Axios Homepage

1. Health: Cases fall in 44 states — U.S. life expectancy falls — Government seized 10 million fake N95 masks — Health security to play big role in returning workforces.
2. Vaccine: U.S. administering 1.7 million vaccine doses per day — Fauci says some vaccine shipments slowed "to a grinding halt" due to historic winter storm
3. Politics: Cuomo under investigation over nursing home deaths.
4. Education: Teachers back in the classroom are comfortable with it.
5. World: U.S. commits $4 billion to COVAX vaccine initiative — Indonesia announces punishments for those who refuse COVID vaccines.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) flew to Cancún, Mexico, on Wednesday with plans to "stay through the weekend," as hundreds of thousands of his constituents went without power and heat in Texas after a winter storm caused deadly outages.

The latest: Addressing reporters outside his Houston home on Thursday, Cruz admitted his original intentions, but claimed he started having second thoughts "almost the moment I sat down on the plane."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to wait a month for a call from President Biden, and while Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman got a call Thursday, it came not from Biden but from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The big picture: Biden, Austin, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and national security adviser Jake Sullivan have together called officials from at least 43 countries, with Blinken alone calling 39 (there’s considerable overlap between their call lists).

The U.S. is committing $2 billion for the global COVAX vaccine initiative within days (using funds already allocated by Congress), plus an additional $2 billion over the next two years, the White House announced ahead of Friday's virtual G7 summit.

Why it matters: Senior administration officials told reporters Thursday evening that they'll use those commitments to "call on G7 partners Friday both to make good on the pledges that are already out there" and to make further investments in global vaccine manufacturing and distribution.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev apologized at a House hearing Thursday for the confusion caused by his platform's decision to restrict trading of certain "meme stocks," while admitting he did not handle the situation perfectly.

Yes, but: Tenev later admitted the company made mistakes, but could not spell out what those mistakes were — before Congress moved on to the next question.

NASA's Perseverance rover — designed to further the hunt for past life on Mars — successfully touched down on the Red Planet Thursday.

Why it matters: Mars was once a relatively warm, wet and habitable world, and Perseverance — nicknamed Percy — could help NASA figure out if it was inhabited billions of years ago.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) signed a bill into law on Thursday banning most abortions in the state.

Driving the news: Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit in response, effectively blocking the measure from going into effect.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who has regularly polled as the most popular governor in the country, is facing declining fundraising numbers amid rising criticism for his handling of the coronavirus, stirring questions about whether he'll seek re-election next year or even try to pass the torch early.

Why it matters: Increasingly, the nation's governors are under growing scrutiny for their states' infection and death rates, economic losses and vaccine plans. Democratic governors representing two of the most populous states — Gavin Newsom of California and Andrew Cuomo of New York — are fighting for their political survival.

In the second half of 2020, Donald Trump’s re-election campaign shelled out seven figures to an influencer marketing business linked to his White House’s former chief digital officer.

Why it matters: The payments bought promotion from prominent conservative brands and social media personalities, showing how campaigns are exploring new, often more opaque digital advertising channels as large social media companies crack down on political ads.

A Feb. 16 satellite image above of Houston-area power outages (shown in red and explained here) gets to the immense scale of the Texas-wide crisis.

Why it matters: It's a human tragedy that's also quickly reaching Beltway energy discussions and responses and jostling oil markets.

January's U.S. retail sales report showed a 5.3% gain, the third-largest month-over-month increase on record, trailing only the booming numbers seen in June and July, as states opened up after nationwide shutdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Between the lines: January's big number was more impressive because it was 7.4% higher than in January 2020, whereas on a year-over-year basis both June and July's reports were below their commensurate 2020 figures.

The world's debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 356% in 2020, a new report from the Institute of International Finance finds, up 35 percentage points from where it stood in 2019, as countries saw their economies shrink and issued an ocean of debt to stay afloat.

Why it matters: The increase brings numerous countries, including the U.S., to extreme debt levels, well beyond what economists have called untenable in the past.

The coronavirus pandemic drove life expectancy in the U.S. to its lowest level since 2006, according to new preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The big picture: Racial disparities in life expectancy also widened in the first half of 2020. White Americans now live an average of six years longer than Black Americans, up from about a four-year difference in 2019.

The power outages in Texas are the latest in a series of disasters that will be harder to fix — or prevent from happening again — because Americans are retreating to partisan and cultural corners instead of trying to solve problems.

The big picture: From COVID to the election fallout to the utter collapse of Texas' electric grid, America is no longer showing the rest of the world how to conquer its biggest challenges. Instead, there's always another uncivil war to be fought — even when democracy, global health and now climate change are on the line.

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) will introduce Biden's immigration bill Thursday, which includes an eight-year pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) will introduce the bill in the Senate next week.

Why it matters: The bill is unlikely to win needed Republican support, but represents the aggressive immigration priorities of President Biden. It will also kick off the immigration debate on Capitol Hill, which could lead to less sweeping immigration reforms.

Michigan is poised to enact the nation's most lenient "expungement" law, loosening the criteria for having a crime erased from one's record — and other states may soon follow suit.

Why it matters: In cities like Detroit, where a third of residents have felony or misdemeanor convictions that make it harder to get a job or rent a house, expungement paves the way to a higher income, better life prospects, and the joy of enhanced dignity.

When the Australian government told tech platforms they had to start paying publishers for the headlines and links that fill their users' posts, Google caved but Facebook walked.

Why it matters: These companies' moves Wednesday — as Google struck a deal with News Corp to evade Australia's forthcoming rules, while Facebook essentially barred news content there — could shape how news companies are compensated for their work online for years to come.

There's little consensus about what went wrong, if anything, during the trading mania that drove a group of "meme stocks" to meteoric heights — and those tensions could animate today's GameStop-centered Congressional hearing.

Why it matters: What went wrong and who's to blame — short-sellers, Robinhood, Reddit daytraders, etc. — depends on whom you ask. Any of the witnesses set to appear could be targeted, and there's not much clarity about what direction Congress might go in response.

Meet Charles Little Bull: He's a role-model grad student in his twenties who wears his long hair in two braids. And today, when Nickelodeon unveils his character on "The Casagrandes," he'll become one of the first Lakota figures to appear in a major American animated-TV production.

Why it matters: His debut reflects Native American advocates' heightened campaigning to champion more positive, high-profile representation in media and news coverage.

The pace of new coronavirus infections continued to plummet over the past week, despite upticks in the already hard-hit Dakotas.

Why it matters: This sustained drop in new cases is unambiguously good news. If the U.S. can keep it going, this progress will save lives, make it easier to safely reopen schools and businesses, and help minimize the threat posed by more contagious variants of COVID-19.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration is under investigation by the FBI and U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn over its handling of COVID-19 nursing home deaths, the Albany Times-Union first reported Wednesday.

Why it matters: The news comes as N.Y. state lawmakers begin efforts to repeal the Democratic governor's pandemic emergency powers after it was revealed his administration delayed releasing data of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, prompting allegations of a cover-up.

Players central to the GameStop market bonanza will call on Congress to shorten the time required for stock trades to settle, according to testimonies released ahead of their appearances at a Congressional hearing on Thursday.

Why it matters: A typically obscure part of stock trading is set to be among the issues at the forefront — as Robinhood and others look to deflect the anger that stemmed from the Reddit-fueled stock frenzy.