House expected to pass COVID relief bill next week
The legislation includes an increase to the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
This is Day 33 of the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Top headlines:
'The decisive decade': Biden climate envoy John Kerry sounds alarm as US rejoins Paris climate accord
The United States formally rejoined the Paris climate accord on Friday, 30 days after President Joe Biden signed the mechanism to reenter the historic agreement.
While climate advocates cheered the decision, Biden's special presidential envoy for climate change, John Kerry, sounded the alarm about the need for urgent and ambitious action.
Kerry attacked former President Donald Trump, blaming his administration for being "inexcusably absent for four years."
-ABC News' Conor Finnegan
Biden approves Texas disaster declaration
Biden has approved a major disaster declaration for Texas stemming from the severe weather that destroyed the state's power grid.
The federal funds are available to 77 of the state’s counties and can be used for “grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster,” according to the White House.
-ABC News' Justin Gomez
Biden tells acting head of FEMA he's 'ready to mobilize' Texas help
President Biden told acting Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Bob Fenton Friday afternoon he was "ready to mobilize" federal agencies to support Texas during the state's weather crisis, according to a readout from the White House of their call.
Biden told Fenton he wants to "ensure that any critical needs are met." As he previewed earlier Friday, the president also said he plans to sign Texas' Major Disaster Declaration request "as soon as FEMA sends over the formal request from Gov. [Greg] Abbott."
Biden added his White House would continue to stay in close contact with FEMA and local officials through senior administration officials.
More than 14 million people are scrambling for safe drinking water and many lack the power to boil it after a historic winter storm earlier this week knocked out power and froze pipes across Texas.
-ABC News' Molly Nagle
Pfizer officials show expanded capacity to Biden during manufacturing site tour
Pfizer workers gave President Joe Biden a lot to be happy about during his tour of the Kalamazoo, Michigan, manufacturing site. He was shown two new assembly lines that will be able to produce 700,000 doses per hour starting next week, and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla confirmed Pfizer's supply of lipids needed to produce the vaccines has greatly increased.
Biden was accompanied by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Bourla and Shawn Hamilton, the production lead at the site.
A process engineer explained to Biden that six months ago the site was "basically warehouse space," and the whole facility was designed and completed in that amount of time.
"We feel we are now going to run capacity, good news for manufacturing capacity, we will improve our weekly segments more than double," Bourla said.
-ABC News' Sarah Kolinovsky