Examiner staff at the Milwaukee Press Club Awards dinner on Friday, May 8. Left to right: Frank Zufall, Andrew Kennard, Henry Redman, Isiah Holmes, Baylor Spears, Ruth Conniff and Erik Gunn
The staff of the Wisconsin Examiner won 12 Milwaukee Press Club Awards for Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism in the online category Friday evening.
Editor Ruth Conniff took first place for Best Multi-story Coverage of a Single Feature Topic or Event for her series, Midwest-Mexico Connections on Mexican farmworkers and Wisconsin dairy farmers.
Deputy Editor Erik Gunn won the first place award for Best Long Hard Feature Story for his piece Wisconsin legislators pause to remember former colleague Jonathan Brostoff
Isiah Holmes took home the first-place gold award in the Best Investigative Story or Series category for How the Milwaukee Investigative Team protects officers when investigating police shootings.
Top honors went to Baylor Spears for Best Coverage of a Single News Topic or Event for her series about public schools and the struggle over Wisconsin’s budget. Spears also took first place in the Best Short Hard Feature Story category for ‘What is the bar?’: Wisconsin Legislature divided as it passes resolution honoring Charlie Kirk.
Criminal Justice Fellows Andrew Kennard and Frank Zufall won gold in the Best Public Service Story category for Shredding of legal mail by Wisconsin prisons worries advocates
Conniff also won the second-place silver award for Best Single Editorial, Statement of Editorial Position or Opinion for her column We need a populist, pro-democracy movement, not more gerrymandering, and third place for Best Columnist for her 2025 columns.
Gunn won third place in the Best Short Hard Feature Story category for People with autism and their families find Trump-Kennedy autism message harmful and wrong.
Holmes won the the second-place silver award for Best Long Soft Feature Story for UW psilocybin study gives man second chance after 10-year opioid addiction and the bronze award in the Best Explanatory Story or Series category for Biodiversity in Wisconsin amidst the 6th great mass extinction.
Spears won bronze for her Best Short Soft Feature Story Wisconsin Democrats want to say ‘Bye Bye Baby’ to unfair ticket selling practices and another bronze award for Best Coverage of a Single News Topic or Event, including Breaking News for a series of stories over five months about the defunding of a Wisconsin veterans housing program, and the conflicting attempts to revive that funding.
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UW-Superior Chancellor Renée Wachter was named as the interim president of the UW system on Friday. (Photo courtesy of UW system)
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents president appointed UW-Superior Chancellor Renée Wachter as the interim president of the UW system on Friday, about a month after firing the previous president.
Wachter has served as the 10th chancellor of UW-Superior since 2011, making her the longest-serving chancellor in the system. Effective May 18 she will serve as the UW system interim president.
Board President Amy Bogost said in a statement that Wachter “knows our universities, our communities and the challenges and opportunities facing public higher education in Wisconsin.”
“She has earned the trust and respect of colleagues across the system through steady leadership and a collaborative approach. At a time when continuity, focus, and forward momentum are essential, the Board is confident she understands what must be done to support our universities during this transition,” Bogost said.
Prior to her tenure at UW-Superior, Wachter served as the Dean of the School of Business at Truman State University in Missouri.
The Board of Regents decision to fire Jay Rothman, who had served as president since 2022, on April 7 came as a surprise and led to criticism from Rothman, who said he wasn’t given a reason for the termination, and from Republican lawmakers. Regents said, however, that they were dissatisfied with Rothman’s leadership, especially as he moved too slowly to act on issues including artificial intelligence, and had communicated their concerns with him during his review process.
Bogost said that the next president must “bring the courage, discipline, and forward-looking leadership needed to guide the Universities of Wisconsin through one of the most consequential periods in higher education.”
The Board also announced the 25-member Presidential Search Committee that will conduct a nationwide search for the next permanent president. The last time there was a retirement from the position the search for a UW system president lasted for nearly three years.
The committee will be led by Regent Ashok Rai, and it is expected that a president will be selected later this year.
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The Supreme Court of Virginia in Richmond on April 27, 2026. (Photo by Samantha Willis/Virginia Mercury)
The Supreme Court of Virginia on Friday struck down the voter-approved redistricting amendment, upholding a lower court ruling that had declared the measure unconstitutional less than 24 hours after last week’s special election and briefly halted its implementation. State Democrats later said they would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The high court found that the amendment itself was flawed because lawmakers approved the proposal after voting had already started in the 2025 House of Delegates elections, depriving more than 1.3 million Virginians of an opportunity to weigh the issue when choosing their representatives.
Virginia voters back redistricting amendment after months of legal and political battles
The 4-3 ruling leaves the state’s current congressional districts — which give Democrats a 6-5 advantage — in place throughout the 2026 midterm election and the rest of the decade, instead of proposed districts that Democrats believed could produce a 10-1 advantage.
The decision affirms the ruling by a Tazewell County judge who had blocked the amendment, siding with Republican challengers who argued the General Assembly failed to follow required constitutional procedures.
In the opinion, the justices said Article XII, Section 1 of Virginia’s constitution requires “an intervening general election” between the legislature’s first and second approvals of a constitutional amendment so voters can evaluate candidates based on their stance on the proposal.
“The purpose of Article XII, Section 1 is to give voters the opportunity to participate in the process of amending their Constitution,” Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote for the majority. “The commonwealth in this case … ended up denying over 1.3 million Virginians their constitutional right to have a voice in the debate over whether their Constitution should be amended.”
State Sen. Ryan T. McDougle, R-Hanover, the Senate Republican leader and one of the appellees in the case, praised the ruling as a reaffirmation of Virginia’s constitutional process.
“The Supreme Court ruling today affirms what we all know: you cannot violate the Constitution to change the Constitution,” McDougle said in a statement. He added that the decision showed “even the General Assembly must follow the law.”
McDougle called the ruling “not a partisan one — it is a constitutional one” and said “every Virginian wins.”
House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, another appellee, praised the decision as a reaffirmation that constitutional amendment procedures must be strictly followed regardless of political considerations.
“Today’s ruling establishes once again that the Constitution of Virginia means what it says,” Kilgore said in a statement.
“The rule of law requires that Virginians have an opportunity to review a constitutional amendment before they vote for the House of Delegates in a meaningful way. You cannot violate the constitution to amend the constitution.”
And Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican National Committee, which had filed an amicus brief in the case and brought a similar challenge, accused Democrats of trying to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts for political advantage ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“Democrats just learned that when you try to rig elections, you lose,” Gruters said in a statement. “Today, the Virginia Supreme Court sided with the rule of law and struck down Democrats’ unconstitutional maps.”
Gruters said the RNC had “led the charge in court against this blatant power grab” and accused Democrats of spending “more than $66 million into an effort to lock in control and silence voters.”
Meanwhile, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones criticized the ruling and said the state is still considering its legal options.
“Today the Supreme Court of Virginia has chosen to put politics over the rule of law by issuing a ruling that overturns the April 21 special election on redistricting,” Jones said in a statement. “This decision silences the voices of the millions of Virginians who cast their ballots in every corner of the commonwealth.”
Jones defended the amendment process as “timely, constitutionally-compliant, and legally sound,” and accused the court’s Republican-appointed majority of “contort[ing] the plain language of the Constitution and Code of Virginia.”
He said his office is “evaluating every legal pathway forward to defend the will of the people and protect the integrity of Virginia’s elections.”
By Friday afternoon, state Democrats made a filing asking the high court to delay enforcing its ruling, suggesting they would pursue an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
“Appellants and the Commonwealth intend to file an emergency petition to the Supreme Court of the United States,” the court document read.
But Carl Tobias, a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond, said an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States would face significant practical and legal obstacles, particularly this late in the court’s term and so close to the 2026 elections.
“It is very late in the SCOTUS term for the U.S. Supreme Court justices to give an appeal a full-dress treatment, and the justices are often reluctant to rule on voting disputes as elections approach,” Tobias said.
“However, this is an important case, so it may be possible that SCOTUS would entertain an appeal.” He added that the nation’s highest court “may also be reluctant to second guess the interpretation of Virginia’s Constitution by a 4-3 majority of the Virginia Supreme Court justices.”
The court’s decision comes twelve days after justices heard oral arguments in the case, pressing attorneys on whether lawmakers complied with constitutional requirements governing amendments.
At issue was whether Democrats had lawfully advanced the amendment through the required legislative process before sending it to voters.
The case focused on disputes over whether there was a valid intervening General Election between legislative approvals, whether the public received the required notice ahead of the November election, and whether the amendment could legally be taken up during a special session initially called to address changes to the state budget.
During arguments, Justice Wesley G. Russell Jr. questioned both sides closely, probing the limits of legislative authority and whether alleged procedural defects should invalidate the measure already approved by the voters.
The morning after the hearing, the court denied a request by the Virginia Department of Elections to stay Tazewell County’s April 22 order while it continued to consider the case.
House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, one of the chief architects of the amendment, said Friday that while he respects the court’s decision, the referendum still reflected the will of millions of Virginians who backed the measure at the ballot box.
“Three million people voted in a free and fair election,” Scott said in a statement. “We gave this decision to the voters — exactly where it belongs — and they spoke loud and clear.”
He added that supporters would “keep fighting for a democracy where voters — not politicians — have the final say.”
President Donald Trump weighed in on his Truth Social network, calling the ruling a “Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia.”
GOP challenges test limits of amendment process
The lawsuit was filed in October by Republican lawmakers and a member of Virginia’s redistricting commission. Plaintiffs included state Sens. Ryan McDougle of Hanover and Bill Stanley of Franklin, Del. Terry Kilgore of Scott, and Commissioner Virginia Trost Thornton.
They argued that the legislature overstepped its authority and failed to follow the constitutionally mandated process, which requires amendments to pass the General Assembly twice with an intervening General Election before going to voters.
Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack C. Hurley agreed in January, ruling that the amendment process was flawed.
The state appealed, and while the Supreme Court allowed the referendum to proceed ahead of the April 21 vote, it did not immediately resolve the underlying legal questions, setting the stage for a post-election hearing and this week’s decision.
The case has drawn national attention as both parties look ahead to the 2026 midterms, when control of the U.S. House could come down to a small number of competitive districts.
Virginia’s attempt to redraw congressional districts outside the normal post-census cycle became part of a broader national push by both parties to revisit House maps ahead of the midterms. The effort gained momentum after Trump encouraged Republican-led states, beginning with Texas, to pursue similar redistricting moves.
The lower court’s ruling April 22 briefly halted those plans in Virginia.
Hurley found lawmakers exceeded the scope of the special session in which the amendment was first introduced, failed to meet public notice requirements and did not properly satisfy the intervening election requirement.
Friday’s ruling from the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed that decision, although it remains unclear if the ruling will be viewed as a precedent for two related cases currently moving through the court system, or whether these cases will be taken up separately by the high court.
David Richards, a political science professor at the University of Lynchburg, said the ruling represents both a political blow to Democrats and a broader affirmation that constitutional procedures still matter, regardless of the political stakes involved.
“The Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling today is an obvious setback for the Democrats, but it is also a win for making the state government pay closer attention to the rules,” Richards said.
“The whole referendum was hastily put together, and this is the result we get — so much time and money wasted in an effort to work around the rules and a districting system that the voters had just approved a few years earlier.”
He added that while “it may not be the outcome some people wanted,” the court “was right not to give in to pressure and instead soberly look at the process.”
From late-October push to legal showdown
The redistricting battle began on Oct. 27, just days before the Nov. 4 state elections, when Democratic lawmakers introduced a constitutional amendment during a special session of the General Assembly that would allow congressional districts to be redrawn outside of the once-in-a-decade redistricting cycle tied to the census.
The proposal immediately sparked partisan fights over both the timing of the amendment and Democrats’ push to redraw Virginia’s congressional map ahead of the midterms.
The House advanced the proposal the next day, and the Senate approved it on Oct. 31 along party lines, pushing it forward as required by the multi-step constitutional process, which required the amendment to pass again in a subsequent session.
When lawmakers returned to Richmond in January, they approved the legislation a second time, but the measure soon became entangled in legal challenges.
After Hurley first ruled the amendment invalid, the Supreme Court of Virginia intervened, allowing the referendum to proceed despite the lower court ruling. At the time, justices made clear they were not resolving the broader legal questions, only ensuring that voters would have the opportunity to weigh in.
The court’s earlier decision to allow the referendum onto the ballot led many legal observers to believe the amendment would likely survive if voters approved it.
As the legal fight continued, Democrats began outlining what the new congressional districts would look like. A proposed map released in early February that would likely favor them in most of Virginia’s 11 districts.
Republicans escalated their opposition soon after, filing additional legal challenges and seeking to block the vote. A temporary restraining order by the Tazewell County court applied locally, but the Supreme Court again stepped in to stay that order, allowing the referendum to proceed statewide.
Heated campaigns culminate in close final margin
The fight over the amendment intensified in the weeks leading up to the vote.
Outside groups backing both sides poured millions of dollars into the campaign in March, flooding voters with ads and mailers. Some of the messaging drew criticism for using civil rights-era imagery.
Civil rights imagery in anti-redistricting mailers draws outrage in Virginia
Both parties expanded outreach efforts as early voting data showed strong turnout in Republican-leaning parts of the state, making the final outcome harder to predict.
In the final days of the campaign, Gov. Abigail Spanberger ramped up her public support for the amendment while former Gov. Glenn Youngkin urged voters to reject the measure and continued pressing the courts to block the measure.
Spanberger said Friday she was disappointed by the ruling but emphasized that voters will still ultimately decide the balance of political power in the 2026 midterm elections.
“More than three million Virginians cast their ballots in Virginia’s redistricting referendum, and the majority of Virginia voters voted to push back against a president who said he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress with a temporary and responsive referendum,” Spanberger said in a statement. “They made their voices heard.”
She added that while she disagreed with the court’s decision, her administration’s focus would now shift toward voter participation in the upcoming elections.
Voters ultimately approved the amendment by roughly three percentage points April 21, before the dispute returned to the Supreme Court.
With the Supreme Court’s decision now in place, the new congressional maps will not take effect, leaving Virginia’s current districts in place until a previously passed amendment requires the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission to draw new maps following the 2030 census.
Editor’s note: This is a breaking news story that will be updated as more information becomes available.
This story was originally produced by Virginia Mercury, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
The U.S. Department of Education on Feb. 20, 2026. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The federal student loan system is set to see a dramatic overhaul beginning this summer, and critics warn it likely will make loans more expensive and difficult to obtain for borrowers — driving them to private lenders or altering their plans for higher education.
Among the major changes are new loan limits for graduate and professional students, a restructured repayment system where new borrowers will have only two plans to choose from and the elimination of a key loan program for graduate and professional students that allowed for unlimited borrowing.
The provisions — most of which will take effect July 1 — stem from congressional Republicans’ mega tax and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last year.
The U.S. Department of Education finalized regulations, published May 1, that implement sweeping changes outlined in the GOP’s “big, beautiful” law. The department received more than 80,000 public comments before the rule was finalized.
Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said that “at a high level,” the reforms center on “lowering the cost of college, simplifying student loan repayment and restoring accountability to the federal student lending system,” during an April 30 call with reporters regarding the new regulations.
The average federal student loan debt balance stands at $39,547, according to the Education Data Initiative.
As July 1 approaches, here’s a closer look at some of the biggest changes coming to the federal student loan system:
The Grad PLUS program, which allowed for graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance, will soon be eliminated under the package and unavailable for new borrowers.
“If you are currently borrowing Grad PLUS loans, so you borrowed Grad PLUS loans before July 1, you will be allowed to continue using Grad PLUS until you finish your program, or until three years have expired, basically whichever is sooner,” said Preston Cooper, senior fellow in higher education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.
“Current students are grandfathered in — it will only be new graduate students, as of this fall, after July 1, who will be subject to the new loan limits,” Cooper said.
The package also sets forth new annual and aggregate loan limits for graduate and professional students, along with parents who take out federal student loans for dependent undergraduate students.
Graduate student loans will be capped at $20,500 annually, with a $100,000 aggregate limit.
Parent PLUS borrowers will have an annual cap of $20,000 and an aggregate cap of $65,000 per dependent.
Professional student loans will have a $50,000 annual limit and an aggregate cap of $200,000.
The programs that fall within the department’s “professional” category and are subject to that larger loan cap include: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology.
The department clarified in a fact sheet on the finalized regulations that the “professional” student classifications “do not express a value judgment about the importance of any occupation or field” but instead serve a “loan-administration function.”
The agency has received immense pushback from groups representing people in fields that do not fall under the department’s definition and will thus be subject to lower annual and lifetime borrowing caps.
In another major shift, the regulations replace prior repayment options with two new plans — the Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP, and the Tiered Standard plan — both of which will launch July 1.
RAP is an income-based repayment plan that “waives unpaid interest for borrowers who make on-time payments that do not fully cover accruing interest,” per the department’s fact sheet.
Balances under the plan will also “decline with each on-time payment, as unpaid interest is fully waived and the Department then reduces principal by an amount equal to the borrower’s payment, up to $50,” per the agency.
The Tiered Standard plan offers fixed monthly payments, ranging from a 10-year to 25-year period, depending on the outstanding principal balance of the borrower.
“The upshot is that loan repayment is going to get a lot more expensive for almost everyone, and for some people, it’s going to get significantly more expensive, and the transition is also going to be difficult for a lot of people to manage,” Michele Zampini, associate vice president for federal policy and advocacy at the Institute for College Access & Success, told States Newsroom.
Zampini, whose organization aims to advance affordability, accountability and equity in higher education, said she thinks “there will be a lot of students who will have to turn to the private loan market, who otherwise would have been able to cover their costs through the (Grad PLUS) program.”
Victoria Jackson, assistant director of higher education policy at the nonprofit policy and advocacy group EdTrust, said that with the new loan limits and “drastic cuts to aid availability” in the regulations, “you would really hope that it would come with other, more affordable and better forms of financial aid.”
“And what they’ve done is just created this vacuum that right now can really only be filled with private loans, which are costlier and riskier for students, or students are just not going to go,” Jackson said.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues its efforts to eliminate the Department of Education, including through a series of interagency agreements that transfer several of its responsibilities to other departments.
Under the most recent agreement, the Treasury Department will take over Education’s responsibility for collecting on defaulted federal student loan debt — the first step in a multiphase process toward Treasury taking on Education’s entire, roughly $1.7 trillion federal student loan portfolio.
Zampini noted that, when it comes to the incoming student loan regulations, she does not have confidence in the Education Department’s “ability at this moment to successfully manage the transition without a lot of issues, as far as servicing and as far as account tracking and plan enrollment and things like that.”
Jackson, of EdTrust, said that “by weakening the federal financial aid system, I think there’s a weakening of our higher education system and making it more difficult for low-income students, students of color and other marginalized students to access graduate education.”
She added that “people who complete those degrees tend to have more financial security in the future — they earn more over their lifetimes and, on markers of financial success and opportunity, do better.”
“I think this is one prong of a plan of undermining our overall higher education system.”
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan leaves the Milwaukee Federal Courthouse. Judge Dugan is on trial on charges that she helped Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant, elude federal arrest while he was making an appearance in her courtroom on April 18. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
As former Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan approaches sentencing after being convicted of obstructing federal agents during an immigration arrest last year, attorneys on both sides of the case are battling over whether new precedents around federal statutes should apply to the former Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge.
The FBI arrested Dugan last year on charges she helped a man who was making a routine appearance in her court evade immigration officers who were waiting for him in the public hallway outside the courtroom.
Court staff initially noticed the agents and informed Dugan, who approached them and told the agents to go check in with the chief judge.
While the agents waited to talk to Chief Judge Carl Ashley, Dugan went back to her courtroom and quickly called 30-year-old Mexican-born Eduardo Flores Ruiz and his attorney, set a date for them to come back, and then allowed them to exit the courtroom through a non-public hallway, at the end of which was a door back into the hallway where the agents waited. After going out that door, Flores-Ruiz and his attorney unknowingly rode the elevator down with one of the undercover agents. Flores Ruiz was arrested outside after a brief foot pursuit.
Dugan was charged with obstructing federal agents and concealing Flores Ruiz. After a trial in December, a federal jury found Dugan guilty of felony obstruction but not guilty of misdemeanor concealment. Dugan’s attorneys highlighted the split verdict and moved for U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman to overturn the conviction.
In April, Urban Milwaukee reported, Dugan’s legal team filed a motion arguing that a recent U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision changed the precedent governing the legal interpretation of the federal statute under which Dugan was convicted. The decision, in United States v. Hernandez, held that immigration proceedings do not include deportation operations, relevant since Dugan, who resigned shortly after her trial, was convicted of obstructing an immigration “proceeding.”
Federal prosecutors have countered that the appeals court decision “is neither binding nor persuasive, and it does nothing to call into question this Court’s reasoning.” They argue that the jury instructions crafted by prosecutors and provided to the jury by Judge Adelman over instructions crafted by the defense team were sound. Adelman had previously denied a request from Dugan’s legal team for acquittal and a new trial.
Dugan faces up to five years in prison and $350,000 in fines. Her sentencing is scheduled for June 3.
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It seems luxury car buyers can’t get enough of the Bentley Bentayga, so the British brand is working on a second SUV for its range. Tipped to be dubbed the Barnato, the new model will be smaller than its older sibling but, more importantly, all-electric.
While it remains to be seen how much demand Bentley will see for the new model in markets like the US, where EV sales have stagnated, it will certainly appeal to those seeking the most serene and comfortable driving experience. The use of electric power will also help Bentley lower its overall fleet emissions.
Read: Bentley Just Told Us What The Barnato SUV Will Cost, Sort Of
Spied here doing the rounds at the Nurburgring for the very first time, this prototype is adorned with all of the same camouflage that we’ve seen on others. As such, key areas of the vehicle’s design remain hidden, though we can see the blacked-out lower grille.
Concept Looks
The headlights look to be temporary, although the upper LED strip is expected to be retained for the production model. It’s hard to say what the grille will look like, but we expect it to be body-colored and mostly used for decorative purposes, not for actually cooling the SUV. The grille could resemble that of last year’s EXP 15 concept.
Other important elements visible in this prototype include a large panoramic glass roof and a roofline sitting noticeably lower than the Bentayga.
Porsche Power
We know the Barnato uses the Premium Platform Electric (PPE) architecture, as do other VW Group models, including the Cayenne Electric. Carscoops understands it’ll come equipped with a sizeable 113 kWh battery pack that supports DC fast charging, adding 100 miles (160 km) of range in under seven minutes.
It’s likely Bentley’s electric motors will also be borrowed from the Cayenne Electric. Power in the Porsche ranges from 402 hp to 1,156 hp, and the British alternative may offer similar figures.
The similarities to the Cayenne Electric will continue in the cabin. While these spy shots only captured a small part of the SUV’s cabin, previous ones have shown that many parts will be lifted from the Porsche, including the curved OLED central display running Android Automotive OS.
Following a teaser in March, SAIC MG has revealed the upcoming 07. It’s a flagship that has been “engineered to be the ultimate choice in the new energy coupe segment.”
Sporting a design that rivals “luxury coupes in the ¥700,000 ($102,930) class,” the 07 will offer “top-tier styling” for less than ¥200,000 ($29,410). That’s a not so subtle reference to the Porsche Taycan, which begins at ¥918,000 or $134,985 in China.
More: China Isn’t Buying Porsches, But It Sure Loves Making Cars That Look Like Them
The similarities are readily apparent as the 07 looks like a pudgy Taycan. However, something has been lost in translation as it doesn’t seem quite right.
That being said, the model looks fairly good and sports C-shaped lighting units as well as a bulging hood. They’re joined by a wide lower intake that appears to have an active shutter grille and a prominent sensor.
Moving down the side, there’s a rakish windscreen that flows into a long curved roof. The latter is notable for having a lidar sensor mounted above the windscreen. Other highlights include Taycan-style front fender vents and door handles as well as a similar rear end. However, the MG’s booty could use some time at the gym.
MG has been coy on specifics, but they used Auto China to reveal the 07 rides on SAIC’s next-generation NEV platform. It will be offered with both electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains.
The automaker also announced higher-end variants – that cost around ¥300,000 ($44,112) – will use the Momenta R7 autonomous driving system. It promises to provide Urban Navigate on Autopilot as well as a “seamless parking-space-to-parking-space driving experience.”
MG went on to say the system doesn’t simply imitate human driving as it also “possesses physical scene understanding and predictive reasoning similar to an experienced driver.” This reportedly enables proactive defensive maneuvers to increase safety.
We’ll likely learn more in the coming weeks, but the car will apparently show turquoise lights when being driven autonomously.
Got your hands on a shiny new EV or hybrid, and wondering why its range isn’t quite as much as quoted? Well, some of that discrepancy can be down to the controlled nature of official range tests, plus a healthy bit of marketing fluff.
But there’s another reason as to why that 300-mile EV or 800-mile plug-in hybrid isn’t quite making those headline numbers. It simply doesn’t like to run when it’s too hot or too cold outside. So what are the specifics, then? You can thank AAA for expanding and updating this line of research, which they began in 2019.
A Climate-Controlled Treadmill Test For Cars
How they did this kind of testing is no less cool. They took three hybrids and three EVs and placed them in a laboratory test cell that included a dyno. In other words, it was the equivalent of running on a treadmill in a temperature-controlled room. Then, they set the vehicle’s air conditioning and heating systems to a comfortable 72F. Meanwhile, the test cell’s temperature was varied. Engineers at AAA settled on three temperature values – namely 20F / -6.7C (a cold winter), 75F / 23.9C (your average day), and 95F / 35C (a hot summer’s day). And they drove.
Read: EV Range Claims Still Sound Great, Until Freezing Temps Hit
Taking 75F / 23.9C as the baseline, AAA found that at 95F / 35C, the electric vehicles lost an average of 8.5% in driving range, corresponding to a 10.4% efficiency reduction. Hybrids fared worse, with a 12% decrease in fuel efficiency (miles per gallon). These values are noticeable, but unlikely to create a noticeable impact unless you tend to push the range envelope before recharging or refueling. This also means that your wallet will take a mild hit in terms of cost per mile.
Cold weather tests were rather more concerning. At 20F, the EVs saw a whopping 35.6% efficiency drop, resulting in an average range reduction of 39%. Hybrids also took a noticeable hit, with a 22.8% drop in fuel efficiency.
The Bottom Line
If you live in a part of the world where winters and summers are mild, and the temperature generally hovers around 75F or thereabouts, congratulations, you don’t need to worry too much. If you live in a place where summers are hot, you’ll need to account for some extra range when purchasing your EV if you plan (or if your commute dictates) to run it down to 20% before every charge.
But if you live in a place where the winters are harsh, you may want to evaluate your options. As Greg Brannon, Director of Automotive Engineering and Research at AAA, said, “EVs are efficient in moderate temperatures but lose significant range in the cold. We expected this from our previous research, but were surprised by the 23% reduction in fuel economy for the hybrids in cold temperatures. Drivers should consider climate, energy costs, and driving patterns when choosing a vehicle that best fits their lifestyle.”
Toyota released its financial results for the previous fiscal year, revealing a bittersweet reality: while consumers are buying their cars in record numbers, global but trade wars and geopolitical chaos are taking a serious bite out of the bottom line.
For fiscal year 2026, which ran from April 1 through March 31, Toyota Motor Corporation booked record revenue of 50.68 trillion yen ($323.42 billion), up 5.5 percent year over year. Operating income, however, dropped by roughly 1 trillion yen ($6.4 billion) to 3.77 trillion yen ($24 billion).
More: Toyota’s Next Corolla Cross Is Growing Up, And The RAV4 Should Be Worried
The single biggest culprit was a 1.38 trillion yen ($8.8 billion) hit from US tariffs. That alone was enough to drag Toyota’s North American division into a rare operating loss of 298.6 billion yen ($1.9 billion) excluding swaps, even though regional vehicle sales actually grew 8.5 percent. Selling more cars and losing money doing it is not the equation Toyota wants to be solving.
To combat these trade frictions, Toyota will begin exporting US-built models to Japan starting this year, including the Camry sedan, the Highlander SUV, and the Tundra pickup. This move is less about covering local demand and more of a strategic effort to balance trade relations with the US.
More: A Texas-Built Full-Size Pickup Is Now On Sale In The Country That Invented The Kei Car
The 2026 results were quite positive for global sales of electrified vehicles, which reached 5.04 million units, making up 48.1% of total volume (11,283 million). These include 4.62 million HEVs, 175,000 PHEVs, and 243,000 BEVs, with the latter surging by 68.4% compared to last year. For FY2027, Toyota expects to more than double its BEV sales to 598,000 units.
What’s Next For Toyota?
The overall forecast for FY2027 is rather cautious. Toyota expects sales volume to hold roughly steady, but operating income is forecast to fall 20.3 percent to around 3 trillion yen ($19.1 billion). The company is bracing for an additional 670 billion yen ($4.27 billion) in costs tied to economic and logistical disruptions over the coming year.3
Toyota specifically called out the “destabilization” of the Middle East and the ongoing war there, which are pushing materials and energy costs higher. Combined with ongoing tariff pressures and a massive 1.8 trillion yen ($11.48 billion) investment in R&D, Toyota is signaling to investors that the next 12 months will be a period of defensive maneuvering.
Shareholders aren’t being left empty-handed. Toyota declared a full-year FY2026 dividend of 95 yen ($0.61) per share and plans to bump it to 100 yen ($0.64) for FY2027. Toyota stock currently trades at 2,913 yen ($18.58), down 14 percent since the start of the year.
More: Toyota’s Most Powerful Land Cruiser Ever Is A $112K Hybrid Americans Can’t Buy
Toyota’s newly appointed President, Kenta Kon, said: “I feel there is still significant room for improvement in our management and administrative operations. Those of us in such positions, by further examining where our abilities truly lie, can move beyond simply managing the front lines and instead get directly involved to support operations.”
Below you can watch the entire presentation that was streamed earlier today from Japan.
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