"Texas"

A leak at a chemical plant in Texas late Tuesday killed two people, and injured dozens, in what local authorities are describing as a "mass casualty incident."

It didn't take a heat wave or freak winter storm this time to raise the specter of rolling blackouts in Texas. All it took was a mild spring day.

The 10-year-old had been lost for hours - crying and shaking as he wandered a vast scrubland- when he saw the Border Patrol officer.

After a week of Arctic storms, hunger and cold, some Texans lucky enough to have power were handed another pain point: massive electricity bills.

The cold has killed the young and the old. It has claimed lives from southern Texas to northern Ohio. And authorities expect the toll to rise in the coming days, with frigid weather lingering, hundreds of thousands without electricity and millions without clean water.

With millions of Texans grappling with water restrictions, spiking energy bills and other havoc left behind by last week's winter storm, White House officials said Sunday that President Joe Biden is "eager" to visit and could head there as soon as this week.

HOUSTON - President Joe Biden signed a major disaster declaration that will allow much of Texas to tap vast reserves of federal aid, the White House said Saturday, offering a new lifeline to a state struggling to recover from a brutal winter storm that left more than 50 dead and millions without power across the South.

The historic storms and power outages pummeling Texas are shutting down water and heat at hospitals across the state, forcing some facilities to turn patients away and take drastic steps to conserve resources.

The finger-pointing began immediately: It was the freezing of the wind turbines that foolishly replaced traditional sources. No, fossil fuels were at fault. No, Texas's deregulated power market, unique in the country, had allowed companies to skimp on maintenance and upgrades.

At least 14 people are dead in four states from the effects of a record-shattering cold snap and winter storms since Sunday. In Texas, as the electricity grid struggled to keep pace with record demand, people were turning to unsafe means to heat their homes. A woman and a girl died of carbon monoxide poisoning in Houston after a car was left running in a garage to keep them warm, according to police.

Millions of households in Texas are suffering rolling blackouts for the first time in a decade as an unprecedented Arctic freeze sends temperatures plummeting across much of the U.S., roiling energy markets.

The multistate investigation of Google is at risk of splintering further after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the probe, was accused by his senior aides of potential crimes, including bribery.