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 | | | Here we snow again | | Does anybody know any good Groundhog Day jokes? I feel like I'm hearing the same ones over and over and over again. It's Wednesday's news. | | |
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| The weather oracle otherwise known as Punxsutawney Phil made his Groundhog Day prediction. And President Joe Biden has his eyes set on cutting cancer deaths by half. |
| 👋 Hey! Laura here. Are you sick of winter yet? Here's Wednesday's biggest news. |
| But first, how about a literal fortune cookie? 🥠 A North Carolina man used the numbers from his fortune cookie to play the lottery. He won $4 million. |
| The Short List is a snappy USA TODAY news roundup. Subscribe to the newsletter here or text messages here. |
The groundhog has spoken |
| Well, it's official: Six more weeks of winter, according to Punxsutawney Phil, the world's most famous weather-prognosticating groundhog. The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle – a group that organizes the event and cares for Phil – brought him out of his den in front of a large crowd as cameras beamed his image around the world Wednesday morning. The group reported that Phil communicated in "groundhogese" that he saw his shadow, meaning we'll see at least a month and a half more of miserable cold and snow. How much can we trust Phil's forecast? Ehhhhhhh. On average, Phil has gotten it right only 40% of the time over the past 10 years. So we'll see. |
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100 million in path of winter storm |
| By the way the weather report looks, Punxsutawney Phil's prediction this year might just be correct. A massive winter storm began its assault on the central USA on Wednesday, a sprawling system that promised to deliver a messy brew of snow and freezing rain to tens of millions from the Rockies to the Northeast. Airlines canceled hundreds of flights, governors urged residents to stay off roads and schools closed campuses. About 100 million Americans were under some form of weather alert as of Wednesday afternoon, the National Weather Service said. By the time the storm winds down this week, more than a foot of snow was forecast to fall from Missouri to Maine. |
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 | | Cory Pacheco, 58, uses a snowblower to clear off his driveway Feb. 2 in downtown Flint, Mich. He says he intends to continue to remove snow throughout a heavy storm. "I love it. It's truly so beautiful," he says, taking a break to admire the fresh blanket atop the trees. "We've needed this." | | Jake May/AP | |
What everyone's talking about |
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'We can end cancer as we know it' |
| As part of a government initiative that will focus on improving cancer treatment and prevention, President Biden set a national goal Wednesday of cutting the number of cancer deaths in half over the next 25 years. Biden, who has made "ending cancer as we know it" a priority for his administration, vowed to "supercharge" the "Cancer Moonshot" initiative that he led during his final year as vice president under Barack Obama. "We can do this. We can end cancer as we know it," Biden said at the White House on Wednesday. Among other things, the new initiative includes the creation of a White House Cancer Cabinet and mobilizes multiple agencies to set goals for improving cancer detection and prevention. |
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 | | 'We can do this,' Biden's 'moonshot' aims to cut cancer deaths in half in 25 years | | POOL | |
Army to discharge unvaccinated soldiers who don't have exemptions |
| The Army will discharge soldiers who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Under a directive issued by Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, commanders are to initiate "involuntary administrative separation proceedings" against unvaccinated soldiers with no approved or pending exemption request, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The order applies to regular Army, reservists and cadets. In August, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered vaccination for every service member. The Army has not involuntarily separated any soldiers for failing to get vaccinated. The Navy announced it would discharge unvaccinated members in December; the Air Force began letting go of unvaccinated people that same month. |
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 | | A worker prepares to administer a coronavirus test at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. | | David J. Phillip/AP | |
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Real quick |
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Washington Football Team has a new name |
| Football fans in the nation's capital, say hello to your Washington Commanders. The NFL franchise established in 1932 and known the past two seasons as the Washington Football Team will be known going forward as the Washington Commanders, team officials announced Wednesday. The decision is the latest and most prominent step in a rebranding of the franchise, which announced in July 2020 that it was "retiring" the previous name and logo after many years of protests that it constituted a racial slur against Native Americans. The new name was selected from among a list that included Admirals, Armada, Brigade, Sentinels, Defenders, Red Hogs, Presidents and the current "Washington Football Team." |
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 | | The Washington Commanders unveil the team's new name and uniforms 18 months after the franchise dropped its old moniker following decades of criticism that it was offensive to Native Americans. | | Patrick Semansky/AP | |
A break from the news |
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