General Motors had a terrible first quarter, but Kia was triumphant as sales climbed 4.1% to reach a new record of 207,015 vehicles. The company said the result underscores their “steady growth despite uncertain market conditions.”

The redesigned Telluride is proving to be a key asset as it helped Q1 sales climb 16.9% to 35,928 units. The company went on to note that’s the “highest quarterly result in the vehicle’s history.”

More: Kia Is Finally Brings An Affordable EV To America With New EV3

Other big gainers were the K5 and Seltos, which were up 19.4% and 29.2%, respectively. The Sportage climbed 8.2%, while the Carnival bucked minivan stereotypes to post a 27.8% increase in the first quarter. It’s also worth noting the K4 was the brand’s second best-selling vehicle and sales were up 0.6%.

EVs Struggle, While Hybrids Soar

It wasn’t all good news as EVs continue to struggle following the elimination of the federal tax credit. EV6 sales fell 45.8% in the first quarter, while the EV9 was down 27.1%. On the bright side, sales of the three-row crossover did climb 7.1% in March. However, that only equates to an additional 83 vehicles.

While consumers turned their backs on EVs, they embraced hybrids. Sales skyrocketed 73% to achieve a new quarterly record. Kia can also expect a boost from the 2027 Seltos, which recently debuted with a new hybridized 1.6-liter engine.

Putting electrification aside, the Sorento is having a difficult time as the model was off 14.4% in the quarter. Sales also took a hit from the discontinuation of the Soul, although some dealers still have inventory in stock.

2026 Kia US March And Q1 Sales

A bill that aimed to prevent the use of expensive lawsuits to silence journalists and other members of the public was blocked by the state Senate due to opposition from Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee), who previously imperiled a local Wausau paper. 

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — also known as SLAPP lawsuits — are a way of intimidating and quieting critics, including journalists and activists, by burdening them with the cost of expensive, baseless legal proceedings. Anti-SLAPP laws aim to provide a remedy.

Rep. Jim Piwowarczyk (R-Hubertus), who coauthored the bill, said in an email to the Wisconsin Examiner that he was “very disappointed that one or two Republican senators would block a bill that would protect everyone’s First Amendment rights.” He said he identified a few senators opposed to allowing the bill to make it to the Senate floor, and made several attempts to contact them and address potential concerns. 

“The vast majority of Republicans AND Democrats in the state Legislature supported this bill,” Piwowarczyk said. 

Bill cosponsors included Reps. Elijah Behnke (R-Town of Chase), Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls), Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc), Randy Udell (D-Fitchburg) and Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D-Milwaukee).

Piwowarczyk is the co-founder of Wisconsin Right Now, a conservative publication focused on state government issues. He was elected to his first term in the state Assembly in 2024, and the anti-SLAPP legislation became a top priority because he said he has “seen firsthand how ordinary citizens, citizen activists, influencers, concerned parents and small media outlets are systematically targeted with lawsuits by entities with large or unlimited resources in an attempt to silence them.” 

“These lawsuits weren’t about legitimate grievances; they are a form of legal warfare or lawfare. As the saying goes, ‘The punishment is the process,’” Piwowarczyk said. 

The bill passed on a voice vote in the Assembly in February, but never received a vote in the Senate. 

Wisconsin Right Now cofounder with Piwowarczyk, Jessica McBride, recently accused Tomczyk in a Facebook post of maneuvering behind the scenes to block the bill from a vote. 

Tomczyk has some history with the issue, having prompted the introduction of anti-SLAPP legislation by Democratic lawmakers in 2023. He placed the Wausau Pilot & Review, a small digital newspaper started and edited by Shereen Siewert, in a dire financial situation when he sued the paper for defamation in 2021 after the it published a report that Tomczyk called a young teen an anti-LGBTQ slur at a Marathon County board was meeting. The paper reported that Tomczyk was overheard using the slur as a resolution called “A Community for All,” an effort  to reinforce acceptance of diversity and inclusivity, was being debated. 

According to the New York Times, Tomczyk admitted in a deposition to having used the slur before “out of joking and out of spite” about his gay brother.

The case was dismissed in April 2023 after the judge found that Tomczyk had failed to meet the legal standard for defamation. His appeal of the judgement was dismissed in 2024. Tomczyk’s lawsuit prompted Democratic lawmakers to introduce anti-SLAPP legislation in 2023, although it never advanced in the Republican-led Legislature. 

This session, Piwowarczyk introduced his own proposal, the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, to curb retaliatory lawsuits and gathered bipartisan support for it. 

Piwowarczyk’s bill would have created a process for courts to quickly dismiss lawsuits that target protected speech or participation in government proceedings, including by requiring a prompt hearing and halting constant discovery while the motion is pending. The bill would have also allowed for the parties that prevailed in court to recover attorney fees. The bill was based on model legislation developed by the nonprofit Uniform Law Commission. 

Piwowarczyk has cited other cases he said prompted the bill, including one in which Moms For Liberty activist Scarlett Johnson was sued for defamation for calling a former teacher in the Mequon-Thiensville School District a “bully,” “lunatic,” “woke” and “white savior” on social media. Johnson eventually got representation from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative legal nonprofit, and her case was dismissed. 

Wisconsin Right Now is not the only conservative endorser of the legislation. Meg Ellefson, a conservative podcast host, wrote in a Facebook post that she was “very disappointed” and that Tomczyk has a “shallow and myopic view” of the issue.

“This was an opportunity to protect the free speech of conservatives in Wisconsin and likely won’t come around again due to predictions that Republicans will lose control of the state Senate in this next election,” she wrote. 

A coalition of Wisconsin local media stakeholders including Siewert, Freedom of Information Council president Bill Lueders and Wisconsin Watch managing editor Jim Malewitz, signed a letter urging lawmakers to pass the bill and protect journalists and members of the public earlier this month. 

“Amid the many threats facing our communities, it’s more clear than ever that our right to free speech is under attack,” the letter stated. “We firmly believe that this bill is a strong solution to threats against the First Amendment in Wisconsin. By advancing this piece of legislation, lawmakers would be making a wise nonpartisan investment in protecting the speech and civic health of the commonwealth while laying the groundwork for a sustainable, community-rooted local news ecosystem.” 

Wisconsin is one of 11 states in the U.S. that does not have Anti-SLAPP protections in place.

Tomczyk, however, has rejected the claim that he is the only reason did not advance.

“I have to respond to the ridiculous notion that I have somehow made an assault on free speech in our state,” Tomczyk wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday evening. “Most media is dominated by the left with only 2 or 3 right leaning outlets in the entire state. This bill provides more [protection] for the media and does little or nothing for the ordinary citizen.” 

Tomczyk said the bill was discussed during a Republican Senate caucus meeting where he was the only person to speak on the bill. 

“It is in caucus that the Senators who have proposed bills,,, have the opportunity to support and promote their bill if there is opposition to it.” he wrote on Facebook. “When appropriately numbered Senate Bill 666 came up for discussion, I simply told my colleagues to be very careful and make sure they understand what they are voting for,” Tomczyk said. “I was the only Senator to speak against the bill. No Senator spoke FOR the bill.”

In his post, Tomczyk also, again, denied that he ever said the slur at the meeting, noted that he wasn’t a state lawmaker at the time and questioned the effectiveness of the legislation. 

Language in the bill states that one of three criteria that would be used to determine whether a case can be dismissed through the process is if “the responding party fails to establish a prima facie case as to each element of the cause of action or the moving party establishes either that the responding party failed to state a cause of action or that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”

“You got that?” Tomczyk wrote about the language. “Clear as mud right?” 

Piwowarczyk said, however, that many of his colleagues got on board with the legislation after he explained its purpose and some of the examples. 

Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Gillett) was the lead Senate author. He was not available for an interview with the Examiner, but said in a statement that “we unfortunately didn’t have the votes on Senate Bill 666 in the Senate as we prepared for last week’s floor session.”

The state Senate and Assembly have both adjourned their final regular floor sessions of the year. Work in the Capitol will be minimal for the remainder of the year as lawmakers turn their attention to running for reelection. 

Free Press Action said it would also be advocating for the bill next year.

“SLAPP lawsuits are designed to punish and silence, not to win. Even when dismissed, they can cost defendants tens of thousands of dollars and years in court. When anti-SLAPP laws are enacted, targeted victims can defeat these speech-chilling attacks,” Arin Anderson, the Wisconsin civic media campaign manager for Free Press Action, said in a statement. “Passing this broadly supported bill would send a clear message: Wisconsin stands up for free speech, open debate and the right of people to hold the powerful accountable. 

When lawmakers return in January 2027, the makeup of both the state Assembly and Senate could be quite different, with Republican leaders and other incumbents retiring and Democratic lawmakers eyeing majorities. 

“I look forward to reintroducing the bill next session and working with my colleagues to protect Wisconsin residents from meritless, anti-speech lawsuits,” said Wimberger, who is not up for reelection. 

Piwowarczyk said reintroducing the bill at the start of the next legislative session will be one of his first actions should he be elected to another term in office. 

“This bill is bipartisan, so regardless of what happens in November, I expect to have wide support again,” he said.

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With three measles cases in three different Wisconsin communities since New Year’s Day, the state could be vulnerable to a larger outbreak, according to public health experts.

“We’ve gotten three cases in the state of Wisconsin so far in 2026, and there’s been many years in which we had zero,” said Dr. Joe McBride, a pediatric infectious disease physician at UW Health Kids and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. If the cases spread, “those are incredibly, incredibly difficult for us to slow down and to prevent.”

“There may be only three people with measles, but the cases are occurring in three different places,” said Ajay Sethi, director of the Master of Public Health Program at the UW medical school. “These are three separate public health responses, and that is significant given the potential for spread to others from just one person with measles.”

In January, state health officials reported a measles infection in a Waukesha resident. This month, measles infections have been identified in Dane County and in a person who traveled through Milwaukee County’s Mitchell International Airport to Walworth County. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has also identified possible locations when other people might have been exposed in the Dane County and Mitchell Airport cases. All three were described as connected to travel. 

“It’s good, in that they don’t seem to be related, and we don’t see an outbreak,” McBride said. “But it’s also bad because that means there’s a lot of measles,” he added. “It’s kind of a tinderbox, and we have large cohorts of our population who are not immune.”

The year 2025 saw a resurgence of measles nationwide, approaching 2,000 cases, Stateline reported in December, with outbreaks in Texas, Arizona, South Carolina, Utah and New Mexico.

Sethi said an August 2025 cluster of cases in Oconto County started with a case in St. Croix County in someone who was visiting from out of state. Across Wisconsin in 2025, “Ultimately 36 people got measles, and two of them needed hospitalization,” he said.

‘Incredibly infectious’ illness

Although most widely known for its trademark rash, the measles virus “is a respiratory virus, just like really any other cough and cold virus that we think about,” said McBride. “However, it’s incredibly, incredibly infectious.”

The virus is airborne, McBride said, and can hang in the air for up to two hours. In one landmark case, at the 1991 Special Olympics at the Minneapolis Metrodome, a participant on the field had measles, McBride said, “and people who were susceptible to the infection got the infection who were sitting in the upper deck.”

Vaccination is the primary tool to stop measles, and in Wisconsin as well as in much of the U.S. vaccination rates are below the 95% that public health practitioners say allows for widespread “herd immunity.”

The measles vaccine is usually given in combination with mumps and rubella vaccines, first at the age of 1 with a booster by the time a child is 5.  

Some people aren’t eligible for the vaccine, either because they’re younger than 6 months old or because they have a compromised immune system due to another illness.

“It’s a live vaccine, and live vaccines have the potential of causing infections in people who are immune-compromised, like bone marrow transplant recipients or a patient with AIDS” or people on medications that suppress the immune system, McBride said.

That makes it even more important for people who are eligible to get the vaccine, public health experts say.

A national map produced by ABC News in collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York shows that none of the counties in Wisconsin has as many as 90% of  5-year-olds fully vaccinated for measles.

The lowest rates of measles vaccinations for that age group are in Portage and Columbia counties, with fewer than 60%. A cluster of counties around Oshkosh have vaccination rates in the low 60s; another cluster around Eau Claire in the mid-60s, and Milwaukee, Racine and Waukesha counties have vaccination rates in the high 60s. In the rest of the state, vaccination rates for children 5 or younger are in the range of 70% to more than 80%.

“The decision to get vaccinated is still very nuanced,” Sethi said — influenced by a variety of factors. Those include complacency, which may lead people to dismiss the need for a vaccine, he said. Other factors include how convenient it may be to get the shot, confidence in the vaccine’s effectiveness and a sense of community responsibility.

HHS shift, CDC silence

One source of shakier confidence has been a shift at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the agencies’ stance on vaccines under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had a history of anti-vaccine campaigning for years before his appointment.

Kennedy has made some appeals for people to get the measles vaccine, and in an appearance on CNN Sunday, Dr. Mehmet Oz, director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, urged viewers, “Take the vaccine, please.”

But researchers at Johns Hopkins University in a report published in December documented that amid the 2025 measles surge, CDC social media accounts “have gone quiet, creating a ‘void’ in online health communication. In this vacuum, measles messaging has been dominated by news media rather than expert health authorities, resulting in polarized and potentially inaccurate information.” 

By the year 2000, measles vaccination had become so widespread that the U.S. was identified as having eliminated the disease. Canada, which also had that status, lost it in 2025, and the U.S. appears to be on the verge of losing it as well, Sethi said.

Yet the measles vaccine is both extraordinarily effective and essentially the only weapon against the virus.

“There isn’t any kind of other medicine that can abort it,” McBride said. “It is completely dependent on either preventing it or having natural infection and supporting the individual through it.”

The infection itself can be extremely serious, however, he said. In addition to fevers, cough and the rash, which is painful, secondary complications can do much more bodily damage. Those can include bacterial infections, pneumonia, vision and neurological damage and cardiovascular system harm as well.

In about one of every 1,000 cases, a delayed neurological condition can arise 10 years after a person is infected “that is completely fatal,” McBride added. Among the hundreds of cases across the U.S. now, “there certainly is somebody who’s walking around today who will be dead of measles in 10 years, who doesn’t know it. And that’s incredibly scary.”

People born before 1957 are more likely to have natural immunity from having been exposed to measles in childhood. “After 1957 we can’t really make that claim for people,” McBride said. “And so our immunity is dependent on vaccine status.”

People living in Wisconsin can look up their immunization status on the Wisconsin Immunization Registry, McBride said. Some people’s records might be incomplete, either because they received a vaccine in another state or because they got a vaccine before 1999, when the registry was launched. Earlier vaccines were logged on paper by health providers, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

Interest in the MMR vaccine appears to be rising. News reports and public health announcements drawing attention to recent measles cases and the importance of the vaccine “certainly raises new awareness and attention to it,” he said.

More patients are asking about the shot and more doctors and nurses are asking whether there needs to be any changes to the current vaccine schedules recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics or the state health department.

McBride said the current cases in Wisconsin don’t point to any change in those recommendations, however. For health care providers, “The most helpful interventions would be to evaluate your patients and make sure they are up to date with the measles vaccine.”

The annual school bus inspection training that goes above and beyond state and federal Department of Transportation requirements brings back OEM training and looks to add post-crash inspection criteria in addition to hands-on detection of defects.

Developed by school bus maintenance and inspection expert Marshall Casey for the South Carolina Department of Education, the in-depth training at STN EXPO East starts with classroom instruction on Friday, March 27. The eight-hour training will also include a written exam on the National School Bus Training manual.

On Saturday, participants attend a morning maintenance software session sponsored by Transfinder. They will then be transported to a local school district in Charlotte, North Carolina for the hands-on training which includes an overview of high-voltage school bus electrification followed by instruction on finding real defects on real school buses. Class attendees will learn how to avoid costly repairs with early detection, which also leads to less vehicle downtime and a more efficient school bus maintenance schedule in the garage.

This year, inspection training participants will also participate in a competition. They will be split into three groups to identify defects hidden on three school buses. The fastest group with the most identified defects wins prizes provided by the South Carolina Department of Education. 

Afterward, representatives of Blue Bird, IC Bus, RIDE and Thomas Built Buses will provide one-hour overview training on aspects of inspecting various components on their school buses. Topics include inspection of a propane-autogas system, inspection of a wheelchair lift, an introduction to CEEA+architecture covering system layout, XMC inputs and outputs, CAN communication, power and ground distribution and more. 

Meanwhile, the inspection training is designed based on best practices from the South Carolina Department of Education, which operates the only state-owned and operated fleet in the country. The department’s maintenance team, which serves as the hands-on inspection and classroom instructors at STN EXPO East, was recognized as one of the nation’s top 10 Garage Stars last August by School Transportation News. Participants of the training will be learning directly from some of these recognized student transportation professionals.

School bus inspection training class size is limited to 50 participants to ensure the instructors will be able to provide a thorough training experience for everyone registered. Separate registration and fee are required to attend.

Save $100 on conference registration by registering before Feb. 14. Find the full conference agenda, list of unique trainings and experiences, exhibitor lists, and hotel information at stnexpo.com/east.

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