Millions of Texans are still waiting for their electricity coverage to resume after 3 days of a brutal winter storm that is pushing the state to breaking point. To make matters worse, more snow is expected in a fresh storm on the horizon. Describing the state of emergency, the New York Times wrote, “Pipes froze and burst across the state, icicles hung from kitchen faucets in Houston, ambulances in San Antonio were unable to meet the surging demand and the county government in coastal Galveston called for refrigerated trucks to hold the bodies they expect to find in freezing, powerless houses.” As is usually the case, the power outages have hit residents in minority neighborhoods disproportionately harder and black and brown residents were among the first to lose electricity. Experts say they will likely be among the last to see their power restored. About 4 million people are still without power across the southern and central part of the nation and at least 30 people have died in Texas as well as Missouri, Louisiana, and Mississippi. 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has blamed wind turbines freezing in the cold temperatures for the power outages saying on Fox News, “this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America… it just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas, as well as other states.” But critics pointed out this was not true. According to the Washington Post Abbott’s own energy department reported that “most of Texas’s energy losses came from failures to winterize the power-generating systems, including fossil fuel pipelines.” Meanwhile Tim Boyd, the mayor of Colorado City, Texas, resigned after publishing a lengthy Facebook post in which he blamed residents for being too lazy to arrange for their own electricity and water in the crisis and that it was not the government’s responsibility to ensure basic necessities. Boyd took down the post after public outrage and resigned.

In other news, President Joe Biden during his televised townhall meeting this week on CNN said he was optimistic that Americans would have open access to COVID-19 vaccines by the end of July. The remarks follow from a more pessimistic tone last week when Biden warned about logistical and distributional challenges. Biden also emphasized that there would be more equitable distribution of vaccines to hardest-hit communities. The White House announced that states would begin receiving 13.5 million doses collectively per week, a large increase.

During his townhall appearance one attendee asked him about college debt forgive...