The Federal Reserve ramped up its attack on rapid inflation on Wednesday, approving its biggest interest rate increase since 2000, detailing a plan to shrink its massive bond holdings and signaling that it will continue working to cool the economy as it tries to tamp down the fastest price increases in four decades.

Yet investors found a reason for relief. While the Fed raised interest rates half a percentage point and its chair, Jerome H. Powell, said similarly large increases would be “on the table” at the Fed’s upcoming meetings, he shot down the idea that policymakers were considering an even larger move, as some investors had feared.

Many on Wall Street have been nervously eyeing the Fed’s path as it tries to beat back inflation, worried that officials might slow demand so much that the economy will tip into a painful recession. While the Fed is withdrawing monetary help at the fastest pace in decades, Mr. Powell’s comments showed that the central bank was trying to chart a brisk course, but not a drastic one.

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it is raising interest rates by a half-percentage point to get a handle on the worst inflation America has seen in 40 years.

It's the first time in 22 years that the central bank has hiked rates this much. The decision was unanimous, with all 12 members of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee agreeing on it.

In his post-meeting press conference on Wednesday, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that additional half-percentage-point rate hikes will be on the table for the next few meetings. But the bank isn't looking to go bigger:

Early season wildfires continued to rage in the first week of May 2022 in northern New Mexico. The blazes have been driven by high winds, low humidity, and exceptionally dry tinder—grass, brush, and timber—that are providing ample fuel for burning. The fires have destroyed hundreds of structures and prompted the evacuation of thousands of homes. On May 3, 2022, seven large fires were still burning across the state.

More than a thousand firefighters are battling the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak fire, two fires that merged on April 22-23 to form one of the largest wildfires in state history.

As of May 3, the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak complex had burned more than 145,000 acres northwest of the historic town of town of Las Vegas, New Mexico; the fire was 20 percent contained. The Hermits Peak fire started as a prescribed burn in part of the Santa Fe National Forest on April 6, but erratic, gusty winds blew it out of control.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden declared that a major disaster exists in the State of New Mexico and ordered federal aid to supplement local recovery efforts in the areas affected by wildfires. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had requested the declaration Tuesday.

Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.

A woman who took up running after she lost her left leg to cancer has passed the Guinness World Record for most consecutive marathons.Jacky Hunt-Broersma, 46, has run 26.2-miles every day since mid-January, normally taking around five hours.On Saturday, she completed her 104th consecutive marathon in as many days - an achievement she expects to be certified by Guinness World Records.A spokesperson said certifying the record would take around three months.

In 2002, doctors in the Netherlands diagnosed her with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer.Within two weeks, they amputated her left leg to save her life. She was only 26 years old.

For the first couple of years, Jacky struggled with the change in her life. She was angry that she had got cancer and embarrassed to be different. She wore long trousers in public so people would not notice the prosthetic.Almost on a whim, she took up running in 2016.She had cheered her husband on at long-distance running events but had never considered doing it herself, thinking it was only "for crazy people".Buying a special prosthetic for long-distance runners, she signed up for her very first 10K (6.2 mile) run.On the eve of the race, she switched her registration to the half-marathon category - and she has not looked back since

The Boston race was the 92nd marathon she had run in 92 days. The very next day, she ran another, then another, then another. In total, she ran 104 marathons in 104 days, with her last race on Saturday. If it's confirmed by Guinness World Records, that would be a new world record. And she did it all with one leg and a prosthesis.

One might think that with a running streak like that, Hunt-Broersma has been running her entire life. But she actually did not pick up the sport until after her left leg was amputated below the knee in 2001 due to a type of cancer called Ewing sarcoma.

Amputee runners can't use a regular prosthetic leg, they need a running blade. Hunt-Broersma has two, but she was only able to run with one during her streak because of swelling she experienced in her amputated leg that made it impossible to connect to one of the blades.

President Joe Biden recently said that he's considering some level of broad-based student loan forgiveness in the coming weeks, and one Democrat who has repeatedly pushed for cancellation says that's major progress.

Pressley, alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have repeatedly called on Biden to cancel $50,000 in student loan debt immediately via executive order on the premise that there is sufficient legal backing for the administration to do so.

The basic argument for broad cancellation, as detailed by the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, is that the Education Secretary has the power “to cancel existing student loan debt under a distinct statutory authority

The Biden-era Education Department (ED) has taken several actions — aside from extending the payment pause multiple times — to refine the unwieldy student loan system and erase debt. These include overhauling the troubled Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program for student loan borrowers in public service; erasing debt held by some students who were defrauded by a predatory for-profit college; discharging debt of totally and permanently disabled borrowers; and increasing scrutiny of student loan servicers.

One estimate is that 700,000 borrowers have seen more than $17 billion wiped away through various actions. An estimated 37 million borrowers haven't had to make payments on their loans during the payment pause, and no new interest has accrued.The New York Fed recently found the payment pause has led to "an estimated $195 billion worth of waived payments through April 2022."

During a press conference on Thursday, President Biden said he was considering "some debt reduction" but not up to $50,000, and that he would have an answer on forgiveness in the "next couple of weeks."Additionally, Biden is reportedly weighing income caps on who receives loan forgiveness

Research has shown that a college degree generally boosts an individual's earnings over their lifetime. And given that any broad-based forgiveness would cost tens of billions of dollars, all taxpayers — not just by those who have a college degree — would be contributing to the cost of cancellation.

These include the overall cost and the fact that forgiveness does not directly address the core issue of rising college costs.

Biden is reportedly considering capping forgiveness to those who earned less than $125,000 or $150,000 as individual filers the previous year, The Washington Post reported recently. For couples filing jointly, the cap would be around $250,000 or $300,000.

With student debt now approaching $2 trillion, the Biden administration is considering cancellation of perhaps $10,000 of many people’s obligations. If so, that’s a move long-sought by progressives and opposed by some conservatives.

President Biden recently extended a moratorium on student loan payments to September. The average debt load for a student borrower now tops $30,000.

Total U.S. student debt has soared from about $980 billion in 2011 to $1.7 trillion as of last year. That’s roughly double what Americans owe for credit cards.