need2know-afternoon-edition-020223

Let's get right into today's need to know headlines. A deadly ice storm in the south killed at least 10 people so far, about 500,000 customers across texas Arkansas Mississippi and Tennessee, they don't have electricity right now. According to power outage dot us texas alone accounts for about 400,000 of those outages. Meanwhile, flight cancelations are not as bad today as they have been. There are only about 800 cancelations across the U. S. According to flight aware As this storm moves north, frigid temperatures are expected to hit the northeast by Friday. More than 15 million people are under wind chill warnings or some sort of advisory. And you know how the FDA made that regulatory change to allow pharmacies to mail abortion pills in the US. Well now a group of Republican attorneys general from 20 states are gearing up for a fight this week. They sent letters to CVS and walgreen. They're threatening these pharmacy giants with legal action if these companies mail abortion pills within their states. Both CVS and Walgreens already applied for FDA certification to dispense these pills, but only in states where it is legal to do so the next time you walk into a pharmacy, you might get sticker shock drug companies are trying to get ahead of a new law designed to keep prices reasonable. A new federal law called the inflation reduction act is giving Medicare the power to negotiate how much it pays for certain medicines it's also requiring drug companies pay Medicare a rebate if they increase costs above the rate of inflation. This is one of the reasons that pharmaceutical giants are hiking prices so far this year. Nearly 1000 prescription medicines have gotten more expensive. Most companies kept their price hikes at 10% or lower. The debate over gas stoves is heating up on capitol hill. Republican senators Ted Cruz and joe Manchin introduced legislation today that would stop the Consumer Product Safety Commission from using federal money to ban gas stoves. The commission says it's considering a ban because of these stoves, hazardous conditions that they may cost separately. The Energy Department introduced standards this week. These new standards require gas and electric stoves meet certain efficiency standards. What they're trying to do is reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Now this could impact a lot of us. Nearly 40% of American homes use gas stoves. Australian cash is about to look very different. It's removing the british monarch from its banknotes. Today, the nation's Central Bank confirmed its new $5 bill will honor indigenous culture rather than king Charles. The third that bill was the last bank note to pay homage to the british monarchy, which is still Australia's largely symbolic. Head of state. The central bank says it wants to honor the culture and history of the first Australians. The king by the way is still expected to appear on Australian coins and get ready for more winter. That's right. Our favorite groundhog. Well, he woke up this morning and saw his shadow Phil is predicting six more weeks of winter. Every year the nation waits for this prediction. This annual tradition. Well, it dates back to 18 87. Each year, dozens of people gathered at Gobbler's knob in pennsylvania to watch Phil make his prediction, his track record. It isn't perfect. Still, so many people on the country look forward to this particular ritual. Today, Two astronauts, based at the International Space station took a spacewalk. Nasa astronaut Nicole Man and Japanese astronaut koichi Wakata continued their mission to upgrade the station's power grid. This is the pair's second spacewalk of 2023. The first time they went out was in january, man is making history. She is the first native american woman to go to space and take a spacewalk.