republicans refuse to take action to weatherize water systems from the cold, and the texas "tribune" reports texas officials knew winter storms could leave the state's power grid vulnerable, but they left the choice to prepare for harsh weather up to the power companies, many of which opted against the costly upgrades. texas republicans are to blame for these failures, let's be clear, and democrats are now working to right these wrongs starting at the top. on february 14th, the first day of the power outages in texas, president biden signed an emergency declaration that authorized fema to provide the state with critical equipment like generators and resources such as water and diesel fuel. president biden spoke with the governor of texas last night, and today at the governor's request, announced he'll be signing a major disaster declaration that will provide even more relief to the state. >> as i said when i ran, i'm going to be a president over all america, all red -- there's no red or blue. it's all about commitment to the american people, made to one another. we're going to sign th

because al-jazeera now speak to russ ramsey he's the executive editor of the texas tribune and he joins us now from austin russ thanks so much for being with us i just want to start by asking you where you are right now and how are you holding up over that hey i'm in austin and i've been unexpectedly lucky our power hasn't gone off we've got water we've got gassed everything's ok but you know a bunch of people on our staff around the state and around the country have been shut out and this is a really tough time there you know some of them have been out of power pretty days it's really cold outside texas really haven't built for this kind of weather i know a lot of texas cities a currently under boil water and are just as i see the mayor of houston very recently tweeted saying that was a precious very low please do not run water to keep pipes from besting be conservative on most usage today it's needed the hospitals and fires are fast the power at now the water. right it's become a compound problem you start with the electricity is inadequate for the demand the supplies drop at the same

what are you hearing from the texas tribune about things getting better, but?> i'm in d.c., but this has been a difficult week for us because my family, my friends, everyone i know in texas has been hindered in some way. the question is the scale. this is something that will go on for a very long time. if your home is floolded, there are not enough plumbers in the state to take care of this issue quickly. just taking a shower is an issue for many texans right now. >> and, abby phillip, that's why this is crazy. this is today's dallas morning news "paying a high price." they think the damage will be higher than hurricane harvey. the headlines have been like this all week, and yet ted cruz thought it was okay to get on a plane with his daughters and his wife to go to cancun. the "new york times" actually has some texts from his wife heidi cruz saying their house was freezing, as miss cruz put it, and she proposed getting away until sunday. she proposed friends join them at the ritz-carlton in cancun, where they had stayed many times, noting the room price this we

this is how the texas "tribune" summed it up at the press conference. quote, abbott provides few details on when texans' suffering will end as state's crises mount." "the daily beast" reporting that the federal government sent texas 60 industrial-sized generators to help alleviate the strain on the electrical grid, but explained those generators were sitting in a staging area delivery instructions. same with 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel to fire those generators, sent to texas by the federal government. quote, fema officials are waiting after are instructions from texas officials. while they wait, the federal government has been trying to help. the biden administration has declared a state of emergency in texas and a state of emergency in oklahoma city and louisiana too. they've also been hard hit by the storms. the president has authorized fema to provide hard-hit states with generators and supplies. he says they're ready to fulfill additional requests for assistance. in texas specifically besides those 60 generators that were reportedly sitting in a wa

one austin resident telling "the texas tribune" about her recent trip to target. quote, the store was out of meat and eggs and almost all milk before i left. lines were wrapped around the store when we arrived. shelves were almost fully cleared for potatoes, meat, eggs and some dairy. she said her neighbor went to that same store two days later. by then it was completely out of food. there was no sign that more shipments were on the. was, no restocking shelves, nothing to restock them with. people living in one of the largest states in the country are living with no electricity, no heat, no water, scrounging for nonpotable water and for food. this has been going on for the better part of a week. it was not -- in the midst of that, it was not until yesterday that the republican governor of texas, greg abbott, held a public press conference to talk to the people of texas about what's been going on, what the state is trying to do to fix it. this is how "the texas tribune" summed up what governor abbott said at the press conference. quote, abbott provides few details

and joining me now he had etd tore and chief of the texas tribune, evan smith. and gabe guttierez. what are you tell us? >> this is a cascading disaster for the state of texas, but for ted cruz, it is a pr nightmare. you mentioned the text messages that have been leaked to the "new york times" and i think to really understand this, you have to understand the time line here. ted cruz boarded that flight to sunny cancun on wednesday. then according to a source familiar with his travel arrangements he booked that return flight on thursday morning. he was originally set to return on saturday. but this -- as you mentioned there in the lead-in, thousand doing several interviews. when he first spoke with reporters in cancun, he did not acknowledge that he planned to stay there through the weekend. now he is saying that, yes, that was the plan initially. then he changed his mind when he got on the plane, he immediately regretted his decision to go. and then he came back. but these texts that were provided to the "new york times" and confirmed by a second source on those chains, his wife hei

abby livingston, washington bureau chief for "the texas tribune." josh wingrove, white house reporter for bloomberg news. dr. vin gupta, assistant professor at the university of washington institute for health metrics and evaluation. good evening and welcome to you all. abby, given the subject matter and the immediacy, i'd like to begin with you and i'd like to read a quote from "the atlantic." this is david graham. it's tempting to turn the hypocrite label on cruz, but his sin is worse. every politician is a hypocrite at some point. cruz's error is not that he was shirking a duty he knew he should have been performing. it's that he couldn't think of anyway he could use his power as a u.s. senator to help texans in need. that's a failure of imagination and of political ideology. abby, cruz watchers heard the insurrectionists drop his name. they saw cruz vote in effect pro-insurrection. they thought maybe this will ding his presidential hopes. then came cancun. now people are wondering if it will ding his career in the u.s. senate from continuing bey

she is a multimedia journalist with the "texas tribune," and she joins me from austin. alana thank you so much for joining us. i know that you have been talking to a lot of texas residentsk some of whom still can't get basic essentials, get food from the grocery store, hot water. tell me what everybody is still going through there in texas an what thoar's feeling. >> just before i spoke with you i got a text message saying that i think my boil water notice had been lifted here in south austin. but a lot of people don't know if their water is safe to drink. there still food shelves that you just showed that are empty. i have a husband currently going around town trying to find our 18 month old some milk. atb and the other grocery stores are assuring people that trucks are coming in and trying to restock. but yeah, this is months on end after the pandemic where again we're almost at the start of the pandemic, as of last year, where people again are not able to find basic sinls and waiting for-- essentials and waiting for safe water. most homes are now restored as far as po

the texas tribune adds this reporting, the texas leaders failed to heed warnings that left the state's power grid vulnerable to winter extremes. quote, policy observers blame the power system failure on the lirpgt us and state agencies who they say did not heed the warnings of previous storms or account for more extreme weather events warned of by climate scientist sees. instead texas prioritized the free market. yesterday on this program mouth doud pointed out the through line between national republican officials carrying the ex-president's big lie and the state's republican governor taking to fox news to falsely blame the green newdale for texas's current crisis. . that may well go down as abbott's you're doing a heck of a job moment as the state cement paralyzed in slow motion human catastrophe. and where are the other elected representatives right now? are they handing out watering with going door to door or are they in cancun? if you guessed cancun that would appear correct. at least for the whereabouts of the state senator ted cruz photographed on a commercial flight to mexico y

alana rocha, a reporter at the texas tribune, told me that lots of people in the state are angry abouttoday, versus coming back over the weekend. you know, he says it was "a mistake", he owned up to it kind of after he was the target of internet fury that erupted overnight into today. yeah, a lot of people are struggling. i as a parent here at home have both of my children, small children, home. we have power, luckily, but no water. so, yeah, it didn't sit well with a lot of people, you know, we would have liked to pick up their children and gone to a warmer climate, a climate with all the basic amenities. so, yeah, it's not going well. he took hours to issue a statement and speak with reporters, as you showed there. he says he has to ask the question of what's gone so badly wrong here in the state? do we have any kind of idea of what has gone so wrong? well, it's a couple of things. one is years of deregulation and letting these companies decide whether or not they want to weatherise the parts and pipes that pump out this natural gas under the permian basin. we sit on top of the resou

ramsay's executive editor of the texas tribune he told us how widespread the impact of the storm has been. it's become a compound problem you start with the electricity is inadequate for the demand the supplies drop at the same time that the demand peak a lot of the things that depend on that electricity went with it natural gas. wasn't flowing properly so that wasn't powering natural gas plants it turns out a lot of homes mine included are heated by natural gas and then because of the freezing and because texas isn't really built for this kind of a storm a lot of pipes reversing i know in a couple of places around the state main water lines have burst and so now you have water problems and you have problems with when you can get water it's not necessarily purified enough and that's why the boil warnings come up you know we're going to find out as we get toward the end of the week what all has happened during the week this all began really at about 1 o'clock in the morning on monday when the power supplies were cut when the were supposed to be rolling blackouts began and people began

i know the texas tribune said texas largely relies on natural gas for power. extreme cold. so those systems didn't seem to be able to keep up. they weren't weatherized is what local media are saying. what does that have to do with the green energy conflict that's going on there? talk to me about it. >> there are a lot of answers we need to figure out what happened but what we do know is when you have an overreliance on green policies whether it's tax credits or subsidies that go into wind and solar which by the way we'll need all the above energy as demand rises in the next 15 years on population on the planet adds another billion people we'll need it all. we'll have more demand than we've ever had but we need free market competition. oil and gas industry is the lifeblood of this country and while this is a once in a generation storm here in texas, throughout the rest of america it is not so uncommon. so when the government forces bad policy and reduces competition, it in effect reduces the resilience of our grid. we have a lot of questions to answer here in t

let's get more on this now from alana rocha, who is a reporter at the texas tribune.amme. thank you for havin: on the programme. thank you for having me- _ on the programme. thank you for having me. that _ on the programme. thank you for having me. that start _ on the programme. thank you for having me. that start with - on the programme. thank you for having me. that start with ted i having me. that start with ted cruz. having me. that start with ted cruz this _ having me. that start with ted cruz. this seems _ having me. that start with ted cruz. this seems like - having me. that start with ted cruz. this seems like ms - cruz. this seems like ms entirely of his own making? yeah, i mean, we learnt that he changed his return flight at 6am this morning to come back today, this is coming back over the weekend, you know, he says it was a mistake, he owned up to it kind of after he was the target of internet fury erupting overnight into today, a lot of people are struggling study i is appearing here at home have both of my children, mole children at home, we have power, l

. >> like a jump in for a second, there's an interesting article in texas tribune and it has a couplergy resource professor at the university of austin in texas and he talks about how all of texas's energy sources share blame for this power crisis. he said the natural gas industry is most notably producing significantly less power than normal. other people arguing texas didn't winterize the wind turbines. there's a lot happening here as part of this conversation and finger-pointing and blame, what do you think about that, what do you think of the winterization of wind turbines? is that something that needs to be done in texas? >> i will tell you what needs to happen. they can't bring back coal-fired generating plants. if you shut them down your taking power out of the grid. that is what i am saying. if they would quit shutting things down and try, shutting it down, trying to go to wind and solar it is not going to work. look at the money they are having to expend. whenever i was going to rescue the people, bringing them gas, i live up in north texas. i went by hundred something wind t

that news comes as grocery store reports shortages and the texas tribune reports that texas running low on food are finding empty grocery store shelves. food pantries are running out of supplies. and the freeze has wiped out substantial portions of the state's citrus and vegetable crops. willie? . >> and there's another big problem in texas. because of the temperatures, cities across the state are under boil water notices. many texans have been dripping faucets to prevent pipes from freezing. but water levels are dangerously low and may be unsafe to drink. boil tap water for drinking, cooking and making ice and to conserve water wherever possible. nearly 600 public water systems across the state reported disruptions in service affecting about 12 million residents. for more, let's bring in meteorologist bill occasions. what does it look like today? . >> willie, in the last couple hours, texas managed to energize a big pofrgtz grid. hundreds of thousands of people are getting their power back on. yesterday we had 3 million without power. right now we're at 650,000. a significant number of

the texas tribune reporting today the state's power grid was, quote, seconds and minutes away from a catastrophic failure that could have left texans in the dark for months. officials saying that if operators had not acted in that moment early monday morning to start rolling blackouts, that's blackouts they themselves were controlling, it could have left texas in an indeterminately long crisis. think about that. minutes and seconds away. the state remains in a precarious situation. freezing temperatures around the state expected until saturday. there is an ongoing food crisis as disruptions to the food chain resulted in food shortages. monstrously long lines for grocery stores in multiple cities. there is a massive water crisis. hospitals have been without water as they take care of patients during the pandemic, and 7 million texans are now under a boil water order. the freezing temperatures have affected water pump systems at treatment plants and caused pipes to burst. all a cascade of problems. >> pipes are bursting and leaving a huge mess, look at that, inside many homes. >> one m

i got into journalism and interned at the texas tribune then went into freelancing and ended up with this job at the marshall project and throughout that time was constantly doing stories of death story cases and then realizing i can pull it all together into a larger narrative of the rise and fall of texas tea 14 from that time. was there one person you met with or one story that stayed with you are shaped the way you looked at the subject? >> yes. there were a few in the when it comes to mind was in austin. it doesn't show up in the book at all it was very formative in the seventies there was a murder of a police officer in austin. the man who committed the murder was named david powell. basically anyone who moved to austin after the seventies would not have heard of but doing long interviews with two women who were very close to powell almost like family members on death row interviewing his natural family members and i had conversations with the widow of the man that was killed by him the police officer i realized one street i had driven down multiple times was named for that pol

according to "the texas tribune," texans running low on food are finding empty grocery store shelves, food pantries are running out of supplies, and the freeze has wiped out substantial portions of the state's citrus and vegetable crops. and there's another new problem in texas due to the freezing temperatures. cities across the state are now under boil water notices. following official guidance, many texans have been dripping faucets to prevent frozen pipes from bursting, but residents were warned yesterday that water levels are dangerously low and may be unsafe to drink. officials are asking people to boil tap water for drinking, cooking, and making ice and to conserve water wherever possible. nearly 600 public water systems across the state reported disruptions in service, affecting about 12 million residents. for more on the extreme cold, let's bring in meteorologist bill karins. hey, bill. >>> hey, alicia. so many problems all at the same time and compounding on top of each other. and the culprit of all of it is that the temperatures won't warm up, and it's still extremely cold a

of energy systems at the university of michigan and kia collier, a reporter for "the propublica texas tribune" investigative initiative. kia, i wonder if i could start with you. the ceo of ercot said this on thursday about its decision to implement rolling blackouts. watch. >> if we hadn't taken action, it wouldn't have been we waited a few days to see what happened, it was seconds and minutes, given the amount of generation coming off the system and the demand going up significantly. >> seconds or minutes away from uncontrollable blackouts. let me just ask the blunt question -- did ercot know what it was doing in this situation? did they just completely fumble the ball on this one? >> you know, i don't think ercot can actually really take the blame, ultimately, for this. so, you mentioned this in the intro, but there was a spectacular failure of the state's natural gas system, especially, so, you had single different temps freezing not only -- effecting not only natural gas production, but transport, as well. so, you can't really say that, i mean, ercot doesn't receive the natural gas system

stories like this from "the texas tribune." a grandmother sleeps in her car to stay warm.ts who ran out of firewood burned belongings to keep their children warm. a richardson woman watched the battery level of her partner's oxygen machine drain away and sought help to have it recharged. morgan is live in dallas. temperatures are not expected to get above freezing. morgan, first, are we getting any sense of when these families may finally get their power back on? what are officials saying? >> reporter: officials are saying the same thing they have been saying for the past 24 hours, related to the power grid, that is they are working hard to restore full power. at this point, there's no definitive timetable as to when it will be fully restored. they say that rolling outages will continue. however, i feel it's important to note the rolling outages for so many texans across the state have not been several hours on, several hours off but several minutes on and then days off. i spoke a gentleman who had to move his life through the snow to a neighbor's home after the thermostat

can we get just the heat on, and then we can fight about whose fault it was great article in the texas tribune i tweeted out that we were, according to ercot, we were minutes away from a month long blackout on the grid. we talk about stimulus we talk about stimulus do you think there's an opportunity here for investors, rbc, right, you want to make money, that's kind of the point, to invest in the energy and power grid will that be a great place to invest the next five or ten years? >> i think this is going to be, you look at the biden energy plan it's a huge focus on, you know, pushing investment into renewables, into wind, into solar. this is actually somewhere we thought there was bipartisan support. look where these wind farms are. i think it's going to be very interesting, as we go into congressional action on the biden energy plan, you know, does this impact in any way the effort to provide tax breaks to wind and solar, something that we thought was very very bipartisan what does it mean about natural gas. again, under the obama administration, there was a lot of discussion about natural

stephanie: alana roe shah with "the texas tribune," you've been doing some stellar reporting there. so much for coming on "the newshour." alana: thanks for having me. ♪ judy: all of us face the risk that extremeeather events like the one last week in texas will become more common and more destructive occurrences because of climate change. former microsoft co-founder bill gates has studied climate change for years. he has prescrippings in his latest book, "how to avoid a climate disaster," bill gates, thank you very much for joining us. i do want to start with texas. still reeling from what happened last week. do you think that this is something that could have been avoided? bill: absolutely. the reason that the -- that they have shutdowns on all their power sources was a lack of weatherization. they didn't expect to have these cold temperatures. all those types of yen rators work in states like north dakota or alaska that are far colder, but extra money was put into weatherization. but the two things it does show us is that we're going to have extreme events like this because of cli

i want to turn to evan smith, ceo of the "texas tribune" which has been covering this story from all over the state, and judge lina hidalgo, the chief judge of harris county, which includes the city of houston. judge, let me start with you. i've had you on the program before, encountering other crises, including that mid-summer spike with covid. things sound quite dire right now. what is the situation right now in harris county and what do you see and what has to happen in the next 24 hours? >> things are dire right now in harris county. we have millions of people who are about to experience their third night without power. without power, many times without water. we have people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, people dying on the roads, incredible suffering, people running out of food. what needs to happen is we need ercot, which is the agency that manages the power statewide to get power plants generation back online so that we can send that electricity to our community, my community. i'm here at our emergency operations center. i've got first responders who have not heard fro

there is an article in the texas tribune about someone with a $10,000 bill on the utilities, a public connected directly to your checking account and takes the money straight out before you even know the bill is there. people are being devastated. you will have massive bankruptcies because of this. >> you are seeing bills for $10,000. $17,000 on the variable rate programs where all of the detail is in the fine print. i don't know about you. when i am paying my electric bill i do not read the pages of fine print to know i could be charged $17,000 for something that is not my fault and that school teacher, if like half of school teachers in texas is working a second or third job to make ends meet because we don't pay our public school educators half enough for the work they do in order to put food on the table or pay their electricity bill. we need change in our electricity grid, leadership and where we place our priorities in texas. thankful lee there are volunteers going out there and doing the job public leaders should do they are literally not in the state that they purport to repre

one analysis in the texas tribune asks this question, do state leaders even know what they are doing? i want to start with antonia hilton in houston, texas where people there are still suffering through this brutal cold. antonia, what is going on there and do you have heat where you are? >> reporter: hey, stephanie. i do have heat, thankfully. i was able to find a hotel that is still in decent shape although they're not sure that is going to last, necessarily, through the next couple days but people here are in fight or flight mode, stephanie. i have spoken to meal who haven't showered since sunday. and now that the roads are in better condition people are driving around frantically looking for somewhere to stay, a hotel with vacancies, a friend that they can move in with to share resources. the electric reliability council here in texas says they're making progress, they're making improvements, getting power back up, but right now they still don't have community level information about when specific neighborhoods are going to get their heat, light and water back to normal. i spent mu

. >> the texas tribune reports nearly half of all texans, nearly 14 million people are experiencing waterions. millions of under notices to boil their water before using it for drinking or cooking but others have no running water at all. in austin, officials are warning they could be without water for days. water issues have forced some hospitals to transfer patients, residents are also struggling to buy food, forced to wait in long lines at grocery stores only to find empty shelves once they get inside some of those stores. >> there's no water in the store. we only have like two cases of water left. we're trying to divide it between two families and it's really hard. we don't know what the next day is going to look like and that's the scary part. >> joining us now is former texas state senator wendy davis. senator davis, thank you very much for joining us tonight. you apparently have electricity now. we hope it lasts through the next few minutes. what has your week been like so far and what does texas government need to do? >> it's been a stregful week, lawrence. thank you so much for ha

on natural gas and the reserves from what i am reading and i encourage everybody to pick up the texas tribune or any of the local reporting outlets they are in dallas and houston and other areas because you'll learn a lot, particularly in austin. the lines below ground froze for natural gas, they had not been weatherized. and i asked representative pflueger about this and i also said to others that have interviewed, your reactors, the water was freezing, to keep them safe they put those off line, some of that has come back online today or is expected to. this got really complicated. it was extreme, we get it but are we not able to do all of it at the same time, that's what they ask, can we do it all at the same time so you are not just dumping oil and natural gas and moving to turbines, keep it all, keep all that inventory kind of going, weatherize what you need to until we are really ready to make the switch and i don't know if that's what failed here, i'm just looking at a lot of frozen stuff and asking a lot of questions. kennedy? >> kennedy: that requires foresight and balancing all of th

deregulation is part of the orthodoxy but i want to read this part from the texas tribune in a columnere they said who wants to go to a failed state? sure, there is no income tax but we're rationing gas, turning off electricity and burning water to it doesn't poison us. the light regulation here has been a key part of the business pitch but the dark side was showing this week in the failures of our basic infrastructure. i mean, barbara, this really does seem to be a hit for the kind of low touch, low regulation philosophy of the republican party. can it survive what texas just experienced this past week? >> well, i think clearly you're going to have, you know, a lot of congressional hearings, you know, already governor abbott has called for hearings in texas and i think you're going to have significant reforms. and when you are a one-party state, whether it's new york and governor cuomo owning the problems that he has now with covid or, you know, governor newsom in california also have been their own power problems, you own it. so, you know, that is, you know, the political problem, b

there are a lot of questions about how this disaster was able to unfold in the first place, the texas tribune reports that officials failed to heed warnings that left the state's power grid vulnerable by leaving the choice to prepare for harsh weather up to the power companies themselves. many of which opted against the costly upgrades. joining me now is the mayor of galveston, texas, craig brown. mayor brown, thank you so much for your time in the middling of all this. this morning you said this is worse than a hurricane, which is obviously a powerful statement coming from someone living on the gulf coast of texas. what is the situation like in galveston right now and when are you hoping things will be back to normal, if at all? >> right now we're having water shortages caused by the breaking of pipes in our historic homes here. we still have many people without electricity. we do have colder weather coming tonight. we are getting better, though, and we're looking forward, though -- this is going to be with us for a long time before we get back to, quote, a normal situation with water or ele

joining us now multimedia reporter for the texas tribune, alana roacha. the real problem was and then i noticed there was a small town texas mayor that called his residents lazy because they were complaining about not having power. how common is it for elected officials in texas right now to be trying to deflect the blame on this being a liberal plot as opposed to what the reality is on the ground? >> of course, there is a lot of finger pointing happening right now and some trying to take responsibility. the governor did call yesterday the reform of the electric reliability council text the power grid that covers about 90% of the state to be an emergency item. lawmakers are meeting right now, about a month into session. we only meet here every other year for about 140 days, so the fact it's an emergency item allows lawmakers to take up that issue within the first 60 days. you already saw leaders from the house and senate talk about calling committee hearings to look at this, but yeah. you saw outrage from the top three here in the state among other lawmak

this is not my story this is erin douglas, texas tri tribune. saying ercot says it was minutes or even seconds away from a more catastrophic meltdown of the entire grid that could have resulted in month or month-long blackouts, okay according to the texas tribune what happened is this. ercot noticed that power levels were falling rapidly at the same time that demand was soaring, right most people in texas use electricity, not gas for their heat they're cranking the heat because it's freezing. that supply gap between demand and supply widened to dangerous levels, so in order to prevent something worse happening, ercot, the grid operators, had to start cutting back to industrial customers when that didn't work, start rolling blackouts to prevent a total meltdown surges if it all goes -- two power plants are sharing the load, one goes down, all the demand suddenly goes to others, it could result in explosions, fires, other damage like downed lines, wires, whatever it might be and if that would happen, it could have resulted, according to the articl

of the human suffering is different to comprehend, but listen to this first paragraph in "the texas tribunept in her car. parents who ran out logs burned possessions. this from "the galveston county daily news" one local police official said they hoped to not be marking hopes with red to indicate there were dead bodies inside. and in the midst of all that suffering, well, how is governor greg abbott spending his time? by having a chat with sean hannity, taking time to erroneously and dishonestly attack renewable energy in the green new deal. more than 3 million people in his state are without power. let's bring into our conversation two special guests of this show, former democratic congressman of texas, besso o'rourke, joining us from el basso, and matthew dow, founder of the group country over -- he has lost power and water. how are you doing? >> i'm okay. yesterday i decide it was below 50 degrees in my house and i had no water. i grow 30 miles to a hotel, and when i checked in 15 minutes after i checked in the power to the hotel went out, and now it came back on a bit appearing. i'm doi

and there was a really interesting article, in the texas tribune, i think it came out yesterday afternoon, where they said that the system was within seconds or even minutes of having a complete failure for months on end. can you imagine what that mean for the state's economy, especially in a pandemic, where people are so reliant on not just power to stay warm, and do their basic jobs, and lives, but their jobs, they're taking place, so much more online, their ability to connect with, you know, family and friends, it is so much more online, and so the thought of, you know, the state of texas not having power, for months on end, in the middle of a pandemic, it's pretty scary when you think about it. >> yeah, and of course, we're going to keep an eye on, it this story, that josh was outlining so well, for us, about chips, it's not going anywhere. we talked yesterday, vincent roche, the ceo of analog devices, they're going to meet their guidance and perhaps they can exceed it, but in part, they are reliant on other wafers, coming in, that do things with, and it's going to be a story, as he s

the "texas tribune" recently shared a story of one student, a boy they referred to as jordan. he was a student at frisco independent school district, and like kids across the country, he struggled with the challenge of virtual learning. this fall, his normal a's and b's dropped to f's, and the further he fell behind, the harder it was for him to catch up. in october, jordan opened up a google doc and typed an absolutely agonizing message. he said give me ten good reasons why i shouldn't kill myself here. and when you think that can't get any more heart breaking, it does. the list was blank. an 11-year-old boy felt so lost and defeated, he couldn't come up with a single reason to continue living. well, if there is a bright spot in this otherwise very dark story, it is that this incident did not go unnoticed. jordan was using a school-issued computer, and the school district's technology department quickly flagged this alarming information for counselors who alerted jordan's mother. she was able to intervene, thankfully, before those dark thoughts could be turned into action and

this is the texas tribune and their headline, texas voters like the covid-19 response better than hisverall performance. in south carolina, this is tim. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i disapprove of joe biden shutting down the pipeline because it cost somata jobs. it's going to make gasoline more expensive. it's going to keep us from being energy independent. it is his policies that are going to kill this country. if you think about it, several years ago when we had the obama administration, they had to pay back donations from large corporations to shut down the pipeline. they are paying it back again. they're not worried about people on the bottom. i president helped keep money in my pocket. this president is going to kill the economy and take money out. i appreciate you taking my call. host: wanda up next in virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? i have one comment to make. i disapprove of -- no longer than he has been in office, between him and nancy pelosi, they have so much hatred for donald trump. it seems like they can't get past trying

host: the texas tribune reporting about the damage from the freeze and the storms. outages leave millions of texans desperate for heat and safety, texan's residence of the storm and ensuing partial collapse of the state power system tapped what little reserves they had left after a global health crisis that has cost thousands of jobs and claimed more than 40,000 lives in the state. next is mike in rockville, maryland. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air, go ahead. caller: i think joe biden is doing an amazing job. he was given a raw deal, trump blew everything up, trump was a fire from the day he got into office. he handed joe biden a government completely -- listening to the caller, listening to the trump callers calling in, they are angry, they are stomping their feet around. a couple of things real quick. i looked it up, from the flu, 34,000 people died between 2018 and 2019. we have almost 500 thousand people that have died from coronavirus. once again, trump supporters don't like actual facts, not the ones that they fabricate and find on the internet

texas grid. >> the tribune reports that low income texans bore the heaviest wait of the power outages as the usualen centers were without power. and unemployment and devastation from the pandemic, those troubles won't end after the storm clears and the heat is running again in homes. i wonder how you see this both in terms of the decisions leading up to the crisis, specifically as it relates to communities of color and what they are going to need in order to make sure they are not forgotten as they begin to rebuild. >> well in the immediate aftermath -- like i said it's going on but starting to clear up a bit -- in san antonio there were seven major food distribution sites. there were water distribution sites. so people -- a lot of people have gone without food. and some people literally without water for a bit or, the scarcity of water. and so my brother and i were at the main food bank today. and there was literally about a mile long of cars waiting to come get some food just to take home and eat. and as you said alicia, this is going on in the context of a pandemic that is still running through t

awfully cold temperatures, texas attorney general ken paxton and his wife, state senator angela paxton, left. they traveled to utah. paxton's campaign spokesperson told "the tribune" it was a previously planned trip to meet with utah's attorney general about a multistate lawsuit against google. >>> all right, meanwhile, during an interview on fox news last night, senator ted cruz tried to blame the media for the negative attention that he's received for flying to cancun last week as his constituents suffered in the cold. take a look. >> i think the media's suffered from trump withdrawal, where they've attacked trump every day for four years, they don't know what to do, so they obsessed over my taking my girls to the beach. >> guess he misses him. anyway, democrats' coronavirus relief bill has passed another hurdle on its pathway to help struggling americans. the house budget committee approved a $1.9 trillion bill yesterday in a 19-16 vote, and that sets the stage for a potential house floor vote as early as friday. a senate vote expected next

and across the atlantic, the texas tribune is leading on the winter storms which have been blamed forwithout electricity. the state is experiencing record low temperatures, with some places falling to minus 18 degrees celcius. we will be talking to a chief meteorologist from a tv station in texas here on the programme in about half an hour. i texas here on the programme in about half an hour-— half an hour. i was 'ust thinking, that a weather _ half an hour. i wasjust thinking, that a weather person? - half an hour. i wasjust thinking, that a weather person? is - half an hour. i wasjust thinking, that a weather person? is that i that a weather person? is that someone who does the weather on american tv?— someone who does the weather on american tv? , . , ., ., ., american tv? yes. that is what carol is, a meteorologist. _ american tv? yes. that is what carol is, a meteorologist. like _ american tv? yes. that is what carol is, a meteorologist. like carol- american tv? yes. that is what carol is, a meteorologist. like carol in - is, a meteorologist. like carol in america but _ is, a met

reciben esto porque no tienen trabajo, en texas, grupos de inmigrantes recien llegados a la frontera, son liberados por las a autoridades fdederales en esper del tribunalson liberados in mmigrantes n proceso de asilo de estados unidos, en la estacion de a autobuses, captamos a este grupo de infdocumentados liberadors >> identificamos un hotel en donde podemos mansar dar a l personas con el virus >> el gobierno de mexico dice no aceptqaran mas grupos de i inmigrantes expulsados de e estados unidos . >> la politica de jbnde t conocimientgo, si va a cambiar, esto de quedate en mexico para esperar que se te resuleelva solicitud de asilo ya no sera . l>> las organizaciones estan colaborando para asegurarse de que no haya covid-19 . >> buscan donde hospedarse, para resguardarse, hasta cuando s salen, y no se sienten mal >> las ciudades de mcallneen d donde llega, se preparan, no se ven todavia grandes conc concentraciones >> la patrulla fdrronteria repoa aumento de inmigrantes, n nuevamente regresan inmigrantes liberados a albergues del sur de texas, atletico autoridades piden ayuda para el manekjo d estos grupos . >> y vuelve el sueÑo de los dreamers, esta

un tribunal federal que califica de "inconstitucional" la moratoria de desahucios de los centros para el control y la prevencion de enfermedades... el caso involucra a un grupo de propietarios de texasdemandaron a los c-d-c por poner un alto temporal a los desalojos durante la pandemia, que se impuso bajo la administracion de trump... el estado de california aprobo un fondo multi-millonario para asistir a los migrantes que estan llegando procedentes de mexico... desde los angeles, romi de frias nos explica como se empleara el dinero y quienes apoyaran esta mision humanitaria de gran magnitud... en mexico, las autoridades rescataron a 156 migrantes centroamericanos, que viajaban hacinados en un camion... el vehiculo fue detenido al circular en sentido contrario sobre una carretera en el estado de chiapas... a los migrantes se les brindo asistencia medica y consular tras el rescate... y en menos de 48 horas, es decir, este proximo lunes tendra lugar la primera reunion bilaeral entre el presidente joe biden y el presidente mexicano, andres manuel lopez obrador... debido a la pandemia, el encuentro se realizara de manera virtual... desde ciudad de mexico, paulina gomez nos detalla cuale

justicia apelÓ una sentencia de un tribunal federal que califica de inconstitucional la moratoria de desahucio de los cdc. el caso involucra un grupo de propietarios de texaslos migrantes provenientes de Éxico. veamos cÓmo se empleara el dinero y quiÉnes apoyarÁn esta misiÓn humanitaria. reportera: california habilitÓ $28,000,000 para ayudar a inmigrantes que llegan desde mÉxico en busca de asilo polÍtico y llegan a estados unidos mediante el cruce fronterizo de san diego a esperar su audiencia en corte. >> estos fondos, con la ayuda de grupos de la sociedad civil en san diego, se van a usar para apoyar en los gastos de alimentaciÓn, de vivienda, de transportaciÓn, mientras los migrantes se quedan temporalmente en san diego. reportera: este dinero ayudarÁ a pagar habitaciones de hotel para que los inmigrantes permanezcan en cuarentena durante al menos 10 dÍas, dada la pandemia del coronavirus, antes de ir a su destino final. tambiÉn financiarÁ servicios de salud y pruebas de covid—19. >> las personas vienen totalmente vulnerables. han estado en un pÉsimo estado en la frontera. estÁn en extrema pobreza, en la calle. estos fondos se los van a ayudar a las or