GEOFF BENNETT: In the day's other headlines: The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark short-term interest rate again, but this time by just a quarter-point, Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged that inflation seems to be cooling, but he said additional rate hikes are still likely.
JEROME POWELL, Federal Reserve Chairman: Our job is to deliver inflation back to target.
And we will do that.
But I think we're going to be cautious about declaring victory and sending signals that we think that the game is won, because it's -- we have got a long way to go.
It's just -- it's the early stages of disinflation.
GEOFF BENNETT: Today's rate hike was the eighth since last March.
A winter storm has disrupted life across the southern U.S. for a third day, grounding another 2,200 flights.
In Texas, toppled semitrucks blocked entire highways today.
Traffic around Dallas slowed to a crawl, as new bands of sleet, freezing rain and snow coated roads and ice.
The storm is blamed for at least six deaths.
The FBI searched President Biden's vacation home in Delaware today, but the president's personal lawyer says they found no additional classified documents.
The search was conducted at the Rehoboth Beach property in coordination with Mr. Biden's legal team and lasted three-and-a-half-hours.
The president's lawyer says agents did take some handwritten notes and other material from his time as vice president for additional review.
The FBI already searched his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and his former Washington office.
President Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met at the White House today for their first budget talks.
House Republicans are pushing for spending cuts in return for raising the national debt limit.
The president has rejected such a deal, but McCarthy said they had a good meeting.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): I think there is an opportunity here to come to an agreement on both sides.
And I think that's the best for -- I think that's what the American people want.
Look, they want us to be responsible and sensible about this.
And that's exactly the way we have -- handling it.
I told the president, I would like to see if we can come to an agreement long before the deadline, and we can start working on other things.
GEOFF BENNETT: McCarthy declined again to say which spending Republicans want to cut.
In a statement, the White House called the meeting frank and straightforward.
The president agreed to continue the conversation with Speaker McCarthy.
In Ukraine, a Russian rocket strike smashed into a residential building in Eastern Ukraine, killing at least two people.
It came as Ukrainian officials warned that a Russian offensive is in the works.
Meantime, Ukrainian police raided the home of billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky.
It's part of an ongoing crackdown on corruption.
New violence flared in the Middle East today.
Israel's military said it intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza.
There was no word of any injuries.
That came hours after Israeli troops and police killed two more Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Up to a half-million teachers, civil servants and bus and train drivers in Britain walked off the job today.
The so-called Walkout Wednesday was the country's biggest day of action in a decade.
Thousands carried signs and chanted slogans demanding higher pay in the face of soaring inflation.
The strikes closed thousands of schools and halted train service.
Back in this country, the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives formally opened its investigation of pandemic relief fraud.
Federal watchdog agencies have estimated at least $65 billion was stolen out of the nearly $5 trillion that Congress approved under President Trump and Biden.
Today, the House Oversight Committee called in top federal investigators.
REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): We owe it to the American people to get to the bottom of the greatest theft of American taxpayer dollars in history.
We must identify where this money went, how much ended up in the hands of fraudsters or ineligible participants, and what should be done to ensure that it never happens again.
MICHAEL HOROWITZ, Chair, Pandemic Response Accountability Committee: The problem there was the desire to simply get the money out as quickly as possible, without taking not an -- not an unreasonable amount of time, but an appropriate amount of time to make sure that they were sending the money to the right people.
GEOFF BENNETT: Investigators say the full scope of the fraud won't be known for some time.
And on Wall Street, stocks rallied after the Federal Reserve said it's seeing some improvement in inflation.
The Dow Jones industrial average erased an early loss of 500 points to close with a slight gain at 34093.
The Nasdaq rose 231 points, or 2 percent.
The S&P 500 was up 1 percent.
And Tom Brady has announced his retirement from pro football again.
The seven-time Super Bowl winner briefly retired a year ago, then came back to play another season.
He's now 45 years old, and he said in a Twitter video today from Tampa that this time his retirement is for good.
TOM BRADY, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Thank you, guys, so much to every single one of you for supporting me, my family, my friends, my teammates, my competitors.
I could go on forever.
There's too many.
Thank you guys for allowing me to live my absolute dream.
GEOFF BENNETT: Brady is widely expected to move to FOX Sports as a football analyst.
And still to come on the "PBS NewsHour": the pope travels to the Democratic Republic of Congo; the College Board revises its African American studies course amid criticism from Florida's governor; how a strict gun safety measure has divided the state of Oregon; and Senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly reflects on the Columbia space shuttle disaster 20 years later.
