Texas storm: Biden to declare major disaster to secure federal aid – as it happened

• New Mexico overturned a dormant, 52-year-old ban on some abortion medical procedures.
• Joe Biden told reporters that he would stand by Neera Tanden and not pull her nomination, despite Joe Manchin indicating he would vote against it.
• All registered voters in California will receive mail-in ballots for any and all elections in 2021, according to law signed by Gavin Newsom - and that includes a recall of Newsom, if it reaches the ballot.

Over here in California, governor Gavin Newsom just signed into law a bill requiring that every registered voter in the state be mailed a ballot in an election in 2021. Politico’s Jeremy White pointed out that would include any recall effort for the man who signed the bill into law.

In a state as large as California – and a population as varied – calls to recall Newsom are nothing new. Rural swaths of the inland empire and the north have long felt overlooked by Sacramento, and are by far more conservative than their coastal counterparts.

But as my colleague Maanvi Singh reported earlier this month, this long-lived discontent gained new legs in the pandemic, getting support from far-right groups, mainstream Republicans and some Silicon Valley bigwigs.

While his fast action was applauded early in the pandemic, Newsom’s approval rating plummeted with the second state lockdown, as parents and teachers called for schools to reopen.

Then, of course, there was the French Laundry incident, where he attended an indoor birthday party at the opulent wine country restaurant after repeatedly telling Californians to avoid small indoor gatherings.

As Maanvi reports, most political observers do not think a recall effort will be successful in a state that is 46.1% registered Democrats and 24.2% registered Republicans, even if those who oppose Newsom manage to get it onto a ballot. Read more about it here:

Here’s a fun little tidbit in the Ted Cruz saga. The Texas Democratic Party acted swiftly yesterday when news broke about the senator’s ill-timed trip to Cancún and snagged the URL, FlyinTedCruz.com – a play on Donald Trump’s “Lyin’ Ted” nickname for Cruz when they ran against each other in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries.

The link goes to a page for Feeding Texas, to raise money to support Texans during the winter storm emergency.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, a Democrat-led legislature has overturned a dormant 1969 ban on most abortion procedures.

The 1969 law made it so a medical termination of a pregnancy was only allowed with the permission of a specialized hospital board in instances of incest, rape reported to law enforcement, grave medical risks to the woman or grave medical defects in the fetus.

Because of the Roe v Wade ruling by the US supreme court in 1973, the law had ultimately been dormant in the historically blue and heavily Roman Catholic state.

With talk of overturning Roe v Wade growing among Republicans, the 1969 law would have reverted back into place if that have ever happened. This repeal ensures that will not.

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has already indicated that he would oppose Neera Tanden’s to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, in part because of combative statements she has made on Twitter.

Despite this, Joe Biden says he will not pull her nomination.

Hey all, Vivian Ho on the west coast, taking over the blog for Daniel Strauss.

It appears now that billionaire biotech investor Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong may not be selling the Los Angeles Times.

That’s it for me. I’m passing the blogging baton to Vivian Ho.

Here’s what happened today:

• Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he would oppose Neera Tanden’s nomination to be director of the Office of Management and Budget.
• A report in The Wall Street Journal said The Los Angeles Times’ owner is thinking of selling the publication.
• Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined calls for an investigation of governor Andrew Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes in New York during the coronavirus pandemic.
• Joe Biden is planning on making a disaster declaration for Texas.
• In his appearance at the G7 Biden also assured global allies that he will reverse Donald Trump’s legacy.

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia will oppose Neera Tanden’s nomination to be director of the Office of Management and Budget.

A few things to keep in mind here. In a 50-50 split Senate like this one any senator’s opposition to a nomination is very influential.

Manchin’s statement is also notable for why he’s opposing Tanden. Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, has been an avid and combative Twitter user, oftentimes using the platform to excoriate members of both parties. That has become a liability for her nomination. In confirmation hearings she has said she regretted those past tweets.

Manchin’s statement is also devoid of any mention of more substantive criticism Tanden has received, such as some of the donations the liberal think tank received under Tanden’s tenure or her feuding supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Once, according to The New York Times citing a person in the room, Tanden punched Faz Shakir, then the top editor of the think tank’s marquee blog. Shakir would eventually go on to serve as Sanders’ presidential campaign manager. Tanden, an outspoken Hillary Clinton supporter, was a regular critic of Sanders’ candidacy.

The Wall Street Journal’s Lukas I. Alpert reports that billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong is considering possibly selling the Los Angeles Times. Here are the key paragraphs:

When Mr. Soon-Shiong acquired the Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune and a handful of weeklies from Tribune Publishing Co. TPCO -0.06% , then called Tronc Inc., in 2018, it was met with great fanfare from staff and media watchers after years of turmoil and downsizing at the publications. At the time, he said that the sale represented the beginning of a new era and that he intended to do what it took to make the business viable for the next 100 years.

He has since grown dissatisfied with the news organization’s slow expansion of its digital audience and its substantial losses, the people said. He also has increasingly come to believe that the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune—together known as the California Times company—would be better served if they were part of a larger media group, they said.

Mr. Soon-Shiong has been heavily focused on efforts by his immunotherapy company to develop a Covid-19 vaccine and has had little time to devote to the Times, people familiar with the matter said. “Covid really brought him back to the lab,” said one of the people.

Mr. Soon-Shiong didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment and a spokeswoman for the Times had no immediate comment.

Not long after the Journal story went live Soon-Shiong denied the article’s accuracy.

19 Feb 202115.49 EST

Martin Pengelly

AOC wants ‘full investigation’ into Cuomo on nursing homes

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has joined growing calls for an investigation into New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I … stand with our local officials calling for a full investigation of the Cuomo administration’s handling of nursing homes during Covid-19,” the high-profile progressive congresswoman, who represents a New York City district, said in a statement on Friday.

Last week, it was revealed that a Cuomo aide told New York legislators the true picture of nursing home deaths wasn’t given last year, for fear it would be used against the governor during an investigation launched by Donald Trump’s justice department.

Cuomo, who has already published a book about his handling of the crisis, has dismissed claims of wrongdoing. On Friday, he said information was not produced fast enough, which created “a void. And conspiracy theories and politics and rumors fill that void and you can’t allow inaccurate information to go unanswered.”

But in January, New York state attorney general Leticia James said nursing home deaths from Covid-19 were undercounted by as much as 50%. Now, federal prosecutors in New York City and the FBI are reported to be investigating and state officials are seeking to strip Cuomo of emergency powers.

The governor is under increasing pressure and Ocasio-Cortez’s intervention adds drama to a combustible mix.

True to form, the Biden administration is declining to weigh in on Ted Cruz’s Cancun trip.

This is very much in line with how the Biden administration is trying to approach daily news cycles. They say they are focused on their major policy initiatives and rarely (at least compared to the last administration) weigh in.

My colleague Oliver Milman reported out the Biden administration’s decision to rejoin the Paris climate accord:

The US has marked its return to the Paris agreement by urging countries to do more to confront the climate crisis, with America’s climate envoy, John Kerry, warning that international talks this year are the “last, best hope” of avoiding catastrophic global heating.

On Friday, the US officially returned to the Paris climate accord, 107 days after it left at the behest of former president Donald Trump. Joe Biden moved to reverse this on his first day in office and Kerry conceded that the US is returning “with a lot of humility, for the agony of the last four years”.

“This is a significant day, a day that never had to happen,” Kerry said to Al Gore, the former US vice-president, in a conversation filmed on the eve of the re-entry. “It’s so sad that our previous president without any scientific basis or any legitimate economic rationale decided to pull America out. It hurt us and it hurt the world.”