to a recent study.

Republicans acknowledge the growth of AI-related technology, and the massive data centers needed to run it have become a liability for their party.

A growing number of GOP lawmakers are speaking out against Flock’s surveillance network, and more are joining Democrats in calling for guardrails on artificial intelligence.

iPhone Duo: The 5 Most Important Things You Need To Know

After years of rumors, leaks, and speculation, the folding iPhone is finally here. This project has been reported on for so long that our first article about it dates to 2018! Its name is iPhone Duo—not iPhone Ultra as previously expected—and there will be a lot to say about it over the coming weeks before and after its release on October 23.

But for now, here are the five most important things you need to know about iPhone Duo.

Wisconsin Headlines

Elections Commission Finds Former Green Bay Clerk Broke State Law By Sending Duplicate Absentee Ballots

The state Elections Commission today unanimously found the former Green Bay clerk broke state law by sending duplicate ballots to voters in back-to-back elections and abused her discretion.

The commissioners also agreed to take no further action after the Milwaukee Election Commission provided an explanation on how it mistakenly downloaded audit log reports from five tabulators at central count during the Aug. 11 primary rather than the unofficial results from the absentee ballots tallied there.

GOP Chair Don Millis said during a virtual meeting this morning that his feeling was “we should let it lay” on the Milwaukee issue unless someone files a complaint with the commission.

Wisconsin Lawmakers Weigh AI Regulation In Healthcare

Lawmakers, doctors and AI experts met at the Wisconsin State Capitol to discuss whether and how artificial intelligence should be regulated in healthcare settings.

The United States does not have a national law to protect data privacy, compared with 144 other countries, according to Jordan Francis, senior policy counsel for U.S. legislation at the Future of Privacy Forum, a non-profit focused on data protection, who spoke at the hearing.

Tiffany, Crowley Aligned On Removing Federal Protections For Wolves In Wisconsin

In the race for Wisconsin’s governor, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and his Democratic opponent Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley share rare common ground on delisting wolves in Wisconsin.

On Friday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to begin the process of delisting or downlisting wolves under the Endangered Species Act within 90 days if recovery criteria are met. In 2020, the Trump administration delisted the wolf before a federal judge later restored federal protections two years later.

There are more than 4,000 wolves in the western Great Lakes region that includes Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources estimates the state has 1,162 wolves, which is down 5 percent from last year. The state once had as many as 5,000 wolves before a bounty on the species caused them to be hunted to near extinction by the 1950s.

Kaul Calls For Lawmakers To Enact Flock Camera Guardrails

AG Josh Kaul called for state lawmakers to pass guardrails on law enforcement agencies’ use of Flock cameras.

Speaking at a Milwaukee Press Club-WisPolitics-Milwaukee Rotary luncheon Tuesday, Kaul said standards for how police can use the automated license plate readers would set clear expectations for the public on their use and keep them from being used for “dragnet general surveillance.”

“There hasn’t been the kind of robust discussion or debate in the public forum where it should be happening, which is in our Legislature,” Kaul said. 

He suggested that include regular audits of the system’s usage and limiting the number of officials that can access the system and types of cases for which the cameras could be used.

Popular Wisconsin Zoo Gives Update On Various Lawsuits, Legal Battles

Shalom Wildlife Sanctuary provided supporters with an update of their ongoing legal efforts and the major progress on them.

The zoo has been in a series of legal troubles, the biggest one being a recently dismissed lawsuit filed by We Love Farmington that aimed to halt the zoo's expansion by challenging a conditional use permit—a move the owners say was really a front for wanting a shutdown of the zoo's operations entirely.