The Northeast is cleaning up after a storm slammed the region with rain, flooding and fierce winds as part of a bout of violent weather that battered most of the U.S. The storm started Tuesday night and is moving out Wednesday after knocking out power to hundreds of thousands. It washed out roads and took down trees and power lines. Wind gusts reached nearly 100 miles per hour in Maine. More windy weather is expected throughout Wednesday. The storm followed a day of tornadoes in the South and blizzards in the Midwest and Northwest. More than 2 feet of snow fell in some parts of the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies.

About 21 million children are likely to receive food benefits this summer through a newly permanent federal program. Thirty-five states, all five U.S. territories and four tribes opted into the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer, known as Summer EBT. Families at or below 185% of the federal poverty line will receive $120 per child total during the summer months. Some states that opted out say there wasn't enough time to implement the program.

A sprawling storm has hit the South with high winds and tornado warnings that blew roofs off homes, flipped over campers and tossed about furniture in Florida. Another storm brought cities across the Midwest to a standstill with more than half of foot of snow. as it heads to the Northeast. The National Weather Service says a storm with 55-mph wind and hail moved through the Florida Panhandle and into Alabama and Georgia by sunrise Tuesday, along with reports of radar-confirmed tornadoes. Farther west, up to a foot of snow could blanket a broad area stretching from southeastern Colorado all the way to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The weather has already affected campaigning for Iowa’s Jan. 15 precinct caucuses.

Earth shattered global annual heat records last year and it's flirting with the warming threshold that nations wanted to stay within to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. That's according to Copernicus, the European climate agency, which reported Tuesday that 2023 was 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.66 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times. That's just a whisker below the 1.5-degree threshold nations agreed to try to stay within at the Paris climate talks in 2015. And Copernicus said this January is on track to be so warm that the world will go past that 1.5-degree threshold for the first time over a 12-month period. Climate scientists say it's imperative that humans continue trying to hold down warming.