The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has apparently entered into a contract with Vigilant Solutions, giving ICE agents access to data on more than 2 billion license plates, an agency representative told The Verge.

Vigilant Solutions is a private company that uses partnerships with local law enforcement agencies to gather data from police car cameras, resulting in some 100 million recorded license plate sightings a month. That plate information comes tagged with "a date, time, and GPS coordinates," The Verge writes, meaning that with its contract, ICE can search the database to find "every place a given license plate has been spotted in the last five years." Additionally, if ICE agents want to track a particular car, they can receive phone or email alerts whenever that specific plate is spotted on a Vigilant Solutions-partnered camera.

An assessment by the Department of Homeland Security found that such a database is important for ICE because when "other leads have gone cold," information about the "previous locations of a vehicle can help determine the whereabouts of subjects of criminal investigations or priority aliens to facilitate their interdiction and removal."

Of course, Vigilant Solutions is also pulling in data on billions of license plates that don't belong to undocumented immigrants. "Are we as a society, out of our desire to find those people, willing to let our government create an infrastructure that will track all of us?" asked ACLU policy analyst Jay Stanley.

Read more about the implications of the partnership between ICE and Vigilant Solutions at The Verge. Jeva Lange

Thousands of sea turtles in coastal Texas have been rescued by volunteers who plucked them out of cold waters to safety.

"The love and support of people who just want to help things that can't help themselves is overwhelming," Sea Turtle Inc. Executive Director Wendy Knight told NPR.

The severe winter storm system that hit the region this week caused water temperatures to drop. This put sea turtles in danger, as extremely low water temperatures can trigger a cold stun, meaning the turtle can't move or keep its head above water. To keep turtles from drowning, they must be removed quickly from the water.

Since Saturday, volunteers on foot and by boat have been looking for stranded turtles, and Sea Turtle Inc, a conservation group on South Padre Island, has taken in almost 5,000 of the creatures. Knight said this has been the biggest sea turtle cold-stunning event in recorded history, with so many needing help that they filled Sea Turtle Inc's facility as well as South Padre's convention center.

When it gets warmer, "we'll start seeing them move their flippers, start seeing them raise their head," Knight said, and then they will be released back into the Gulf of Mexico. Catherine Garcia

Half a million Texas households still had no power Thursday and "Texans have been lining up for clean water from public spigots, boiling their own, or even trying to melt snow," Trevor Noah said on Thursday's Daily Show. "But the saddest part is that these people are the lucky ones. Because it turns out one poor Texan had to travel 800 miles just to get heat, water, and electricity."

Noah's first question about Sen. Ted Cruz's ill-advised, very short vacation in Cancun is how he could be so stupid. "Look, I get that Ted Cruz is tired — the man deserves a break after trying so hard to overthrow the government — but now is not the time," he said. "What's even worse is that when he got caught, instead of owning up to it and apologizing, he acted like a total Ted Cruz," Noah added. "Seriously, Ted Cruz blaming his daughters for this is just gross. Being a good father means putting them on a bus, not throwing them under one. Although to be fair, maybe Ted Cruz just doesn't know what a good dad is — I mean, his dad killed JFK."

The Daily Show did turn Cruz's Cancun misadventure into a fun travel ad.

So did Jimmy Kimmel Live, with a "Ted Cruise" vacation package. But first, Kimmel recapped Cruz's "Flyin' Ted" scandal in all its inglorious detail. First, Cruz "loads his family onto a plane to get the hell out of town," and because he's been on TV so much, "everyone recognizes him even with his mask on, they post all these pictures of him, there's so much backlash he has no choice but to immediately book a flight home," he said. Since almost nobody bought Cruz's first excuse for his early return, "Ted decided to kinda come clean," saying he had second thoughts the moment he sat down on the plane. "Yes, yes, as soon as people started posting pictures of him on the plane, he looked up and knew he shouldn't be on the plane, Kimmel said. "How did he think he was going to get away with this? You know your judgment is terrible when this haircut is only the third-worst decision you've made this month."

Kimmel interviewed a Ted Cruz blobfish puppet, showed a fake United Airlines ad, and ended up finding a kind of silver lining: "At least his vacation was ruined." Peter Weber

While the U.S. is expected to pledge $4 billion to help with global vaccine efforts, the Biden administration will not donate any of the country's doses until most Americans are vaccinated, a senior official told reporters on Thursday.

The official said the U.S. is "focused on American vaccinations and getting shots into arms here" while also "determining the timeline when we will have a sufficient supply in the United States and be able to donate surplus vaccines." On Tuesday, President Biden said he expects every American who wants a vaccine will be able to get one by July.

Worldwide, just 10 countries have administered 75 percent of all vaccines, with 150 countries yet to receive even a single dose. The distribution of vaccines has been "wildly uneven and unfair," United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said Wednesday, and "vaccine equity is the biggest moral test before the global community." French President Emanuel Macron on Thursday called on the U.S. and European nations to donate up to 5 percent of the vaccine doses they have ordered.

Biden is set to announce the $4 billion funding for global vaccine efforts during Friday's Group of 7 virtual meeting. The first $2 billion will be used to purchase vaccine doses for 92 countries, with the rest donated over the next two years to increase vaccine manufacturing and delivery, Politico reports. Catherine Garcia

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has blamed his tween daughters for the family's international vacation to Mexico, but text messages obtained by The New York Times and Reform Austin News show that his wife, Heidi, was messaging friends and neighbors on Wednesday about heading south of the border amid a harsh winter storm that has left millions of Texans without power and water.

Cruz was spotted at George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Wednesday afternoon, leaving behind cold Houston for warm Cancun. He was swiftly criticized for fleeing the state as millions of his constituents suffered amid brutal conditions, and he returned to Texas on Thursday. During his first attempt to smooth things over, Cruz said his daughters — who are 10 and 12 — "asked to take a trip with friends" and "wanting to be a good dad," he agreed to take them to Cancun.

The text messages obtained by the Times show Heidi Cruz messaged friends and neighbors to say her house did not have electricity and was "FREEZING." The family was staying with friends, she added, before asking: "Anyone can or want to leave for the week? We may go to Cancun." Cruz said they could stay at the Ritz-Carlton, leaving that afternoon and coming back on Sunday. No one showed any interest in joining Ted Cruz on vacation, so Heidi Cruz offered up her home's gas stove in case anyone needed to heat water.

The Houston Police Department confirmed with the Times that someone from the senator's office called and asked for officers to provide "assistance upon arrival" Wednesday at the airport, and law enforcement was also spotted with Cruz when he returned to Houston on Thursday. Back in the U.S., Cruz offered a new statement, telling reporters it was "obviously a mistake" to go to Cancun and claiming he had "second thoughts" as soon as he got on the plane. His daughters, he said, had "a tough week," and "all of us who are parents have a responsibility to take care of our kids, take care of our families, but I also have a responsibility that I take very seriously of fighting for the state of Texas." Catherine Garcia

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) got plenty of mockery — and outrage — from his regular critics for flying down to Mexico on Wednesday night as the state he represents in Congress was mired in power outages, water outages, and freezing temperatures. He made it worse by blaming his daughters and suggesting his four-day vacation to the Ritz-Carlton Cancún was actually only ever supposed to be an overnight drop-off mission. "If you like piña coladas and getting caught on a plane..." tweeted Chasten Glezman Buttigieg, husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

But even Fox News found Cruz's aborted vacation south of the border to be in bad taste and ripe for ribbing. On Tucker Carlson's show Thursday night, reporter Trace Gallagher outlined the Cruz controversy, then read parts of his shifting statements. "Now he says he wants to help get the power and the water back on — right after he finishes a margarita," he told guest host Mark Steyn, noting his joke and even getting a brief chuckle from Steyn.

Gallagher is on the news side of Fox News, but the opinion panelists on anchor Bret Baier's Thursday evening show were also unanimous in their criticism of Cruz.

Cruz isn't generally known as a unifying political figure, but these are strange times. Peter Weber

A Capitol Police spokesman on Thursday said 35 officers are under investigation for their actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including six who have been suspended with pay.

"Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman has directed that any member of her department whose behavior is not in keeping with the department's rules of conduct will face appropriate discipline," spokesman John Stolnis told CNN.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) previously said one of the suspended officers took a selfie with a member of the mob that stormed the Capitol. So far, more than 250 people have been charged in connection with the attack. Catherine Garcia