Robinhood Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev said in prepared testimony that the day trader app didn’t improperly aid hedge funds during that crazy week which now seems so long ago, and that the company restricted trades of GameStop to meet clearing demands. “Any allegation that Robinhood acted to help hedge funds or other special interests to the detriment of our customers is absolutely false and market-distorting rhetoric,” he said. Some $359 million worth of shares in the video game retailer failed to deliver, which also seems to be the case for Robinhood’s IRS tax forms. Tenev testifies before Congress Thursday. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the progress of coronavirus vaccines while mapping the pandemic globally and across America.

Here are today’s top stories

Keith Gill, one of the most influential voices that pushed GameStop on the WallStreetBets Reddit forum, was sued for allegedly misrepresenting himself as an amateur investor and profiting by artificially inflating the price of the stock.

Keith Gill

What began as a power issue for a few U.S. states is now a shock for the world’s oil market. More than 4 million barrels a day of output, almost 40% of the nation’s crude production, is offline because of the veil of cold and snow covering middle America. For residents caught in the grip of climate change-fueled cold, blackouts are expected to continue for days to come. The one thing Texas officials can’t say about the catastrophic power outage (other than blaming wind farms) is that they weren’t warned. Because they were—by the federal government.

Facebook is going to war with publishers of the news many read on its social media platform. Mark Zuckerberg’s web giant has started restricting publishers and people in Australia from sharing news on its site. Why? It’s either that or comply with a law aimed at compensating media companies that have lost much of their advertising to, well, Facebook.

Meanwhile in America, where local news reporting has been eviscerated over the past few decades, Tribune Publishing, the owner of the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News, is being absorbed by Alden Global Capital for $430 million. The deal puts a hedge fund known for firing journalists atop one of the nation’s largest newspaper companies.

Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images South America

Just weeks ago, the European Union was clamoring for AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine. Now, less than 10% of the doses delivered to Germany have been administered. Germany isn’t alone: Some French health workers are also pushing to get the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech shots instead. Some health-care workers say they’re concerned about side effects.

Globally, there are close to 2.5 million confirmed fatalities from the coronavirus while almost 110 million people have been confirmed infected. The U.S. continues to lead the world on both counts, with about one-fifth of all deaths and one-quarter of all infections. The actual numbers are thought to be much higher. Here is the latest on the pandemic.

Boeing has issued a safety bulletin reminding pilots of the steps required to ensure they maintain control of their aircraft in the wake of last month’s deadly plunge of an Indonesian jetliner into the Java Sea.

Search and rescue team members carry debris recovered from the SJ182 crash site on the dockside at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 10.

Photographer: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg

What you’ll need to know tomorrow

Bloomberg tracker reveals huge racial gaps in U.S. vaccination.
How big is Texas’s outage? It makes California’s look like a hiccup.
They made fortunes during the pandemic. Now they’re giving it away.
Fed sees the pace of bond buying continuing for some time.
One-third of U.S. military rejects Covid shots. They can still deploy.
Ecuador socialist frontrunner seeks to soothe U.S. investors.
The first megaproject of the Biden era could be this East Coast train.

Paid Post

Most security systems need a technician or salesperson to come to your home. SimpliSafe doesn't. Just order online and set it up in under 30 minutes. After that, your whole home is protected 24/7 from break-ins, fires, floods and more. Learn more

SimpliSafe

What you’ll want to read in Bloomberg Wealth

At 93, She Beat JPMorgan—and Her Grandsons

Beverley Schottenstein said her two grandsons, who managed her money at JPMorgan, forged documents, ran up commissions with inappropriate trading and made her miss tens of millions of dollars in gains. So she decided to teach them all a lesson. Oh boy did she.

Beverley Schottenstein

Photographer: Scott McIntyre

Like getting the Evening Briefing? Subscribe to Bloomberg.com for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and gain expert analysis from exclusive subscriber-only newsletters.

The Bloomberg Crypto Summit: With Bitcoin burgeoning and markets jumping as vaccines signal the coming end to the pandemic, the future of digital assets is bright. Join us Feb. 25 as we analyze what it takes to push cryptocurrencies into the portfolios of the world’s largest investors. Sponsored by BitGo and Grayscale Investments. Register here.

Download the Bloomberg app: It’s available for iOS and Android.

Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. Learn more.