With gas at $5 per gallon, President Joe Biden is urging gas companies to immediately cut costs. Congress wants a top-selling flea collar off the market. And America’s youngest kids could be getting COVID-19 vaccines as soon as next week.
👋 It’s Laura Davis. It’s Wednesday. Do you know where your kids under 6 are? Round ’em up, it’s about to be vaccine time. Here’s the news.
But first, the truth is out there, y’all. 👽 China’s giant “Sky Eye” telescope picked up signals that could be from alien civilizations, researchers say.
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Coming soon: 2 COVID-19 vaccines for the youngest kids
America’s youngest children could soon have access to two COVID-19 vaccines. An expert panel on Wednesday unanimously found Moderna’s vaccine safe and effective for children ages 6 months to 6 years old. An hour later, the committee voted to support a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 6 months to 5 years old. If its decisions are upheld by the Food and Drug Administration’s commissioner and then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccines will be available for young children as soon as Tuesday. Although young children have largely been spared the worst of COVID-19, they can still become seriously ill and more than 200 have died from their infections, according to data presented by the FDA. Read more here.
Biden urges oil companies to immediately cut costs
Gas is up. Biden wants it down. In a letter to heads of top oil and gas companies on Wednesday, Biden urged them to immediately reduce prices as gasoline exceeded $5 a gallon in some parts of the country. The president’s letter said Russia’s war against Ukraine was the primary driver of spiking fuel prices, but “historically high refinery profit margins are worsening that pain.” It was the White House’s latest effort to demonstrate that Biden, who lacks the authority to enforce the directive to oil executives, is working to reduce inflation. Keep reading for more.
What everyone’s talking about
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Congress: No more Seresto collars
One of the most popular flea and tick collars in America poses “too great a risk to animals and humans” and should be removed from the market, a congressional subcommittee recommended in a report released Wednesday. The House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy held a hearing Wednesday afternoon, aiming to investigate the Environmental Protection Agency’s “failure to regulate the Seresto collar as well as Elanco’s refusal to take action to protect pets and their owners from the collar’s harm.” Since it entered the U.S. market in 2012, records show Seresto flea and tick collars have been linked to at least 98,000 adverse incidents and 2,500 pet deaths — the most of any such product regulated by the EPA. Keep reading for more from the hearing.
The Fed makes aggressive moves to fight inflation
The Federal Reserve is rolling out the heavy artillery in its bid to fight historic inflation that has shown little letup. But the aggressive strategy is expected to further slow the economy and increases the risk of recession. It already has triggered a brutal market sell-off. The Fed raised its key short-term interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point Wednesday – its largest hike since 1994 – to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%. It also downgraded its economic forecast. It also signaled that more big moves may be coming. Fed officials forecast the federal funds rate will end 2022 at a range of 3.25% to 3.5%, according to their median estimate. Here’s what it means for you.
Real quick
Storms threaten as sprawling heat wave drags on
Parts of the upper Midwest braced for severe thunderstorms Wednesday while dangerous, sweltering heat continued to bake nearly a third of the nation’s population. Scattered severe thunderstorms, as well as several tornadoes, large hail and gusty, damaging winds are expected from parts of Iowa into Wisconsin, according to NOAA. Meanwhile, a week of record-breaking heat continues to hit a wide swath of the nation, with excessive heat warnings and advisories remaining from Michigan to northern Florida, the National Weather Service said. Dangerously hot and humid weather will persist Wednesday from the Upper Midwest to the Southeast, with many locations once again seeing triple-digit heat indices. 🥵 Check your local forecast here. And stay hydrated!
A break from the news
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