Hey, everybody. Welcome to Scoop where you get the scoop on this week's news. My name is Jenna,

and this is Smarter News. And you might notice I have a little bit, it's a little bit of a

gravely voice today. I've been paddling what's commonly described as a cold. It's nothing

too serious. But man, I forgot what it's like to have a real cold.

A real cold can do a number on you. And that's what I've had over the last couple days. But

we're standing straw. We're moving forward. We have only a collapsed amount of time in December.

I know you're feeling that. And what I really wanted to do

for us today on Scoop, because I know this month only gets busier and busier, is to really set the

table for the month ahead. Because I know, again, you're kind of in and out, right? You're in and out

of your regular schedule. You've got a lot of things coming up. So I thought to myself, what are

the main

stories that someone needs to know going into this month that could become even bigger stories

as the weeks go on? And you're not going to have time to catch up then. And I found that as we

woke up this morning, we're really in a breaking news environment where there's a very big story

that we have been covering on Smarter News and on Scoop.

I'm really proud of you guys.

You're proving time and time again that news matters, that information matters, strong, solid,

information about foreign policy matters to people.

And we've covered this story about ongoing attacks on U.S. forces overseas in the Middle East and also on the sea off the coast of Yemen.

We have new reports of more attacks this morning.

And that's really important.

It ties to another big story that Congress is looking at this month.

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