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 | | | 'Beaten but not defeated' | | During a visit to Kentucky, President Biden vowed to get the area "totally reconstructed" in the wake of a devastating tornado. It's Wednesday's news. | | |
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| President Joe Biden surveyed the tornado damage in Kentucky, telling residents they have his support. The Federal Reserve agreed to pave the way for faster interest rate hikes. And beloved author and feminist bell hooks has died. |
| 👋 Hi! It's Abbey and Julius, here with Wednesday's news, just for you. |
| But first, she's home! 🐘Tarra the elephant has been reunited with her longtime owner after a 11-year custody battle. |
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Biden tours Kentucky as residents cope with aftermath of tornadoes |
| President Joe Biden toured tornado-ravaged Kentucky Wednesday, lending the attention and assistance of the federal government to residents coping with the aftermath of the deadly storm. "I'm here to listen," Biden said after taking an aerial tour of the damage in Mayfield. Entering the city, Biden passed block after block of wrecked buildings. He stopped to talk to a woman sitting among a pile of rubble. Next to her was a handmade sign that read: "God is good. Beaten but not defeated." He said he has never seen so much damage from a tornado. "We're going to stay until this gets finished and totally reconstructed," Biden said. |
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 | | A candle factory in Mayfield, Ky., was leveled by a tornado that tore through the night of Dec. 10. | | Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies | |
Omicron is spreading |
| The omicron coronavirus variant is moving faster than surveillance systems can track it and has unnerved some medical experts so much that they're putting the brakes on preparations for their holiday gatherings. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 3% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are from the omicron variant. But Bronwyn MacInnis, director of pathogen genomic surveillance at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, said she believes that number was probably an underestimate on Dec. 11 when the CDC first announced it, and now it's likely much higher. Although the variant was identified only the day before Thanksgiving, as more data emerges it is confirming omicron's ability to spread incredibly fast – probably twice as fast as the delta variant, which has dominated the global pandemic since this summer. |
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 | | The omicron coronavirus variant is rapidly spreading across the globe. | | Getty Images | |
What everyone's talking about |
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Wild weather Wednesday |
| Intense weather was on tap Wednesday for the central U.S., with howling winds the main threat but also severe storms, tornadoes and even wildfires. Damaging winds are likely to bring down trees and power lines, which could lead to widespread outages, the National Weather Service warned. The winds also will be strong enough to kick up dust and raise the risk of wildfire ignition and rapid spread in some areas, AccuWeather said. The Weather Service has issued a high wind warning along a swath stretching from New Mexico to upper Michigan – including Wisconsin and Illinois – with sustained winds of 25 mph to 40 mph. In all, about 36 million people were under high wind warnings as of midday Wednesday. |
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 | | The national weather warning map as of midday Wednesday showed high wind warnings (in brown) stretching from New Mexico to Michigan. | | National Weather Service | |
Feminist author and poet bell hooks dies at 69 |
| Beloved author, professor and feminist bell hooks, known for titles like "Ain't I A Woman" and "All About Love," has died. She was 69. The author's family confirmed to USA TODAY that she died Wednesday morning. Born Gloria Jean Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, she went on to write literary works under the pseudonym bell hooks, a tribute to her great-grandmother, and she chose to use lowercase letters to focus attention on her words rather than herself. In 1981 she published "Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism," which examines the nature of Black feminism through the lens of sexism and slavery. She went on to write more books studying the topic, including "Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center" and "Feminism is for Everybody." |
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 | | Feminist author bell hooks in January 1999. | | Margaret Thomas, The Washington Post via Getty Im | |
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Fed sets stage for faster interest rate hikes amid inflation spike |
| In an effort to curb soaring prices, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday agreed to clear the way for earlier and faster interest rate hikes in 2022 by accelerating the phaseout of its bond-buying stimulus. The turnabout came after consumer prices spiraled higher and the unemployment rate tumbled in November. The Fed's policymaking committee left its benchmark rate near zero but now projects three rate increases next year, according to officials' median estimate. To set the stage for earlier rate increases, the Fed plans to pare back its Treasury and mortgage bond purchases by a total $30 billion a month. |
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