Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said Wednesday the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has not provided information on which geographic locations will regain power, calling the agency "opaque."
Why it matters: A freezing winter storm has led to power outages for more than two million households in Texas.
From campaigns to conventions, Donald Trump and his administration are reemerging in exile.
What's happening: Trump family members are weighing political races, a slate of former Cabinet members are set to speak at next week's CPAC meeting, and after laying low through his impeachment trial, Trump is vowing to battle Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to shape the GOP’s field for the 2022 midterms.
President Joe Biden spoke on the phone today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one month after taking office.
Why it matters: In recent weeks, the White House faced questions over Biden’s decision to call the leaders of a dozen allies and world powers before calling Netanyahu.
Nearly 3 million Texans are without power and more than 20 are dead, due to a perfect storm of extreme weather, poor planning and an antipathy toward regulation.
Axios Re:Cap digs into what this experience should teach Texas and other states about the future, with Andrew Freedman, deputy weather editor of The Washington Post.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing on Wednesday that the Biden administration is sending emergency generators to Texas amid ongoing power outages and freezing weather.
Why it matters: Huge swaths of Texas have been without electricity for days due to critical failures in the state's power grid. The outages come while a winter storm continues to pummel the state, causing unsafe conditions and a desperate need for heat.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) doubled down Wednesday on demands that President Biden cancel up to $50,000 in federal student debt for all borrowers.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh died Wednesday at the age of 70 after a battle with lung cancer, his wife announced on his radio show.
The big picture: Limbaugh was one of the most influential conservative media personalities in the country for over three decades. The provocative radio host was a prominent Trump supporter and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the State of the Union last year after his cancer diagnosis.
The seven-day average of coronavirus vaccines administered in the U.S. has reached 1.7 million per day, White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients said at a Wednesday briefing.
Why it matters: That pace puts President Biden on course for meeting his goal of 100 million doses administered in his first 100 days in office, which would land on April 29. 54 million vaccine shots have been administered thus far, and 5% of Americans have received both doses.
The House Financial Services Committee tomorrow will hold its GameStop hearing, including testimony from the heads of Robinhood, Reddit, Citadel and Melvin Capital. Plus the trader known as "Roaring Kitty," who had better be wearing his headband.
What we know: Conventional wisdom is that the hearing will be lots of sound and fury signifying nothing.
The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was demolished with about 3,000 sticks of dynamite on Wednesday morning, more than three decades after it first opened and about five years after billionaire Carl Icahn acquired it out of bankruptcy.
Why it matters: It was one of the first three casinos former President Trump owned before his Atlantic City businesses went bankrupt, plagued by high debt and lagging revenue, according to the New York Times.
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other top House Republicans sent a letter to President Biden Wednesday urging him to take up a Trump-era proposal that would increase scrutiny of China's state-funded Confucius Institutes in the U.S., according to a draft first obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: Critics of the Chinese culture and language program say it's a "soft power" tool used to spread Beijing's influence on college campuses. Republicans have accused Biden and his Cabinet nominees of being "soft" on China and are pushing for him to take a harder line.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Fox News' "Hannity" Tuesday night that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was "indispensable to Donald Trump's success," after the former president unleashed a scathing statement attacking the Kentucky senator in highly personal terms.
Why it matters: Graham, one of Trump's closest allies in the Senate, said that both McConnell and the former president are essential to Republicans' chances of taking control of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections. The rift between the two most powerful leaders in the party threatens to permanently paralyze the GOP.
The winter storm sweeping across Texas and much of the U.S. has posed new obstacles to coronavirus vaccination efforts.
Driving the news: Hazardous weather has slowed deliveries from two central distribution hubs for the Southeast. The U.S. government is projecting "widespread delays" in vaccine shipments in the next few days, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spokesperson told the Washington Post.
The Congressional Budget Office doesn't expect much from House Democrats' plan to temporarily expand health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act.
The big picture: According to CBO's estimates, Democrats' proposals would cover fewer than 2 million uninsured Americans — at a cumulative cost of over $50 billion.
Mike Donilon, senior adviser to President Biden, argues in a memo to White House senior staff that GOP opposition to the COVID rescue package would shrink the party's already declining national support.
What they're saying: "There seems to bea growing conventional wisdom that it is either politically smart — or, at worst, cost-free — for the GOP to adopt an obstructionist, partisan, base-politics posture," Donilon writes in the two-page memo, obtained by Axios. "However, there is lots of evidence that the opposite is true: ... this approach has been quite damaging to them."
A Manhattan-based hedge fund on Tuesday agreed to buy local newspaper giant Tribune, representing the latest blow to the local news industry, which is already struggling to survive the pandemic — let alone the internet era.
Why it matters: The deal means that some of the country's most historic local newspapers, from the Chicago Tribune to New York Daily News, will be in the hands of an investment firm known for cutting journalists at local papers to maximize profits.
President Biden said during a CNN town hall Tuesday night that all of the living former presidents have called him, except one.
Driving the news: After confirming that he's yet to hear from former President Trump, Biden was asked about the Senate's acquittal of his predecessor. But he didn't take the bait.
"I'm tired of talking about Donald Trump, don't want to talk about him anymore," he said.
"For four years all that’s been in the news is Trump. In the next four years I want to make sure all the news is the American people."
President Biden on Tuesday sought to clarify what his administration means by promising to open schools in the first 100 days of his presidency, insisting that "the goal will be five days a week."
The big picture: Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Biden’s definition for open schools was in-classroom instruction by a teacher “at least one day a week.”
