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Good morning.
The liberal judge Susan Crawford won the race for a seat on the Wisconsin supreme court on Tuesday in a big coup for Democrats, after Elon Musk backed the conservative candidate, making it the most expensive judicial contest in US history.
“Today Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy,” Crawford said in her victory speech. “Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price. Our courts are not for sale.” Musk and associated groups spent millions on her rival, Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general and conservative judge.
With more than 84% of the vote tallied, Crawford was ahead of Schimel by nearly 10 percentage points. Schimel accepted defeat as crowds booed.
How important is this for liberals? It’s a big win. They will retain their 4-3 ideological majority on the state supreme court, which will hear cases about abortion and collective bargaining.
How did the campaign organisers pull it off? Milwaukee reported record turnout, even running out of ballots in some polling places. Democrats said Musk’s involvement had galvanised people to get involved in grassroots efforts.
Trump to announce another tranche of sweeping tariffs
Donald Trump will announce his latest round of tariffs on Wednesday afternoon in a moment he has called “liberation day” in his trade war that has sent jitters through global markets and is proving unpopular with much of the public.
Trump has caused bitter divisions with the US’s key trading partners, most notably Canada, with his bellicose rhetoric on tariffs since taking office. He has also repeatedly delayed and rolled back plans to impose them.
The White House has said the introduction of sweeping tariffs, scheduled to be announced at 4pm ET, would be immediate, but nothing has been confirmed ahead of the speech. Trump’s press secretary said he was still “perfecting” the plan on Tuesday.
What’s on the table? Potentially reciprocal tariffs on the US’s trading partners, as well as 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico and Canada.
Which tariffs are already in force? A 20% tariff on all Chinese imports, 25% on all steel and aluminium imports, and a 10% tariff on energy imports from Canada.
Israel announces plan to seize ‘large areas’ in Gaza
Israel intends to expand its war and capture “large areas” of Gaza, the country’s defence minister has said.
<
p class=”dcr-16w5gq9″>Israel Katz said in a statement that the offensive was “expanding to crush and clean the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure and capture large areas that will be added to the security zones of the state of Israel”.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/02/first-thing-liberal-judge-beats-musk-backed-candidate-in-wisconsin-supreme-court-race
