Solar panels still generate electricity on cloudy days and in cold weather, albeit less.
Clouds cut output as less sunlight reaches the panels, but they continue producing power from indirect light. Snow cover can temporarily block light, though it is typically not obstructed by thin layers of snow. Additionally, most solar panels in the U.S. run more efficiently in cooler weather, as heat lowers performance.
Winter generation can be lower due to shorter days, notably at middle latitudes; cities like Denver receive nearly three times more solar energy in June than December. This mainly affects what share of a home’s electricity solar covers, especially where heating raises demand. Average winter electricity use of U.S. homes is estimated to be six times that of summer use.
Despite seasonal dips, solar still displaces fossil fuel electricity over the year, delivering large net emissions reductions across a panel’s multi-decade lifespan.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Do solar panels work in cold or cloudy climates? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Republican lawmakers have heard farmers’ concerns about President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda. Their response? Short-term pain, long-term gain.
Farmers faced a shrunken export market and operating costs after Trump enforced steep tariffs on key trading partners and farm materials last year. In response, the Trump administration will begin disbursing a $12 billion bailout to farmers due to “unfair market disruptions” at the end of this month.
Republican lawmakers from Wisconsin, a major agricultural producer, acknowledge the 2025 to 2026 crop season challenges, which resulted in an estimated $34.6 billion in losses for the industry, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. But they’re arguing that the success of specialty crops and rosier-than-expected economic indicators are evidence farmers can withstand any turmoil the tariffs have caused.
“Our farmers understand that we have to level the playing field. And how do you do that? You do that with these tariffs,” U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden said. “In order to get to the long term, you have to get through the short term, and that’s the reason that this money’s going back to people in the agriculture industry.”
A bipartisan group of agricultural experts said the Trump administration’s policies have “significantly damaged” the American farm economy in a letter to Senate Agriculture Committee leadership this month, as first reported by The New York Times.
“It is clear that the current Administration’s actions, along with Congressional inaction, have increased costs for farm inputs, disrupted overseas and domestic markets, denied agriculture its reliable labor pool, and defunded critical ag research and staffing,” they wrote.
Wisconsin agriculture experts told NOTUS the administration’s bailout is undesirable and insufficient to cover many farmers’ lost revenue this year.
“They don’t solve the long-run problem of higher input costs and low prices; they are a Band-Aid to get us through this short-term problem,” said Paul Mitchell, the director of the Renk Agribusiness Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Agriculture professor and economist Steven Deller, also of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, had a similar view.
“We’re hemorrhaging thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, and they’re giving us pennies,” Deller said, adding that farmers want “fair markets” and a “level playing field.”
Republicans in the state, however, are standing behind the president’s agenda, pointing to the administration’s stated goal to boost the manufacturing industry through baseline tariff rates for all countries, reciprocal tariffs and tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico.
“Wisconsin, at the end of the day, is going to benefit as we bring manufacturing back to the state,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the likely GOP nominee for governor.
He blamed the North American Free Trade Agreement for sending manufacturing companies packing for cheaper operations in China. Trump replaced NAFTA during his first term in office with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement — a deal Tiffany applauded.
Trump administration officials have defended tariffs in cable television appearances and in congressional hearings as key to transforming the American economy, even as some agricultural industries languish. At a Senate Banking Committee hearing earlier this month, Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota pressed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on whether instability in the agricultural markets is a result of Trump’s tariff policies.
“It has nothing to do with the tariffs,” Bessent said.
Still, there are some signs the administration could be responsive to the backlash. The Trump administration is planning to roll back tariffs on some steel and aluminum goods due to concerns the tariffs are hurting consumers, the Financial Times reported.
The soybean industry is one of the hardest hit by tariffs, which temporarily cost farmers the U.S.’ largest soybean trading partner, China. Although China fulfilled its initial purchase agreement last month and has agreed to purchase tens of millions more metric tons over the next few years, American soybean producers withstood an unprecedented five consecutive months without purchases by China.
This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
Republicans are looking past the short-term pain of Trump’s tariffs is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
A new utility-backed study finds it may cost the city of Superior around $300 million to move ahead with a contested takeover of electric, water and gas utilities run by a privately-owned company.
The post Superior wants to take over a private utility’s assets. One study puts the price around $300M appeared first on WPR.
Since 2024, there's been a bit of a migration into northern Wisconsin's sprawling 7th Congressional District by people hoping to represent its residents in Washington D.C. Voter registration records show half of the eight candidates running to succeed Republican Tom Tiffany of Minocqua recently listed primary voting addresses outside the 7th district and even outside Wisconsin.
The post Half the candidates for Wisconsin House seat recently lived outside district or state appeared first on WPR.
The ultimate goal of the city’s Vacant to Value program is to remove neighborhood blight by making old homes new again, with the nearly free properties potentially netting significant savings to the buyer.
The post Superior looks to fight housing blight — a dollar at a time appeared first on WPR.
Aerius Benton-Banai grew up going to protests with her late grandfather, who was a cofounder of the American Indian Movement of the 1960s. Now, she is sharing jingle dress dances on social media in solidarity with immigrants.
The post Jingle dress dancer goes digital to carry on family legacy of Ojibwe activism appeared first on WPR.
For weeks, it looked like a deal might be struck between legislative Republicans and Gov. Tony Evers to use some of the state’s $2.5 billion surplus to provide both tax relief and money for schools.
But those talks fell apart early last week.
The post Wisconsin’s state Assembly adjourned without changes to school funding appeared first on WPR.
After a transformational 15 years as head coach of the University of Wisconsin-River Falls football team, Matt Walker is leaving for Drake University.
The post Matt Walker leaves UW-River Falls after national championship to coach at Drake University appeared first on WPR.
Wisconsin had its fair share of athletes representing the United States at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy. Including Jordan Stolz who took home two gold medals and one silver.
The post Athletes with ties to Wisconsin bring home gold at 2026 Winter Olympics appeared first on WPR.
A psychologist visited WPR's "The Larry Meiller Show" to troubleshoot ideas on how we can cut back on our screen time.
The post How to disconnect from your phone appeared first on WPR.
The sturgeon spearing season on Lake Winnebago will end Monday afternoon, after spearers got close to hitting the harvest cap for adult female sturgeon.
The post Sturgeon spearing season ending early on Lake Winnebago appeared first on WPR.
Wisconsin feels more like winter than it has in years. The weather has been colder than normal so far, and big storms dumped a lot of snow on the state. That’s boosted winter businesses and events that have struggled with recent warm winters.
The post Snowy season boosts northern Wisconsin tourism, but winters are becoming unreliable appeared first on WPR.
Denver Fire Department crews battle flames in Boulder County, Colo., on Dec. 30, 2021. The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear a climate lawsuit brought by the city and county of Boulder, in which oil companies are seeking to avoid being tried in state court. (Photo courtesy of Denver Fire Department)
The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear a significant climate lawsuit in which oil companies are seeking to avoid being tried in state court.
The fate of several dozen climate lawsuits brought against oil companies by state and local governments could hinge on the decision, which could determine whether the cases should be tried in state or federal court. The suits seek to force oil companies to pay billions of dollars to help governments grapple with the costs of climate-related damages, such as natural disasters, rising sea levels and drought.
Exxon Mobil Corp. and Suncor Energy Inc., which have been sued by the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, are attempting to move the suit to federal court. That would allow them to argue that they followed national regulations when extracting and selling their products. Oil companies have claimed that federal rules around greenhouse gas emissions should preempt efforts to sue them under state laws — and they think they have a better chance of winning in federal court.
But the roughly three dozen state and local governments that have sued oil companies in recent years argue that the cases belong in state court. Many of the lawsuits cite state consumer protection and fraud laws, along with evidence that the companies knew about the risks of climate change while downplaying it in public.
The states of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont, as well as many more cities, counties and tribes, have all filed lawsuits against oil companies over climate change.
Previous efforts to move such lawsuits to federal court have been denied by federal judges, with the Supreme Court declining to hear challenges to those rulings.
If the Supreme Court were to move the Boulder case to federal court, it would be a major win for oil companies, who have long claimed that national regulations such as the Clean Air Act should supersede state laws. Such a ruling could open the door for many of the other cases to be removed from state courts, where the state and local governments feel they have stronger leverage.
The case could also be complicated by the Trump administration’s recent repeal of the endangerment finding, the scientific determination that underpinned the federal government’s regulations of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. With the feds stepping back from climate regulation, some observers believe the oil companies will have a harder time claiming that state lawsuits fall under the scope of federal policy.
In a written statement to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prior to the repeal of the endangerment finding, a group of investor-owned electric utilities raised that concern. The Edison Electric Institute, in its letter to the agency, said that federal greenhouse gas emissions helped “protect the power sector” from legal claims by “displacing” lawsuits over companies’ role in contributing to climate change.
“Should EPA remove its regulation of [greenhouse gases], it increases the likelihood that environmental non-governmental organizations, advocacy groups, citizen groups, and other parties will seek to bring new tort suits and other litigation to test the bounds of continued [Clean Air Act] displacement of federal common law,” the group wrote.
Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, 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 Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20, 2026. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration took more steps Monday to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, announcing two additional interagency agreements with other departments that will transfer more of its responsibilities to those agencies.
Under the agreements, the agency will partner with the State Department on foreign gift and contract reporting and with the Department of Health and Human Services on family engagement and school support programs.
The 46-year-old department signed seven other interagency agreements in 2025 as part of an ongoing effort to dismantle itself, including with State and HHS, as well as Labor and Interior.
“As we continue to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states, our new partnerships with the State Department and HHS represent a practical step toward greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and meaningful improvement,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.
Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, blasted the additional interagency agreements in a Monday statement.
McMahon “is unlawfully dismantling the Education Department by moving programs and offices to other federal agencies despite a clear warning from Congress that she lacks the authority to do so,” Gittleman said.
She added that “these moves come as the Trump Administration has attempted to fire large numbers of career public servants in these very offices — and is now trying to shift their critical work across multiple federal agencies with no educational expertise.”
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also lambasted the announcement.
“These illegal agreements aren’t just creating pointless new bureaucracy that burdens our already-overworked teachers and schools,” she said in a statement Monday. “They are actively jeopardizing resources and support that students and families count on and are entitled to under the law.”
The Education Department clarified in fact sheets that in both agreements, it would “maintain all statutory responsibilities” and oversight of the programs involved.
Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, colleges and universities receiving federal financial assistance are required to disclose any foreign gifts or contracts valued above $250,000 annually.
Under the agreement, State will help the Education Department in managing its foreign funding reporting portal, where colleges and universities are responsible for disclosing such transactions.
State will also “use its national security and foreign national academic admissions expertise to review and assess the industry’s compliance with the law, share data with the public and federal stakeholders, and identify potential threats,” the Education Department said.
Under the agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS will take on a “growing role” in administering several programs that are currently housed under the Education Department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The programs include the School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV), School Safety National Activities, Ready to Learn Programming, Full-Service Community Schools, Promise Neighborhoods and Statewide Family Engagement Centers, the Education Department said.
The School Emergency Response to Violence program helps schools recover from a violent event, according to the department.
Ready to Learn Programming “supports the development of educational television and digital media targeted at preschool and early elementary school children and their families,” according to the department.
The Full-Service Community Schools program offers academic, social and health services for students in high-poverty areas and their families.
According to the department, a Promise Neighborhood is a “place-based, collective impact approach to improving results for children and families.” The program aims to make it so that participating children “have access to great schools and strong systems of family and community support.”
The Statewide Family Engagement Centers program seeks to provide financial assistance to organizations helping state and local educational agencies to improve family engagement.
Since taking office, Trump has sought to take an axe to the agency in his quest to move education “back to the states.” The U.S. Supreme Court in July 2025 temporarily greenlit mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier that year.
That plan, outlined in a March 2025 executive order signed by Trump, called on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department.
Meanwhile, Congress earlier this year rebuked Trump’s request to dramatically slash funding for the department as he and his administration seek to do away with it.
Trump signed a measure earlier in February that funds the department at $79 billion this fiscal year — roughly $217 million more than the agency’s fiscal 2025 funding level and a whopping $12 billion above what Trump sought.
Though the spending package does not offer ironclad language to prevent the outsourcing of the Education Department’s responsibilities to other agencies, the measure does direct the Education Department and the agencies that are part of the transfers to provide biweekly briefings to lawmakers on the implementation of any interagency agreements.
Gerard Agnellet of France (right) is the 2025 Birkie Men's Skate winner with other skiers from France. (Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner)
The American Birkebeiner “Birkie” cross-country ski races from Cable to Hayward just concluded on Saturday, Feb. 21. It was the 52nd annual running of the marathon races.
The Birkie is part of the Worldloppet Ski Federation, an international association of marathon cross-country ski races held in Europe, the Americas, New Zealand, Australia, China, and Japan.
There were over 600 skiers at the 2026 Birkie who are Worldloppet Ski Federation Passport Members: those who are officially documenting their Worldloppet races to qualify as masters, or those who have skied in 10 Worldloppet races. Many of those Passport skiers are Americans, but they also include several hundred international skiers.
International skiers expressed concern about traveling to the Birkebeiner this year, during the federal immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation Executive Director Ben Popp reported receiving several calls from international skiers prior to the 52nd Birkie after the international skiers had viewed the demonstrations in nearby Minneapolis and videos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti being shot and killed by federal agents.
Several international skiers who came to Hayward told the Examiner they were very aware of the news coming out of Minneapolis, and there had been some concerns raised, but not enough to keep them from participating in the sport they love.
Thomas Hejek and his wife, Blanca Hajkova of the Czech Republic spoke with the Examiner on Wednesday, Feb. 18, as Hejek was waiting to ski in an open event on Thursday, and both he and his wife prepared to participate in the marathon races on Saturday.
Hejek has skied in several Worldloppet races, including races in Canada and Japan. Their trip to the Birkie was organized over a month ago, before the shooting of Renee Good.
Hejek said it wasn’t the violence in Minneapolis that caused the most concern for skiers in his country, but rather the overall perception of politics in America.
“We know that most of our friends just don’t want to come right now to the United States, not just because of Minneapolis, but because of the politics,” said Hejek. “But it’s not, it wasn’t a big deal for us, because I think that mostly the people here, around the Birkie and in Hayward and Cable are really lovely and really friendly, because I know it from two years ago, so we didn’t think about not going to the United States.”
He added, “Sometimes, some of my friends were surprised that we were going. But you know, we also in the Czech Republic have a very bad government, and we just have to deal with it, and also the situation in Minneapolis, our friends from the United States were warning us to go directly with plane to Duluth or something, but we just fly to Minneapolis, and took the car and just drive here. We didn’t stay in Minneapolis because we were a little bit scared.”
On Thursday, Feb. 19, Esa Sainio of Finland completed his first Birkie Open marathon race. Recently, he completed a race in Canada and drove from Ottawa to Hayward, and after the Birkie, he intended to ski in Sweden.
“We saw everything that was happening here,” he said of news coming from America, especially out of Minneapolis. “But one of our friends from Minnesota said it wasn’t so bad from there. Everything is not so bad.”
Several skiers spoke with the Examiner on Friday, Feb. 20 at the Worldloppet Foundation Breakfast featuring international skiers.
Epp Paal of Estonia is the CEO of the Worldloppet Ski Foundation. She didn’t think international skiers had concerns about American political upheaval in coming to the 2026 Birkie.
“Do skiers like the current politics of the U.S.? I don’t believe so, but they like the races, and they come to the race itself,” she said. “So I don’t believe that this is something to do with politics. Just love of skiing is bringing them here.”
She added, “I think this Worldloppet is all about love of skiing and friendship. And this drives these people, and they know so many other fellow skiers from the U.S., and many have developed deep friendships here, so it doesn’t really matter for them.”
Jaagup and Janek Vana, two brothers from Tartu, Estonia, said they had not seen much news from Minneapolis before coming, and they didn’t have concerns about politics or immigration. Their biggest concern was whether there would be enough snow for the Birkie races.
“We just hoped they didn’t cancel the races because of snow,” said Jaagup. “The violence didn’t, doesn’t really matter to us. It wasn’t a concern.”
Janek added that because Hayward is a small, rural area, the two brothers didn’t think there would be anything to be concerned about.
Alena Motyckova of the Czech Republic, was scheduled to ski the Birkie Classic, 53K race on Saturday.
“Of course, we watched what was going on,” she said, “but we just flew [into the] Minneapolis airport, and then we got a car and drove up here, so we did not really worry. It did not make us think to even reconsider coming here to the state, but of course, we took it seriously, like the chances of being stopped by immigration, but it went smoothly.”
However, one of the Czech Republic skiers in Motyckova’s original group didn’t receive the required immigration documents and couldn’t attend.
Jan Vondras of the Czech Republic, one of the seven who did make it, said he had emailed Popp and other Birkie staff discussing the journey to Hayward and concerns over immigration.
“Ben said, ‘If you have any troubles with the immigration officers or police, just call me,’ so we were quite OK that we had somebody behind us who could help us, but actually, nothing happened,” said Vondras.
Gerard Agnellet of France, winner of the 2025 men’s Birkie skate, who placed fourth on Saturday, talked to the Examiner via a translator.
“We knew it would be different from past years,” he said, “so we were a little more surprised and concerned about our paperwork to get into the US, but there was no problem at all. It went smoothly as in past years.”
Fabian Stocek of the Czech Republic won the Birkie Classic in 2025 and again on Saturday.
On the ride from Minneapolis airport to Hayward for the Birkie, Stocek said, he passed a Department of Homeland Security vehicle, but he wasn’t worried.
Stocek has lived in the U.S. for seven years and has a good relationship with a host family in the Hayward area who houses him when he competes.
“I think they (his host family) were more concerned about my behalf than I was,” he said. “so I do follow the U.S. news quite a bit, and I think for me it was, they were like, ‘Oh, watch out, they’re checking phones when you get in’ and, and I thought, OK, I mean, I’ve lived in the U.S. for seven years, so I wasn’t as worried.”
At the Worldloppet Foundation breakfast, a Swiss skier said he didn’t want to make any comments to the press in case his words were noticed by immigration officials and caused him problems later.
Dan Mitchell of Hayward, who attended the breakfast, said he recently skied in Worldloppet races in France and Germany and noticed that all flights to and in Europe were full, but the flight back from London to O’Hare Airport in Chicago had several empty seats.
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Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is leading a challenge against federal health officials over a Biden-era regulation allowing a key abortion medication to be prescribed through telehealth. (Photo by Matthew Perschall/Louisiana Illuminator)
A hearing is set for Tuesday in a federal lawsuit led by Louisiana seeking to further restrict access to mifepristone by asking the courts to stop abortion pills from being mailed across the country.
The Department of Justice has argued plaintiffs lack standing to bring the case and asked the judge to halt legal proceedings until the Food and Drug Administration wraps up a review of the medication.
Hundreds of studies have concluded that the drug is safe and effective for abortions early in pregnancy, but a paper released by a conservative think tank last year compelled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to order a reevaluation of mifepristone.
The state of Louisiana and a woman who said her ex-boyfriend made her take abortion medication sued the FDA in October and asked for a preliminary injunction against a 2023 rule that allows abortion pills to be prescribed through telehealth or mailed to patients, and pharmacies to apply for certification to dispense mifepristone.
Julie Kay, the founder and CEO of legal advocacy group Reproductive Futures, told States Newsroom the lawsuits in Louisiana and elsewhere are “thinly veiled attempts” to block access to telehealth medication abortion.
“We’ve seen that telemedicine abortion has become incredibly popular in all 50 states and particularly vital for women in under-resourced areas,” Kay said.
Missouri, Idaho, Kansas, Texas and Florida are also suing the FDA over mifepristone’s regulations and asking the courts to restrict or rescind approval of the drug altogether.
Nearly 30% of abortions provided in the first half of 2025 were through telehealth, according to the Society of Family Planning’s latest #WeCount report.
By June 2025, about 15,000 abortions per month were provided by physicians shielded by state laws, allowing them to prescribe abortion medication remotely to people living in states where abortion is banned or restricted, the report found. Shield laws protecting health care professionals from out-of-state investigations have held up in court so far, despite efforts from prosecutors in Texas and Louisiana.
Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill vowed to defend anti-abortion laws in her state, which has had a ban with no exceptions for rape or incest since August 2022. She indicted a California doctor in January, accusing him of mailing abortion pills to Rosalie Markezich, a plaintiff in the lawsuit before federal courts.
Lawyers for Louisiana argue that the Biden administration’s decision to nix the in-person dispensation requirement for mifepristone is an affront to states that ban abortion.
Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Erik Baptist framed the lawsuit as an intimate partner violence issue, saying Markezich’s former boyfriend ordered abortion pills online from Dr. Rémy Coeytaux in California without any in-person interaction.
“So what this lawsuit would do is protect women across the country, in particular in Louisiana, from this mail-order abortion scheme that enables and emboldens people in coercive situations, such as men and abusers who can now obtain these drugs through remote means,” Baptist said.
Reproductive coercion — when an abusive partner controls a person’s bodily autonomy — has been brought up in recent legal challenges to abortion pill access by other GOP attorneys general in bids to restrict mifepristone, according to Rachel Rebouché, a University of Texas at Austin law professor who specializes in reproductive rights.
“There’s really not evidence that people are being coerced or forced into taking pills. It’s, of course, awful if someone has felt coerced, but I’m not sure it changes the argument of what the FDA should do as an agency committed to reviewing evidence,” Rebouché said.
For their part, DOJ attorneys have said an injunction would interfere with the FDA review and Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies, setting off an avalanche of other lawsuits.
“Plaintiffs now threaten to short circuit the agency’s orderly review and study of the safety risks of mifepristone by asking this Court for an immediate stay of the 2023 REMS Modification approved three years ago,” they wrote in a memo filed on Jan. 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
Kay said she views the Trump administration’s motion to pause the case as a legal delay tactic that is more about politics than science, because most Americans believe abortion should be accessible. A Pew Research Center poll from June 2025 showed 63% of respondents said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
“This federal administration is very aware of that popularity, and I think they’re saying they want to wait until after the midterms,” Kay said.
Baptist said the FDA can conduct their review while the in-person requirement is restored.
Mifepristone’s manufacturers intervened in the case earlier this month, Louisiana Illuminator reported. But unlike the federal government, GenBioPro and Danco, the companies behind the generic and name brand versions of the drug, asked the court to dismiss Louisiana’s lawsuit entirely.
In a memo filed on Tuesday, Feb. 17, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the 2023 regulatory change “was intended to authorize a direct attack” on anti-abortion states.
The filing also rejects arguments that Louisiana and Markezich lack standing in the same way that a group of anti-abortion doctors did in a lawsuit against the FDA over mifepristone’s previous regulations, according to a 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Justices rebuffed the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine’s requests but did not rule on the merits of the case.
Baptist also said judicial panels on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana — a conservative-leaning court where this lawsuit could go next — have twice ruled that it was “arbitrary and capricious” for the FDA to allow abortion medication without an in-person doctor visit.
In Louisiana’s corner are major anti-abortion players: Students for Life of America, 60 Republican members of Congress, 21 GOP attorneys general and the Ethics and Public Policy Center filed briefs backing the state.
Rebouché, the University of Texas professor, said there would be conflict between the federal courts if the district court judge rules in favor of Louisiana. There are nearly a dozen lawsuits over abortion pills seeking to restrict and deregulate mifepristone, States Newsroom reported.
Guttmacher Institute Principal Federal Policy Adviser Anna Bernstein said in a statement Friday that reinstating the in-person dispensation requirement for mifepristone would hinder abortion access.
“If access to telehealth and mifepristone by mail is curtailed, more patients would be pushed toward in-clinic care, straining provider capacity and increasing wait times in an already chaotic landscape,” she said. “Given that travel is out of reach for many people, the result would likely be increased delays and more people unable to get the abortion care they need and deserve.”
Kelcie Moseley-Morris contributed to this report.
This story was originally produced by News From The States, 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.
President Donald Trump, surrounded by people who have lost relatives to a crime committed by an immigrant, holds up a proclamation dedicating Feb. 22 as "Angel Family Day" during a ceremony held in the East Room of the White House on Feb. 23, 2026. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday to honor families whose loved ones were killed by noncitizens, but spent most of the event complaining about his approval ratings and amplifying the falsehood that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
While signed Monday, the proclamation designated the day earlier as one to honor such families, coinciding with the anniversary of the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley on Feb. 22, 2024, by a Venezuelan immigrant. The man was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for her murder.
The White House event came on the eve of Trump’s State of the Union, where he is expected to not only address immigration policy – as the Department of Homeland Security has been shut down since Feb. 14 – but also last week’s Supreme Court decision that found he exceeded his authority for tariffs.
Congress is gridlocked on approving annual funding for DHS after an immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens last month.
Trump criticized Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Monday for calling for an end to the immigration enforcement operation in his city after Renee Good was shot and killed by a federal immigration officer on Jan. 7.
“I watched these people saying, ‘we want to protect murderers,’” Trump said, mischaracterizing state and local officials’ positions against aggressive immigration enforcement. “I don’t get it, there’s something sick. They’re sick. Can’t have a country like that.”
After the second killing, of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, congressional Democrats withheld support for DHS funding unless constraints could be placed on immigration enforcement tactics.
The proclamation reaffirms the Trump administration’s commitment to its mass deportation campaign, citing the need due to crime committed by noncitizens. Multiple studies have shown that immigrants in the U.S. commit crimes at a lower rate than the U.S. born population, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that studies migration.
Trump largely blamed former President Joe Biden’s immigration policy for creating a crisis.
“They let in everybody,” he said. “They didn’t check anybody.”
Trump also expressed anger at various polls on his approval rating. Some, such as one by CNN, have shown Trump’s disapproval at more than 60% with approval ratings below 40%, marking the worst numbers of his second term.
“Fake polls,” Trump said, without offering evidence. “They were fake polls, because polls are tough. I saw one today that I’m at 40%. I’m not at 40%. I’m at much higher than that. The real polls say ‘you kill everybody.’ It wouldn’t even be close. But you go through the fake polls, you go through the fake stories.”
Trump also falsely stated that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, despite then-Attorney General William Barr stating the election was secure and there was no widespread voter fraud. Trump also lost dozens of court cases attempting to challenge the election results.
Trump goaded a mob of his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s election.
“It was a rigged election by millions and millions of votes, a guy that never left his basement,” Trump said of Biden, who won the election at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. “Covid was a little bit of a shield. We had a lot of things going on, but it was rigged by millions of votes. We did great in that election. If that election wasn’t rigged, every single one of the people in this room right now would not be here. You’d be home with your son, daughter, family. We had a strong border.”
Trump also falsely stated that he was a victim of voter fraud in the 2024 presidential election, but that he still won because “it was too big to rig.”
“They cheated like hell,” he said of Democrats.
He criticized mail-in ballots and said it benefited Democrats. Trump said because of that, a national voter ID law is needed, and he pushed for Congress to pass the SAVE Act, which requires proof of citizenship, among other things.
“They won’t approve voter ID,” he said of Democrats. “They won’t approve proof of citizenship. They won’t approve no mail-in ballots, even though they know it’s crooked as hell.”
The families, referred to as angel families, have had various loved ones killed by a person who was not a U.S. citizen. In response, they have lobbied for immigration restrictions.
“I’m sick and tired of hearing these Democratic politicians stand up on these podiums and say how sorry they are for seeing these criminal illegal aliens being ripped apart from their families,” said Jody Jones, whose brother was shot and killed by an immigrant. “What about us? What about the American family?”
Several other family members spoke, including Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips. One of the first bills that Trump signed in his second term was a mandatory detention bill for immigrants charged and arrested on petty crimes that was named for Riley.
Her murder set off a national debate about immigration during the 2024 presidential campaign because the man charged with her murder, came into the country in 2022, during Biden’s term.
“Laken was the most responsible, hard-working, kind, selfless, beautiful Christian, and she wasn’t somebody that put herself in bad positions,” Phillips said.
Some of the family members who spoke also expressed their belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Marie Vega, whose son was shot and killed by an immigrant, said she was excited when the 2024 presidential election results came in. She said she fully supports the president and repeated an abbreviation for Trump’s political movement known as Make America Great Again.
“Although you were cheated out of the second term — by the way, you won that election as well, and we know it — I knew the third term was going to be epic,” she said. “And here we are. MAGA.”
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