Bedugul Coffee: Friday Briefing: After blizzard of criticism over Mexico trip, Ted Cruz flies back to Texas

TODAY'S TOP STORIES

Ted Cruz under fire for flying to Cancun, U.S officially rejoins Paris climate pact and Australia vows to make Facebook pay news outlets

Senator Ted Cruz flew into a storm of criticism after leaving his home state of Texas in the grip of a deadly deep freeze, for a family holiday jaunt to Cancun.

A “fragile” energy grid has fully returned to life for frigid Texans who have spent five days dealing with blackouts caused by a historic winter storm.

The United States officially rejoined the Paris climate agreement, reinvigorating the global fight against climate change.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed into law a ban on almost all abortions in the state and Planned Parenthood followed with a lawsuit.

Democrats formally introduced Biden’s sweeping immigration bill in Congress, a measure that would provide a path to U.S. citizenship for an estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.

World

A young woman protester in Myanmar died after being shot in the head last week as police dispersed a crowd, her brother said.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison vowed to press ahead with laws to force Facebook to pay news outlets for content.

Taiwan’s air force scrambled after eight Chinese fighter aircraft flew into the southwestern part of its air defense zone.

The chief of Britain’s MI6 publicly apologized for historic discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the spy agencies before 1991.

Gunfire and rockets exploded in Mogadishu as Somali government forces clashed with opposition supporters angered by delayed elections.

Business

Bipartisan members of Congress plan to introduce a bill in coming weeks to make it easier for smaller news organizations to negotiate with Big Tech platforms, Representative Ken Buck said.

The semiconductor crunch that has battered the auto sector leaves carmakers with a stark choice: pay up, stock up or risk getting stuck on the sidelines.

Bitcoin hit yet another record high and moved within sight of a market capitalization of $1 trillion, blithely shrugging off analyst warnings that it is an “economic side show.”

A group of Uber drivers are entitled to worker rights such as the minimum wage, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev told a congressional hearing that his decision to curb buying in some stocks such as GameStop during a period of extreme volatility was unavoidable.